Author's Note (Part I): Um, it's probably a bit late after last chapter, but I should warn here that Andi's acquiring a bit of a potty mouth. One or two F-bombs in the near future.

Chapter 21: Burn

"Alright, be ready to catch me."

"You're sure you don't want Alfred to do this?"

Andi broke off her staring contest with the wheelchair to give him a wry glance. "Oh, I don't know. Let's think. My first time climbing into the wheelchair on my own, should I have the septuagenarian with arthritis spot me, or the man who could win multiple Olympic medals if he bothered? Tough one."

"It's just—you never want me to see when you're…"

"Weak?" Bruce wondered if she meant for the bitter edge in her voice. "You're right. I hate it. But I realized yesterday I have two options. I can keep fighting, even if I'm damaged and we all know it. Or I can make sure none of you see me like that, and collapse in on myself instead."

"That's not how I—"

She glared up at him, daring him to challenge her. "I don't give a flying fuck about you and your damn opinions. I'm keeping my self respect."

"Good." Bruce made his voice hard and without a hint of pity. "Because you're not weak. Now less than ever."

She wrenched her gaze back to the chair and used her arms to scoot her hips to the edge of the bed.

"Good. Then let's do this. We've got a terrorist to catch."

Bruce watched her bounce up and down on her arms just a little, like a diver on a springboard, preparing herself to jump. She reached one hand down onto the armrest of the wheelchair and paused.

"You should probably breathe," Bruce said.

"Right."

She didn't, though. Instead, Andi splayed her hand over the armrest, hesitant as if she expected it to bite her. When nothing happened, she slowly began to twist around.

The wheelchair rolled backwards and bounced off the wall. Bruce moved to catch her, but she'd already balanced herself, clutching hard on her bed's covers to stay upright.

She finally exhaled in a shaky laugh.

"Okay. That didn't work." She glanced up at him, and despite her laughter, Bruce could see her eyes were glassier than normal. Andi hated this, whatever she pretended. "Um, can you bring that thing back? See if there's a parking brake on it, maybe?"

Bruce did, locking the wheels in place with a lever and standing to her side again. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

She moved quicker this time, getting one arm on the wheelchair, then the other. She stiffened them, locked her elbows, so that her hips dragged around—

He caught Andi on instinct. One arm wrapped around her middle, the other her chest. Her small cry of pain was almost lost in the crash as the wheelchair flipped over, a handle knocking her in the head as it went down.

"You alright?"

"Put me back." Her hair, draped over her face, muffled her voice, but it still sounded impossibly small. Bruce felt something wrench in his chest.

He gently changed his grip, so that she was cradled instead of hanging off of him, then righted the chair with one foot. When he moved to put her in that, though, she stiffened and pushed on his chest until he had to pause or drop her.

"Not the chair!"

"I don't want you injuring your back and making it worse."

"You don't think I'm weak? This is my decision, not yours."

They stayed like that for almost a minute, locked in a battle of wills. Finally, Bruce sighed and set her back on the bed.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and looked like she wanted to do nothing more than wilt into the pillows. Instead, though, she shook her head and opened her eyes again. "Okay. Now move behind the chair and hold the handles."

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"I fell because all my weight's on the front of the chair. If you're holding it, it should stay balanced."

"But you'll have no one to spot you."

"I've got the hang of it. I'll be fine." She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to argue, but Bruce didn't bother. He knew when he'd lost.

"Alright," Andi said, sounding like she was talking to herself more than him. "Alright. I've got this."

She got both arms in place, her torso twisted so that her back would end up against the chair when she was done. Bruce could feel the chair shift, trying to flip again, but she didn't hesitate, counting on him to keep it upright while she worked. She bit her lip, her neck craned so she could watch her legs, and then her muscles tensed and, inch by inch, she somehow rolled her hips over and dragged them into the chair.

Andi spent a little longer to get her legs under her—they were twisted up in a way that looked like it'd be painful if she could feel them—then sighed, looked up at him, and switched off the brake.

"You can let go now."

Bruce did, and watched as she wheeled herself to the door. She had to back up and re-center herself twice before she made it through, but she did it without a sign of impatience. He wanted to say something, something about being proud or impressed or just that she'd done a good job, but she looked back over her shoulder and smirked at him before he could. Her eyes burned.

"You coming? Or am I going to catch Deadshot on my own?"

"Oracle, come in."

Andi folded her arms and leaned back in her wheelchair, even though Batman was long gone and couldn't see her. "We are not using that stupid codename again."

