Author's Note: Yeah. I have no excuse, so I'm not giving one. Fortunately, the previous chapters aren't that long, so those of you who forgot this story (translation, all of you) shouldn't need too long to catch up. If anyone still cares about this long-neglected piece, please do shoot me a review. If nothing else, it allows you to verbally bash me for being such a terrible author and making you wait so terribly long.

"I had it under control!" Batgirl yelled, cape swirling in the wind as she turned her back on him.

"Not the way I saw it," Nightwing grumbled. Tucking away the grapple gun he'd used to ascend through the busted skylight, Dick jogged to catch up with her.

"Get your eyes checked," Barbara advised coolly, aiming her own grapple device at a nearby rooftop.

Scowling, Dick swatted her hand away, ignoring the glare he received. "You were reckless and sloppy and you would've gotten yourself killed if I hadn't stepped in."

"I saw him," Barbara countered darkly. "How many times do I have to tell you that I saw him?"

"I believe you, I do. You were just waiting for the gun to go off before you made your move. Crime fighting 101."

"You're sounding more like Bruce every night," she replied, raising her arm to perform the move he'd stopped earlier.

There was a time, long, long ago, that being compared to Bruce would serve as a compliment. That was before Batgirl, before Tim, before Dick recognized who Bruce Wayne truly was. So, words that would've brought pride not too long ago now served no other purpose than to make Dick's blood boil.

Irritated, he followed Barbara across the canyons of Gotham, joining her atop the roof of a dilapidated brownstone. Again, he ran to catch up. "Would you stop?"

"We'll get this done faster if we split up," she declared, still not looking at him. "How about you take east side and-"

"How about we stick together and get this done like we're supposed to?" Nightwing growled. They weren't separating. Tim had been alone when Joker and Harley made their move. Tim was still strapped to his bed at the Manor.

"You're going to follow Bruce's orders? That guy with the pipe hit you too hard?"

Considering that she'd nearly been shot three minutes earlier, Dick didn't see how Barbara had any right to talk. It was a routine drug bust, lots of thugs, lots of guns, but still routine. But Batgirl had crashed in with all fists and no finesse, too busy pummeling her opponents to notice the glint of metal in the corner. A well-placed Batarang was the only thing that kept her from taking a bullet to the head.

"Instructions, Barbara, Bruce's instructions."

"Is there a difference?"

"You tell me. You know him better than anyone now, don't you?"

The redhead spun on her heel, eyes narrowing beneath her cowl. "Mind your business."

"Watch yourself and I will. You're acting like this is your first night out."

"And you're acting like the arrogant little boy I met on that first night out. I'm not a rookie anymore."

"Then you're a better actress than I gave you credit for. Good job, Barbara."

"Code names in the field, Nightwing. I'm taking the shopping district, you can have the docks."

"Is it Christmas already?" he asked, stepping in front of her before she could make another jump. "We're not separating."

"We've got the comms," Barbara argued.

"Great, we're still not separating."

If it were possible, Barbara's eyes would've narrowed further. " Teamwork suddenly important to you? Did I miss something?"

Crossing his arms, Dick glared at his former girlfriend before turning on his heel. "You miss a lot of things, Batgirl. More than you think."

This time it was Barbara who chased him between the buildings of the city. Out of frustration, Dick half-heartedly tried to lose her, employing many of the tactics she'd been using all night. Still, he wasn't really trying, and even if he had been, Barbara would've kept up. Despite hating his guts at the moment, she would've kept up, if only to prove a point.

The two vigilantes put a damper on three robbery attempts and three muggings within the next half hour. They did this without speaking. Not to each other, not to the perps. It was different without the banter, the jabs at superstitious, cowardly criminals. He missed it, that small bit of relief amidst their dark activities. He missed it, but Dick had no illusions about the likelihood of getting that element back, at least not for more than a few minutes at a time It was hard to joke about anything when Tim was thin and pale and drugged to the gills, and Bruce was angry and tired and reaching his limit.

Bruce wasn't the only one. For almost a month, Dick had been splitting time between Gotham and Bludhaven, helping Barbara as much as he could, as much as she'd let him, with patrols of the city. More often than not, she declined his assistance, urging him to focus on his own town. More often than not, he ignored her and they spent the nights prowling the skyscrapers together. In other circumstances, that could've been good, great actually. However, these were not those circumstances. Stress and fear and whatever else was affecting everyone, more than they wanted to admit. Bruce was shut in with Tim and Leslie, devastated beyond description. He hardly bothered to comment when Barbara announced their intentions to sweep the city, except to order them to stick together. If Dick didn't know better, he'd say that his mentor had given up, at least when it came to Batman.

