All of the characters and story lines and everything else I can think of are the property of DC comics and the WB network. The only bits that're mine are the words and the voice.
Chapter 3: Maternal Instincts
Barbara zipped her fleece jacket more snugly around her neck as the damp breeze picked up a bit. Funny how you could be high enough not to hear all the city noise and still hear the foghorns out on the bay. Leaning her elbow on the low stone wall of the balcony, she watched the fog roll in off the water, softening the harsh edges of the factories and buildings which were New Gotham's skyline.
Concern for that poor, motherless girl crept over Barbara's thoughts, blunting her ever-present grief and pain as new emotions filled her heart. How alone that poor child must be feeling. Was she warm enough? What was she eating? Did she have a place to get out of the dampness and draught of nights like this one? Was she safe? Oh, God…had anyone…hurt her?
Was there anything, really, Barbara could do?
Who was she kidding…she hadn't a maternal bone in her body. She was all youthful impetuosity—a redheaded bundle of energy with the temper to go with the hair. She had a tendency to speak without thinking, to unleash her razor-sharp tongue and quick wit without enough thought to the consequences, and she was much too used to settling problems with her fists. These were excellent traits when dealing with the pond scum which made up New Gotham's underworld. In a mother…
No.
Some people had no business raising a child.
Sometimes, Barbara wished she were more like Dick…gentle and patient and soft-spoken, with an easygoing sense of humor about everything. He was a hell of a physical fighter, and he could also hold his own in an argument…but never once in all the years she had known him had she seen him reduce anyone to tears with a tongue-lashing, or hit anyone harder than was necessary. He fought hard, Dick did—that was without question…but he fought cool. He rarely allowed his passion to take him over in the heat of the moment, never inflicted unnecessary pain.
Really, if anyone should take in a kid, it should be Dick. Or even kind, patient Alfred. Anyone but Barbara, the Reigning Queen of Impatience. Sure, she could handle tough things like discipline, which threw most people for a loop when it came to kids…she'd been a teacher for long enough to know how to set limits and stick to them. The whole school knew better than to act up in Ms. Gordon's classes. But warmth and hugs and cookies and all that other stuff like tucking kids in at night and heart-to-heart chats about boys…forget about it! Barbara was just too much of a tomboy to carry off the whole Mommy image.
"Mommy Dearest" was more like it. She'd give it two weeks before she'd manage to reduce the poor kid to tears with some thoughtless, overly harsh comment. Poor girl'd already been through hell—she didn't need anybody to sic Barbara on her.
On the other hand…it was entirely possible that the "Mommy image" Barbara held in her head wasn't terribly accurate. She'd never really gotten to experience it firsthand. Barbara's own mother had died when she'd been pretty young, and Barbara's memories of her were fairly hazy…vague, warm memories of being tucked in at night, the aroma of cookies in the kitchen, a little song about a kitten from the ten-cent store, a prayer sung at bedtime, and being wrapped in a patchwork quilt and rocked all night in a big, old rocking chair the time she'd fallen out of the tree in the front yard and broken her arm and couldn't sleep for the pain.
This kid wasn't little, though…she was fifteen. Way too big for rocking chairs and songs about kittens. Maybe she didn't need a mother so much as sort of a mentor…like Bruce had been for Dick.
That much, Barbara figured, she could do.