"Deadshot's linked me and Azrael to his attacks. We can't add you."

Andi glowered at the cave's walls and could almost hear Batman smiling—the image was unsettling.

"We can change the name," he said. "Huntress or Canary or Batg—"

"Oracle works," Andi said before he could try and make her Bat-anything. "But I thought you took care of it so that he couldn't listen in again."

"I did. But considering… everything, do you really want to gamble when you don't have to?"

"'Everything' meaning the fact that I'm a cripple?" Andi snapped. "You don't have to dance around it, you know."

"I didn't mean it like—"

"I know you didn't." Andi rubbed the bridge of her nose. I'm going to need so much therapy after this. And during this, but let's be real—what therapist can I ever tell this to? "Forget it, ok? Let's turn on your eye-cam and get to work."

Batman didn't say anything, but a few seconds later one of his computer screens flickered and showed her the view from his eyes. He was on top of a building, scanning for disturbances so quickly that Andi felt a bit of vertigo.

"You know, it would have been really handy if we'd put your camera's amplifier on JP. The expanded radius means we could have avoided the whole carpool situation."

"It's too big." Bruce's eyes dropped to a box about half the size of Andi's palm clipped to his belt. "He'd have asked questions."

"I know, I know," Andi said. "But I can still wish—hold on, police scanner's got something." She paused to listen. "How close are you to Green Street?"

"Five minutes."

Bruce plunged from the building while Andi looked up the address.

"Alright, angle fifteen degrees west and you'll be right on it."

"What is it?"

"Apartment fire. Tall building, poor construction, filled with immigrants. Might be that it was just a fire hazard to begin with—"

"Or Deadshot."

"Exactly." Andi turned to another screen and pulled up schematics of the building as she spoke. "There's also the risk that Deadshot's set up a trap for you again, or is using this as a distraction while he goes after a bigger target."

Batman swung to a terrace, then used his grapple gun to get back up to the roof. "Azrael's around somewhere. He won't stop to help."

"Meaning he'll keep an eye on Deadshot if there's another target. Good thinking." Andi grimaced. She already knew what he would say, but she had to point it out. "But if it's a trap, he won't stop to help you, either."

"I know."

They were in sight of the fire now. Bruce's screen was still dark, but it was the fuzzy dimness of smoke, not night, and tinted with orange. He paused at the next rooftop to put a filter over his mouth.

"Can you still talk with that on?" Andi asked.

"No," he said, muffled but still understandable. Andi rolled her eyes, but he caught sight of the blaze before she could come up with a witty reply.

"That's not a fire. That's an… inferno," she said. The building was twenty stories and looked more like a torch than anything; the scoop taken out of one side suggested an explosion. Andi shook her head instead of allowing herself to stare. "Ok, firefighters are gathered on the other side of the building from this one, should be easy to avoid them. Head to the left, then—what are you doing?"

Batman didn't answer, but it was pretty obvious. He'd already circled around the building as she spoke, and as soon as they caught sight of the rescue crews, he dove.

Andi huffed but stayed quiet as he landed in front of one cluster of men, curious about what he would do once he was seen.

It didn't take long to find out. The chief turned around to snap an order and stopped in mid-word, staring. The rest of his ladder followed suit, and for several tense moments there was nothing but silence. For once, Andi was glad it was firemen and not the police, because it meant no one was armed. The men with the hose half turned, and Andi was worried they'd try to use that—body armor or no, it would knock Bruce back, maybe give him a serious injury—but there was a crash from the building, and they turned back to the fire.

Batman nodded towards the blaze. "We're wasting time."

"What do you want?" the chief asked. "You set this?"

"No. But I can get people out."

"Chief, you can't—"

"Quiet, Evans." The chief stared at Batman, trying to read him, but Andi could see the decision already made. Batman was right, they were wasting time, and the situation couldn't get much worse than it already was. "All of you, back to work, now!"

They obeyed, moving fast, and the second they were gone, the chief turned toward Batman again. "Stairs collapsed on floor fifteen. Three of my men still up there, maybe a dozen others. You think you can reach there?"

"Yes."

Bruce turned without another word, walking into an alley before shooting to the roof of another building with the grappling hook and moving to get a good angle on the building. "Oracle?" he asked.

"Got the blueprint of the building pulled up," Andi said. "I can tell you where to walk if the smoke's too thick. The suit's flame-proof, right?"

He just grunted, and Andi prayed that that was a 'yes.' "I'm sending the architectural information over to Todd," she said. "He's got a sim program, meant to show how different damage to the Tumbler or other vehicles will affect them. I bet he can MacGyver it into giving us information on the apartment's structures, too."

