*2 months ago*
6am. I preferred mornings, even though my nights typically ran late. Mornings were peaceful... quiet. The teapot whistled on the stove and continued to as I poured the boiling water into my mug. The tea bled a caramel color as the water poured over it. I settled into my home office chair, and the noise of my typing filling the room. Before I knew it, it was 7am. Ricky came dredging out of the room, looking sleepy.
"Morning, baby! You're up early."
No response. I reminded myself that he just wasn't a morning person. However, his face said there was something wrong. It wasn't just that it was early. I got up from my chair and cautiously peered around the door frame of the bathroom, where he was putting toothpaste on his toothbrush.
"Everything okay?" I asked with a sweeter tone than was natural for me.
More silence. My mind raced and my heart started to slightly as well, trying to think if there was something I had done.
"I'm fine," he responded blankly, avoiding eye contact.
His micro expressions said he was lying, but I didn't want to push him more. "Okay. Well, just let me know if you want to talk."
'Maybe he's just in one of his moods,' I thought as I opened the fridge. A blast of chilled air hit my face as I began to grab ingredients to make him a packed lunch for work, in hopes of cheering him up. I continued to sort through all the interactions we had the past few days. After putting the food in his lunch bag, I returned to my desk.
"Oh," Ricky said.
Not realizing he had left the bathroom, I turned around and saw him holding a lunch in his hand, looking inside his bag, seeing the lunch I had already packed for him.
"Oh, yeah, I made lunch for you already. Sorry, I didn't notice when you came out of the bathroom. I was so focused."
"If you used your words, then maybe I would understand you better. Have a good day," he said flatly as he grabbed his bag and headed towards the door.
"Okay, sorry," I replied softly. "I love you."
"Don't tell me you love me today. I don't want to hear it."
"Seriously, is everything okay? Why are you being such a dick?" I immediately regretted my phrasing. My stomach sank.
Dismayed, he left, slamming the door as hard as he could behind him. Pushing my nervous feelings aside, I grabbed my phone to text him and hesitantly typed out the message. I knew it wouldn't help anything if I sent it, but I also knew I should say something.
[7:33am] I don't appreciate how you're treating me.
Taking a deep breath, I pressed send, told myself he was just crabby, and continued to work. The sound of typing filled the room once more until my phone started to ring. I saw it was him and took a deep breath before answering. "Hi."
"You're so fucking insensitive, and you are such a fucking asshole, Barbara. I'm SO sick of you treating me like shit!"
I wanted to object, but if I had learned anything about Ricky over the past few years of being together, it was that objecting would make things worse. I wanted to say something. My mouth was open, but I was at a loss for words.
"You're terrible at talking on the phone," he snapped when I didn't respond.
"I- I'm sorry. What can I do?"
"Be nicer? Like you actually give a fuck about me. You know why I was in a rush to leave this morning? I had to get away from you, so I could be with my co-workers, who I actually enjoy being around."
My phone beeped, indicating he hung up. Staring at the home screen of my phone, I took a deep breath and continued to work, telling myself that he was in a bad mood.
*Meanwhile*
"Good morning, Bat."
My eyes fluttered open. "Good morning, Cat," I whispered. Selina's lips pressed against mine. "Any plans today?"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
I chuckled at her predictable vagueness. She slipped out of bed, her hips swaying as she walked towards the shower. Rolling onto my stomach, I grabbed my phone on the nightstand and started to flip through emails. The shower stopped a few minutes later.
"You want to go to dinner tonight?" she asked.
Placing my phone down, my eyes shifted to Selina in a white, fluffy towel, her black hair standing out against her pale skin. I grinned. "Sure. I'm patrolling around seven tonight, so it'll have to be earlier."
I got my phone back out to continue typing out an email. After pressing send, I made my way to my closet and put on my suit. Reaching for a coat, I felt Selina's arms wrap around me.
"I'll see you later," she said.
"Love you," I responded as I kissed her.
