BAE - Epilogue Part 1

Dick Grayson isn’t quite as big as Bruce was, or as tall—but he’s still an imposing figure that people instinctively get out of the way for, even in a hospital on a night like this one.

Not Alfred, of course. He intercepts Dick at the nurse’s station.

Dick reluctantly stops without pushing back against Alfred’s hand on his chest.

“How bad is it?” he asks, doing a passable impression of calm.

“It’s not good, Master Dick,” Alfred says, and the vagueness and the edge in his voice are both bad signs.

“We’d better have a look at you,” Alfred goes on, noticing how Dick is favoring one arm.

“I was catching people falling out of the sky, Alfred. It got dislocated. I put it back.”

“Correctly?”

“How’s Babs?” Dick asks the question more firmly this time.

Alfred takes a deep breath; he looks a bit rumpled. He and Lucius had to pose as EMTs to get Barbara away from the Hurst building. He’s put his suit on in a hurry.

Alfred takes Dick by the elbow and leads him toward the vending machines. The entire floor is in uproar; the night’s **** has flooded every ER in Gotham with seriously injured people.

“She’s stable, Master Dick.”

BAE

Jim Gordon coughs on the dust, coming to a halt amid the wreckage of what was once evidence storage.

“Watch it!” A uniformed officer pulls him back as pieces of the ceiling fall.

“Good God,” Jim says, taking in the devastation.

“Look at this, Sir!”

“What is it?” Gordon clears his throat and examines the object.

“Explosive device. Bomb squad found more like it, all disarmed.”

“Not all of them,” Gordon says with another cough. A major blast has taken out half the level. Plenty of evidence is still intact, but it’ll be holy hell to keep chain of custody intact for any ongoing trials. GCPD hasn’t taken a hit like this since the quake.

“Bomb squad’s evacuating the building.”

“Do we know that everyone’s out?”

“I don’t know, Sir. Who’s that?” The officer pulls his gun and Gordon pushes it down as he sees the cape and ears.

The young woman’s purple suit is white with dust. She’s carrying an **** Maggie Sawyer, who she hands to the startled officer.

Gordon dazedly watches the officer hurry away with the detective, then turns back to the battered, purple Batgirl.

“I got as many of the bombs as I could,” she says.

“I know.” Jim hadn’t known about any bombs, but he knows what to expect when he sees the bat symbol on someone’s chest. They always give everything they have.

“Commissioner,” the girl says.

“Yeah?”

“You need to get to Gotham General. Your daughter’s there.”

“My people are here.”

“I’ll get them. You go,” she said, giving him a push.

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Gordon’s frustrated, but it’s not hard for him to make up his mind. His duty is important, but it’s not more important than Barbara.

“OK,” he replies, taking a step back. The dusty Batgirl’s already turning away to get back to searching the rubble. “What do I call you?”

The blonde glances over her shoulder. “Spoiler,” she says.

“That’s an odd name,” Gordon calls after her as she goes back into the smoke. “And you—get over here, help her.”

BAE

Talia Al Ghul, sore and furious, drops into her seat aboard the private jet at an airfield outside Gotham. She’s alone in the lavish space, hardly noticing the plane beginning to move as she jerkily pours herself a measure of strong spirits.

The screen in front of her lights up, revealing her father’s face. Ra’s Al Ghul’s distinctive facial hair is the same as always, but the circles under his eyes look particularly dark.

“Failure, Father,” Talia says shortly, before he can even open his mouth.

“Most disappointing. What went wrong?”

Talia’s eye twitches. “Barbara Gordon.”

“The girl? The one the Detective allowed to play dress-up out of pity? She bested you?”

“Yes.” It hurts to say.

“And the secondary objectives?”

“Some success,” Talia reports.

“Does the Gordon girl understand with whom she has chosen to make war?”

“Everything she did, my Beloved would have done the same.”

“Your weakness for these costumed fools will be your undoing, Daughter. Return to me. And we shall see what is to be done about Barbara Gordon.”

BAE

Barbara is propped up in her bed, wearing an obnoxiously flimsy gown with bandages everywhere and one arm in a sling. She’s majorly doped up on morphine. Even so, things are bad enough that morphine doesn’t even take the edge off. She braces herself as the doctor enters the room, followed by Alfred and Dick. Dick’s hurt and trying to act like he isn’t. Alfred appears to be fine. Her recollection of Alfred and Lucius extracting her from that building is patchy, but the concussion is the least of her problems now.

“I’m fine,” she says pre-emptively, seeing the way that Dick and Alfred are looking at her.

A nurse joins them, closing the door behind her.