"To figure out if it was arson?"

"To figure out when it will collapse. We need to warn the firefighters—and you—when it's time to get out."

"Get on it. I've got this."

"Don't worry about it," Andi said, fingers already flying over the keyboard. "I can walk you through at the same time."

"Losing your legs make you more of a badass?"

Andi swallowed and reminded herself this was no time to be thin-skinned. "I'm typing numbers and watching a dot on a screen. It's not like I'm a super-hacker or something."

He grunted again and dove.

Andi had expected to have to walk him through the apartments, searching for victims; instead, no sooner had he crashed through the windows than the family inside all but threw themselves on him.

The mother was screaming over the roar of the fire, speaking what Andi thought might be Mandarin—damn it, where was Bruce's translation software?—but that didn't seem to be a problem because Batman shouted something back in the same tonal language and she backed off. The camera stopped shaking around as much, at least. A second later, though, and the woman shoved something at his chest, forcing him to either accept it or let it drop.

A baby.

"Batman," Andi said quietly. "The firemen are estimating there are a dozen people left up there, plus their own guys. To fly them one by one out of the building—you don't have that kind of time."

He didn't answer, so Andi did the only thing she could; finished and sent off her message to Fox so she could figure out what kind of time he did have. She kept half an eye on his screen as she worked, watched him root out the firefighters and other families, order everyone up to the roof.

The smoke rose on Bruce's cameras, made it almost impossible for them to see. It looked like he was crawling, staying as beneath the smoke as possible, and judging by the wails coming through over the sound of flames, he held the baby. The family he'd met was pounding on their neighbors' doors, collecting the people who were left.

"Oracle," he snapped, "directions."

"To the roof?" Andi swallowed back her questions. "Uh—ok, twenty feet forward, take a right, fifteen feet, and there'll be a service door on your right."

The computer beeped at her, and Andi tore her eyes from Bruce's screen again to look at Fox's message.

"Whatever you're doing, hurry it up. Todd says we've got maybe eight minutes."

"Tell the firemen."

Oh. Right. Sure, she'd just stand up and walk over to them, then.

Break down later. She didn't have time to feel sorry for herself. Andi grabbed the phone and a few seconds later, Gordon was getting her emergency access to the firefighter's radios while she turned on a voice distorter.

"Building collapses in six minutes," she said, knowing from old experience that they'd push the absolute limit of whatever she told them—"Evacuate in four."

She clicked off just before a roar came through Bruce's com, so loud her hand had halfway yanked out the earpiece before she stopped herself. Andi twisted to Batman's screen, her chair almost tipping over on the cave's uneven floor—

He hadn't fallen through the roof, though, and the building hadn't exploded underneath him either. Instead, the Tumbler was parked next to him, the hatch open and he packed the family with the baby inside.

"Ok, that'll help," Andi said. "But that's still only three at a time and—"

He darted around to a hatch on the back and hauled out what looked like a bunch of cables. "You know why this was built?"

"It was supposed to be a—a bridging vehicle, wasn't—oh!" Andi watched as he dropped electromagnets to anchor the ropes to the top of the building. "But Todd said he never got it to work."

"Had a free weekend." He pressed a couple buttons on a remote, and the Tumbler revved up, accelerating across the roof until it jumped buildings with a burst of fire. The cables flew behind it, like the tail of a kite…

…And stayed anchored as the fire died and the Tumbler landed on another apartment. Bruce pressed two more buttons and the cables snapped taut, forming a rope bridge.

The others were already up on the roof, now that she looked—Batman must have alerted them as he got out, or they'd come up here to escape the smoke—and he ushered them onto the bridge with brusque efficiency. Two—four—eight of them, plus two of the firefighters, one carrying an elderly man on his back.

"Are there any others?" Andi asked.

"Last firefighter's checking."

"He'll have to figure out the bridge on his own. Get out of there."

"Can't. I have to destroy the bridge now so the Tumbler doesn't go down with the building. Can't leave him stranded."

Andi somehow kept herself from banging her head on the desk. The last of the civilians had made it across by now, but—

"Fine. Stay on the roof. I'll get on his radio, tell him to meet you here. If you wander back in there, there's no way you'll find him in time."

Bruce let the cables release as the last person made it over. Batman would have to carry the fireman down personally. Andi thought of how much muscle the guy probably had and flinched; hopefully the wings would hold them.

