March 4th
Gotham City
0925 EST
When Barbara walked towards Bette's room in the ER, and saw a pair of uniforms standing outside of her door, she didn't know what to feel. Her training had told her to remain calm, and she certainly was, at least on the outside. She didn't know how extensive her best friend's injuries were, she didn't know what her dad had meant by assault either. Was it physical assault, or sexual? They'd both attended the orientation seminars about how to avoid it, and she'd given Bette a can of pepper spray the first day of their junior year of high school.
"Miss Gordon." One of the uniforms said with a polite nod. "Detective Montoya is interviewing her now, she should be finished soon. We gotta ask you and your boyfriend there to wait until she leaves though."
Barbara nodded and took her boy's hand, grasping it tightly. [Can you peek in and see how bad she is?] Barbara asked, pushing her thoughts out towards him, her fear and concern riding on her thoughts.
Deke nodded and relaxed a moment, having to shunt away the restrained, but still very intense, feelings coming off of Barbara. She hated the place, the smells, the sights, the sounds, all of it, and frankly, he wasn't the biggest fan either. He'd just watched Maddie deal with it, and Bette didn't have the good fortune to have an alien parent.
[See for yourself.] He said cryptically, Detective Montoya leaving the room at that exact moment. She gave a short greeting to Barbara and slipped past, a focused look on her face.
Frowning, Barbara leaned into Bette's room to see her friend casually buttoning her shirt up. Her bottom lip was split, and she had some small bandages keeping a few minor cuts closed, some abrasions on her face and forearms, plus a wrapped up right hand. Not the look Barbara expected to see. "Bette!" She said, relived it wasn't any worse.
"Babs!" Bette replied. She stood up gingerly and stepped towards her friend, wrapping her up in a hug. "I'm okay, really I am."
"Do you know who did it?" Barbara asked, noticing the silhouettes of the uniformed officers shrinking away as they left. "And, what happened?"
Bette sighed, not particularly wanting to recount the situation for the thousandth time. "I was heading back to the sorority house. Okay, I was doing the walk of shame, alright? Don't look at me like that. Anyway, I was almost to Greek row when I saw a twenty laying on the sidewalk. When I bent down to pick it up, I got yanked into the alley. I managed to fight them off before anything happened, but I don't know who they were." Bette explained, digging through her purse for a brush.
"That's terrible. Where'd it happen? I want to know where to avoid until these people are caught." Barbara asked, watching her friend go through the motions, her mind analyzing every little detail, trying to begin a profile.
Again, Bette sighed. "No, you don't. You want to know so you can track them down."
"What are you talking about Bette? I don't understand. My dad's the cop, not me." Barbara argued, not liking at all where things looked like they were heading.
"Babs, I've known you for years. It wasn't hard to put two and two together. I saw your interview on the news, all ten seconds of it, that Fourth of July. You might change your voice, but you never changed your speech patterns. That was the final confirmation." Bette said, reminding Barbara that, for all the glitz and glam that Bette loved, she was still a communications major, and a damn good one too.
"You play like the ultra-conservative librarian, but you missed the Olympics by a tenth of a point in national qualifiers when we were fifteen and you weren't even trying. You're smarter than any other three people I know. And, I remember that night we went out clubbing for my birthday, when that guy got handsy with you, you made it look clumsy, but you put him in a wrist lock so fast his eyes bulged out."
"And then there's you and Dick. I'm sorry for hiding it, but we had a thing for a while. He used to sneak out in the middle of the night, just like you did, and the next day? Oh, clumsy me, I tripped. Or, wouldn't you believe it, I ran into a telephone pole when I wasn't looking. Yeah, you both gave me that excuse Babs. The same day. I felt left out Babs."
"She's got you dead to rights babe." Deke said, slipping into the small room and placing a hand on the small of his love's back, both to comfort and steady her. "She's not telling you that she's been training since the beginning of our sophomore year though."
