Despite delaying this story for three years I decided to keep having slightly irrelevant chapters from other perspectives

FIRST TWENTY-ISH CHAPTERS OVER HERE s/7734330/1/Basic-Skill

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"Is he dead?"

Bruce didn't move. Kept clicking through his computer files, facing away from me.

Like I was just going to quit.

"Bruce! Is he-"

"This isn't something I'm going to talk about."

"No, this is Dick-"

"I thought you watched the news."

"That stuff about him going to Blackgate? Oh come on, like I'm-"

"It's true." He stood up, swept across the cave to his car. "I won't argue with you about-"

"Bruce!"

He'd already left me in his exhaust fumes.

Jerk.

I've seen the papers call us the 'Batfam'. I mean I guess it makes sense for outsiders to assume that sort of thing. They're just really freaking wrong. Bruce isn't a bad person, but he's emotionally defunct. Since Dick went to Jump I've been more out of the loop than in it.

Right now that was making life difficult.

Oh, come on Barbara. Think. I pinched my nose. Okay. Option one, I wait. Bruce comes back eventually and ignores me again. Maybe Alfred finally shows up but based on the appearances he's put in recently I'd have more chance of tracking down Bigfoot. Option two: I go to Blackgate. I try to visit whoever's in there under Dick's name and see if there's a clue that way. Aaaaaand my Dad hears about it, starts his own little investigation into why his squeaky clean daughter is visiting murderous rich kids. The best result is that he thinks I have a thing for bad boys. More likely he figures out something to do with my night life.

Option three-

Option three landed me in Jump a few hours later.

I admit it: I'm not a big traveller. Gotham's enough city for anyone and I don't like holidays. So maybe I was a little out of my element in bright-and-shiny-not-quite-Metropolis Jump. Whatever, I wasn't there to see the sites. I scanned the skyline, revved my bike and headed for the tower.

The stupid 't' shaped tower. How did it even stand? How-

My breath hitched.

I'd always meant to make fun of Dick for building that thing.

I know what you're thinking: 'she feels guilty, she's blaming herself, she's still not over the crush she had when she was twelve'. Yeah, well, screw all of you. Maybe I could have stopped Dick leaving, maybe I could have stopped Batman driving him away. Maybe if I'd visited him here he wouldn't have vanished completely.

But maybe I couldn't have done anything.

In the end it doesn't matter why as much as the fact I'm trying to fix it now.

I glared at their security camera till I heard someone coming, it was the alien girl- Starfire. I switched to professional mode, held out my hand.

"Batgirl."

"Yes, you are from Gotham. Robin- …" She stopped; she almost flinched.

Dick, what did you do?

"He's why I'm here." I worked the Bat glare as hard as I could. "I'm investigating what happened to him, why-"

"Something has happened?!"

It was like setting off a firework; she rose a foot in the air, I swear she started glowing.

"He is well?!"

"He-"

"He is harmed?!"

"Star. Jeez." Someone behind her. The other girl: Raven. "You're going to bring down the Tower."

"I-" Flattened, Starfire sank back to the ground. "I am sorry."

"It's fine." I think she'd set my eyebrows on fire a little. "You're Raven?"

"I'm Raven." She gestured for me to come inside, Starfire drifted between us. "The others are on patrol. Starfire got babysitting duty tonight."

"We are making the fudge!" Her enthusiasm sounded forced. I eyed Raven.

"Babysitting?"

She shrugged, "So I don't get lonely on my medical leave. R-"

I'm good at noticing little things: little moments of tension, the way Raven favoured one side as she walked, she'd been hurt. Starfire's shoulders tightening.

I felt like I'd been punched.

You see, the other thing I'm good at is adding stuff up. I'm a detective.

He'd done it. He'd really done it.

They must have realised I wasn't following them anymore. Raven looked over her shoulder and I saw her work it out too: what I'd come here to investigate, and that after only a few minutes I was done.

I'm not a sharer. Neither's Raven (though I didn't find that out till later). We could have stood there in the most awkward of silences till the end of the world.

But-

"… Batgirl." Starfire drifted between us. For a second I thought she was going to slap me.

The hug –even if it did feel like being stepped on by an elephant – was much more welcome.

Later, once we'd talked, I left. Walked in a daze back to my bike.

I wasn't angry. I wasn't even sad, just-

Disappointed.

Not in him.

I'd done this. I'd let him down. There are warning signs for people on the edge and I'd missed them all because I hadn't been there. I-

Someone was watching me.

It was a feeling. It wasn't evidence, nobody proves anything with the hairs standing up on the back of their neck.

And considering that I was upset? That I was out of my element and out of my home?

I imagined it.

I know I imagined it.