"Come in," she said into the radio, and glanced at the firefighter's name on her computer. "Uh, Ash—" A fireman named Ash? Really? "—come in."

No response but static, and then—

"Who is this?"

"Not important. You've got two minutes to get to the roof before the building collapses. Got any civilians with you?"

"No. Floors are evacuated."

"Then get up there."

She clicked off and waited in tense silence with Batman. Without cameras or trackers there was no way to see if Ash would make it, or if he even trusted her message enough to obey; there was nothing to do but wait.

"How precise is the timing?" Batman asked with forty-five seconds left and no sign of the firefighter.

Andi stifled a split-second impulse to lie. "Without knowing what started this, not very, so I played it safe. Todd says he could be as many as six minutes early."

Batman didn't answer and, as the seconds ticked away, Andi didn't try to persuade him to give it up. She knew he wouldn't listen. At least the firemen had made it out in time.

"Five seconds," she said. "Four… three… two… one… You're on borrowed time, here."

Not so much as a twitch. They both stared at the door, waiting, as the building began to shake under them.

One minute over. Two minutes. Andi called Ash's radio again and got no response. What the hell had happened down there?

And then Ash stumbled out, hauling an unconscious, preteen boy over his shoulder. His eyes and the Batman's met, and Andi knew what they were both thinking. No way could Batman get all three of them down.

"Here," Ash said, shoving the boy at Batman. The building buckled at that moment, sent all three of them to the ground.

Batman grabbed the kid in one arm, then reached out and yanked Ash to his feet, the three of them stumbling like drunks to the edge of the roof.

"Batman, you know there's no way…" Andi began, but the building gave a roar like an angry dragon and she cut off.

"Hold on," Batman bellowed at Ash, and for a crazy second, she thought he was going to try and jump, kill all three of them—

—But then he fired his grapple gun at the corner of the building, shoved it into Ash's hands, and pushed him off, swinging on the rope. Batman waited until he was clear, then leaped from the building, spinning as he tried to keep his grip on the kid and the wings at the same time. Andi couldn't see it, not with his eyes focused on trying to fly to safety, but the orange flared around them, there was a sound so loud that her com shut it out, and the building collapsed.

"Shrapnel!" she shouted, but Bruce couldn't hear, of course he couldn't hear, the com was broken, too much noise—

He went from free-fall to glide in a split second, then snapped forward, broke through the windows of the building across from them. A horrible second of skidding and tumbling and he was flat on the ground, kid pinned and protected under him.

The silence was the worst.

Andi knew he was still alive—the camera was moving, and she had the suit monitoring his heart and respiratory rate. But she couldn't hear him, and he couldn't hear her. She didn't know if he realized that, though, if he was trying to call her for help…

Batman finally moved, checked the kid over for injury and left him on the floor of the evacuated apartment he'd broken into. He walked into the hall, eyes darting around like he was looking for something—cameras, most likely—and then he tugged off the mask. Andi saw him rip out the electronics from his earpiece, and put in a new one.

"Oracle? Do you copy?"

"I'm here." For once Andi didn't bother to protest the name. Bottled up relief and adrenaline broke loose, and she realized her hands were shaking on the chair's armrests. How long had it been since she'd breathed?

"Um. You might want to get Ash. Not sure how long he can hold on to the grapple and the others might not know how to pull him up."

Batman didn't answer, but started to move to the top of the building. Andi took the respite to mute her end of the com and take several deep, shuddering breaths. When that wasn't enough, she started to talk him, knowing he couldn't hear her.

"I thought you were going to die," she said in a small voice. "I thought you were… I couldn't have done more if I still had my legs. I know that, but to only be able to sit here, miles away and watch you…"

Her fingers scratched into her legs, whether to find sensation or punish them for being broken, she didn't know. "I hate this. I really, really hate this."

"What's the police scanner say?" Bruce asked. Andi snapped her mouth shut, swallowed, and turned her com back on.

"Let me—let me check."

"Are you—"

"I'm fine, and it's none of your business, thanks," Andi snapped. She paused, listening to the police radio.

"Firemen made it out. Not sure how many people were left in the building, but not many. Fire's spreading to apartments on the other side of the street, but I don't think there's much you can do there—it's under control, the rescue workers can handle it better than you. Oh. Sounds like the others you sent onto the roof have gotten Ash up."

"Time to go, then." He changed direction, pulled open a window on the other side of where the fire was, and prepared to jump.

"The Tumbler? Your grapple?"

"Grapple can self-destruct. Tumbler's autopilot will get her away when I call."

Andi huffed. "All this because you can't take a simple 'thank you.'"

