"There, see? I saw you home, and now I'll be on my way. A promise is a promise."
"Alright, Dick," said Barbara with a smile and a gentle sigh, "Thank you, although you really didn't have to see me back. I do know how to get home."
"I know you do," said Dick gently, his hand resting lightly on the right handlebar of her wheelchair. Despite the biting cold over Gotham that kept inactive muscles on edge, her forearms were getting tired. She wheeled up the pavement to the gate by her family home.
"Well," she said, turning towards him at the gate. "Obviously, this is me."
They stood there in the cold, illuminated by the first pale and sickly rays of daylight. Despite having said their goodbyes, neither of them were ready to move. It was an uncomfortable pause.
"Right." Dick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He knew it was getting into the early hours of the morning, and it wouldn't do for Nightwing to be seen in public: especially not if he was anywhere near the Police Commissioner's house.
It was fortunate that they both had such acute hearing, because they both noticed the scratching of the key in the Gordons' front door. Before Barbara could even hiss a warning at her team-mate, he had hopped up onto the rickety fence and before the rotting wood gave way he sprung towards the drainage pipe mounted on the outside wall. She prayed that the structure would hold fast as Dick placed his foot on it, and leaned upwards. The outside bedroom window was open barely an inch. Dick squeezed his fingers into the gap and pried it wide open before slipping inside like a shadow.
"Barbara?"
Oracle turned her chair towards the front door, her wheels and her eyes rolling. "I'm sorry, Mom. I was hoping you and Dad were sleeping. What are you doing up so early?"
"I could ask the same of you, young lady." Sarah Gordon folded her arms across her chest. The skin on her arms was hanging loose where the muscle was beginning to waste.
"Go inside Mom, before you freeze." Barbara began to wheel her way up the pathway to the door. Her mother hurried out and positioned herself behind her daughter, taking the handlebars and pushing her in.
The inside of the house was as warm as it was in summer, and Barbara silently thanked her father's income. They were one of the few households she knew of that were able to keep their heating maintenance bills up to scratch. She could smell in the air the aroma of meat cooked to tender perfection: her father must not have made it home in time for dinner.
"Is Dad home?" she asked, wondering if he had stayed late at the office. Very late at the office, in fact.
"He's upstairs, sleeping like a baby." Sarah sighed. She could never quite achieve the depths of sleep to which her husband was now happily confined.
A lump appeared in Babs' throat. If Dick made too much of a noise up there, he would give himself away. She didn't want to have to explain why she was concealing her ex-fiancé in her bedroom. It had been hard enough having to move back into her parents' home after the raid on her apartment building some months back. The combination of her mother's horror when she found out that her daughter's home was to become part of the newly-dubbed 'Arkham City', along with City Hall's long unfulfilled promise to find her a new accessible apartment had been enough to press Babs into taking the spare room at her parents'. Luckily, the old Bell Tower was still hers, and at least this way she was slightly closer to it.
"I might go on up and change." She wheeled out of the hallway, and headed towards the small lift cubicle that had been installed for her visits. At least the City council had paid for something, she thought.
"Do you want anything to eat?" Sarah was on her way to the kitchen. "Your father wasn't hungry last night, so you can always have meatloaf for breakfast." She chuckled at the idea.
As much as Barbara's stomach objected, she guessed she had better eat something. She hadn't had anything since lunchtime yesterday. Quite often her work was so absorbing that the sheer density of it weighing on her mind would suppress her appetite.
"I'll have something when I come down," she promised, shutting the small door of the terminal and pressing the 'Up' button.
She opened the door of her room to find Dick sitting politely on the end of her bed, like a patient guest at a dinner party. His Nightwing uniform was nowhere to be seen.
She extended a finger and shook it at him. "You've got some nerve, Dick Grayson-"
"There was nowhere else to go!" he hissed, raising his arms in a shrug. "I saw your window was open, so I took the opportunity." He stood up, walked over to the window and closed it again. "As a matter of fact Babs, if I were you, I wouldn't leave this window open at all. If I can get in, imagine who-"
"Yes," she seethed through her teeth, "Thank you, Dick."
Dick went and sat down on the edge of the bed again, deflated. "I'm sorry. You're going to think this is all so contrived. That I accompanied you home so I could sneak in your room."
Despite her frustration, Babs laughed. She wasn't really angry with Dick. She could pin her annoyance down to being tired and hungry, but any residual anger died before it could find its feet.
Dick was gazing around at the room; the barren walls, the plain drapes, the simple bedding. "I like what you've done with the place."
She knew he was only joking, but his comment brushed against a nerve. She couldn't bring herself to change much of her parents' spare room. Although she was a guest, she felt like an intruder: her poor parents had already had their daughter move out once, and now she was back again, disrupting any time they had to enjoy the fruits of their long marriage together without the distraction of children.
"Babs," Dick began, and from his nervous tone she could sense what was coming; "Why don't you come and stay with me for a while? Or Bruce, perhaps," he added as a reluctant afterthought. "Only if you want to, of course. It's always an option if you fancy a bit of, uh, privacy."