*Hours later*
I had made my way to Burnside, an area of Gotham that Batgirl usually patrolled. Climbing up a fire escape, I was surprised to find her on the same rooftop.
"What are you doing here, Batman?" she asked, arms crossed.
"I had a lead."
"On who?"
"Cornelius Stirk."
"If he was here, I would have heard about it," she stated flatly.
"Not necessarily."
"I'll keep an eye out. You can go back to your side of town."
My eyebrows furrowed underneath my cowl. "Are you okay?"
Barbara closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath before responding in her normal, calm tone of voice. "That's not what I meant. Sorry, I'm being weird. Do what you need to do. I'm just frustrated...having trouble finding leads on a case myself."
Her facial expression was convincingly normal as well, but something felt off. This behavior is subtle but was something I had trained myself to notice in possible suspects, who were trying to appear as innocent and had nothing to hide. She was used to this… putting up a face. I'd wondered for how long.
"You're lying," I said plainly.
"What do you me- you know, it doesn't matter. I'm fine. Really. Just let me know if you need something."
Suspicious, my eyes narrowed under my cowl. I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted by my cell vibrating in my utility belt. Looking down, I saw it was Selina. I glanced back up and saw Batgirl was gone.
"Cat," I stated, answering my phone.
"I know we just had dinner, but could you maybe come back from patrol earlier tonight? Or maybe we could patrol together?"
"Possibly. I'll talk to you later, okay?"
I was met with silence as I waited for her response and soon realized that she had hung up. Looking up, I noticed a woman's figure on a building nearby. Cat ears. I tilted my head, then shook it, along with any feelings of concern. Right now, my focus was Cornelius.
*Present Day*
My frustration was gnawing at me. I could tell Bruce was frustrated as well. Who was this guy? What was he planning? The picture was becoming clearer, but there were still so many unanswered questions. After about four hours of sleep and spending the entire day trying to solve the case, Bruce and I came to the conclusion that our mystery Riddler fan was not going to execute whatever he was planning at the gala tonight but rather on Christmas Eve. We had re-visited the murder site and found two other clues that led us to this: One was in a stack of papers. Random letters were highlighted in order in red and green to make up this sentence: On Christmas Eve at 12:03, the truth is all they'll see. The other was scratched into the building's furnace: The illusion will fade – the holiday cheer. They will see: this holiday mirage is actually something to fear.
Whoever this guy was, he definitely wasn't as clever as the Riddler. These really were more like puzzles/silly rhymes than riddles. Plus, the Riddler would never have given us this much time to figure it out; it wasn't enough pressure. One of us would put the pieces together long before Christmas Eve, which was still two weeks away, but tonight? Tonight, at least for me, it was time to drink.
Alone in my new downtown, Ricky-free apartment, my silky deep blue dress draped over my legs and poured over the windowsill I sat on. Watching the cars drive by and pedestrians walk into bars, I took a sip of my whiskey, holding the golden liquid in my mouth for a moment, savoring the flavor then the burn as I swallowed. Warmth spread through me, trying to win against the cold again creeping into my apartment from my open window. I enjoyed the smell of the air just before it was about to snow. I jumped at the unfamiliar sound of my phone's ringtone. It was usually on vibrate.
My breath was visible as I answered. "Hi."
"Hey, Babs. It's been a while."
"Yeah. How are you? How's Kori?"
Dick chuckled. "First few months of pregnancy are always a blast… Anyway, I called to see how you were doing."
"Good. Just busy with work, and my parents are officially moving to Coastal City this week."
"Good. Tell them I said congrats."
Funny. It used to be that the sound of Dick's voice would comfort me, make me feel warm, but right now the only thing keeping me warm, and numb, was the whiskey. "Will do. So, how's Mar'i and the team?"
"They're good, but I actually wanted to ask - are you doing okay? Bruce just told me that you left Ricky a few weeks ago. He didn't tell me why though."
