Disclaimer: Bob Kane/DC Comics/Someone else who is not me Owns Batman and Batgirl and Robin and Alfred and Two Face and Batcycles and Batcaves. I own this story though...


Chapter 3
Coinless

THWACK!

Babs thrust her palm upward into the masked man's chin, sending a reverberation of sound around the bank vault. Such was life, of course. She did wish someone got wind of this robbery before it occurred, though. Superheroes needed some kind of observer who could see everything and could coordinate counters against bank robberies based on the news heard from snitches and rumors throughout the city. Beyond that, an omniscient observer would help to make larger plans with larger groups.

She ducked under the butt of the gun of the next robber to attack her. How did she happen to pick the night when the only five guys in the entire city with submachine guns happened to knock over a bank? They had almost made it out of the vault too.

This fight could have been averted if she had just stayed to the shadows and taken them out one by one. But no, she had to stand all heroic at the entrance to the vault, in true hands-on-hips Peter Pan fashion and claim. "Nice try guys, but I can't let you out of here looking like that." So much for her namesake. Batman never would have done something that foolishly heroic or quipped so badly.

She brought the side of her hand across her assaulter's windpipe, knocking the air out of him. He stumbled around nonsensically, trying to breathe before passing out over a sack of loot on the ground. That's one down, if it was any consolation.

This fight didn't even disturb her as difficult either. Her matches with "lover boy" gave her a tougher time than this, but juggling five guys at once mode her less effective. Remembering exactly how many guys there were, who could still fight, which one would stay down, who would strike next, and how they would strike drained her attention. She was getting good at it. That was another thing her "observer" could do. The observer could help tell the agents, as it were, exactly which goon stood where and what move they were about to attempt by hacking into the bank vault security cameras. Well. That meant the person would need some mad computer skills.

She dodged the second guy's blow and punched him a fourth time. After two well placed kicks and a nice uppercut, he fell to the ground, drooling.

She sighed, letting her guard down for a split second. Of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, it was just long enough for another of the baddies to fling a coin filled bag around and into the back of her head, flying her face straight towards the ground. Her palms flew out and made contact with the ground an instant before her chin did. Now, however, she found herself not only in pain, but also rather ticked off. That observer sounded like a really good idea. Maybe if she ever retired she'd become an observer so that other heroes wouldn't be smacked in the back of the head by a bag full of coins. And why would anyone want a bag full of coins in the first place?

She pushed off the ground with her arms and onto her feet as she executed signature back handspring. These guys gave her more trouble than The Riddler's a month ago. Those guys were professionals and these guys were nothing more than a few knuckleheads who thought First Gotham National Credit Union would be an easy target. Amateur moves too: Nighttime, ski masks, entrance from the back, not checking the silent alarms... They had even tried to take potshots at her while she remained hidden behind the side of the bank door, depleting their obviously short supply of ammo, but an absence of gas bombs and batarangs on her part forced her to fist fight these amateurs.

She ducked quickly in front of the guy with the bag, who swung it again blindly, thinking it would work again and that she wasn't a professional, and gave him an uppercut to the jaw, knocking several teeth loose. She smirked. She had never knocked out a man's teeth with her fist before.

He fell to the ground, unconscious like the other two. She whirled around just in time to see the two others whip around the corner and grinned. A chase? These guys were too much fun. She sprinted after them, pulling her last twine out of her belt fastening two bolos to it for added momentum.

"Go! Go!" she heard one of them shouting as they ran.

She whirled the line over her head several times before letting it fly free and towards the man on the right. It circled around the man on the right's feet; his top half flew forward and as his feet tripped backwards he hit the ground like a rock. She sprinted to him, hearing a faint "Oh God! Oh God!" in the distance. Sure, that one was temporarily getting away, but she had to subdue this one first. She tied the rope around his hands and pulled his hands and feet up so that they stretched out in back of him like a pig ready to be stuck on a rotisserie. There was nothing quite like superb cord tying in comic fashion.

Babs ran to the exit and saw the man in the back pulling out of the spot he parked so perfectly in. Amateurs! They didn't even have a getaway driver! She ran, jumped onto the top of his car peeled out of the parking lot, and punched through the driver's side window, hitting the man across the face and then steering the car into the wall of the bank. The car turned sharply and forward as it smashed into the alley wall, its low speed not shooting her off the top. She released a sigh of relief. Not the most graceful of ways, but she got the job done, and that was what was important.