But Dick knew better than that. He absolutely knew better than that.

So while Bruce stayed with Tim, he and Barbara went out. They went out and did the hero thing and tried not to kill each other. Barbara accused him of being overprotective, treating her like an amateur. She said he didn't respect her, didn't see her as an equal. There were other fights too, petty arguments about everything and nothing, but the main issue was always the same. He thought he was better than her, thought she needed saving. It was stress and depression and fatigue on every possible level that, two nights ago, had caused Dick to argue that maybe he was better than her. Maybe years upon years of training and field experience gave him that title. Maybe she wouldn't be so irritated if it was Bruce watching her back, keeping her safe. And maybe if someone had been overprotective of Tim that night instead of leaving him by himself, maybe then none of this would be an issue.

They hadn't had anything close to a real conversation since then.

Dick regretted the words the instant they left his mouth, and he'd told Barbara that much. Told her again and again and again. Again and again and again she nodded, assured him that she knew, she understood. Thing was, she never looked at him while making those assurances, and she never stuck around long after making them.

Tonight, now, they were quiet again. It wasn't a comfortable quiet, but it was better than attacking each other. The city eventually mirrored them, growing uncommonly silent. No more sirens, no more screams, no more need to be out here. An hour into that silence, Dick spoke to her about heading in for the night. They shared a look and, for the first time in weeks, both knew that they were in complete agreement. Being at the Manor, roaming the empty halls filled with so much sadness, taking it in shifts to force Bruce to bed and to watch over Tim while the boy cried and laughed and screamed nonsensically…wasn't terribly appealing.

They kept up the patrol. Dick stopped a group of preteens from painting graffiti on the wall of his old high school. Barbara attempted to thwart a home invasion, only to realize that the owner was returning from a late night at the office and somehow managed to lock himself out. Barbara picked the lock and encouraged him to invest in a spare set of keys. Dick saw a couple of teenagers sitting on a curb, talking about drinking. Not drinking, just talking about drinking. After demanding to see identification and confirming that both boys were underage, he gave them a stern lecture on the merits of just saying no. This caused the boys to create a list of very unflattering nicknames for the young crimefighter. Finally, they came upon a malfunctioning light on a fairly dead patch of road. Barbara played crossing guard directing almost non-existent traffic for fifteen minutes before admitting defeat.

"We should probably head back," she muttered grudgingly.

They were on another rooftop, Barbara putting more space between them than was strictly necessary. Dick nodded once, without conviction. "We should."

"You could go back to your apartment," the redhead stated, after a moment of awkward silence.

"Yeah. You could go back to yours, too."

"Yeah."

Neither of them would be going to their respective apartments. It had nothing to do with the distance between Gotham and Bludhaven. It had nothing to do with Barbara's claim of a sink pipe that threatened to flood her place. Bad as it was at the Manor, alone would be worse. For both of them, alone would be so much worse.

Shrugging, Dick risked a tight half-smile. "Manor's got the big TV."

"And the satellite dish," Barbara agreed.

Dick nodded a second time. "Did people actually live before satellite?"

"Circus not have a satellite hook-up?"

"No, and I still don't know how I survived that much adversity."

Barbara returned the tight half-smile. They were both exhausted and angry and depressed, but she still smiled. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"You hungry?" Dick asked suddenly.

"Are you?"

"Always."

Barbara considered that. "I ate before we left."

"Hours ago. Granola is not food."

She considered that, too. "Who's buying?"

He thought about it. "Last one to the burger joint on Fifth?"

"The one we used to go to on the weekends?"

"Where else?".

"They tore it down."

"What?"

"A year ago. Now it's a store specializing in motivational magnets."

"What?"

"Fridge magnets with inspirational sayings."

"Seriously?"

"Sad, isn't it?"

"How does anything like that last in this city? And why didn't I know about it?"

"It doesn't. Being torn down to make room for a strip club. And you didn't know because you don't pay attention."

"I always pay attention."

"You didn't know about the magnets. How many time have we passed that shop?"

"I've had a lot on my mind," he replied darkly.

Grimacing, the female crimefighter stared at her boots. "Yeah," she softly acknowledged, "I suppose you have."

