ORACLE DD Ch 5

Dick is hurt badly enough that Alfred isn’t qualified to treat him; he has to recover in a real hospital, not in the Cave. The usual arrangements are made: a Porsche is crashed, and Dick is taken to a Bludhaven hospital with a plausible story.

As Barbara rides up in an agonizingly slow hospital elevator packed with her security detail, she is curiously blank and numb. Her mind refuses to face the truth, instead replaying Lucius’s words from earlier, when she spoke to him about Ivy’s demands.

He’d shaken his head. “Ms. Gordon, have you ever heard the phrase, a bridge too far?”

“Lucius, I wasted my youth watching Bruce run in circles, never going anywhere, never going far enough. Change isn’t going to come if people like us don’t take a chance when we see it.”

“You know how this works. There are advances in this technology, but nothing that could ever threaten fossil fuels ever comes to fruition. They just mysteriously fade into obscurity, stall out, or like fusion, nobody can afford to work on it. Big energy might functionally be the mob, but they don’t have to act like it. There’s no one they can’t buy out to make sure that nothing changes.”

“Except us. Ivy’s going to make us so much money that we can push through and disrupt it,” Barbara had said. “That’s the theory. And I’m gonna test it.”

“Ms. Gordon, healthcare in this country is a five trillion-dollar industry. Gotham is much smaller, but you’d better believe the rest of them have their eyes on you, and they do not want this precedent to be set. You already told Aria Falcone to go and kick rocks. How many enemies do you need, Ms. Gordon?”

“As many as it takes.”

“And how many do you think you can survive?”

The elevator doors open, and Barbara wheels into the ICU.

Everyone is here. Bruce, Alfred, Tim, Leslie, Stephanie—and Helena.

Barbara’s eyes narrow. What happened between Helena and Dick is ancient history, but that doesn’t change the visceral reaction that it creates in Barbara’s body. She tries to keep the **** out of her glare as her eyes fall on a short figure in a dark hoodie nearby, standing apart from the others. It must be bad; Bruce looks like hell, Alfred looks stoic, there’s no awkwardness between Tim and Steph, and Helena looks perfectly relaxed. They’re all profoundly shaken. Dick getting himself blown up has even brought Cass out of hiding.

There’s a nurse in the room, and the amount of machinery is almost as alarming as the quantity of bandages. He’s been badly burned, and one look is enough for Barbara to know that if Dick survives this, he’ll never be pretty again.

The nurse looks startled. “You’re…”

“Yeah. What do we have?”

“Um.” She clears her throat and glances at the door. “Severe burns. About a dozen breaks. Punctured lung. He’s stable.”

“Is he talking? How’s his head? How’s his spine?”

“We’re keeping him under because of the pain. His skull’s fractured, but that’s the least of his problems. No spinal damage.”

“OK. Thank you.”

There’s no free, unbandaged hand to hold. Nothing but beeping machines and an ugly stillness.

Barbara sits for several minutes, staring at him. Dick always had all of Bruce’s strengths and none of his weaknesses—although he’d had a few of his own. He’d been the first person in a costume without powers to ever come close to making it work without being a total mockery of the system he was supposedly trying to protect. When Jason’s **** pushed Bruce and Barbara deeper into their worst selves, Dick had stayed the course.

She calmly wheels back into the corridor, where the others gather around her.

“What happened?” she asks Bruce.

Bruce keeps his voice low. She’s never seen him like this, struggling so visibly to keep his mask in place. “He was at Leslie’s to try to give her money. Him being there was coincidence. I still don’t know why Leslie was targeted.”

Barbara’s office is outspoken in its support for nonprofits because, under the current administration, federal funding is so difficult to get. Gotham City is trying to keep nonprofits that serve the public good whole while they lose their federal grants. Thompkins is the biggest, best-known, and most beloved of them—a mascot of sorts. That is why Leslie’s building was hit.

It’s Aria. In boxing terms, this is just an opening jab straight to Barbara’s face. Aria’s just getting started; her intent is to pound Barbara until she submits. Everything is a target, and it’s a lot easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up. A bomb costs a lot less than a new building.

Barbara won’t forget Lucius’s words or her obligation to Ivy because she never forgets anything. She won’t forget the smirk on Aria’s face or the sight of Dick in that hospital bed.

She hasn’t been this angry since she learned of Jason’s ****, but this time, she isn’t angry at Bruce.

Aria Falcone has to go. Barbara isn’t going to fight against her or take a stand; she’s not going to waste time and energy the way that Bruce has spent his whole life doing. Knocking an enemy down is pointless; they have to be crushed. Barbara will smite Aria Falcone and her organization until they no longer have the power and resources to rob a liquor store, let alone to casually bomb large buildings.

Bruce and the family will be on this case with a vengeance. They will figure out who’s responsible, and when they do, trouble will follow because they’ll all want a piece of Aria, and they won’t agree on how to get it. That won’t matter, because Barbara’s going to handle it first. She’s not going to hand it over to caped vigilantes; she’s not going to weaponize her ties to the family. She’s not above bending and breaking rules, but that’s an idea she does’t like, because it removes any difference between her and Aria. If Barbara sends Stephanie after her enemies, she’s just a mob boss with a campaign slogan. Barbara is a criminal; she has been since she donned the cowl and threw in with a man who believed beating the daylights out of poor people would make things better. She’s at peace with that, but if she’s going to be a criminal, she’s doing it her way.

As mayor, she has the Gotham City Police Department; she can give them the support and guidance that they will need to bring down the Falcone family for good.

As Barbara Gordon, she has resources of her own. She can destroy Aria with nothing but a laptop, but that would mean taking justice into her own hands again.

She isn’t kidding herself. She can say that as mayor, her job is to deal with organized crime, but she’s angry. This is vengeance, plain and simple.

Should Barbara use the police? Or do it herself?