She ran back inside and tied the other robbers together with her final rope before moving outside and hopping onto her bike. With a quick kick, she peeled out into the street and back to the cave. Even though it had been a month, she still couldn't forget about her encounter with The Riddler. Why would he not know where he was? That made absolutely no sense. Perhaps it had something to do with him not thinking clearly and fighting like he truly knew what he was doing.

As she pulled into the cave, she watched Dick working feverishly at the punching bag. Batman, as usual, sat at the computer, poring over some file or another. She pulled in and dismounted, setting her helmet on the bike's seat.

"Anything else, boss?" she asked him, perkily as she walked over to what she had deemed "the store cupboard" and replenished her supply of gas bombs, batarangs, and twine.

"Something, but I was about to take care of it," Batman said.

"What is it?" she inquired.

"Another robbery." He rubbed his chin as he examined the screen. "First alarm went off thirty seconds ago."

"Doesn't sound too bad," she mused. "Can I take it? I'm already warmed up and I can just go. I'm ready." She closed the store cabinet and moved towards Batman to look at the screen.

She watched Batman's usually blank expression alter slightly as he contemplated the situation. Clearly, he thought she wasn't ready. Hadn't she proved herself time and again?

"Fine," he told her slowly, after much deliberation. "But take Dick with you."

"Hear that Bird boy?" she called. "You're on."

He nodded and slipped on his shirt and cape. "Where to?" he asked as he fitted his mask over his face.

"First Bank of Gotham," Batman responded.

"Great," she complained. "Another bank."

She didn't have any more time to complain, however, because after a quick revving sound, she whirled around, only to watch Dick take off out of the cave at breakneck speed on his own bike. He was going to beat her! She sprinted to her bike and jumped onto it, thrusting her helmet over her head.

"Later, Bats!" She yelled.

Batman merely scowled at her.

She peeled out of the cave, barely able to make out the rear red light on Dick's bike; she kicked the engine into high gear and bulleted down the highway, slowly, but surely, gaining on him until, at long last, she pulled up next to him as they reached Gotham Bridge.

"We're still on," Dick inferred, speaking about the unspoken race to the bank. The earpieces implanted in the helmets helped Babs hear him perfectly, even above the rushing wind and revving twin bike engines.

"I know," she smirked.

She weaved right as Dick weaved left and into oncoming traffic. He weaved back and forth as graceful on his bike as his flying through the skies on his swing line. From behind him, she could watch him as he performed each calculated move as though it were second nature. She let a vague sky escape.

He laughed. "Did I hear you say something about giving up?"

She squinted in frustration. This time, just like every other time, it was personal. She revved the engine and sped to the end of the bridge. He screeched and rocketed left down Cameron Street while she made her way straight down Longview. True, Longview was longer than Cameron, but it had lack of traffic that Cameron didn't have, Cameron's feeding the traffic that came not only from Central, but also from Sixth and Bond, which, at all times of night, were usually densely packed with traffic. His bike could help him maneuver through the tight gaps, but attempting to do it at Babs's current speed of seventy made it near impossible.

She made certain not to slack off, however. Simply because she knew she would win did not necessarily guarantee that she would; Dick always managed to have his own set of tricks to surprise her. She zipped in and out of traffic, occasionally rolling her eyes at the honking horn or yelling pedestrian.

With a quick turn down Market, she gunned the engine again. Market was always a personal favorite of hers because it was one of the few streets in Gotham that was entirely straight and never used. She zipped between cars as she ran the red light; pedestrians yelling as she whipped past them. Market also ended just one hundred feet before and a twenty feet above Prospect Avenue, the bank's street. That led, of course, to her favorite part: an exhilarating twenty-foot drop. She pulled into the park between Market and Prospect. Now, all she had to do was cut across a short playground and she would-

No.

As she looked down from her bike parallel to Prospect, she looked down at the twenty-foot drop only to see Dick traveling as fast as he could twenty feet below her. She gunned the engine and jumped off the cliff and landed on Prospect with a loud thud behind him.

"How'd you get in front of me?" she yelled, over the roar of her bike's engine.

"Trade secret," she sensed a smile through the earpiece.

Just when they got in sight of the bank, an armored car and three police cars sped out of bank's cross street. In that instant, their flirtatious games ended and the two sped up, attempting to catch the four vehicles.

