2:05AM

Two O'Clock A.M. was the worst time to be in any emergency room in Gotham City. The lobby was a proverbial Baskin Robins of drama—choose your flavor. I felt absolutely ridiculous sitting there.

I had managed to scrape myself off of the sidewalk, stumble to my car, and then, despite the blood in my eye, drive myself and Brittney to the hospital. She obviously needed medical attention and I just knew I was going to need stitches. To make matters worse, in my daze, I had called my dad and he was going to show up at any minute. If I had been in my right mind, I would have left him out of it.

The automatic doors swung open and my dad flew in, spotting me and swooping over to where I sat.

"Omigod, Barbara, what happened?"

"I was playing badminton, dad. It got a little rough."

His face was stone except for his smoke-colored, bushy mustache. It twitched when he was stressed.

"Brittney called me upset. She's been raped by the guy she's been seeing. So here we are."

His eyes locked onto the wad of paper-towels that I had pressed to my eyebrow. I don't know why I'd thought that maybe he wouldn't see them. I guess my mind still hadn't completely rebooted post-impact. But that was where he became overly paternal and I was left wishing that I never called him.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"I was being a tough guy and went off and confronted the asshole. Things got a little out of hand."

"Barbara." There was derision in his voice. He didn't sound surprised—disappointed maybe, but not surprised.

"What was I supposed to do? Just let him get away with it?" I suddenly forgot that I was supposed to be keeping pressure on my eyebrow and I lifted my head from hand. Blood immediately began to run down the side of my face. I caught the stream with the wad and pressed it against my face again. "Goddammit."

"Here let me help you."

"I'm fine, dad," I said pushing his hand away. "I've got it.

He righted himself in the chair and glanced at the circus act going on around us while he tried to stow his feeling of rejection. I held my now throbbing head in my hand, supporting it by propping my elbow up on my knee. I'm sure I looked pitiful—I definitely felt the part.

"How long have you been here?" he asked after completing one full revolution of the room with his eyes.

"I don't know. Like six hours."

"And, you're just now calling me?"

I shook my head the best I could without letting up pressure. "I don't need this right now."

He took the hint and we sat quietly for a while amidst the medical frenzy, dad rubbing my back.

"Honey," he said after a moment.

"Hmm?"

"You should've let the police handle it."

"I am the police, dad."

"You know what I mean."

"Funny that. One of them was a cop, too. He didn't seem to care too much."

"Damn corrupt cops." Dad clenched his fists. "I'm sorry, Barb. They're like a disease; no matter how many I bring down, three more replace them." He went under his glasses with his thumb and index finger and massaged the bridge of his nose. "What happened?"

I let out a sigh, I wasn't really in the mood to talk about it but I at least owed him that for coming all this way in the middle of the night. "I went in and confronted him. I had the upper hand, too. The problem was that he—and everyone with him—didn't take me seriously. They weren't the least bit intimidated by me because I'm a woman."

"Barbara—"

"He raped her, dad. He took from her the only thing she had left sacred in the world. The only thing any woman has left sacred on this god-forsaken planet. And he took that from her because he felt slighted. I can't just let that go. I've seen this happen before and the scars are insidious. Maybe you can't understand it because you're not a woman. How could you understand?" I didn't look up. "What if it had been me? Would you have just let the police handle it?"

I could feel his eyes.

Just then all hell broke loose: Seven men spilled through the doors screaming for help, startling the fifty or so people already filling the tight space. Two of the men were assisting another in walking—his right leg was mangled and pointed in an impossible direction. Three others carried the last man who was spilling blood every which way. They were all pretty beat up but those two had surely pulled the shortest straws.

They carved a path through the crowd to the nurse's station and when they got there, their screaming became suddenly coherent.

"We need a goddamn doctor!" the skinniest one yelled.

"Sir, I need you to calm down," one of the three women at the desk said seemingly unfazed by the men's urgency.

"Fuck that! We need a doctor now!"

"Sir, what happened?"

"The fucking Bat happened!"

The Bat happened.

Funny that.

My dad sat there watching, appearing almost content beneath his glasses as if their fear was the climax of a much anticipated plot to a great movie. The look on his face was like everything was suddenly right with the world—his mustache had stopped twitching.

I stole my attention away from my dad and back to the seven men. They mobbed the counter like starved rats fighting for bread crumbs, clawing and screaming and crazed by fear. That intrigued me...greatly.

The light bulb came on: My approach had been wrong the whole time.