"How did you know that?" Bette asked, her eyes narrowing to daggers. "I never told anyone."
"We all have secrets." Deke said with a shrug.
"And you never told me?" Barbara hissed, scowling at her boy. "You never thought to mention she was onto me, or Dick? Or that she decided she wanted to see how a cape felt? Or, and maybe I'm just being a little irrational here, how much thought you gave into outing yourself?"
"Her secret wasn't mine to tell. Mine is. She kept yours too." He said, ready to accept his position on the couch that week. Sometimes the punishment's worth the crime, he firmly believed this was one of those moments.
"Yeah, you did." Barbara said, pulling up a chair. "Why didn't you say anything?" she asked, her expression somewhat softened.
"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready, or not. I thought it might be fun to surprise you too." Bette said with a small shrug. "So, surprise." She added with a wan smile.
"My ducks are not in a row right now." Barbara grumbled. One of the first things Bruce had taught her was, the moment you think you've got it all figured out, that's when it's time to step back and look again. She hadn't in a while, not where Bette was concerned. She'd let herself get drawn into the identity the girl had wrapped around herself, and when that thought hit her, Barbara realized the brilliance of it all.
"You and me, we need to talk somewhere private." Barbara said to Bette, and then turned to look at her boy. "And I'm mad at you right now."
"Yep." Deke drawled casually. There was absolutely no doubt about that.
"Hang on." Bette said, interrupting a potential ass-reaming she didn't want to be present for, nor did she think was that particularly deserved. She could wait for a few answers, but she needed some immediately. "How did you know exactly?"
"You think loud. Everyone thinks loud, with a few exceptions. It's not your fault." He said casually. "But, if you'd been all gung-ho to try and take on Gotham, I would have told her. There's brave and there's stupid. I worked that out for myself."
"Don't think quoting Malcolm Reynolds is going to get you in my good graces." Barbara reminded him tartly.
"Never dreamed of it." Deke said casually. "So, yeah, psychic." He said to Bette, still in that calm, casual tone. He knew what was coming next, and he didn't need to read minds to know it either.
"So, all those times I? Or when I would?" Bette asked, unable to properly finish her sentences.
"If you're testin' me, it ain't worth trying right now. But, sometimes, yeah, you were loud. I never took it personally though, even when Babs told you we were engaged." Deke said pointedly. Bette had made no illusions about how she believed in her heart of hearts that Barbara and Dick were destined for each other. Even when she was sleeping with him, she felt like she was stealing him from Barbara.
"I'm sorry." Bette said, realizing that, while she was entitled to her own opinion, her opinion could get downright bitchy and judgmental when she wasn't looking. "And Barb, I'm sorry to you too. I meant it though, you inspired me. I want to be you. You're unstoppable."
"No, I'm not." Barbara said quietly, the memory of every cut, and bruise, and gunshot reminding her that she was all too human. "But we'll talk later. Someone's got to go pick up a friend of ours soon, we'll have time then."
Aasha stepped out of the telephone booth and glanced around nervously. Gotham quite literally terrified her, what with people like the Joker, and Two-Face running around, and the crime rate still well above national average, despite the dramatic shift lower in recent years.
With a squeak that was supposed to be a self-confident clearing of her throat, she stepped out on high alert, and began walking down the alleyway, each footstep on the chilly, wet pavement echoing ominously.
"This is the safest part of the city you know." A familiar voice said as she reached the end of the alley, overlooking rows of tenement housing and small family run shops. It certainly didn't look like the safest place in Gotham.
"How is this neighborhood the safest?" Aasha said, releasing her mental grip on the weather.
"It's near where Batman first started his crusade. The residents here started banding together. What started as an attempt at positive change took off, so now, you could walk down the street at three in the morning, bare naked, and the worst thing a person would do is offer you something to wear." Deke explained. "A few neighborhoods are like that now. I love little San Juan personally."
