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I can't get it out of my blood. I tried. I hid and I distanced, and I built
walls and barriers and security systems and ...
It didn't help.
It's a condition for which there is no cure. Hah. No technical medical name
for it. Chiropteromania.
The madness of the bat.
I should've lost it when a bullet bled out my ability to walk. I don't sleep
much, haven't since I got out of the hospital. When I do sleep, the dreams are
of a short black-and-gold cape flying behind me as I dance across the rooftops.
But they're dreams. Memories that unreel across the cinemascape of my mind when
I'm too tired to resist anymore.
I told myself I was content, doing my part, from my little tower.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair -- well, at least send down the
elevator. I brought Chinese!" Dick's favourite way to tease me and needle me
just a little that I wasn't some tragic fairy tale damsel.
And I knew that, okay? I knew it. I am technically one of the Justice League,
though all most of them know me as is a floating holographic icon of a green
head. I've transmitted my thoughts and words across the world in telepathic
super-radio-vision.
I've done the Robin Hood thing. Stolen from the thieves and given it to the
poor -- or, well, to me. So I could continue to fight the good fight.
...From behind an ergonomic keyboard.
...From this damnable wheelchair!
And I have been able to convince myself it was enough for so long.
When Gotham lay in rubble and ruins around me, I was thankful to be safe behind
my antique clock; untouchable behind my traps and devices. But part of me
worried for Bruce, for Alfred, for Tim.
A bigger part of me worried for Dick...and longed to look after him.
When he stumbled into my apartment, soaking wet and weak with fever, I thought
my heart would jump out of my chest. Batgirl and Robin had made such a good
team. Had I been able to be at his side, I might have helped him through
whatever had left him in such a state.
But no. Stupid Barbara opened the door and killed Batgirl by letting the Joker
blow a hole in her spine.
And clever, proud Barbara chose to fight on as Oracle -- certain it would be
enough to replace a former life of moonlight and rooftops.
But it isn't.
It never was.
I knew that when the new Batgirl came to live with me. There's so much she
knows. So much she doesn't that I could have showed her once...but can't now.
A part of me wants to leap out the window each nightfall with her.
I can't fool myself anymore.
Stealing from Blockbuster finally got his attention, and the chase was on. I
had the Canary on one side running interference for me, and Nightwing and Robin
on the other. And still, it was close. The goons he sent to find me damn near
got me. Flood waters rushed into my hidey hole.
Batgirl wouldn't have hidden.
Oracle hid; Oracle is nothing without her IDSL connection.
I almost drowned.
Useless legs strapped to me, I swam for my life with the arms I've never
stopped working out. I took a hit. I bled. It was terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
I felt *alive*, truly *alive* for the first time in a very, very long time.
Gasping in Dinah's arms, shivering with shock and fear, I realized that it was
*great* to be out in the world again, doing what I was born to do, even with a
body that couldn't do it well anymore.
And now, the rude awakening. Dinah took the fall for me. When Blockbuster's
people caught up with us, she said she was Oracle. And I was too damned
frightened to speak up ... to tell them *I* am Oracle. Despite the adrenaline
rush and the surge of confidence from having held my own against Blockbuster's
hunters, I knew I was still a useless cripple -- and if Blockbuster got his
hands on me, I was good as dead.
Dinah made the sacrifice willingly. But I *let* her make it, when two little
words, "I'm Oracle," would have revealed the truth. And I couldn't force the
words out of my mouth.
Now, back amongst the acoutrements that make Oracle the power in the world that
she is, I feel the pangs of guilt as Dinah has to deal with Deathstroke, Lady
Vic, and one of the Gorilla City gorillas. I couldn't have skydived. I'd have
no shot whatsoever at evading the Terminator if he wanted my head on a pike.
But I was still jealous -- envy was a thick, green taste of bitter bile on the
back of my tongue.
Worse: Alfred told me Dick was nearly killed by Blockbuster. He was *tortured*
because Blockbuster wanted *me*. Dick wouldn't bend. Dick wouldn't break. Dick
just lay there and took the beatings. The injections. The harsh klieg lights.
He cracked wise through bloodied lips, babbled nonsense he'd learned in short
pants rather than give them any clue as to where I might be.
Because I couldn't defend myself. Not as I am. No enemy will take into account
that I am "handicapped" and fight fair.
And he wanted me to believe the chair doesn't matter.
It fucking matters!
I can't feel anything below my waist, and I can't feel anything above it but
confusion and shock and horror.
God help me, I want to fly the night again, even as half a woman.
I want to not be a liability to my friends and loved ones.
Dear Lord, did I just admit I *have* loved ones? I must be losing my mind.
There's no way back to the road I left when the gunshot fired in my old
apartment.
Is there?
Admit it, Barbara -- you're scared. The offers have been made enough times. The
best doctors Bruce could find. John Henry Irons, even.
Prideful woman, that you won't take a chance that's a 50-50 shot?
Yeah, fifty-fifty. Equal chance that instead of walking again, I end up as a
quadraplegic, and even the life of Oracle beyond my capabilities. Confined to a
bed, dependent on machines to breathe for you, to feed you, to clean you.
No life -- just an existence dependent on electricity. A mind that longs to
dance the night on black leather wings, trapped in a prison without bars.
But the alternative...if it works...
Would be a long, hard road. Physical therapy. Weight training. Sweat. Grief.
Frustration.
The possibilities.
I see my body hooked up to tubes and wires -- all that sustains my life. That
vision nearly crushes my spirit.
I force myself to hope, to think of the other possibility. In my mind's eye, I
stand on two legs again. In my imagining I am a whole woman. Not only able to
dance the night but to dance with him -- Dick. To love him like a whole woman.
The tears, hot and salty, sting out of my eyes and I have to pull off my glasses
because the world has blurred before me.
I must be insane to want back the life that nearly took my life.
I must be out of my mind to want to run and leap beside Nightwing, to fight with
him. To watch his back.
The Batman wouldn't have it. He fired Robin and forced the evolution of
Nightwing because Robin had taken a bullet. And that was a minor hit as
compared to mine.
I look at my screen when my vision clears and I see that I've called up the
Batgirl.Original file. My successor would be amused if I could find my way
back. What a team we'd make.
I close my eyes and wheel away toward my bedroom. Sleep is my escape for now.
Rested I will have enough strength to fight the malady in my blood.
Tears slide down my cheeks again, and I pray that my dreams don't take me across
the skies of Gotham.
I rest my head on my pillow, and try to save Oracle from death at the hands of
the Bat inside me.