"Thanks," she said with a shake of her head. Her hair slinked down her shoulders like lounging snakes. "I'll consider it."
Deep down, she knew she probably wouldn't. While it was tempting to take either of her friends' offers, both were laden with possible pitfalls. If she went to stay with Bruce, the guilt of burdening him and Alfred would drive her wild, not to mention how Dick would suffer at the thought of his ex-fiancée living with his best friend. But if she stayed with Dick, they would spend the time edging politely around each other. At least with her parents, all she had to worry about was pretending to get home at a reasonable hour.
"I should really go." Dick shuffled towards her on the bed, disturbing her bedcovers. She could tell he was hanging on to the moment for as long as he could, and she tried to figure out if she was doing the same.
"And I need to change," she said, in a kind attempt to let him know that she wasn't just kicking him out.
Dick suddenly reached forwards, and took her by the hand. She looked up into his handsome, youthful face: lines of worry were beginning to form on his brow. His jet black hair fell habitually into his eyes. He always seemed to wait as long as possible to get it trimmed.
"Barbara," he said softly, looking into her eyes. She felt as if he was boring into her brain. "I don't want you to change. You know the way I feel about you, and I promised I would be patient." He thought for a moment before adding; "And I am." He paused, scanning her every facial nuance. "Aren't I?"
"Dick," she said, trying to hide the exasperated humour in her voice, "I meant my clothes. I need to change clothes."
Dick choked out a laugh. "Oh," he sighed, "Oh. I – I thought you meant – something else."
They both laughed softly, holding one another's hand. Barbara smiled up at him through her curls: the first smile she could remember enjoying for a long while. She was surprised the muscles in her face didn't spasm from the sudden effort.
"Maybe you're right, Dick." She looked away from him, unable to keep it up any more. "Maybe I could stand to be a little…less self-absorbed." She wasn't sure whether she aught to be saying this. She shouldn't stall Dick for much longer: he had things to do. Selfishness was a luxury she didn't believe she could afford.
"You're not self-absorbed." Dick's thumb idly caressed the back of her hand. She couldn't help but notice the warmth spreading from the inside of her ribcage, as if her heart was able to radiate heat, and she wondered if it was always this nice to have someone so near. And then, as if she was dropping down a unseen well in the ground, she remembered why she had sent Dick on his way: she knew why Bruce was becoming so drawn into himself, why he was short with everyone around him. She could imagine the bitter taste in his mouth and the pain in his heart, sprung from the loss of the woman that he loved.
Dick knew he really aught to go, but he was beyond thrilled that the normally emotionally measured woman in front of him was allowing him to hold her hand and caress it. He longed to reach out and tuck a strand of hair gently behind her ear, perhaps leading into a touch upon the soft pale cheek, followed by them both leaning forwards and gently kissing. Dick wasn't sure if he could kiss her gently: there was so much urgency contained in the very marrow of his bones that it threatened to push him forward and steal the kiss he was working so hard to secure. But maybe if he made the first step towards leaving, she would see how much he had matured.
He stood up slowly and reluctantly let go of her hand. "I'll let you get on with your day." No more I shoulds and we can'ts.
Barbara watched him reach under the bed for his backpack, and the warmth in her heart suddenly cooled and turned to a heavy substance like lead that threatened to tear it from its place in her ribcage, and send it plummeting through her body like a stone.
"Alright," she said quietly, half-listening for her mother downstairs.
Dick crossed to the windowsill and perched on the corner. He leant on the window until it opened as wide as it would go. A chill came blowing in; Barbara huddled her shoulders against it. Dick had to pretend he hadn't noticed, or he would run the risk of getting painfully close to her again.
"Promise you'll shut the window after I'm gone?" he asked.
Barbara nodded.
"And will you at least consider taking me up on my offer?" He swung one trousered leg out of the window and shuffled his rear towards the drop below.
"I will," she said, looking away. Perhaps she would consider it; especially if her mother kept up her nervous pattern of over-cooking and under-eating. It was obviously too much for her, having an extra person in the house to worry about as well as the stresses of an over-working husband. She hadn't really stopped to consider the whole picture before, and she was appalled at herself. It was no good watching Gotham like a hawk if she couldn't keep an eye on her own mother.
Dick noticed that she was looking idly at the door of her wardrobe, lost in her thoughts, so he took that moment to quietly slip away. He gripped the roof above him, and with a a graceful backwards somersault, he was up on the top of the building, and before he could stop himself he was gripping those roof tiles so hard in his grief and desire that they snapped off and crumbled in his hands. He looked down at the red dust on his palms and sighed, scattering it over his trousers.
Barbara came quietly out of her thoughts, but Dick had gone. At first she was bemused - how had he done that so quietly? – and then she was filled with something so overwhelming that it laboured her breathing.
She wheeled over the window and pulled it shut. Dick heard the closing of the window from three rooftops away, and he used it as a cue to propel his jump to the ground. He hit the pavement feet first with nothing but a crunch of gravel, straightened up and began to walk home, as if he had been just another pedestrian all along.
They are both such idiots, and they know it, mused Sarah Gordon, from her post a few inches from Barbara's door.