Chapter Text
Falling in love was like letting setting off a firework, in Barbara’s opinion. You lit it on fire, the anticipation is terrifying and exciting, and when it finally goes off it's spectacular. The different lights and sounds. The laughter of the ones you care about around you as they share the spectacle and hope for more. She just wished that fireworks lasted forever…
When she and Dick first started dating, it was an unsure thing. They’d kissed for the first time on that patrol when they were so young, hardly into their teens. They flirted and walked around one another for years before Dick finally asked her out on their first official, Bat-approved/commissioner-approved date to dinner and a movie. It was not overly romantic, but it was special. It was a silent film that Dick had heard about when he was on patrol, and he had thought she’d like to see something historic rather than something full of CGI.
She had loved it.
She loved him.
Let no woman say that Dick Grayson isn’t a romantic man who thinks before he asks a girl out. He’d decked out in a nice button-up, and slacks, with flowers for her to put into water. Her dad was hard-pressed to give him the shovel talk but Dick took it in stride. Barbara had thought her dad was going to be begging on his knees for Dick to ask for her hand in marriage. She almost wished he had.
But with every budding romance, with every relationship that’s coming up on 3 years without a ring in the picture at all, Barbara was impatient. She started asking if he wanted to move in together if he had thought about possible wedding ideas if he wanted to be a part of her Pinterest board.
It scared him.
She should have known that Dick wasn’t ready for that level of commitment yet. He never talked about marriage. She hadn’t been sure how interested he even was in ever getting married. She scared him away into the arms of another woman, and now she was paying the price.
So now she was here, waiting on Bruce to come down to the cave, hoping that he wouldn’t ask her why she was there, instead of at home, instead of at the library, anywhere else but the cave, but she knew Dick was in New York. He was with the Titans. Away from Gotham, away from her.
She kept the bats company. They screeched and poked around but she was just happy for the company. Her dad’s pitying looks were enough to drive her crazy. Her dad couldn’t say anything, didn’t really. Jim Gordon was not a man of many words, but he understood that there wasn’t much he could say to her after three months and hearing that Dick had already moved on… Jim was at a loss for words.
“I’m surprised you’re here.” Barbara pushed away from the Batcomputer and looked to her mentor. The man was composed, and fluid, like a big cat that looked powerful and could snap at you at a moment’s notice. She wondered if Dick learned to look that way from Bruce. The man had a knack for theatrics. “Though, after the lengthy phone call I just had, I suppose I shouldn’t be as surprised as I initially thought.”
Barbara turned in the chair. Spinning slightly, going back and forth in a comforting rock with her toe barely touching the ground. “I didn’t want to… Be home, I guess.” She didn’t meet the man’s eyes. How could she? The obvious failure that she was, and a poor example of what a future daughter-in-law could have been. Broken up about not being able to stay with his son…
“Dick said the same thing after you both broke up three months ago… I wish I knew what he was thinking sometimes.”
You and me both. Barbara continued her rocking motion but sighed a moment later. “I… I know it was three months ago, but to hear that he’s with someone else already.”
“It’s too soon.”
“What does it matter?!” she screamed, skyrocketing to her feet and not caring that it resulted in the chair flying back and hitting the desk. “He’s with her, and I’m just… I’m just some jealous lover that never got to be with him because I asked for too much too fast and it scared him.” Barbara’s eyes let go of the tears, cascading onto tight fists that she had clenched Infront of her, “And now I’m going to lose him to someone who’s perfect, an actual princess because I wanted to make him into someone he couldn’t become.”
She brought her hands up to her face and tried wiping away the tears, hands coming away black. “I thought he would be my end goal. The man who would… Who would move mountains for me and I got my hopes up,” She sniffled and wiped her nose across her sleeve, “I guess I forgot this city doesn’t believe in happy endings.”
They were quiet for a while, Barbara trying to control her sniffling and just admitting to herself that her makeup was just ruined for that day when Bruce came into her field of view. For the first time that night, she looked up at the man. His own face was… Not pity, but it was sad for her. He opened his mouth once or twice, but nothing came out. Instead, Bruce opened his arms for her, something he had never done, and Barbara didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She flung herself into his chest and cried harder.
Bruce took her emotional baggage like a champ, held her through the tears, and sat on the floor so she could curl up. At some point, his cape was around her, and she was sure Alfred had been down because she could smell the sharp spices of the tea that Alfred knew she liked. It must have been hours before Barbara felt the last of her anguish bleed out onto that cave floor.
It was in that lull that Bruce finally spoke. “This… thing with the alien… I don’t think it will last.” Barbara laughed but without humor behind it.
“It doesn’t matter what you think. If you say that to Dick he’ll keep being with her to spite you…” She wiped her nose again, “But I get it. Her customs, how he is… I don’t see it lasting either, but I’m not going to hold my breath for a man who…” She sighed and got up, Bruce followed shortly after her, “I won’t hold my breath for a man that I clearly chased away.”
“I don’t think you chased him away…” Bruce put his hand on her shoulder, causing her to look back at him. “I think he scared himself away.”