I paused for a moment before responding. "Almost a month now. Honestly, I'm doing great. Better without him."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that. So, what happened? Do you want to talk about it?"
My phone beeped. Taking it down from my ear for a second, I saw my father was calling. "Hey, I have to go. My dad and Lee here. They're picking me up for that annual holiday gala thing."
"Ah, have fun. I'll see you this week. Call me if you need to talk before then."
"You're coming to town too?"
"Yeah, with Kori, Mar'i, and the rest of the team. It's been a while since all of us were together. Damian threatened to kidnap Mar'i if I didn't come."
"I'm glad. Well, I'll see you soon. I do have to go."
"Bye, Babs."
After texting my dad that I was on my way down, I slipped on my gold strappy heels and my black coat.
I greeted my parents as I got in the back seat of the car.
"So how are you doing, sweetie?" Lee, my stepmother, asked.
"Surprisingly well."
"Have you talked to Ricky at all?"
"No, which I'm happy about."
"You seemed tense yesterday," my dad responded.
"One is never relaxed when investigating a murder scene. Any recent findings?"
"Please no work talk. I have a hard enough time knowing what I know," Lee begged.
"Everything the GCPD found was sent to Batman a couple hours ago."
My stepmother was growing more uncomfortable by the second and quickly changed the subject. "I saw Dick and Kori are expecting again. That's exciting."
"Yep."
I was thankful that my father shot Lee a warning look, stopping the conversation from going any further.
"Are you sure you don't want us to put off our move for a couple more months?"
"No, absolutely not. Move this week as planned. Everyone comes back into town this week for Christmas, then I'll meet you in the warmth for New Years."
"Okay, well, let us know if you need something."
The gala was held in the entryway of Gotham's largest theatre. The giant pillars inside and outside were wrapped beautifully in greenery and lights. After greeting a few people that immediately came up to my parents, I snuck away as they continued to talk and sat in a chair behind one of the large pillars next to a window, releasing a breath I didn't know I was holding. In a daze, I stared outside at the busy streets filled with people in coats walking and streetlamps decorated with colorful lights and red bows. I sunk more into my chair, exhausted to the point where I wasn't feeling anything. I couldn't even pinpoint what I was thinking about. I sat there observing my thoughts as if they weren't my own. Flashes of memories came before my eyes – Ricky, the victim from yesterday, Bruce and me…
"Fuck you! You never listen to me! You need to work on understanding people more. You misunderstand everything, and you're so unclear when you speak yourself! Everyone's always confused when they talk to you! … I'm just really tired of that, I think. You getting defensive all the time. You being defensive is really you being aggressive, and your perception of aggression coming from me is often misunderstood… With the way you treat me, surely you can understand how my reaction's justified. You treat me terribly. You're so unapproachable!"
"The person who found him was a man who works here… Time of death is hard to say based on the current state of the victim."
"It wasn't your fault."
"Hi." Bruce appeared with two glasses and a bottle of champagne.
I blinked and snapped back to reality. I took the glass and thanked him.
He sat down in the chair next to me and put a bottle of champagne on the table behind us. "Nice hiding place you found here."
"Yeah, well," my voice trailed off.
"You look beautiful," he said charmingly, his grin as sincere and kind as ever.
"Thanks," I mumbled. I put my chin in my hand to partially hide the color that was spreading through my cheeks, mentally beating myself up for blushing at all.
"So, how's it going?" he said casually.
I shrugged. "There's just a lot going on." I began to envy how well he could put up his mask. I was struggling to hold up mine.
Bruce nodded.
"You grab that bottle for yourself?"
He chuckled. "Kate and Duke are patrolling tonight. I am… taking advantage, like you suggested. Plus, I need this bottle to get through the amount of small talk I have to make tonight."
I smiled. After a few moments of silence, I mumbled, "My father said he sent some things over. Have you looked through them?"
Bruce shook his head. "Going to after this thing."
"Can I come with you?"
