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“Babs, I went to the Clocktower, and you weren't- nothing was-. I don't-. Where did you go?”
“Are you alone.”
“Am I what? Um. Yeah? Why?”
Why is Barbara looking at her like that?
What is going on? The Clocktower was stripped bare, nothing to show that Oracle had ever been there, and now Barbara's looking at her like she's a threat. But she's Oracle. Why-?
“Do you think the Joker deserved to die?”
What the actual fuck? What does that have to do with anything?
She's about to say what Barbara wants, what any Bat wants to hear, when she stops.
Why is Barbara asking her that?
So she very quietly tells the truth, “Yeah. Maybe he was crazy, but he-.” She shrugs. There's no quick way to sum up everything the Joker had done.
Barbara says “Hm.”
And then she asks Steph, “What do you think of the Red Hood?”
What is with the interrogation? Steph says neutrally, “I think he kills a lot of people. What do you think?”
Babs just replies opaquely, “I also think he kills a lot of people.”
Well, just because Steph hadn't wanted to give her a proper response doesn't mean it's fair for Babs not to give one either. She's clearly angling for something, and if Steph can just work out what it is, it'll make her life easier.
And then the reason for her line of questioning becomes clear: Steph watches, gobsmacked, as someone that she's pretty damn sure is the Red Hood bends over to kiss Babs’ cheek and rumbles “Good morning, Miss Gordon.”
Barbara reaches up casually to rest a hand on his cheek as she turns and presses a kiss to his lips. His eyes flutter closed, and he melts closer.
Steph looks away. Watching them suddenly feels bizarrely intrusive.
Also, what the fuck is going on?
After a moment, she looks back. He's straightened up now, and is looking at her. “Batman disagreed with what she was doing. We just- moved pre-emptively, to somewhere better for us both.
“What's mine is hers, and B doesn't dare to come into my territory anymore.”
Yeah, she bets. She'd heard something went down, eventually anyway: it's why she went to go find Babs. She'd wanted to make sure she was okay.
And she clearly is. And she's… with Red Hood?
Babs pulls his hand up to her lips, presses a kiss to his knuckles, murmurs, “Go find that book for me?”
As a reply, he pulls her hand up to his lips, twisting it over, and presses a kiss to her knuckles.
Yeah, definitely with.
Babs murmurs, “Thank you.”
And he strides off, on whatever errand she's sent him on.
Steph says, “You're….?”
“We're partners.”
“How did that happen?”
Babs pauses for a moment, then looks her straight in the eye, “I don't think it's right, for us not to take murderers and rapists off the board. Pieces of shit like the Joker, and- and like Black Mask. We should stop them, permanently.”
“You mean kill them.”
“Yes.”
Jesus. What the fuck.
Babs says, “We let them get away with hurting people.”
“Don't- don't say we.” Because she's not anymore. She's not a Bat. Not if she's with Red Hood. That's the rule: do not kill.
“Okay. I couldn't-. I didn't want to do that anymore.”
“So you, what, called the Red Hood up and said hey, let's be partners?”
“That's one way of putting it, yes.”
Batman has been trying to find Red Hood for a while now. But the level of comfort Babs has with him, that's not new. …She must have been working with him when Batman was actively looking for him, and she'd said nothing. Yeah, Steph would bet that that's ‘one way to put it'. What happened?
She asks, “So what's with-. This is why you aren't in the Clocktower anymore, isn't it?”
“Mm. Dick found out I was working with Jason, and said he'd tell Bruce.
“I had no intention of letting them destroy what I've built, so I moved.”
“But you're fine with- with him killing people?” She's-. She's never seemed to be okay with killing people before. Right?
“Yes.”
“And do you-?” She doesn't even know what she's asking.
“I had the Joker killed.”
Jesus Christ. Okay. Not just fine with working with the Red Hood, who kills people, but actually killing people herself.
“He hurt me, and he hurt Jason, and he hurt hundreds of others. So I had him killed.”
“You-.”
“He deserved to die.”