He didn't dignify that with an answer, just soared off with the dark, brooding silence that was as much a part of him as the mask and cape.

"You did good out there."

"Well. I did well out there."

"Oh, excuse me." Andi rolled her eyes and took another sip of coffee. "Some of us grew up in the Narrows, not with English butlers to correct our grammar."

Bruce gave a slight smile, and they sat in silence for a bit. Sunrise must be just beginning, the earliest tinges of orange hitting the waterfall.

"Think it was Deadshot who did it?" Andi asked.

"I was about to ask you the same question."

Andi shrugged. "Could have been," she said. "But I don't think so. Fox's model of the collapse really makes it look like a ruptured gas leak. For once, you got it easy—people you could save, everyone making it out. Good, old school heroics."

Bruce gave her a sharp look, but Andi knew she'd kept the bitterness out of her voice, and she emptied her coffee cup to avoid letting him see her expression.

"Well," she said. "I should probably get some sleep."

"After all that coffee?"

"Please. With how tired I am, I won't feel a thing." She tried to wheel her chair backwards, and got about two feet before her left wheel wedged in a dip. Andi bit her lip, but before she could make herself ask for help, Bruce had gotten to his feet too.

"Want me to push you to the elevator?" he asked, casual as if he hadn't noticed her trouble.

"Yeah. Thanks." Andi half-twisted in her chair so she could look at him as he went. "We really should smooth out the floors."

"I'll take care of it. Right after the homicidal maniacs are out of my city."

"Oh, so about five years, then?"

"Don't be too optimistic."

Alfred was waiting at the top of the elevator. Andi gave him a slight smile and reached behind her to remove Bruce's hands from her chair. "I'll let you two talk. Alfred, when you get the chance, I'm going to need some help with a skin check and a catheter change."

"You should stay and hear this, Miss."

It was only then that Andi noticed the TV on behind him. Alfred turned toward it too, but shook his head when he saw it was Skeeter reporting and decided to tell them instead.

"They discovered thirteen dead on the rooftop. Shot. Along with fifteen firefighters—all the ones you spoke with."

"Thirteen?" Bruce said. Andi could see that he was thinking the same thing he was: how many had they saved? Had Deadshot killed all—

"Two survivors. An infant on the roof and a young boy in an apartment building ten floors below. Perhaps a sign of mercy? Sparing the young?"

Bruce looked like he was considering it, then shook his head. "No," he said. "Sparing the two who didn't know how much Batman risked to save them. A baby and an unconscious boy. Can't turn me into a hero."

He nodded toward the TV, where Skeeter was trying to push past the paramedics to look at the bodies. "I took the chance to save some people, but that doesn't fit with the narrative Deadshot wanted. So he used the opportunity I left him to pin their deaths on me, and break the city down further at the same time."

"That's not all," Andi said. They both turned to look at her. "The first attacks, we thought he was just discrediting you and JP. But look past what he does to the three of us and focus on the city in general. There's a pattern to who he's attacked. Doctors and nurses, soldiers, firefighters. It's all vital personnel, all killed trying to do their jobs.

"People will be afraid to do their work now, especially the ones that keep Gotham from dissolving into anarchy. He doesn't need to be a flamboyant anarchist like the Joker to make Gotham break. He just has to take out its support structures."

Andi didn't want to say it, but once the thought get into her head, she couldn't make it leave.

"He's crippling the city until it collapses. Just like he did to me."

No one said anything. Andi blinked back tears, thinking of Ash, of that mother who had been so desperate to protect her son, the chief who had been willing to trust the Batman after everything, the other fireman who had known it was a bad idea. Of how Deadshot would have taken them out, one by one. An inescapable, painless, terrifying death. That was what she and Bruce had gotten them.

She looked out the windows. It was earlier than she'd thought; the sun wouldn't rise for another few hours, still. The waterfall had been reflecting fire, not sun.

Bruce put his hand on her shoulder, warm and solid and there, and they watched Gotham burn.

Author's Note (Part II): Wow, the response to last week's post was phenomenal! Thanks so much especially to those who've left anonymous reviews/PMs; I can't respond personally to y'all, but hearing your thoughts (good and bad) means a lot.

That being said... and I hate to do this to you guys now, but I'm going to have to delay the next post a bit. I'm starting my pediatrics work and moving apartments next Monday, so the next update will be two weeks from today instead of one week. Not sure yet if I'll be able to get back to the weekly pace after that or if I'm going to keep it at every other week, but I'll keep y'all posted, okay?