ORACLE Epilogue

“She has the media in a stranglehold,” Viti Saxena says. She’s in her office at GCPD with Jim Gordon. She sits behind the desk while he is in one of the armchairs in front of it. “She’s always on offense. She doesn’t dodge. She doesn’t deflect. And now I understand why.”

“Why?” Jim asks, coffee cup in hand.

“Because she has…” Viti grimaces. “Strong allies that people don’t know about. She has this extra layer of protection that lets her be bold. She has all of Wayne’s money behind her. She’s doing things that are popular with an incredibly large segment of the population. And she’s thinking ten moves ahead. We’ve had connected politicians. We’ve had rich politicians. We’ve had smart politicians. We’ve had politicians who tried to do good things. But we’ve never had all of it at once. She’s conniving but honest at the same time.”

“I’m just hearing compliments here.”

“They aren’t going to let this stand, Jim.”

“Who’s they?”

“I don’t even know how to say it. Washington? The system? They aren’t going to want this precedent. Barbara Gordon’s approach is good for working taxpayers, but it’s bad for too many powerful people outside Wayne Enterprises. Right now, it’s the green energy thing—but tomorrow it’ll be someone else. How’s she going to protect her little fiefdom here from the entire Federal government?”

“I thought you said it was corporate interests that were the problem.”

“Who do you think the government works for?”

ORACLE

Cassandra Cain is present when Dick wakes up in the hospital. After the initial flurry of doctors and IVs and function tests, about two minutes pass before Bruce and Alfred arrive. Barbara is next with Stephanie, and then Helena, Kate, and more.

There’s no way to talk shop in the hospital, and nobody wants to, although Dick has questions. Wins are rare. He wants to know what’s going on, but he’s glad to be alive. He’s willing to take that for what it’s worth.

ORACLE

“Aki Aramaki is no longer present at this table, so I have to be the one to say these things,” Lucius Fox says, getting to his feet to address the board at Wayne Enterprises. “There’s going to be a lot of chatter among you about this, and some of you have probably started getting pressure from Washington. Supporting Barbara Gordon’s administration is a high-risk, high-reward gambit. Supporting this push for green energy is likewise very dangerous. Doing both at once is asking for trouble, but this is where we are, and we can’t stop now. We have to go all the way. If it works, this will be the most powerful company in the world by such a wide margin that it won’t matter what the history books say because we’ll be the ones writing them. Federal regulators will be trying to hem us up any way that they can, so we have to be particularly careful with compliance. If they’re unable to find anything they can use against us, they’ll fabricate it—so we’ll need to spin up resources suited to challenging those sorts of attempts at a setup. We also be restructuring our whole lobbying operation and expanding it considerably. Meanwhile, I think the likeliest narrative out of Washington will be flirting with accusing the mayor of treason when she inevitably refuses to cave to demands to prioritize capital interests over those of her voters. That’s going to be the hard part. We cannot rattle when those big, scary words start getting thrown around. Mayor Gordon has to be the one to handle it, and we have to stay the course in the meantime. This company is not going to support Mayor Gordon in anything controversial, but we are not going to create obstacles for her, either. I need all of you to understand that.”

“Is Wayne sleeping with Gordon? Is that why he appointed you Chairman? Are you?” one of the men in attendance asks bluntly.

Lucius doesn’t blink. “No to both of those wildly inappropriate questions, as you all damn well know. There’s no mind control, either. You all know that Mr. Wayne has dedicated significant resources, often to your chagrin because quarterly profits have never been his priority, to trying to help this city in much the same way that Mayor Gordon’s policies are doing. Mr. Wayne supports Mayor Gordon’s platform because her values align with what he’s been doing for two decades. And we support Mr. Wayne. It’s that simple.”

ORACLE

Ivy’s on top of Barbara in bed again. This has been happening more lately, and as much as Barbara likes the intimacy, it really just makes her think about how much more she would like it if she still had a penis. Ivy isn’t trying to do anything naughty. She just likes doing this. She’s always looking into Barbara’s eyes and searching them. It’s not about trust anymore. Barbara doesn’t know what it’s about. She does like having her hair played with, though.

She grunts softly and takes a moment to adjust the mutually smooshed boob situation, then smiles up at Ivy in the dim bedroom.

“You good?” Barbara asks.

“Mmmhmm,” Ivy replies, gazing.

“Do you do this with Harley?”

“No.”

“I’m just going to choose to believe that I should be flattered.”

Ivy does a little shrug and tickles Barbara’s chin. “The Yakuza thing, Babs. It gives them so many ways to attack you.”

“Yup.”

Ivy squints. “That’s what you want.”

Barbara rolls her eyes. “Speculation. Conjecture. Inadmissible.”

“You give them low-hanging fruit. You know they’ll go for it. You have a counterpunch ready. You’re pulling them in. This way, you know what they’re going to go after instead of wondering which way they’ll come at you from.”

“Keeps things simple.”

“You really think you can get healthcare?”

“I can get it for Gotham.”

“You don’t want to stop there.”

“You get me a cure for cancer, and I’ll be able to get whatever I want. And what you want.”

