Thanks! Fun fact: The Killing Joke was one of the first comics I ever encountered randomly, at the age of nineteen. The faces I must have made while flipping through it at Borders Bookstore. I didn't buy it.
Chapter Six:
Reid was using a tablet to read up on superheroes in the dorms. Everyone else was exhausted from researching Gotham City and working out. Still, Reid couldn't rest his mind. Too much to think about.
As it became close to midnight, Reid decided to get some tea to try to settle down, mentally. As he walked to the kitchen. He saw Dinah banging on a keypad, with Helena by her side, along with Dawn, another winged superhero, who went by the name Dove.
"Come on Babs!" Dinah said. "Open up!"
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Babs is in the training room," she said. "She been in there since five. We're worried she knocked herself out."
"She also reprogrammed the door, so that it won't respond to us," Helena said.
Reid didn't know what possessed him to step forward in that moment. He took a step towards the door, and the door responded to him.
"What the Hell?" Dinah said.
Reid walked in, and the door closed behind him. He didn't know why the door worked for him, but he was determined to help.
Barbara was in a corner with special Eskrima training posts collapsed upon her. She was out of her chair and hugging her legs, underneath everything. Her hair covered her face. It was a heartbreaking sight.
"In the comics, do you see me naked?" she asked, without looking at him.
Reid pushed the posts off of her.
"In ways that are appropriate for a comic, so nipples and other sensitive areas aren't shown."
"Did my dad get the same treatment?"
"It was a terrifying sight. The comic was intended as a standalone. It wasn't supposed to affect continuity. It felt real, the emotions I felt, for you and your father."
"The love of his life, Sara dead, my brother becoming a sociopath, and me. Why did it have to end this way for him?"
"I don't have easy answers," Reid said as he pushed the lost post off of her.
Reid took a seat beside her.
"After being saved from Two-face, your father had a conversation with Batman about how he tried to flee Gotham before No Man's Land. He talked about how no precinct would take him seriously because he got help from a man who dressed as a bat. They laughed in his face. He wondered if Batman was laughing at him too."
"Is this supposed to make me feel better?" she asked. "That the only job he could get was in Gotham and work with Batman?"
"In response, Batman began to take off his cowl. Your father turned around before he could finish. Your father is the only cop who has name recognition. Whenever they cast a new movie, they ask who's play Batman, Alfred, and your father. He's a hero in his own right, Barbara."
Barbara looked up, and pushed her hair away from her face.
"I don't know what I'm doing. I agreed to move my base to Gotham for a few months while he did stuff for the Justice League. It's going to be six months next week. The bat family had tried projecting control, but criminals only take notice when Batman is in town."
"Are you mad at Batman?"
"Yes and no. It could have happened with him in town. I've also seen the way he goes ballistic when my dad gets hurt. He's not useful when he gets that upset."
"That's a very pragmatic approach," he said.
"I try," she said.
"You don't always have to try. You can be human for a moment."
She gestured to herself.
"That's what this was. Me exploding and being emotional."
"You can do more if you want to," he said. "I'm here right now."
She looked at him.
"You know, the thing I like the most about you, isn't your intellect. It's your heart. The fact that you nearly got fired for saving a bullied kid. One of the first things you did when you woke from the anthrax attack, was ask about one of the victims you met. Your love of magic, and performing for kids. How sweet you are. You deserve to find love someday, Spencer."
"You know about the confession."
"I told Garcia you needed a new showrunner. The writing in that episode was contrived."
"I don't know what to do about the situation," Reid said looking at the sky through the window. "I'm supposed to have all the answers."
"You never know," she said. "Your show could get the ax, and then it will be up the fan fiction writers to come up with how you get your happily ever after."
He smiled in spite of himself. Barbara was smiling in spite of herself to. She opened her arms, and Reid took that as an opening to hug her.
They sat in silence. A green light was moving across the sky.
"A plane?" he said.
"Military helicopter, probably," she said. "They're monitoring the situation. No one wants another No Mans Land, but rumor is, the National Guard might take over control."
The green light suddenly grew larger. It was heading directly towards them. Reid used his body to cover Barbara as much as possible.
The windows above shattered.
"I ordered shatter-proof glass," Barbara muttered.
Reid looked at what fell through the window.
"Spencer Reid, you have been chosen to be the new Green Lantern for Earth."
It was a ring, levitating towards him.