"I never knew that." Aasha said, wrapping herself around Deke's arm in a hug, trying to dispel her apparently unfounded fear of the city. With others, she was perfectly okay, and in costume, she was downright confident, but just little Aasha in the big city? Terrified.
The graffiti here wasn't gang related though, it was legitimate art, with murals covering the sides of several buildings. The people she took for gang members were just families, conversing about the day and going on with their lives. The small shops she assumed were fronts for drug sales were just little, what did Deke call them? Bodegas? How she'd never bothered to really look before was a shame, making her feel even smaller than usual.
"Hey Mister Jenkins!" Deke called out, waving to an elderly gentleman. "How's your back treating you?"
"Better now son!" The old man said with an easy kindness. "You tell that Doc I said thank you for those pills! They work a charm!"
"Absolutely Mister Jenkins, but she's going to want some zucchini from your roof garden this spring." Deke replied, walking Aasha across the street so he could properly converse with the old man. "Mister Jenkins, this is my friend Aasha, she and I do some freelancing together."
"A pleasure to meet you, young lady." The old gentleman said, offering a hand. When Aasha took it, he kissed it like a classic gentleman, which drew a small giggle and blush from her.
"Aasha, Mister Jenkins used to play studio back in the heyday of Motown. One of the best guitarists I've ever met, hands down." Deke said, feeling her grip on his arm lessen as she grew more comfortable.
"That's very interesting. I'm afraid I don't know anything about Motown though." Aasha said a bit dejectedly. "Was it fun?"
"Was? Young lady, it still is. You make the big man here play you a few records and introduce your properly." Mister Jenkins said. "Now I gotta go inside, it's still a bit chilly for me. You two be careful out there."
"Yessir." Deke said, and led Aasha further down the street.
"You did that on purpose." Aasha accused, poking him in the ribs, a trait she'd picked up from Barbara. There were days it was like two of the same person.
"I did, but you don't have a death grip on my arm any more either." Deke said with a sly look. Aasha looked down and noticed she had, in fact, released his arm, and was walking along blithely. "So, yeah, but worth it." He said. "Plus, I wanted to check on Mister Jenkins anyway. He was a regular of ours at the clinic. Doc Thompkins used to pull her hair out by the roots trying to find something that'd work on his arthritis without doping him, and turned him onto a trial medication."
"He seems quite hale." Aasha said, remembering the firm but gentle grip he'd taken with her hand. "I imagine the medication is working."
"Looks that way. I took a peek on him too and things look good. I need to tell La Jefa about it tonight." He said as they continued walking towards the train station.
"Oh, you work tonight?" Aasha asked. "So it'll just be me and Babs all evening then?"
"Yep. Try not to have too much fun without me." He said, hiding the down feeling he had. He hated it when she was mad at him, not because she was mean or anything, instead because it made a coldness between them. He refused to back down though, which was probably going to make this a big one when they finally got around to proverbially slugging it out. He firmly believed that Bette deserved her own chance, and a right to privacy, no matter how much she firmly believed that he was wrong for Babs and way out of her league.
An hour or so later, Deke and Aasha walked into the apartment building. Fortuitously, Bette was coming down the stairs at about the same time. She stopped for a moment and looked at the two of them, the feeling of confusion emanating from her powerfully, but it stopped suddenly with a wave of dawning realization. "Deke, I owe you a conversation and a coffee, but for now, thank you." She said with a nod. "And, hello Aasha, isn't it?"
"Sure, no problem Bette, you're welcome." Deke said curiously. He had no earthly idea why she owed him any of that, or felt the need to thank him, unless keeping shush about her secret to his own detriment was a bigger deal to her than he originally realized. "Be safe out there."
"Oh yeah." She said, zipping up her hoodie, yellow, orange, and red in a flame pattern that looked pretty cool on her. "I'm good."
"Nice to see you too!" Aasha called after the girl. "That was peculiar."
"It's gonna get weirder." Deke said cryptically.
