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20. Evelyn throws open the front door, surprising Barbara, who hadn’t expected them for another hour at least. A sharp cry of “Mom!” is the only warning Barbara gets before Evelyn wraps her arms around Barbara’s shoulders. Evelyn’s weight shifts and Barbara is suddenly supporting both of them. John comes up the steps a few moments later carrying a duffle bag almost as tall as he is and shuts and locks the door behind him.
“I am not doing your laundry, young lady,” Barbara says. “You’ve had two years already to learn.”
Evelyn pulls back and Barbara is surprised to see that she’s had auburn streaks dyed into her dark brown hair. The change in color makes her eyes more startling. “I know. I’ll do it. It’s just so expensive at the laundromat, you know?” She pulls away with a quick grin and heads to the kitchen.
“I do know!” Barbara calls after her. “Your grandfather didn’t let me drag dirty laundry all over the state!”
John shakes his head. “I wish he was here to see her now,” he says. “He’d be so proud of both of you.”
“He was proud of all of us,” Barbara says, and tucks her hair back as John dips down to kiss her forehead.
Evelyn ambles back into the living room, noisily taking bites out of a dark red apple. She drops to her knees by the duffle and unzips it. A few stray socks and a dark grey t-shirt tumble out onto the floor as she roots through the contents. Barbara crosses her arms, ready to remind her that the living room is not the place for laundry.
Before Barbara can say anything Evelyn pulls her arm out and a gold medal on a bright blue ribbon comes with it. She turns to her parents with a slow smile, reminiscent of the one Barbara has seen on John’s face over the years when he was at his proudest. She wonders when her daughter became so much like the both of them and so unlike them at the same time.
“For uncle Dick,” she says. “For his birthday. The routine he helped me work out for the beam was the best one the judges had ever seen.” Evelyn leaves the medal on the coffee table and shoves her clothing back into the bag before dragging it down the hall to her room.
“I’m sure it was,” Barbara says. John reaches down for her hand and gives it a squeeze.
15. “She can’t go with him,” Dick says. “I won’t let her.”
John smiles into his coffee and tries not to laugh. “I’d like to see you let her do anything,” he says, shooting a glance to the end of the table where Barbara was fixing the ejector motor on a grappling hook. “Too much of her mother in her. You know a Gordon woman always gets what she wants.”
“I don’t seem to recall a time when anyone at this table was graceful about taking no for an answer,” Barbara says, not looking up.
“I am always graceful.” Dick’s fingers are tapping the sides of his glass with nervous energy. “Besides, the boy’s a senior. He’s bound to expect more than he’s letting on. You do remember when we went to prom, don’t you?”
“My dad drove us and you were afraid to kiss me goodnight when I walked you to the door.”
“Your dad has a lot of guns and police training.”
“Because we can’t be intimidating? I once made a mobster literally piss himself. Though Scarecrow might have had a hand in that.” Barbara smiles and John doesn’t know if she’s remembering the look on the man’s face or the way the two of them had celebrated after, flush with victory and in need of contact.
“He’s a good kid,” John says. “ And his parents are also good people.” He wonders when it was that he started to trust his daughter to navigate the world around her. The world itself hadn’t become any safer, he knew that for a fact. He knew it when he collapsed into bed on the mornings after patrol nights. His joints were starting to ache more and his bruises were recovering less quickly. Maybe it was time to pass the baton, so to speak.
“A lot like you were at that age,” Barbara says.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Dick reaches across the table and hands Barbara the small screwdriver she’d been feeling around for.
John decides that passing the baton can wait while the three of them still work so perfectly in sync. “I think she meant Evelyn,” he says.
Dick opens his mouth to reply, but stops short.
10. Evelyn is alone in the hospital waiting room when Dick rushes in. She’s perched on the edge of a chair, swinging her feet in time with the muzak and punctuating the rhythm with the sound of the soles of her shoes scuffing against the floor. Her knuckles are white where she’s gripping the edge of her seat, her dark hair is up in messy pigtails, and she’s pulled up the collar of her favorite Superman t-shirt so that it’s masking her face from the nose down. She looks up at Dick and tears well in her red-rimmed eyes.
He immediately drops to his knees in front of her and pulls her into his arms. She’s shaking against his chest and he rubs her back in small, circular motions. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Where’s your dad?”
“With mom,” she says, pulling away. It comes out as a squeak.
“Do you want to go see them?”
Evelyn shakes her head no and Dick’s heart feels heavy in his chest. He remembers what it was like to be young, hiding behind the bathroom door in their caravan as his mother slowly slipped away, the adults from the circus rushing around him as if he didn’t exist. His mother hadn’t recovered from her fall, but Babs will. He knows she will. She has to. In his mind Barbara Gordon is immortal. It’s just one of the many things he and Evelyn have in common.
A hand grasps his shoulder and he looks up to see John Blake standing behind him, looking exhausted, defeated, and pulled thin at the edges. Dick pulls Evelyn tightly to him and stands up, resting her on his hip.
