4. Alfred, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership

Barbara Gordon wasn't one who wished to be part of Gotham's high society. If anything, she might actually be a little prejudiced against them. Raised in a middle class home with a father very little inclined to seek the high and mighty, she could never have imagined that her life would be permanently linked to the Waynes.

Not long after the visit of the adopted Waynes to GCPL, Barbara was reached by Bruce Wayne himself. He called Barbara to ask her on the possibility of providing consulting services to Wayne Enterprises. According to him, his company was in need of an updated system of data protection, and his current contact with Barbara rendered her the best person for the task. Barbara agreed on a meeting to get a grasp of the overall situation and accorded on having lunch with him at Wayne Manor the following Saturday.

Bruce had offered one of the Wayne Enterprises' drivers to pick her up, but Barbara insisted on driving herself. At the appointed time, she parked her restored bright yellow 1967 VW Beetle at the mansion's front gate. She identified herself through the intercom and the large gate opened up for her. As she got out of the car in front of the main building, she saw its door open to reveal a lean older man that lacked hair in the top of his head. His formal attire led Barbara to conclude that he might be the Wayne's butler.

"Good morning, Doctor Gordon!" the man greeted her in an English accent as she began to climb the front steps.

"Good morning! I'm afraid I cannot be so kind to you as you were to me, since I do not know your name." Barbara smiled at him, and he returned her the smile while telling her his name was Alfred. Alfred Pennyworth. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Pennyworth!"

"Alfred, please. Mr. Pennyworth is my late father." He gestured her to go inside and led her to the living room, telling her to wait there for a moment while "Master Bruce" came down to meet her.

She sat there for a little while, observing the big portraits of many generations of Waynes. She looked back to the door of the room when she heard her name called. Tim stood there with a portable video game in his hands, wearing dinosaur claw slippers, grey sweatpants and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt. In his home outfit, he looked much more like the child he still was.

"Hi Tim!" She smiled and her face lit up at the sight of him. He seemed far shyer than the day they'd been talking in GCPL. He entered the room quietly, sitting by her side. "How have you been, Tim?"

"Good, Doctor Gordon. And you?"

"Me too. Have you progressed in your reading?"

"Yes, I did. I have now finished The Two Towers."

"How did you find it?"

"I really liked it!" His shyness started to go away. "And Gimli has become my favourite character."

"Oh, I love Gimli. Which is interesting, because I really disliked the dwarves in The Hobbit."

"Me too! They were so mean to Bilbo, and had no sense of personal space!"

"I know!"

Tim was about to speak again when Bruce Wayne's imposing figure came into the room. "Good morning, Doctor Gordon! I see you are very punctual."

"I try."

"I'm sorry I wasn't." Bruce turned to his son, "And I see you have already begun to bother Doctor Gordon!" He wasn't really scolding the boy; his tone was a teasing, but affectionate one. Barbara felt like she was seeing a side of the man that he didn't really let out in public. Still, she was ready to defend her little friend.

"He wasn't bothering me. We were actually discussing our literary analysis of classic literature." She winked at Tim.

"Oh, really? And pray tell me which classic you were discussing!" He still looked at the boy, using the same tone of before.

"The Lord of the Rings." Tim answered.

"Oh. Well, I can't really deny the status of the work as a classic. Not when I have read it every year of my life since I was eleven." That was a confession that Barbara most certainly didn't expect from billionaire philanthropist playboy Bruce Wayne. Could the man be as much of a nerd as his son was?

"Oh well, then I guess this book really is old!" Tim had a mischievous look on his face as he addressed Bruce, who just crossed his arms and gave his son an outraged look.

"Weren't you supposed to have a brother and brother day with Dick?"

"Yeah, but he hasn't arrived yet, so..." Tim put his feet on the coffee table in front of him and went back to playing his video game. Now he looked very much like a teenager bent on annoying his parents, which was exactly what the situation was.

Footsteps could be heard in the corridor, and they were soon followed by "Where is the welcoming to the prodigal son who comes back home?!" Not long afterwards, Dick Grayson entered the living room, motorcycle helmet in a gloved hand, dishevelled helmet hair, black boots, dark blue jeans and a black leather jacket zipped up to his neck.

Barbara couldn't really help being astonished. She knew Dick Grayson was easy on the eyes, but this was something else. She had a hard time taking her eyes off of him. She just hoped her face wasn't giving her away.

Upon seeing Barbara, Dick smirked. "Hey Doc! If you wanted to see me again you could have just asked for my number the other day, there was no need to come to the old man's house looking for me!" While speaking he tapped Bruce's shoulder, who was still standing.

"Dick!" Bruce's tone was a reprimanding one now. However, he didn't have any time to scold his older son, for almost immediately Barbara answered on her own.