"Driver's pulling the car around at 11. Meet you out back, so it doesn't look like we're leaving together."
I nodded. A few more moments of silence passed. From an onlooker's perspective, we both appeared to be completely relaxed, but that was not the case. There was tension. There was always tension now. "I'm sorry."
Bruce looked at me, confused.
"About a couple nights ago…"
"Why would you apologize?"
I stared at him with an exasperated look on my face.
"It takes two. I'm sorry. I should've-" He sighed. "Let's just forget about it. It never happened. We're both in strange places right now. It'll pass."
We each downed our small glasses of champagne. I reached for the bottle and poured more.
"Oh good, you two found the hiding spot," my father stated, walking out from behind the pillar I was next to.
Bruce stood up, offering his chair. "Enjoy. Congrats on your retirement by the way, Jim. It's about damn time." He smiled. "I better return to the mob."
"Good luck," my father joked.
I stared out the window of a limo, lightheaded from the champagne, watching the Christmas lights pass by in a colorful blur. "So, Alfred gets back on Christmas Eve?"
"Yes, in the early afternoon, everyone else in the evening."
"Everyone else meaning the boys and the..." I glanced at the driver. Instead of saying Titans, I said "others."
Bruce glanced at me. "Yes, and the others… I'm sorry it's been such a rough couple of months for you. I didn't even think about adding this on top of it."
"Please, I've had a lot worse. Like I said, I'm doing great. Honestly, better than I have been in a while."
Bruce responded with a sympathetic smile.
The rest of the ride was silent. The silence continued as we made our way to Bruce's study. I felt dizzy and paused as the batcave entrance behind the grandfather clock revealed itself. "I'm going to get some food. I'm drunker than I thought. Want anything?"
"Yeah, I'll go with you."
The entrance closed, and we headed towards the kitchen.
I opened a hidden compartment within a cabinet and started eating from Jason's potato chip stash. Leaning against the counter, I tilted the bag towards Bruce to offer him some. He accepted. Crunching was the only noise in the room for a while until my text tone went off. I checked my phone and saw it was Ricky.
[11:45pm] Ricky: I saw you briefly on TV at the gala. I don't know how you can go about your normal activities. Truly disgusting. Fuck you. My entire family has a completely different view of you now. You completely uprooted and ruined my life. I hope someday you learn to be considerate and actually think of others and that your family knows how terrible you're being.
I tossed my phone to the counter without locking it. Bruce pointed at it. I nodded, signaling he could read it.
"Wow. You know that's not true, right?"
"Eh, that's nothing. I'm pretty used to it at this point, but now I don't have to deal with it." I chuckled lightly, shrugging my shoulders.
Bruce shook his head in disbelief. "Can I ask you something? You're not one to take shit from anyone. Why did you? For so long?"
I sighed. I had been asking myself that same question for a while. "I don't know… I guess because the highs were as high as the lows were low."
"Hm."
Bruce opened the fridge and the freezer doors. He grabbed two beers and a carton of ice cream.
"Wow. Ice cream?" I said sarcastically as I took one of the beers from him.
He leaned against the counter next to me and dug a spoon into the carton. "For emergencies." He winked and ate the ice cream off the spoon. "Stephanie's choice." He scooped another spoon full and offered me the bite.
Flavors of honey and lavender coated my tongue. "Weird flavor. I like it. Definitely seems like a flavor Steph would pick out." My eyebrows raised, and my eyes got wide. I put the bag of chips on the counter and started pacing, putting the pieces together.
"What?"
"The victim's skin. That's how honey looks when you burn it."
"Are you suggesting honey was spread on him?"
"No. I don't know. Maybe. Spread or some weird, something ingested…"
"Sounds like the champagne talking." Bruce smiled.
"We've seen lots weirder, right? I read one of the cases my dad worked on in his early days where there was this drug that gave people super strength for like a few hours then killed them because it took away the calcium in their bones or something, so they just crumbled into dust. Maybe it's some odd honey compound? We need to call Tim. I'm no chemist."
