"Ow! Hey asshole that one hurt!" Alex complained, rubbing his leg where he'd been hit.
"Then don't get hit!" Barbara smirked, bringing her training staff up again.
It was past dark and the two were up on Alex's roof sparring with weapons, Barbara teaching him methods other than resorting to guns. Alex interpreted it as using guns, just without bullets in the chamber. Barbara had her staff and he had attached a rubber training bayonet to his IAR. He had initially charged her, hoping he'd be fast enough to get in a quick stab but she had just batted his rifle away and smacked him in the thigh rather hard with her staff.
"Oh, I'll get you, just wait." He said bringing the point of his bayonet up again.
They circled each other for a minute, he was going to let her make the first move this time. Barbara came at him with a jab intended for his stomach but he rolled out of the way, slashing the back of her knee as he did so. The strike had its intended effect and she went down to a knee giving him the opportunity to jam the rubber knife into her back, twisting it for good measure.
"Alright alright, get off me!" She protested as he placed his boot on her spine in triumph.
"Say the magic word."
"Ugh, please get off my spine." Barbara groaned and he removed his foot and offered his hand to help her up but instead of getting up she yanked him down with her and pinned him to the roof with her own boot on his chest.
"Ha ha, got ya!" She laughed to herself but he cleared his throat to get her attention. Barbara looked down to see that he now had his pistol in hand pointed towards her face.
"Actually, I still win." He declared, pulling the trigger and letting the hammer fall on an empty chamber resulting in a faint Click.
"Cheater."
"All's fair in war man."
"Whatever, I still had you."
"Yeah, well hand to hand aint my thing, I'd take a rifle over a melee weapon any day."
"You'll get the hang of it eventually." She tells him as his phone starts ringing.
"One sec." he says before answering his phone. He's on the phone for some time, no doubt receiving intel on another of Gotham's villains from his advisor. Eventually he hangs up the phone and turns back to his friend.
"Got some intel; apparently, some municipal workers were attacked by something while working on the cities plumbing in the sewers earlier today, command thinks its Killer Croc. I've got the location of where they were attacked."
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!"
"Just give me a minute to gear up and we'll go." He says, heading back inside the apartment.
Once inside he opens the large door to his armory and she follows him inside, looking around the room and taking note of everything inside. The room is slightly larger than the average bedroom, weapon cages line the walls and a single work table sits in the center. The weapons cages are filled with various weapons from compact handguns to large machineguns however one weapon isn't sitting in a cage, rather it's mounted on the far wall as if it's on display. It's an M16 series rifle, an older model from the looks of it, but what makes it stand out is that it has the words PROPERTY OF ARKHAM ASYLUM stamped into the lower receiver.
"That's the rifle I used to stop Joker from escaping Arkham." Alex said from behind her and Barbara realized she'd been staring at it for a while. "It was taken as evidence for the trial and handed over to my battalion as a thank you from Arkham afterwards were it sat in the commander's office, gathering dust. General Anderson had it brought here and mounted as a reminder of what I have to be willing to do."
"Doesn't it seem odd having it here, I mean it was part of a bad experience for you, wasn't it?" She asked and he just shrugs.
"Why? It didn't do anything, I did. That's just a piece of aluminum, steel, and polymer. It doesn't make decisions, I do, and I own my decisions."
"I wasn't judging, just thought it would bring up bad memories seeing it all the time."
"Thanks for your concern but I'm good and we should get back to the matter at hand."
"Right, finding Croc shouldn't be hard. Easy day, right?"
"Oh man you had to say it, didn't you?" He groaned.
...
"Easy fuckin day right!?" Alex shouted, reloading his IAR behind cover after firing off an entire mag.
Things hadn't gone exactly as planned. They'd gotten to the sewers just fine but apparently, they weren't the only ones after Croc. Soldiers in black uniforms were also down here and intent on getting to Croc before they did and they weren't too happy about them being in their way. Normally Barbara could handle the average armed thug but these guys were well equipped and had the training to effectively use their gear. Alex had asked his advisor if there were any other ops going on, thinking that they'd accidentally stumbled into another team, but General Anderson didn't know who these guys were either.
"We gotta get past these guys if we want to get to Croc first!" Barbara shouted over the gunfire at Alex, throwing a concussive batarang down the sewer at the soldiers moving towards them.
"I'll draw their fire, you move up and flank them!" He ordered, loading a drum mag into his weapon. He had been making good on his promise of not shooting anyone so far, even with live ammunition he had only fired to force the soldiers into cover so she could get in close and take them out of the fight.
Alex grimaced in disgust as he went prone in the murky water, deploying his weapons bipod to keep it stable as he fired. He held up his off hand and counted down to three with his fingers before opening up with his weapon, the muzzle reports echoing of the walls loudly in the enclosed space and forcing the Soldiers into cover while Barbara took a side route around. When she reached the soldiers they had split up, one group going further into the tunnels after Croc while the other stayed behind to hold them off.
There were only four of them trading fire with Alex as Barbara crept up behind the nearest one to her, taking him by surprise and knocking him out with a blow to the back of his head. She then moved onto the next one, relieving him of his rifle and throwing him into his buddy taking them both out of the fight. The last one caught on though, quickly turning on his heel and firing a hammer pair from his rifle at her chest, knocking her to the ground and taking the wind out of her. Barbara felt the Kevlar plates that made up her suit crack from the force of the rounds, the armor being made to absorb the energy of the average pistol round and not military grade munitions.