Someone kicked open the back door to the armored car, strapped into a harness that anchored him to large car, his submachine gun glinting in the flashing streetlights as Babs watched him open fire on the three police cars chasing him. The police cars swerved out of the way, but not before the lead's tire blew out with a loud bang. The lead car swerved right then left before finally flipping onto its side and skidding to a halt after several hundred feet. The second car swerved to dodge the lead, but lost control and spun around, slowing until it stopped directly in front of the first. The third car was not so lucky. The apparently inexperienced driver slammed on the brakes, but succeeded in nothing more than skidding to a halt, driving up the hood of the second, and creating a crude ramp with the first and second.

"Catch me," Babs heard in her ear.

"Got it," she said.

She pulled back on the gas as Dick sped up. The man in the armored car motioned to the others in the back to speed up and attempt to lose their two incessant pests.

Dick drove his bike onto the makeshift ramp and sped up and over the top. Babs watched him fly stories into the air as she heard Dick's vehicle's engine rev loud before he back flipped off of his bike and flung out tracking pin that landed on the top of the moving armored car just before it peeled down another side street.

"Babs. Need a pickup."

His voice almost cracked under the strain.

"Can't you fly, bird boy?" she teased.

"Babs," his voice grew audibly louder. "Now would be a good time."

She slowed down. This had to be timed perfectly, or lover boy would be nothing more than lover pudding at the corner of Prospect and Ninth. She sped up slightly and made visual contact with his quick decent. She heard him smile over the intercom again. With a quick flip and a vertical push down, he landed squarely on the bike just as his bike exploded into a giant fireball on the ground several hundred feet down the road.

"Remind me never to do that again," he sighed as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Follow the blip on the computer."

Even through the helmet and whipping wind, she could still feel his warm breath on her shoulder and she melted slightly. Careful to drop back as though something happened, she followed side streets until she reached where the blip stopped several minutes later.

Dick, having recovered from his acrobatic stunt, indicated a small alley into which they could put their bike. Babs pulled in and stopped the bike and they dismounted.

Babs took off her helmet, careful to give a hair toss that she knew Dick would see. Babs looked at the location the masked men led them to and smiled. She had very much hoped for another super villain fight.

"Babs?" he asked, defiantly as he took off his helmet.

"Ye-" she turned around to face him.

"Thanks," he ran across the street and to the front doors of the building.

At least he said thank you. She ran to catch up with him.

They moved silently into the building and up the stairs until they vaguely made out the voices on the sixth floor. Robin put a hushed finger to his lips and indicated the next floor up and the air conditioning units that circled around the building.

Dick quickly moved down the hall after indicating to Babs to stay put and checked each room until he discovered where the meeting took place. He did a quick count of the rooms and motioned her to move swiftly and silently up the stairs.

He led her to the fourth room on the right and cut out a hole in the floor, dropping them into a three-foot gap between the floor and ceiling. Babs crawled forward as Dick crawled backwards, silently facing each other through the gap until they heard the voices going on in the room below them. They stopped and put their ears to the ground. This way they could indicate to each other and coordinate their movements the time came.

"-e're rich! Rich! Rich!" Someone cried.

"Not yet you fool," said a raspy voice.

Their eyes widened. Two Face was one of the most ruthless and duplicitous of all the villains in Gotham. Babs still couldn't help bouncing for joy at the thought of another fight. True, safety and the thoughts that she might not walk out alive remained on her mind, but she pushed them to back, but just far enough so that they would still give her a rush of adrenaline. Two Face. She really was moving up in the world.

"We can't move the goods yet. Just remember this bag is mine," Babs heard him tap it and the coins inside it jingle.

"Yeah, yeah boss," came the voice of another.

"When do we get our cut?" demanded the first impatiently.

"In a few minutes," sighed Two Face.

Dick attracted Babs's attention. He made a motion of flipping a coin, catching it, and slapping it on the back of his hand. Good point, why wasn't he-

But the section of wood she slightly bounced on from excitement collapsed under her weight. She fell down into the room and broke her fall on a table. Groaning, she looked up and into the barrel of Two Face's gun.

"Cops, cars, and now a Bat," he grinned. "I like this."

"What about the coin Harvey?" she reminded him.

"Forget the coin," he wheezed. "Why leave up to fate what I can just do myself."

No coin? What did fate have to do with it? Did it already predestine him to shoot her before he even knew she was coming? This wasn't like Two Face. She smiled bravely as he cocked his gun. So much for fate.