“That’s not entirely accurate,” the doctor says, looking sympathetic. “Can you feel your legs?”

“You know I can’t,” Barbara replies tightly.

He nods. “The damage is serious, but I’ve seen worse. There’s a lot of precedent for recovery in this situation. It’ll take time. A lot of physical therapy, and a couple of surgeries, but you have a fighting chance of walking again. Your…” He looks uncertainly at Alfred.

“Uncle,” Alfred supplies helpfully.

“Your uncle tells me that you’re a gymnast, Ms. Gordon. I think with your resources and enough time, we can get you on your feet again. But you won’t be doing cartwheels.”

The silence is heavy, and Dick gives the doctor an almost unfriendly look.

“Dick, I told him to give it to me straight,” Barbara says, then swallows. Her throat is dry and tight.

“Ms. Gordon, I’m more interested in your shoulder. That looks like a knife wound.”

“I was in GCPD tonight. My dad’s the commissioner, remember?”

“Right. You were attacked?”

“That’s right.”

“Have you given a statement to the police?”

The door bursts open and Jim Gordon storms in.

“Sweetheart! Are you OK?” he demands.

“The police are here,” Barbara tells the doctor.

“So they are,” the doctor replies, getting out of the way. “Don’t! Don’t touch her,” he warns sharply, and Jim stops.

“I hurt my back, Dad,” Barbara tells him, cringing at the way that his face seems to crumple.

“How bad?” he asks faintly.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Sweetheart?” Gordon sounds like he’s about to pass out.

“I need you to give us the room.”

Dick’s by the window, looking out with his hands on his hips. Alfred has politely joined him. The doctor waves to the nurse, who steps out. He stays, watching Gordon uncertainly.

Gordon looks both anguished and pissed off. He throws a venomous look at Alfred and Dick.

“Dad,” Barbara warns.

Gordon’s hands are on the bed’s handrail. They tighten, and he turns away. “OK, Sweetheart. Ten minutes. You. I want to talk to you,” he tells the doctor, who flinches and follows him out.

Barbara’s alone with Dick and Alfred.

“Babs…” Dick begins.

“Save it, Dick. Where do we stand?” she asks Alfred.

“A pyrrhic victory at best,” he replies without hesitation. “Ms. Brown was able to save most of the evidence, but not all and this will introduce legal complications regardless. Dozens of policemen are dead, and quite a few civilians as well. Even more are wounded and traumatized. It’s dire.”

“Did you save the blimp people?” Barbara asks Dick, who nods.

“Thanks to Lucius.”

“Don’t be so modest. People falling out of the air in midtown? Only a flying Grayson could stop that from being a street pizza party.”

“Ms. Gordon, that really is not in good taste,” Alfred says.

“She’s on ****, Alfred.”

Alfred grimaces. “Ms. Kane has set a new record for property damage, but she did stop a great many of our adversaries from escaping at ground level. Perhaps even all of them.”

“That’s good. I’ll bet Ra’s wants to destabilize Gotham just as much as he wanted that Hatter tech,” Barbara says. “He’s always hated Gotham. The only reason it’s still standing is because Bruce was always here to stop him.”

“I almost wonder if he was testing the waters,” Dick says, and Barbara nods.

“I got that feeling too.”

“His brazen **** didn’t bring the Batman out of the woodwork,” Alfred notes. “Will that embolden him?”

“There’s always a chance he’ll need to lick his wounds. Tonight had to have cost him,” Dick notes.

“That’s nothing to him. Are Kate and Stephanie OK?” Barbara asks.

“Both are well,” Alfred says. “Ms. Kane was rather liberal with the miniguns.”

Dick looks alarmed. “You let Kate in the Car?”

“You were in Bludhaven,” Alfred says, and there’s an unmistakably accusatory note there.

“We’ve been over this. I can’t just walk away from the Titans,” Dick begins.

“Yes, yes.” Alfred nudges him to shut him up. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand, Ms. Gordon. Elite Pride was necessary to mask Al Ghul’s movements. Why the involvement with Seed specifically?”

“Seed happened to be the hottest new action in town,” Barbara replies bitterly. “Elite Pride needed to be of interest to the major crimes unit and vice, both of which are headquartered at the main precinct. That guaranteed that when they were arrested they’d be brought to central lockup. Ra’s doesn’t care about Seed. He never did. The trap for us was to make sure there was media coverage; media coverage meant the mayor’s office would lean on GCPD and Elite Pride would become priority one. Talia used us. Did Red Cross make it out alive?”

“There was nothing on the scanner,” Dick replies.

“Then she’s probably OK. Good. I like knowing there’s someone out there trying to help.”