“I think it’s time we had the talk,” John says.
“Now?” Dick hopes he doesn’t sound as bewildered as he feels. He tilts his head sideways to rest it on Evelyn’s, which is propped on his shoulder. Her arms squeeze his neck tight.
“There was never going to be a right time,” John says.
Dick nods. Barbara and John have spent ten years dancing around the idea of explaining what they were to Evelyn, but it has always been deemed too heavy of a burden for such small shoulders. Dick has spent the last two years dodging questions about where Evelyn’s parents were when he was on kid duty. He should be relieved that he won’t have to anymore. He’s not.
John reaches out and Dick hands Evelyn over to him. She immediately molds herself to her father. “You know that blanket mom won’t let you use on the bed?” he says. Evelyn looks back at Dick. John nods pointedly toward the stairwell and then pivots on his heel, carrying Evelyn in that direction. Dick follows after them.
“That’s because it’s not really a blanket,” John says, and pushes open the door.
5. Sometimes John wonders if Evelyn knows. Neither he nor Barbara has told their daughter much about what they do. They haven’t explained to her that the purpose that pushes their tired bodies out of bed used to be justice and that now it’s her. So much of it is inappropriate, both in content and comprehension level. Yet he is constantly surprised by the choices his little girl makes that run in eerie parallel to their lives.
This month it’s gymnastics and John can’t help but feel proud of how quickly she’s taking it up. Every day he can see her becoming more graceful, like her mother. She bounds up the steps of the Wayne Home for Children ahead of him and Dick Grayson meets them at the door, barefoot and in sweatpants, smile plastered on his face. He’s more than Evelyn’s honorary uncle, he’s become a valuable part of what John and Barbara do, and John is so glad that he decided to stay and help instead of cut and run when he found them out. Even though it often put him at odds with the rest of the police force.
“Are you ready for cartwheels?” Dick asks her, and she throws her arms in the air and gives a short hop in response. “Excellent. Go on to the practice room and tell the other children I’ll be back in a bit.” And just like that she’s off with a shot. Dick looks around quickly and moves out onto the steps with John, shutting the door behind him.
“Any new leads on the jewel theft?” John asks.
“I’ve traced them back to a woman named Selina Kyle. The information you’ll need is in the cave.”
“Selina Kyle? Didn’t she go missing about the same time as the Batman?”
“Aye,” Dick says. “But the borders of our city are much less guarded than they used to be. Never know who might slip in.” It comes out light, like it’s in jest, but John knows how heavy those words are in Dick’s mouth, in the mouths of everyone. Ten years since Bane’s occupation and a person can still find darkness in the cracks of Gotham’s no we’re fine, really attitude.
“I’ll look into it. Barbara’s tracking down a lead on a rash of suicides in the Narrows. She may need your help obtaining files from the police.”
“She knows who to call.”
“Indeed,” John says.
“Do you want up through the music room?”
“I’ll go around the long way. I don’t have a reason to be haunting these halls anymore.” He backs down a few steps and then says, “don’t let my little girl get hurt, or I’ll hang you over the east river.
Dick laughs. “You know as well as I do that it’s not her you need to worry about. Besides, she’s a quick student. Just like her dad. We’ll have her knocking heads in the theater district in no time.”
0. Barbara still can’t believe it’s real. All the years spent on fifteen hours of sleep in a week and cracked ribs and fights with men twice her size and now there’s a person who weighs less than ten pounds running her completely ragged. She and John hadn’t meant for it to happen yet. There was still so much left to fight for. But there was never going to be a right time with the way their lives worked.
Tiny blue eyes disappear behind wrinkled eyelids as the baby girl starts to cry and Barbara’s father reaches over to pull the baby out of her arms. “I’ll take her,” Jim says. “You and dad get some rest.”
She and John watch them go. Once they’re out the door he turns to her and says, “this is going to sound stupid, but I’m afraid I’m going to break her if I touch her.”
“You couldn’t break a ladybug,” Barbara says, even though she’s watched him break arms and windows and god knows what else. “Besides, she’s half you. She’s unbreakable.”
The worry settles deeper into his face and Barbara wants to reach out and stroke his cheek, but getting out of bed feels like such a chore at the moment. “And what do we call her?”
“Why don’t you use that name you liked before?”
“Evelyn? It feels so old fashioned now, so real. Part of me didn’t think this would really happen. What if she can’t grow into the name?”
“Does it really sit so large with you?”
“Our lives sit large with me.”
Barbara thinks it over for a moment. “She’ll grow into it,” she says. “And she’ll grow into our lives just as we’ll grow into hers. Destiny is built from our choices, not the other way around. You have to stop fearing your connections. They don’t make you weak. They make you stronger, mask or no mask.”
John sighs. “Another person to live for.”
“Another reason to fight,” Barbara says.