Barbara grabbed her chest and groaned as the soldier stood over her, rifle aimed at her head. He glared at Barbara and she could see his finger curl around the trigger of his rifle and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the muzzle flash. A shot echoed through the sewer but instead of having her brains blown to oblivion Barbara suddenly felt a heavy weight crash into her. She opened her eyes to see the soldier slumped over on top of her, Alex standing a foot behind where he had been a second ago with smoke emitting from his weapons barrel. Rolling the soldier off of her revealed a bullet wound through his forehead, killing the man instantly.
She couldn't help it, Barbara rolled over the other way and threw up into the murky water. She'd seen dead bodies before, hell she's seen people blown apart by a gunship, but this…this had been up close and personal.
"God, you killed him!" She cried.
"There wasn't any other choice, he'd have killed you if I hadn't." He explained. She knew he was right, but still it was unnerving.
"I…Your right, thanks." She said as he helped her up and examined her armor, thankfully it had taken the brunt of the damage but it would definitely need to be replaced.
"Come on we gotta move!" He urged, motioning with his weapon down the tunnel the other soldiers had gone down.
They followed the tunnel they had taken and found them just in time to see them forcing an enraged Croc into a metal cage with cattle prods. Alex didn't waste a second before firing at the soldiers, wounding two of them, but they had already succeeded in capturing Croc and were in the process of extracting him. Barbara threw another concussive batarang, scattering more of the soldiers and was about to throw another when she felt a sharp, burning, explosion of pain in her neck, causing her to drop and grab at her neck. The material that attached her cowl to the rest of the suit wasn't rated to stop bullets and as such whatever round hit had torn through it like wet paper. When she pulled my hand away Barbara saw that it was covered in blood and she quickly replaced it, panic setting in as worry that her carotid artery had been severed set in. Having seen her go down, Alex threw a fragmentation grenade down the tunnel to dissuade the soldiers from coming after them and raced over to her, pulling Barbara behind cover and out of the water.
"Let me see, let me see!" He shouted urgently and Barbara reluctantly removed her hand. She could feel more blood oozing out and Alex quickly replaced her hand before digging through his IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) for the needed medical supplies. Once the supplies were gathered he moved to remove her cowl, but Barbara quickly protested.
"I know you value your secrecy but if I don't get direct contact with the wound you will die!" He pleaded urgently with her.
Damn, this is so not how Barbara wanted Alex to find out she was Batgirl, if she ever had at all. Would he still trust her after learning the truth? Or would he think that she had befriended him just to spy on him, which admittedly, she had at first. But things were different now, Barbara genuinely valued his friendship and didn't want to lose it over this. Regardless of how she felt personally she knew he was right as she could still feel blood trickling out between her fingers and her vision was starting to get hazy so she reluctantly nodded for him to go ahead.
Surprise flashed over Alex's face and Barbara could hear him curse under his breath when her cowl was removed and face revealed but nevertheless he got to work, placing a gauze pad over the wound and wrapping a bandage over it and diagonally across her chest and back to hold the pressure. When he finished tying off the bandage he sat her up against the nearest wall and raised General Anderson on the radio.
"Overlord this is Knight, we lost the HVT, I have one friendly casualty standby for ZMIST, over."
"Roger, standing by."
"Z: Golf Bravo, one-nine-six-seven."
"M: Small arms fire."
"I: Gunshot wound to right side of neck."
"S: Possible arterial bleed, losing consciousness."
"T: Applied pressure via dressing, how copy?"
"Solid copy on all. Extract the casualty, we'll have medical teams on standby at home, over."
Alex replaced his radio and placed his hands on my shoulders, looking Barbara in the eyes.
"Hang on Barbara, I'm gonna get you outta here but I need you to stay awake for me, alright?" He calmly told her and she just nodded her head in response.
If he was angry with her she couldn't tell, he was too focused on her well being to care at the moment. He helped Barbara to her feet and draped her arm over his shoulders in an assisted carry just as she had done for him during his rescue.
"My cowl… can't have them see." Barbara muttered, extending an arm towards were it lay on the ground.
"Can't replace it now, it'll disturb the wound." Alex replied after retrieving it and storing it in one of the pouches on his uniform.
Ever the thinker he retrieved a black ball cap from his cargo pocket and placed it on her head, fitting it low so the visor covered the upper part of her face before carefully walking her back the way they came. Getting street level was another problem though, Alex didn't feel safe having Barbara climb the ladder herself so he went up first to reach down and help pull her out. He then rechecked the bandage on her neck to make sure it hadn't come loose before walking her back to the car and placing her in the passenger's seat.
Alex drove back to his apartment as quickly as he could, running through red lights and weaving through traffic it was a miracle the cops didn't pull him over. Barbara wasn't feeling that well though, she could feel her pulse under the bandage, and her vision blacked out several times as Alex raced to the awaiting medical team. He finally pulled up outside the apartment, tires screeching as he floored to a stop and jumped out of his seat not bothering to turn the engine off and gathered Barbara up in his arms before racing inside. It wasn't until they were in the elevator that she finally blacked out in his arms.
Easy day, right?
…Mission Complete…