Title: Twice Shy
Chapter Completed: May 19, 2004
"Bruce I need you're help. Bruce, on the Joker escape, I could use a little help. Bruce, I…" Barbara sighed. She couldn't find the right way to ask for help and admit that she was stuck. She had been practising for the whole drive from her apartment to Wayne Manner and was no where closer to a solution, even if she had just pulled into the circular driveway. She let out a long sigh and rested her head against the steering wheel. This was going to be tough, a blow to her pride, but had to be done.
Taking a deep breath Barbara pushed herself out of the car and up to the massive mansion doors. Ringing the bell to announce her arrival.
She waited with apprehension before the visitor's call was answered.
"Miss Gordon," Alfred Pennyworth, the fatally loyal Wayne butler and keeper of secrets, greeted as he opened the door.
"Alfred," she smiled at the elderly man as he let her in, "Is Bruce around?" she casually cast her eyes around the grand entry hall.
"Yes. Masters Bruce and Dick are downstairs," he gave her an apprehensive glance, "I expected you to be there with them."
She raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"They are going over the Arkham escape," the butler continued, he always had a way of knowing everything that went on under this roof. But of course that was his job.
"Are they now," Barbara fought to keep her angry in check: She felt hurt and betrayed. She huffed a hot breath, careful not to attack the messenger, "Guess I'll go see them…" She turned quickly on her heels to the silver closet-Batcave door.
Alfred dutifully nodded, but a small smile struggled on his face. Sometimes Master Bruce needed to bare the blunt of his indiscretions.
Barbara snuck down the stone path into the Batcave, although even if she had made a big fuss about her entry the pair of men wouldn't have noticed. They were engrossed by the large computer screens, each one plastered with dossiers on the Joker and one of Sara 'Star' Adams. The Joker's criminal profile was splattered across the oversized computer screens like his ruby smile on his pale face. It began with his infamous plunge into an acid bath and ended with his latest incarceration into Arkham. A path lined with murder, robbery and insane laughter. The Clown Prince's career was pilled out, but all those in attendance knew the story by heart.
On the other screen was the smaller and far more obscure life of Sara Adams in a small collection of newspaper articles and medical files. The vast abilities of the Batman had even managed to gain access to school transcripts and the name of her childhood pet – as if that had any baring on her springing the Joker from the asylum. But two things were highlighted for reference; the night Billy attacked her and the 'accidental' deaths of Deceptive Allen and Billy Young.
Barbara's eyes widened, they were covering her case without her. They didn't think she could do it.
"There's obviously a deranged tendency in her character," Bruce spoke to Dick, carefully pointing out lines in her metal evaluations from the confidential files. He spoke with authority as his student nodded along. "She is drawn to men who give off an air of deranged power. Which is why she has connected herself to the Joker of all the inmates."
Barbara felt her blood boil, how quickly he labelled Sara without ever knowing her pain, or having spoken to that scared girl on the roof.
Sara stood in front of her, eerily clam for a woman who just stepped off the literal edge. "Don't you hate it? The way these men take you and use you anyway they see fit? To hell with what she thinks or feels. It's for your own good he says, trust him he says. After all he has the power, he's the man. He can use you anyway he sees fit." She stared at her with a strange knowing, like she could see everything that was inside of Barbara's head, "And what does the Batman do to you?"
"She also has delusions about all men using her," Bruce continued, "as a result of her rape she sees all men as Billy Young's. And for this reason she doesn't trust men."
"I wouldn't call that a delusion," Barbara spoke up from her place in the shadows, her arms crossed defensively over her chest, "I'd say that is dead on!"
"Barbara?" Bruce looked at her with a flash of surprise as if she had no place there at all.
"Sorry to crash you're little party," she couldn't hide the hurt tone of her voice. She was angry and hurt at the same moment: raging now with the things Sara had said to her spinning in her head.
Dick looked nervously between his two partners in crime fighting. He could feel the animosity growing between the two at that moment, and usually the problem was between him and Bruce.
"Babs," he plastered a smile on his face, moving to greet her.
She acknowledged him with a curt nod but moved away from his touch, "What are you two doing?"
"Going over the players in the Arkham escape," Bruce replied in his best Batman voice.
"Without me," She glared back at him, "You know I was called in for this."
"Thought you could use the help," he turned back to the Batcomputer, intending on going back to analysis.
"Help?" She snapped, "You've cut me out! Tell the truth Bruce, you don't think I can do this."
"You're right," he turned sharply to face her, "I don't think you can do this alone. The Joker is dangerous and this Star is unstable. You need the help!"
"You call THIS help?!"
"You're too close to this, you're the one that sighed Sara into the psychiatric hospital in the first place without telling me. You're just lucky I haven't forbidden you from this all together," by now Dick's presence was all but forgotten by both the Bats.
"You really do think I'm just some girl! Poor and helpless and incapable," she spat at him. "You can't just do anything you want to me, you know!"
Bruce just stared at her, surprised at the outburst from the usually level-headed member of the team.
"I'll prove it to you," she continued calmly, "I want you to stay away from me and this Arkham escape. If I even see you on it…" She let the threat hang there and turned away from him, storming out of the cave.
Bruce just stared off in the direction she went. "I want you to follow her," he finally acknowledged Dick was there.
"But she doesn't want anyone too…" he pathetically replied.
"Then don't let her see you…" he replied turning to face the other member of his team to convey the seriousness of his order, "It'll be a good time to practise your sleuthing."
xxx
Barbara sat heavily in her car, emotionally drained. But she was going to show him, prove herself. She was going to prove to him that they were different than he thought, both herself and Sara. There was more to all this than some computer files gathered through mediocre hacking.
She let out another cleansing sigh and started the car, she had a lot of tracking to do and no clue where to start.
Barbara was so involved in the inner workings of her mind that she didn't see the moving shadow creep from the mansion after her.
