*Present Day*
"So, you were right," Bruce stated from across the batcave when I entered.
"What's new?" I joked flatly. "What was I right about?"
"The drug contains a highly concentrated sugar compound found in honey among other things. Tim says Quillinformer labs was working to develop a stronger antidepressant than what was on the market, experimenting, and this was one of the batches gone wrong. It made the lab rats euphoric, but killed their pancreases and destroyed the bodies from the inside out. I looked into our first victim's medical history, and he was prescribed a few antidepressants in the past, so I would assume he was pretty desperate to find help. Not sure how he managed to find this one."
"Any leads on the Puzzler's identity?"
"Tim went into their records and found a list of employees working on the project."
"Smart." I put my palms on the console to lean against it and watched as Bruce clicked on the folder with case files to pull up pictures of the suspects. "Oh my god." I blinked twice looking at one of the pictures. It was of a man with blond hair, thin face, and a sharp jawline. Underneath his glasses with thin black frames was a large pair of brown eyes that looked kind but also had some crazy behind them. "That's Zachary Diemer, Ricky's older brother."
"Oh. Did you ever get the sense something was off with him?" Bruce asked.
"I only ever saw him around the holidays," I said, stunned. "But yeah, he was a little weird."
"Do you think Ricky could have had anything to do with it?"
Shrugging, I replied, "Doubt it. Whenever Ricky and his brother did see each other, it was all surface talk."
"Well, let's not tell the GCPD yet. We'll look into the other suspects as well."
"Let's go see if we can find some evidence tonight."
"Yeah, but why don't you let me go alone, ok?" Bruce said cautiously, eyes still on the screen.
"No, why?"
"What if Ricky is with him?" he asked tensely.
I felt my breath get slightly caught in my chest but managed to get out the words, "I don't care."
"Come on, Barbara. It's one or two guys that have no chance against me. I don't need backup."
I let out a sharp sigh. "Fine. I'll hang out in crime alley. It's near his apartment."
"...Can you actually run the coms instead?"
My eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I highly doubt Oracle would be needed for something as simple as this. You said yourself - you don't need back-up."
"Fine, I'd just prefer it if you didn't go to crime alley alone."
"It's not like I'm new at this. I'll be fine."
He did not respond.
"I worry more about you," I added.
"Why do you keep saying that?" he asked, with the slightest hint of frustration in his voice, eyes still on the screen.
"With the way you handle yourself now, I'm truly amazed you're not dead," I answered, matching his tone.
Glaring at me, he shot back, "I've been doing this longer than you."
At that moment, I didn't know it was the lack of sleep or simply the tone in his voice, but I felt like I was gasoline, and he was the match. I hated when he got like this. Anger rose in my chest. I pushed a large sum of it back down. "That doesn't mean you're right all the time! Hell, lately, when we're arguing about something, I've been the one that's right, and you know it."
Bruce shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "Maybe sometimes I already knew the answer and was waiting for you to come to it."
My eyebrows raised and a chuckle escaped my lips. Some of my suppressed anger escaped, like steam under a lid. "Step off your high horse, Bruce. The wind up there is filling your head with air. You just can't admit that you're wrong. Maybe that's really why Selina left." I knew that was a cheap shot and regretted it immediately, but my random fire of pride/rage was blocking any apologies from being made.
Bruce abruptly stood up. "It's–" He stopped himself, shaking his head. "What the hell do you want from me, Barbara?!" he asked, his voice raising ever so slightly.
It was a good question. I took a deep breath and looked under my anger, regaining my composure. I found worry. "To not die," I mumbled tensely. "Sometimes you seem to forget you're not Superman."
We stared each other down. To anyone else, and by any reasonable standard of measurement, Bruce was far more intimidating than Ricky on so many levels, but to me, Bruce was anything but intimidating.
He took a breath and his face softened. "Stop worrying. I'll be fine." He turned away.
"As long as you stop worrying about me."
He turned back around. He looked into my eyes in a way that told me that my request was impossible. I grabbed his face and forcibly placed my lips on his, feeling him hesitate ever so slightly for a second before giving in and wrapping his arms around me. He pressed his lips harder against mine before pulling away. Resting his forehead on mine, he started to speak.
"Shhhh, don't," I whispered.
He exhaled audibly through the back of his throat, then gently cupped my face with his hands and continued to kiss me for a few more moments before pulling away again.
"Stop pulling away," I mumbled.
"I ca-"
"Don't say it," I interrupted again. His face was still only a couple inches from mine.
"We can't keep doing this. It won't end well."
"Who cares?"
"I do, Barbara. Come, on. You're a logical person. Why can you not wrap your head around this?" His voice started raising again. He turned his back to me. "Things are already more complicated than ever. Why do you keep pushing-"
"Because I love you, okay?!" I blurted out. I cringed as I heard the words come out of my mouth. "I don't know why I said that," I said breathlessly. A slight panic rose in my chest as I cursed myself. I knew I had just made things worse. I wanted to say more, but I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to be to be with him, I think, but I did want him. I craved him. That was what I didn't understand. My mind felt like an unsolved Rubik's cube.
His back stayed facing me. He was as still as a mannequin. The silence was piercing. After a few moments, he turned to face me. He opened his mouth ever so slightly, looking like he was going to say something. He shut it then pressed his knuckles to his lips.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and concluded we needed some space. I walked to my motorcycle and left.