And just like that it was tense and awkward again. Mentally beating his head against the wall, Dick tried to catch her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"Bar--Batgirl."

"I know," she reiterated, finally meeting his gaze.

"It's just, it's hard. You'd think it'd get easier seeing him like that but-"

"—it doesn't she finished." It wasn't easy to tie Tim down and stick him with needles every night, and it wasn't easy to see Bruce's reaction to that every night.

Nothing had ever been easy for them, but neither had anything been quite this impossible.

"There's a new burger joint on Tenth," Barbara offered.

Dick perked up slightly. "Any good?"

Barbara shrugged. "Want to find out?"

"I'm always up for some artery clogging."

"You up for paying?"

"Should I be?"

"It was your idea."

"Cop's salary. Flip a coin?"

The redhead grimaced. "Remember Two-Face."

The dark-haired man winced. "Sorry. Rock Paper Scissors?"

Barbara sighed, almost inaudibly. "That was Tim's method."

Dick Grayson ladies and gentlemen, batting a thousand tonight. "Foot in mouth. Want me to buy you a fridge magnet?"

That earned him a chuckle. "After dinner maybe."

He frowned. "We ever actually settle on who was buying?"

"Well, if you wanted to demonstrate your chivalry-"

"-I'd have a white horse instead of a grappling hook. Horse would be too messy, too much maintenance."

"I'm fine with racing for it."

"The horse?"

"The bill," she corrected.

"Deal. Tenth Street?"

"Tenth Street. On three then?"

Dick frowned, taking up position next to her. "No. You cheat. You always cheat."

"You're such a liar. And a sore loser."

"Three isn't three with you," he argued. "With you, three is one. You'll say one, then you'll jump off the roof."

"It was one time."

"It was six times."

"I'm hungry now. And I promise not to take a head start."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Okay," Dick agreed. "So three is actually going to be three?"

"Unless you'd prefer it to be some other number."

"Nope, not broke, don't fix it." He showed her a glimpse of white teeth. "One..."

"Two..." Barbara continued.

Rather than finishing his part of the sequence, Dick leapt off the roof ahead of her, laughing at her yells of consternation as he swung towards the burger shack.

"So," Barbara drawled fifteen minutes later. "Explain this to me. You cheat so you won't lose, then you lose anyway. And after all this losing, I end up paying."

Inclining his head, Dick bit into his cheeseburger, words muffled by the food. "I think you pretty much covered the main points."

Barbara threw an onion ring at him, scowling in annoyance when he dodged the projectile. The two were perched on yet another building, napkins and take-out bags littering the space around them.

"I left my wallet in my other cape," Nightwing explained.

"The cape you don't wear?"

"Exactly."

"Charming, Grayson, you really know how to show a girl a good time."

"Only a bat girl. Speaking of which, only code names in the field, remember?"

"I bought that extra meal so you could get your little toy. Don't push it."

"It's not a toy," he argued. "It's a candy dispenser. And it's collectible. You always carry cash in the utility belt?"

"No," Batgirl replied, picking up her strawberry malt and sucking nosily through the straw. "Sometimes I take the Bat-Card."

Nightwing gave her a deliciously blank look. "Bat-Card."

Barbara nodded earnestly. "Like a credit card. A really exclusive credit card."

"Bat-MasterCard?"

"Bat-Visa," she corrected.

"Right. And where on your belt do you keep this little stroke of genius?"

"Major stroke of genius. Right next to the Bat-Shark Repellant." She managed to keep it together all of two more seconds before laughing rather wickedly.

Dick chuckled as well, taking another bite of his sandwich. "Glad I left before you guys started stocking Bat-Bug Spray."

The redhead shrugged teasingly. "Always be prepared, right?"

"Or hang around with someone who is. Thanks for dinner, how about a movie?"

"Sorry, that was my last bit of cash, and the Bat-Card is maxed-out."

"Too many mall visits with Supergirl?"

Concealed by the cowl, Batgirl's eyes widened in surprise. "How'd you know about that?"

"Some of the Justice Leaguers are gossip hounds." He paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "You see how those guys reacted when Nightwing and Batgirl showed up?"

"The Justice League?"

"The employees at that restaurant. We could take a page out of Flash's book; make some serious money from endorsements."

Barbara snorted. "Please. I stopped a robbery at that place last week and they wouldn't even give me a discount. They promised a discount next time I came in."