"That sounds absurd but would explain the high glucose and insulin levels. Then, the question becomes, is the knock-off Riddler-"
"The Puzzler."
Bruce raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Okay, the Puzzler. Is he the maker of the drug, or is he just the distributor?"
He pulled out his phone and called Tim to explain everything. While Tim hadn't heard of a drug that behaved how we were describing, he said he'd do some hacking into some Gotham's lab systems to see if anything matched up and that he'd have something for us by the time we sobered up. Apparently, we were drunk enough for him to notice.
Bruce hung up. It was only when he put his phone back on the counter that I realized how close I had gotten to him during the phone call, trying to hear what Tim was saying. I didn't move. We stared at each other in the eye, unmoving.
"Yes?" he asked.
"What?"
"You're a little close," he observed.
"You're not moving."
Bruce half smiled and rolled his eyes playfully as he stepped away from me.
My breathing quickened. His real smile was intoxicating. "You hate when I point things out."
"On the contrary, you pointing things out is what makes us solve the cases faster, which... we should get back to doing."
I smiled, biting my lip slightly. I stepped towards him, so we were the same distance we were before he stepped away. Again, he didn't pull away.
"This is a dangerous game you're playing, Barbara."
"I thought you liked danger."
"No one truly likes danger." He stepped a little closer. "We can't do this again," he whispered seriously.
Any tone of playfulness was gone.
"No one will know," I mumbled.
I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding. I knew he could hear my breath quickening… because I could hear his.
His hand landed softly on my cheek as he closed the gap between our lips. I felt my hair fall onto my back as he pulled out the pin holding my updo in place. We leaned into each other, deepening our kiss. His hands trailed down to my waist, gripping me for a second as he lifted me onto the counter. My tongue gently prodded at his lips. His mouth opened slightly, accepting it. The taste of honey coated my taste buds. Our breathing quickened as he moved his hands slowly down from my waist to my upper thighs. I continued to curse at myself. A little voice in my head kept yelling at me that this was a bad idea, but every inch of me burned with desire, and I was tired of always being careful. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled his torso closer. There were hardly any gaps between us now. Our movements were desperate, as if being as close as possible was essential for our survival. Getting impatient, I removed one of my hands from the back of his neck and tugged at the zipper on the side of my dress.
"Damn," he whispered in between kisses, out of breath. "Barbara." He pulled away and placed his forehead against mine. "We can't."
"Just one more time," I begged, a little embarrassed by the slight desperation in my voice.
"I'm sorry. This won't end well. We're… we're drunk. We're…" he sighed and pulled farther away, hands still on my hips. "Still emotionally compromised. Bad idea."
"Exactly why we should. Don't you want to feel better, even if it's just for a little bit?"
"God, Barbara," he said with a laugh. He took his hands off of my hips and pulled even farther away. "Of course, I do. But want and should are two very different things. There's a whole list of reasons why we should not."
I opened my mouth for a rebuttal but immediately shut it and nodded. I knew he was right. Placing my elbows on my knees, I buried my face in my hands then rubbed my eyes, completely disregarding my makeup. I looked back up at him with my hands clasped, index fingers against my lips.
"I'm sorry I let it get this far," he murmured.
"It takes two," I replied with a grin, mimicking what he said a few hours ago. My eyes shifted back down to the floor.
CLAP
My heart jumped and my breath got stuck in my throat as my eyes shot up with fear.
"Fruit fly," Bruce said nonchalantly, then looked at me. Concern spread across his face. "Hey, are you okay?"
My eyes prickled as they filled with tears. I nodded. I looked down again, breath still caught in my chest, trying not to bring attention to it. What the hell's wrong with me? Just when I thought I suppressed those mystery tears, I saw Bruce approach me out of the corner of my eye, gently guide me off the counter, and pull me into a hug. I lost it.