Ivy shakes her head. “I can’t cure cancer, Babs. But I can end food allergies. I can end fungal infections. And I can give you a supplement line that’ll tank the entire industry and make billions.”

Barbara sighs theatrically. “I guess I’ll settle for that.”

The screen beside the bed lights up, announcing that there’s a visitor.

Ivy frowns. “That’s not supposed to be possible.”

“It’s fine. I had a feeling this would happen. Help me into my chair.”

“Are we OK?” Ivy is wary but not afraid.

“We’re fine.”

“Do you want clothes?”

“Just give me the sheet.”

Ivy helps Barbara into her chair, which is a little novel because she has never rolled around in the nude before.

Barbara reaches for the sheet in Ivy’s hands, and Ivy pulls it away. “Who’s out there?”

Barbara sighs. “Batman.”

Ivy’s eyes harden, and she gives up the sheet. Barbara covers herself and rolls out.

Batman is at the far end of Ivy’s expansive apartment, nowhere near the bedroom. Barbara anticipated that Bruce would want to make some kind of point about how affronted he is by all of this, and even if he weren’t the Batman, Bruce Wayne is the one man with the level of access needed to invade Ivy’s quarters this way.

He stands in the dark, silhouetted against the red sky and the lights of Gotham.

Barbara rolls over to him. “Terrible timing.” In fact, his timing is perfect. They were probably five minutes away from repositioning to a sleep cuddle. It’s annoying that Bruce has the information necessary to demonstrate this timing.

In any case, there will be no idle chitchat. He will get straight to his point. The difficult thing is that Barbara cannot predict what his point will be. She could have easily before he went away, but without a full understanding of where he’s been and what happened to him—information that Stephanie has not shared and, irksomely, cannot be gotten by hacking—Barbara doesn’t know for certain where he’ll land on anything.

Something has made him doubt himself; that’s obvious from how passive he has been since coming back. But that’s not much to go on.

“How far are you going to take this?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing the answer to that myself,” Ivy says. Barbara looks back to see her approaching in an oversized T-shirt. Her inhibitor blinks on her wrist.

“Please don’t try to punch him,” Barbara warns.

“I won’t.” Ivy takes her place beside Barbara and glowers at Batman with her arms crossed. “We aren’t enemies. We never never were. We’ve always been the same. We break rules to do what we think is right, and we both enjoy it because we’re pissed as hell. Anyone who tells you different is lying to you and to themselves.”

Batman doesn’t argue with her.

“How far?” Barbara shrugs. “I haven’t decided. I haven’t done much that you couldn’t have done. Why didn’t you? I know at first you were just in it to hit people, but after a while you must have gotten frustrated. You weren’t winning. Nothing was changing. You could have done this.”

“I had to believe that they could do it without being ****.”

“But they can’t.” Barbara smiles sadly. “They can’t. You know it. We all know it.”

He doesn’t reply to that.

Barbara rubs her eyes; she’s tired. “People will die. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

He doesn’t reply to that either, but his body language is easy to read.

Barbara gazes at the sweeping searchlights of distant GCPD blimps. “I need Waller. If I’m taking on the whole country, I need someone on the inside. Someone who punches above her weight. It’s her. I already know there’s a price tag.”

“Shiva?”

“She’s just the beginning.”

“There won’t be room at the top for both of you.”

“I know. She’ll be my best protector, and she’s also the biggest threat. Figures you’d see it that way. You never were good with trust.”

“Trusting Waller is a mistake.”

“So you’re on my side now?”

“I protect the people of Gotham from criminals.”

Ivy bristles. “Sometimes. And sometimes you protect property and the rich people grinding this city under their feet. You’re a criminal too. How do you protect Gotham from you?”

“He does it by wearing that costume,” Barbara tells her. “And doing what he does instead of doing what I do. Because if he did it, it would be much worse.”

Batman is silent. Ivy seems taken aback. Barbara finds her hand and holds it.

“Eiko seems to be trying in good faith,” Batman says. “But her organization is substantial, and this arrangement of yours has emboldened them. Her people outwardly follow the rules, then go home and believe they’re untouchable.”

“I don’t expect you to give them a pass, just make it clear why you’re nailing them. It’ll take time, but Eiko can get them in line. If she can’t, we’ll find someone who can.”

“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the people being brutalized now by power-tripping Yakuza,” Batman counters. “What happens with Luthor follows your playbook? Or you get brought up on federal corruption charges?”

Barbara takes her eyes off his stony face and turns to Ivy instead, squeezing her hand.

“I’ll be ready.”

The End…?

[ There will be a big blog post, so keep an eye out for that if you're interested in my little restrospective on all this. We can look at doing more if people want it, but next up, we will have a little Resident Futa starting next Sunday. What I haven't decided is whether to just put RF on AO3 (where RF Requiem is already running, buy all our playsets and toys~) or if I should start a whole RF story here on CHYOA. I'm a little hesitant just because it would be a collection of (mostly) linear stories that doesn't really do much with the CHYOA format. Seems a little better suited to AO3. But if faithful readers and supporters have strong opinions and want it here, I'm willing to see if they'll approve it. Anyway, this was wild, thank you so much for following and engaging with it for so long! And, uh, have a good Easter! ]