Nightwing smirked in amusement. "Masked avenger, the ultimate in thankless jobs." His expression clouded again. "You ever meet all of them, the League?"

"All no, some yes. Headquarters has a great cappuccino machine."

Dick stared at her in disbelief. "You've been to League headquarters?"

"Once or twice," she replied. "For the Christmas parties. Jealous?"

The former Boy Wonder grunted indignantly. "Not on your life."

"I heard they're installing a pool soon. For Aquaman."

"We're going to have quiet time now."

Grinning, Batgirl reached over him, snagging his chocolate shake. "Fine, I'll have snack time while you have quiet time."

"That is my drink," he said stonily.

"Paid for with my money," she countered. "Anyway, I'm thirsty and this isn't helping," she continued, gesturing towards her own empty cup.

"You could've asked."

"Would you have said yes?"

"No."

"Then why would I ask?"

They engaged in a short staring contest before simultaneously breaking into quiet laughter. Things weren't okay, but there could only be so much hurt and anger and tension before a bit of light snuck its way in. This, too was how it had been since Dick arrived in Gotham. Moments of peace and calm and maybe a little happiness, followed by more hurt and anger and tension.

"You were right," Barbara declared softly, after both of them had gotten it together.

"Was I?"

"The warehouse, guy with the gun, I didn't see him."

"I know," Dick acknowledged.

Barbara shot him an annoyed glare. "Thanks for not rubbing it in."

"You would know all about that Miss They're-Putting-In-A-Pool-Soon."

"Installing," Barbara corrected, unable to keep the angry look going. "For Aquaman."

"Right," Dick nodded. "For Aquaman. You ever meet him?"

"Once, you're not missing anything."

"Not a very sociable guy?"

"Understatement." Breathing deeply, Barbara forced herself to meet Dick's eyes. "Thanks, for the warehouse."

Shaking his head, Dick waved away her gratitude. "Back-up, that's my job."

"I've just…I've been tired lately. And reckless, and sloppy, like you said."

"And I've been tired and overbearing and acting like a jerk."

"No arguments here."

"Thanks. And sorry. It's not…even now it's hard for me to think of you as…"

"Batgirl?"

"Batgirl," he confirmed softly.

They were silent for a few moments, a slight breeze carrying the remnants of their dinner to the other side of the roof. Then, tentatively, Barbara spoke up. "I should've told you about Bruce and me."

"Forget it."

"We can't keep doing this. This…whatever we're doing is affecting our work."

"Compromising the mission?" he ventured coolly, recalling one of Bruce's favorite sayings.

"Yeah, but it's not just that. Can we please-"

"I thought we agreed to handle the big problems first."

"We did. Except the big problem is still back at the house taking his anti-psychotics, and we haven't handled anything."

Dick said nothing, staring straight ahead.

"I didn't do this to hurt you-"

"Barbara," he interrupted. "Your business is your business. I don't want to know," he finished tersely.

"So it doesn't bother you?" she asked skeptically.

"Is that what I said?" he snapped, words out before he had time to edit them. Shutting his eyes, Dick forced his voice back to something approaching normal. "What am I supposed to say, Babs, that I'd prefer it if you went out with Killer Croc?"

"You're disgusting."

"Guilty. But whatever else he is, Bruce is my adopted father. You can at least understand the ick factor that comes with seeing you together."

"Yeah," Barbara admitted reluctantly. "But we're all adults, Dick, its not-"

"That's not the point, Barbara," he argued, more frustrated than angry. "How would you feel if I started courting the Commissoner?"

In a night full of awkward pauses, this one easily took home the gold. Trying to ignore the blush creeping over him, Dick nervously studied Barbara's face. Her features were blank, impossible to read, making him think that she really had been spending too much time with Bruce.

"Okay," she muttered slowly. "So, how about we never talk about that again?"

"Good plan," he agreed, nodding fervently. "I was just trying to make a point you know, I wasn't-"

Wincing, the female crimefighter held up her hand. "And now we're talking about it again."

"Sorry. If you want, I'll jump off the roof without my grappling hook."

"Is that supposed to make up for it?"

"Somewhat. Mostly it'd make me feel better."

"Can I have your bike afterwards?"

"Nice, Barbara."

The redhead shrugged. "I'm just setting the terms."

"You can have the old one; I'll give the new one away."

"To whom?"

"Anyone other than you?"

"Nice, Grayson."

