Chapter 5

March 25, 2010:

"I'm going to do a Master's in Forensic Science." There, she'd said it. Bruce's fork was held midway as he looked up from his plate. His mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Barbara flinched.

"Where?" The fork was lowered with such slowness, it was agonising to watch. Barbara wondered why she did anyway. She certainly couldn't look at his face, at those eyes.

"Michigan State."

"I see."

"The acceptance letter came yesterday... I leave in the fall." 'No Barbara', she told herself, 'Get a grip. This was going to happen sooner or later, heck, you want it to happen, don't get cold feet now'.

"Congratulations. I'm very happy for you." The deadened syllables falling from his lips seemed like the gavel of a judge passing the death sentence.

As Alfred came to serve up the next course, Barbara suddenly found her appetite gone. It wasn't meant to be this way. Bruce would have been surprised, perhaps, not emanating this hostility. She had applied on a whim the previous winter after seeing a flyer pinned up at Gotham City Police Headquarters, and thought nothing about it. When the interview came around, she considered letting Bruce know, but figured he had been so busy fighting battles in the corporate world through the day and infiltrating the many emerging gangs by night that it could always wait. Now the acceptance letter was sitting snug in her jacket pocket, and rejection was staring her in the face.

Bruce got up abruptly. Apparently his appetite not faring much better than hers. She could only follow in silence as he made his way to the bookcase entrance of the cave, giving the nonplussed Alfred an apologetic look as she passed out of the dining area. He had already changed into his uniform by the time she reached the bottom of the steps, an alert blinking on the computer screen. Barbara hastily changed as well, jumping into the Batmobile just before Bruce was about to click the door shut. The silence in the Batmobile was perhaps even more unbearable than that at the dinner table as they sped through the night.

"Bruce, I –"

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Like he couldn't have found out for himself. Barbara immediately felt ashamed at having thought that. It would be a low blow, to suspect that he followed her doings like a rabid dog. She would not have been surprised though, judging from the many files and databases he had amassed of allies and enemies alike.

"I didn't know how you'd react, and I didn't know how to.."

"So you chose to compromise the Mission."

What?

"The Mission? Don't go talking to me like some commander in chief. It's only going to be a year, Bruce."

"A lot can happen in a year."Alright, that much was true. They'd watched the near wipe out of the entire planet happen just last year. Then Bruce had not come home for days, and when he did he was unshaven and with a bone weariness that he ignored, changing swiftly into Bruce Wayne to attend a conference. Now he was ignoring her, using old maxims like some general forcing his dispirited troops onto the field. It was infuriating. Couldn't he understand that with the whole criminal underworld on a bright revamp along with new Gotham, it was her duty to do all she could to fight it on the frontlines, through the system?

"I'm part of Gotham's police force, Bruce. This, this 'Mission you keep going on about-"

"Is the only thing that matters."

"There are proper channels for Law and Order to be executed, Bruce! It's not just your holy war." His head tilted towards her, jaw set, and she knew in that instant the words he would utter next. 'No Bruce, don't say it. Don't-'

"I thought we shared the same goals." That voice, once so caring, was now edged like granite.

He had got even more obsessed with getting rid of evil in Gotham after the Joker's demise, and she had been there with him, just as determined. No one should have had to suffer like Tim had, and it was now his sobs that wrecked her nights and left her waking in the dark, beaded in sweat and clutching the bed sheets. Bruce had seemed demon possessed, as if trying to wash off the stain of their failure. Three months after Tim's rescue and he had run himself ragged. They had been trying to avoid the bullets of Rupert Thorne's henchmen as they prevented an arms trafficking deal, when a spark accidently fell on a box of explosives.

She had thrown herself on Batman without a second thought, who a moment later launched the grapple line to pull them out of danger. But his balance had been thrown off, and misjudging the angle of approach, they had tumbled through the derelict warehouse, landing with her resting on top of him, one hand on his shoulder, the other just below the symbol that expanded and contracted with each breath he took. He had been dazed by the impact, so much so his hand went up to her face as he whispered, "Are you alright?" and at her tentative nod, moved it behind the back of her neck and brought his lips up to hers.

That was when their dance started in earnest. No longer the side stepping that had been there from her earliest days with a school girl crush on the mysterious Dark Knight. The New Dynamic Duo, they were now dubbed by the press, and truly, if the news reel clippings were anything to go by, it was as if they were ice skating on a rink instead of taking down criminals, more in sync than ever before. It was like magic, even with the rapidly disappearing relations between Bruce and Tim.

There was no such dance this night. Bruce was silent through the stake out, completely ignoring her. If she hadn't been so in tune with his actions, she would've missed the slight shift in his cape that meant he was moving in. Another Thorne heist, by the looks of it. Simple, they'd watch each other's backs as usual, take out the nearest thugs with Batarangs... only Bruce wasn't acting as if he wanted anyone watching his back, swiftly moving among each henchman to disarm them, delivering blows with more force than necessary. Distracted by the change in dynamics, Barbara failed to notice the gun in the hands of the terrified gangster behind her before he shot. She tried to dodge, but went down with a cry, clinging to her shoulder in pain.

It was only a deep graze, barely requiring stitches. Barbara didn't understand why she was still crying, perched on the edge of the surgical table in the cave. Bruce had been efficient, too efficient. His methodical, perfunctory manner in cleaning and patching up of her wounds cut more deeply than the bullet had. When he was done, he looked her straight in the eye for the first time that evening since she'd told him the news, and told her to leave her uniform behind, for good.

"You will not need it any longer," were his words. So now she was sobbing, long after he had turned and walked up the stairs out of the cave.