I wasn't expecting her to say it. I knew she was thinking it. I hated that I was thinking it. Didn't she realize that we were Band-Aids trying to cover up each other's bullet wounds? That we were each other's underwater safety net... keeping us from sinking any deeper but still deep enough to drown ourselves? Maybe she didn't.
Sighing heavily, I pushed Barbara out of my head and continued to look through the open window of Zachary's apartment. He was at his desk in his bedroom, playing a game on his laptop. The notebooks and pens next to him were perfectly aligned. I looked above his desk to his whiteboard. There was a bunch of scribbles I couldn't make out surrounding a large green upside-down question mark. That confirmed for me that he was the culprit. I stealthily made my way to the roof above him, managing to slip in through the window. He did not turn around, clearly not hearing me over his noise-cancelling headphones.
My footsteps did not make a sound as I began to walk towards him, when suddenly, the door to his room flew open, revealing Ricky, who now looked like he had just seen a ghost. He looked at me for a second and ran out of the room, which caused his brother to turn around. I grabbed Zachary by his shirt as he tried to run away and pulled his face close to mine. "Where's the drug?" I gritted my teeth. It took everything in me to not chase down Ricky instead. I heard rustling from the other room followed by a slamming door.
"Th- there are trash bags filled with candy in the living room," Zachary replied shakily, voice cracking slightly. I cuffed him to the door and went to the living room. Finding nothing, I turned around to face Zachary in question. "Ricky must've gotten away with it all," he blurted out.
I headed towards the door, as my mind went immediately to Barbara. If I didn't catch up to Ricky, I would need her help looking for him, and I really didn't want her to get involved. I was only distracted for a split second, but that was long enough for Zachary to pull a few grape-sized balls onto the ground. A white smoke started to fill the room. My hand wrapped around the door handle to leave before everything went dark.
Eyes fluttering open, I found myself on the floor of the Puzzler's apartment, Jim Gordon above me. "You awake?"
Sitting up, I drowsily observed my surroundings. Zachary was passed out as the cops moved the cuff on the door to his other wrist. As I walked over to Zachary, three other cops there held out their hands. "No closer," one of them said, but none of them actually tried to stop me.
I grabbed Zachary by his shirt and shook him awake. "WHERE IS HE?!"
"I-I don't know. I swear," he stammered. As nervous as he was, behind his glasses, there was defiance and crazy circling in his eyes, making the nervousness almost seemed like an act. "I told him that if anyone came for me, to take it and run."
"And do what with it?"
He didn't respond. I gripped his shirt harder and raised my fist.
I kept it raised as he said, "People see that this time of year is nothing but an excuse to practice gluttony and spend heinous amounts of money that should be given back to the people who can't afford those luxuries. Everyone needs to see that happiness around the holidays isn't real. We're told by society… the government... how to act. How to feel. All for money."
"WHERE IS HE?" I repeated.
He didn't respond.
"Batman-" Jim started as I punch Zachary hard in the face.
"I- I don't know," he sputtered.
I punched him a couple of more times. His glasses flew off. His defiance was fading.
He surrendered. "I don't know where he is, but he's going to hand them out at the parade on Friday, as planned."
"Children will be there," I said, disgusted.
"They would've grown up to be the same way."
Tired of hearing him speak, I released the front of his shirt by forcefully throwing him to the ground, feeling sick to my stomach.
I turned around to leave but stopped in my tracks when he added, "He doesn't know what the drug does. I told him it makes people feel depressed, like shit. He wants people to know that pain."
I walked to the door, noticing Jim looked like he wanted to ask me something... probably wondering where his daughter was. Without acknowledgement, I walked right past him, out the door to look for Ricky.
After taking down three guys targeting a woman leaving a bar, I used my grappling hook to get to the top of the nearest building. My watch read 2:00am… Bruce should have called me by now. Why hadn't he called? Sitting down on the rooftop, I touched the bat symbol on my communicator to try to reach him. He ignored my call.
"I didn't get him."
I jumped slightly. He was behind me. Gathering myself, I asked what happened.
As explained the events of the night and how he had spent the past four hours looking for Ricky with no luck. I had no idea where Ricky would be. Every place I suggested, Bruce had already checked.
"We'll keep looking. If we don't find him, the others can help when they get here."
He nodded in response.
We stood for a moment before I started to apologize for my outburst earlier. Before I could get the words out, he waved his hand to tell me to forget about it.
I sighed, slightly relieved, then went to sit on the edge of the roof. I listened to the sounds of the city that were oddly calming to me- cars, chatter from outside the bars below, muffled music from bars and clubs, occasional honking and police sirens. I saw Batman sit next to me in my peripheral vision. He put a hand on my shoulder. I assumed by the way his head was facing that he was looking at me from under his cowl. I stared back. He moved his hand from my shoulder to my chin and gently placed his lips on mine for a few seconds.
As he pulled away, he whispered, "I love you too."
Heart hammering against my chest, I felt heat spread across my cheeks.
His voice was steady but slightly strained. "We should get some sleep. Going to be a long week. Do you want a ride back to your apartment or do you want to go back with me?"
Ignoring all the alarms in my head, defying all logic, refusing to think about any time but the present, I went with him, blissfully enjoying the feeling that came from being with him. We surrendered to the seemingly magnetic force pulling us together, choosing to ignore the fact that this couldn't last, nor would we let it... choosing to ignore all the consequences that would follow.