"Yeah, it would be easier, but not as fun as stalking you." And after a short pause, "Dick." Through her peripheral vision, she could see Bruce looking confused at his younger son. Meanwhile, Dick blushed profusely, being left speechless by Barbara once more.

Bruce was the first to break the silence, "So, where are you taking Tim? And I hope you're not planning on taking him on that motorcycle with you..."

"First of, it's not a motorcycle, Bruce. It's a Harley." He has a point, Barbara thought. Harleys are so much more than mere motorcycles!

Bruce couldn't care less, "You two are not going anywhere in this vehicle."

"Bruce, the other day, when you forgot to pick up your son, I was the one who got him at the library and brought him home. In this very same vehicle."

"That was different."

"You know what? You are right, Bruce." Dick put his better face of resigned, good boy on. "It was different. So, if you would be so kind as to borrow me the Ferrari, we'll be on our way." Bruce just raised and incredulous eyebrow at his older son. "Well," Dick continued, "the Porsche it is then!"

Barbara smiled in amusement. She most definitely didn't expect to see such a familial scene when she got out from home to come to Wayne Manor.

They were interrupted by Alfred's entrance. "Lunch is served, Master Bruce."

"Thank you, Alfred. We'll be there in a minute."

"Should I add places on the table for Master Richard and Master Timothy?"

"No, Alfred. There is no need. Dick is taking Tim out on a brother and brother day. It will be just Doctor Gordon and myself."

"Is the Doc eating here?!" Dick's blue eyes sparkled.

"Doctor Gordon and I are having lunch to discuss business. And you are going to take good care of your brother, which means no motorcycles."

Alfred looked slyly at Bruce from the corner of his eyes and went to the young man, handing him keys. "Here, Master Richard. The DB9 GT keys."

"Alfred!" While Bruce stressed over his Aston Martin, Dick hugged the family's butler looking like a child on Christmas morning.

When he was unwrapped from Dick's arms, Alfred turned to someone else, "Master Timothy, you probably should put some shoes on. I don't believe dinosaur claw slippers are very fitting to any other environment than one's home." Tim obeyed at once, and Alfred followed the boy. As she heard them going up the stairs, Bruce remembered something, going after them. Barbara could hear him climbing the steps saying something about a jacket.

With the two of them left alone, Dick sat down in front of Barbara and said, "Sorry about the ruckus."

Smiling, Barbara said, "Nah, I had a great deal of fun seeing you rich people having the same arguments that we, the poor, have. Except for the whole Ferrari-Porsche-Aston Martin debate. We'd be debating over taking daddy's Volvo or public transportation." He laughed at that, a big smile remaining on his face once the laughter stopped. Barbara became very aware of how beautiful he looked smiling, and unconsciously made a mental note to get him to smile more.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, what is the business you and Bruce are discussing?"

"The upgrade of Wayne Enterprises' data security system."

Dick made a displeased face and shook his head. More to himself than to Barbara, he said in a low tone, "Only Bruce to invite a beautiful woman to have lunch with him to discuss data security systems..."

"Excuse me?" Barbara lifted an eyebrow.

He blushed a little. "Uh, it's just that, you know, it's a beautiful day outside, and, uh, Bruce is making you spend it indoors, working..." The more he talked, the redder he got. Adorable! Barbara just nodded, looking at him knowingly while he fidgeted with his helmet.

Before an awkward silence grew between them, Barbara decided to make small talk, "If you don't mind me asking, what are you majoring in?"

"I got my undergraduate major in Romani studies. I'm in Law School now." He smirked at the surprise in her face. "What? I'm more than just a pretty face." His flirty tone was back.

Disconcerted, Barbara said, "I, uh, I just thought you were still an undergraduate, that's all." She held her head down, looking at her hands, for she was sure that the flush in her face was clearly visible.

Almost immediately, Tim came back into the living room, perfectly geared up with trainers and a jacket, Bruce right behind him. The four of them said their goodbyes – Dick making some more flirty remarks at Barbara – and as soon as his sons got out, Bruce led Barbara to the dining room.

After apologising for his family interference and his eldest son's flirty behaviour, Bruce proceeded on explaining to Barbara why he wanted her as a consultant, "A few years ago, one of my company's employees was arrested for insider trading. Drury Walker was an excellent collaborator of the IT department, and, as I came to discover later, a brilliant hacker who managed to make a great deal of money through privileged information he got illegally from my company." Bruce stopped to take a drink from his wine. "He created a sophisticated system that gave him access to all the confidential information from Wayne Enterprises, even that to which he wasn't granted access from his position in the company. Walker made a multimillion-dollar system of data security look like a cheap plastic padlock." Bruce shook his head and drank some more wine.