"What? Orphans need motorcycles too. I was an orphan and I needed a motorcycle."

"We're off-topic, you do know that?"

Nightwing mustered a rueful half-smile. "Yeah. We're better when we're off-topic."

"True," Batgirl acknowledged with a smile of her own.

Watching her, Dick couldn't help but wonder if Bruce did that, if the man notorious for his lack of a funny bone ever made Barbara laugh. They'd certainly looked happy enough in that newspaper photo… But no, that way lay trouble, and more trouble was not what they needed. "You ever miss it?" he blurted suddenly.

"It?"

"Us," Dick explained, studying the color of his boots. "This. Talking."

Sighing, Barbara took interest in a fry that had escaped both of their mouths and landed on the roof. "I've missed that ever since you left."

He didn't want to ask, but he had to. "First time, after I hit Bruce, or second time, after New Year's?"

Abandoning her study of the fry, Barbara met his eyes again. "Take a guess," she replied, so softly that Dick wondered if she'd even said anything. Her next words were pitched more normally. "Dick, you came back the first time, and you were so bitter. All I ever got from you was a cold shoulder."

"I know," Dick admitted, thinking of all the times she'd joked and hinted and flirted, all the times he'd brushed her off. "I was angry."

"Was?"

"Am. It's not just you being out here, it's not just me worrying what'll happen if…and it's not just Bruce either."

"Then what is it? Besides Bruce and Tim and Joker and this," she pressed, indicating her costume, "what else is there?'

Whatever he may have said was cut off by static from his transceiver. Tucked into the lining of her mask, Barbara's unit activated as well. Somewhere between relief and frustration, Dick addressed the voice on the other end. "What's up?"

"Begging your pardon sir, but I must insist that you return immediately."

The vigilantes shared twin looks of concern. Alfred's voice held an odd mixture of trepidation and excitement that neither of them knew how to interpret. "What's going on, Alfred?" Barbara asked.

Another hiss of static before a new voice came on, this one decidedly cooler. "Tim's awake."

Nightwing twitched uncomfortably. He couldn't remember the last time Bruce ventured into the cave, and hearing the older man's voice after the conversation they'd just had… He shot Barbara an appreciative look. The comm sets she'd helped redesign needed to be turned on from one end or the other, which meant that their discussion hadn't been broadcast through the Cave.

Barbara climbed to her feet, brimming with barely suppressed hope "Awake as in…"

"Tim's awake," Bruce reiterated, emphasizing the boy's name. "Not that thing Joker created."

Twin looks of concern became twin looks of joy. "That mean Leslie's treatments are starting to work?" Dick asked, excitement rolling off him as he jumped to a standing position.

"It would seem. He's coherent now; I don't know how long he'll stay that way. Get back here."

Gently clasping Barbara's left hand in his right, Dick willed himself to calm down. Agitated, he shifted his gaze from the woman in front of him to the nearby trophy cases. He examined Barbara's costume, abandoned so recently when she finally parted ways with Bruce. Tim's suit brought back too many memories, and Dick didn't linger on that one. The Nightwing suit was on display as well. Dick had been all ready to go for hours now. The waiting had become too much, and he'd been ready to suit up, head out, and pound Jonathan Crane into hamburger until the man gave them an antidote. He'd storm into Arkham, force the cell open, and come back with a cure, whatever it took.

As it turned out, none of that had been necessary. Bruce found a treatment. Found or created, Dick wasn't sure which. His attention had drifted as soon as Bruce promised that Babs would pull through. After a quick injection of whatever-it-was, Barbara's heart had gradually slowed, her vitals coming back under control. Sleeping now as the drug flowed through her system, Barbara was no longer in danger of dying from fear.

Anti-climactic really. Dick would've liked to beat up on Scarecrow or some of his thugs, if only to give himself something to do. A small part of him hated the fact that Bruce had saved the day again while he, Dick, did nothing more useful than grip Barbara's hand for dear life and threaten to make her regret it if she decided to die on him. Annoyed, Dick pushed away those childish thoughts. Barbara was safe now, that was all that mattered. That, and getting her to open her eyes before he went out of his mind.

Footsteps echoing off cavernous walls caught Dick's attention, and he half-turned as Bruce came downstairs with a plateful of sandwiches. "Alfred let you get away with that?"

"Don't think he was happy about it. I told him I'd make you eat," Bruce replied, setting the food on a nearby table.