Steph can't answer. He did, she can't argue otherwise, but-. She's never heard anything like this from Babs before. Not from any Bat. And Babs is one of the original Bats - she's been doing this for longer than nearly everyone, except Batman and Nightwing. And they both agree: no killing. Ever.
Then Babs looks at her and says “And so does Black Mask. For what he does to those around him, and for what he did to you, he deserves to die.”
“I-.”
“Are you really going to defend him?”
“No.” She hates how small her voice is.
But Bats didn't kill. If they did, they weren't allowed to be vigilantes anymore.
If she did, she couldn't be Spoiler anymore, and that would be worse than almost anything.
Babs doesn't keep pushing, just lets her breathe for a minute.
And then Jason returns, and drapes himself carefully over Babs’ shoulders - the wheelchair doesn't even move. She reaches up and holds his wrist affectionately. He buries his nose in her hair, eyes closed.
Babs says, “Jay.”
“Mmm.” He doesn't move.
“Black Mask.”
Jason's eyes slit open, and he watches Steph. “Yeah?”
Steph can't say anything. Jesus christ, what is happening? No, she knows what's happening, she's not stupid. But it's happening right in front of her, they're barely hiding it.
Babs replies, “Yes.”
“Anything particular you'd like?”
What?
“Yes. I'll tell you later.”
“Sure.”
He closes his eyes again and ignores Steph again, attention completely on Babs. Everyone else might as well not exist.
And-. Steph saw Babs when she was with Dick. They'd been comfortable with each other, in the way people who've known each other for years are.
But with Jason-. The tension around Babs’ mouth relaxes when he's touching her. It's-. It's sweet, is what it is.
...He mutilates corpses, she is not supposed to find anything he does with anyone ‘sweet’.
The original Batgirl, with Red Hood. -With an ex-Robin. And they kill people.
It's like she's in a mirror universe. What is going on?
After a moment, Barbara asks gently, “Have you never wanted anyone dead?”
God. Steph twists away. She can't-. She can't-.
It had been made clear to her that if she wanted to be a vigilante in Gotham, she could not kill. She could not even want to kill.
And now this?
But there's no way Babs doesn't mean it, not with what she's shown Steph, what she's told her.
She turns back, admits, “My dad.”
For what he'd done to her, what he'd done to her mom. Yeah, she'd wanted him dead. She'd tried, even.
But Batman had held her back, told her that if she did, she'd be the one destroying her life. He'd implied that he'd make sure she ended up in prison for it. Because that was fair. That was justice. And prison had done nothing to stop her dad anyway. Nor had Batman - he'd been useless, and she had had to deal with her dad herself. When she'd just wanted him to never be able to hurt her or her mom again-. Batman had insisted that she let him go, let the police deal with him - when they'd already failed, had been failing the entire time.
She'd acquiesced to his demand. She hadn't had a choice.
Babs says very quietly, “Why didn't you?”
“Batman was there. He said do not. I'm pretty sure he'd have put me in prison if I ignored him.”
“When was this?”
“When I first started.”
Babs hisses, shocked, “You were fifteen!”
Jason's lip twitches into a snarl before smoothing out again, but he stays silent.
Steph shrugs. Yeah, she had been, but that had never stopped anyone from doing whatever they liked to her.
“Anyone else?”
“Not…really? I didn't want them dead, but I wasn't gonna be upset if they died and I'd made them that way. But it was made very clear that thinking that way was unacceptable.”
-Like when she'd fought Zsasz. He'd tried to kill her, and actively been trying to kill Batman, so she hadn't cared if he died or not; not when he'd killed so many people already. But Batman had said that if she didn't learn to ‘see the other options first’, then he couldn't have her as a partner.
Jason says, “And if it wasn't?”
Babs picks up, “I have my own space now. I've run support for teams before, and I don't need Batman's support or approval, not for anything I do. Or for anyone I choose to endorse.”
Steph can't answer.
“It's up to you. It's your choice. It will always be your choice. But if you decide you want to mete out a more permanent form of justice, then you know how to find us.”
Yeah, okay.
…She'll think about it.