"From then on the company has done everything that was possible to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals, but of recently I've realised that a broader vision is necessary to deal with this issue. I don't usually deal in person with this kind of problem, but since Walker's release from prison, the press has covered his history and the repercussions of his crimes, exposing the impact of his actions in the lives of people, not the rich, but the middle class and the poor. Innocent people are suffering from a fail in a system I am supposed to be responsible for".

Barbara had read about Drury Walker's case and about how many people were still suffering the consequences of the crimes he had committed many years ago. She just didn't know Bruce held himself indirectly responsible for them. The things she'd been discovering about the most famous billionaire philanthropist playboy from Gotham surprised her.

Bruce finished his glass of wine and continued, "More than upgrading its data security system, I wish to develop an information policy for Wayne Enterprises, a policy of transparency, so that society knows what it is that we do, how we make our products and carry out our services, how we spend our money and where it comes from. I don't want a few people to be privileged with information that may make them rich at the expense of people who were not equally informed. I don't want to see people committing suicide because they fell for a pyramid scheme that a fraudulent employee of mine concocted."

Barbara remembered having read about a suicide related to Drury Walker's crimes in one of the special pieces that Gotham Gazette had been publishing since the criminal was releases from prison. Bruce Wayne's voice was clearly altered when he referenced this specific case. Through his whole speech, he tried to keep his voice levelled, matter-of-factly, but he reached a higher pitch when he mentioned the suicide. The change was barely there, but Barbara caught it, nonetheless.

As Barbara listened Bruce's last words on what he wanted from Wayne Enterprises' information policy, Alfred entered the dining room with two individual dark chocolate cakes covered in berry sauce. Once he put the dessert in front of his master and his guest, Barbara spoke, "Mr. Way-" She quickly corrected herself. As soon as they sat at the table to eat, they agreed on addressing each other by their first names. "Bruce, I know you want me to be part of this in some way, but I don't see how I can help you."

Bruce put his fork down. "Barbara, I haven't told you before, but your work at GCPL inspired me." Her eyes widened at that. "It also had an enormous impact in Timothy's life. There was not a day since he toured GCPL that he hadn't spoken about something he learned there.

"You are committed to the public good. You really want Gotham to change for the better, and you were intelligent enough to realise that this can only be achieved if we invest on the enlightenment of its people. As you've told me before, freedom of information and adequate methods for its management and availability are crucial to the transformation of Gotham.

"I thoroughly believe that corporate information should be ruled by those same principles. I want a data security system that favours the people as a whole, not just a few privileged individuals. I don't want information about my company to be so well guarded that a very intelligent man manages to have access to it and uses it to become rich at the expense of people that trusted him in good faith.

"Barbara, I don't want you to contribute with your expertise on information technology. I want you to contribute with your expertise on how information is supposed to make people's lives better and on how it should be made available and managed."


As Barbara drove back home after having spent most of her day at Wayne Manor, she tried to make sense of everything that had happened. Bruce Wayne offered her the opportunity to work on a highly progressive data security system and information policy. He also offered funding an educational programme at GCPL devoted to teach people how to deal with corporate and financial information. His proposal would surely diminish the value of Wayne Enterprises, even if just temporarily. In the best-case scenario, it would be temporary. Where was the catch?

Bruce Wayne always figured in the top ten of Forbes magazine, top rich people, top influent people, etc. His bank accounts were bigger than some countries' gross domestic product. He lived in a mansion, owned expensive cars and private airplanes, and had a list of supermodel girlfriends that rivalled the numbers in his bank accounts. How could this man be serious about everything he had told her?

Yet, he was the same man that looked shaken by the outcomes of a crime he had nothing to do with, a crime of which he was himself a victim. He couldn't bear the harm that a fraudulent employee had done.

He was also the man who claimed to read The Lord of the Rings every single year since he was eleven, and who actually seemed to have gone to a symposium on preservation, conservation and restauration of the human record out of real interest for the subject.

The same man that had adopted three orphan boys for no reason whatsoever than to help those children, and that clearly loved them as his own. All over Wayne Manor were pictures of his boys, including photos of his second son, a boy who had met a tragic end years ago. It actually seemed that there were more pictures of this dead boy than from his two living sons.

That day Barbara saw no trace of the billionaire womaniser playboy from celebrity magazines. She just saw a man who wanted to help people. Had he pulled an act? And if he did, was the act the good Samaritan or the billionaire womaniser playboy?

Almost from birth, she was trained by her father to watch out for deceivers and to catch them. Who was Bruce Wayne deceiving? The world, or herself? She would have to work with him to figure it out.


Author's note:

Barbara has a 1967 yellow VW Beetle because I always thought that her car in Batgirl: Year One looks like an old yellow VW Beetle. I decided she'd have a 1967 model because that was the year Barbara Gordon first appeared in Detective Comics (the issue was actually published in 1966, but the official publication date featured in its cover is 1967).