"Not hungry," Dick muttered, still clasping Barbara's fingers. "Besides, who's going to make you eat?"

"I'm okay," he said shortly, checking one of the machines Barbara was hooked to.

"Well so am I."

Pausing in his task, the older man caught his adopted son's gaze. "Eat something."

It wasn't the icy voice of a field commander, the voice Dick had grown so used to. Firm but kind, it reminded Dick of someone else. The mentor who'd taken him in, the man he'd loved and respected for so long. The free hand that had been fisting into his jeans moved upward, and Dick took a small bite of the BLT.

Satisfied, the billionaire continued to check over their patient. His eyes clouded with some impossible-to-read emotion every time he looked at Barbara. Dick decided that he really didn't want to know. "So…what? Crane's gas was just sitting there dormant all this time?"

"As far as I can tell. We'll need to run tests when she wakes up." Pressing his fingers to his temple, Bruce added another detail. "I doubt they'll be permanent damage, but we'll need to make sure."

"Permanent…?"

"The toxin affected her mind; we can't know how much until she comes around."

"But you said-

"She'll be okay. One way or another, we'll make sure of that."

For sanity's sake, Dick chose to believe him. Insane really, that Crane's madness could threaten Barbara's life years after the fact, that he could wreak this much havoc from behind Arkham's walls. "What do you think triggered it?"

"Hopefully the tests will help answer that." Checking the readout from Barbara's heart monitor, Bruce looked at Dick from the corner of his eye. "She was coming from your place."

It wasn't a question. The car wrecked midway between Bludhaven and Gotham. Why else would Barbara be there if not to see him? Irritated by a sense of being caught at something, Dick searched for any hint of accusation in Bruce's statement. Nothing, like usual. Damn Bruce and his poker face. "We were having dinner," the younger man replied, hoping he didn't sound too defensive.

Nodding minutely, Bruce continued to stand over the redhead, watching her with guarded eyes. "Good. It's good that you two are patching things up."

Struggling to keep his jaw off the floor, Dick wondered how his former mentor could even mention patching things up with anyone, never mind doing so with a straight face. Bruce kept talking, stopping the other man from delving too far into the meaning of those words

"You need to understand something, Dick I brought you into this life because it was the only thing I knew. That was my mistake. You were too young, and I should've realized that you weren't ready to make that choice, not with any kind of perspective." As he said that, Bruce's eyes darted to the Robin suit on display, its bright colors a contrast to everything else here.

For his part, Dick had simply forgotten how his vocal chords worked. Bruce Wayne, always right in every circumstance, was making an apology. Distantly, Dick wondered where this was coming from. Out of left field didn't begin to cover it. Had Barbara's leaving flicked a switch somewhere in his head? Besides Alfred, Bruce was alone now. Had that, combined with the start of a new year and the shock of what happened to Babs, prompted some soul-searching on his part. Again, Dick was unable to ruminate on this for very long. Bruce was still speaking, returning his focus to Barbara.

"She was so eager, so impulsive. Naïve. She had me on a pedestal and I knew that. So maybe she wasn't ready either. But Dick, she was an adult. She saw what we were up against. She was an adult who made a choice. If I hadn't agreed to work with her, she would've continued being Batgirl on her own, and she would've died because of it. I'm not saying it was the right decision, but it wasn't just mine. I didn't force this life on any of you, and I won't be responsible for every bad thing that's happened in your lives since then."

Bruce hadn't taken his eyes off Barbara throughout that entire speech. If his other declarations had come out of nowhere, this one seemed to come from an alternate dimension. Something wasn't right, something other than Bruce speaking more to him in the last few minutes than he had in the last few years. "You think I blame you?"

"It'd fit with your usual pattern."

"I don't," Dick argued, surprised to find that he meant it. "This is Scarecrow, no one else." Bruce said nothing. He'd crossed to Barbara's other side, and there was an odd twitchiness in his hand. Scrutinizing the older man, Dick realized what the problem was. Bruce wanted to touch her, but wouldn't allow that to happen.

"Bruce," Dick began, unsure where to start or what he even meant to say. It turned out to be a moot point. A slight change in the monitor patterns along with a barely audible whimper captured both men's attention, effectively ending their conversation.

"Bruce?" Dick repeated, unnerved by the fear in his voice.

"It's all right," he replied. Again, he sounded like the man of days gone by, the man who'd comforted Dick after his parent's deaths. "She's waking up."