BAE Chapter 53

“OK. Let’s do it,” Barbara says.

“You feel strongly about this. You’re willing to give up your secret identity?”

“Only to you. And you could just use magic to figure out who I am anyway.”

“I could,” Zatanna admits. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. But you’ll owe me a favor.”

“I figured. How do we do this?”

“Get some chalk. Then go to Luthor’s penthouse.”

Barbara is taken aback. “You’re not going to do the thing?”

“I already did,” Zatanna replies and vanishes.

Barbara frowns and looks around at the suddenly empty room. Puzzled, she puts her hands on her hips, unsure what to do. She lets out a little shriek and jumps as Zatanna’s voice speaks in her ear.

“What are you waiting for? There’s chalk in the kitchen.”

“Where are you?” Barbara demands.

“I’m riding along.”

“Oh my god.”

“I can take control if you want me to, but I don’t know how to work your bat car,” Zatanna goes.

Barbara feels a chill that has nothing to do with magic. She knew that Zatanna was powerful, but she didn’t know that she could do something like this whenever she wanted. She’d better stay on Zatanna’s good side. On the one hand, this might’ve been a good call. There’s no way that Luthor has an answer to this sort of thing. On the other, Barbara has to wonder if she’s in over her head.

She finds chalk in a drawer in the kitchen and leaves the apartment, sweating.

“So you’re just in my head?” she asks nervously as she descends to the Car.

“You don’t have to say it out loud. I’ll hear you regardless.”

“And you’re just going through my psychic photo albums?”

“I’m actually watching your psychic porn collection,” Zatanna replies casually. “Just kidding! It’s not like that, Barbara. I’m just sitting here. You’re the one who keeps thinking about this personal trainer.”

“The Seed attack did something to me,” Barbara grumbles defensively as she programs the address into the Car’s navigation system.

“I know. I’m not judging. She’s pretty. Summer Gleeson, too? You’re leaning into it.”

Barbara grinds her teeth, blushing. Zatanna did warn her.

“Batwoman,” Zatanna notes. “You’re getting more high-profile action than half the Justice League.”

“Is this helpful?” Barbara snaps.

“You’re the one who won’t stop thinking about it. Besides, I have to lighten the mood. I’m inside you. It’d be weird otherwise.”

“Oh, this isn’t weird at all.”

“I should compliment you on resisting that corporate lady. I’ll admit, I’m a little fascinated by this Seed stuff.”

“We need an antidote. That’s what all of this is about.”

“But you’re enjoying it so much. Hell, I’m enjoying how much you’re enjoying it,” Zatanna protests. “You’re making me want to try it.”

“It’s not the women who want to try it that I’m worried about.”

“That’s fair. I see that we’re after Poison Ivy’s things. Don’t you think this is a little on the nose? Her entire business model is using horniness to get people to do what she wants. She’s getting you to give her what she needs to break out,” Zatanna says, as though that thought hasn’t occurred to Barbara.

“I’m going to check it before I give it to her. And she uses plant pheromones to make people horny. It’s not the same.”

“You say that, but I have this memory of you checking the security cameras at Arkham and getting a view of Ivy and not hating what you saw.”

“Dr. Pamela Isley is an attractive woman,” Barbara says firmly. “Poison Ivy is not.”

“You can’t lie to me when I’m literally in here,” Zatanna says.

Frustrated, Barbara puts her foot down. The Car rockets down the street with a roar.

BAE

Luthor’s penthouse is even more opulent than Bruce’s. Barbara knocks out the exterior cameras with EMP batarangs, then grapples to the roof to hide in the shadows.

“We’re here,” she says to Zatanna.

“I see that. Take off the suit.”

“What?”

“Take it off. It’s full of electronics that can be detected. Luthor has alien technology in there. We can’t make it easy for him,” Zatanna says. “Magic is natural, so you need to be natural too.”

“You’re hazing me. I’ve seen you do magic. You don’t have to be naked.”

“You’ve never seen me do a magical cat burglar routine,” Zatanna counters.

Barbara hesitates. “You’re not joking?”

“Barbara, getting in and out of this building is easy. Getting in and out without being detected is hard. We don’t want anything in there that has a power source.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’d do it for you, but I don’t know where the zippers are on these costumes.”

“I got it,” Barbara says through gritted teeth. “What if someone sees?”

“Nobody’s watching.”

Zatanna cannot possibly know that. She can know everything in Barbara’s head, but she cannot know that nobody in any of the skyscrapers surrounding this spot happens to be looking in this direction. Still, it’s dark enough that Barbara talks herself into it, shedding her cowl and costume. The wind up this high is icy on her skin; it’s not enough to be naked on a rooftop downtown, she needs goosebumps all over and hard nips to make her humiliation complete.

Her teeth chatter.

“Don’t try to tell me that Luthor’s going to detect a cotton-modal blend,” she says, plucking at her boyshorts, which she is stubbornly keeping on.

“Fine. I’m taking over. Don’t fight it.”

There’s nothing to fight, and that’s scary. Barbara’s body moves on its own. She’s not even sure that she’d realize something was wrong if Zatanna used this power on her without permission. Her body language and posture change as Zatanna fully inhabits her body, creeping to the skylight.

Zatanna draws something in chalk, then wipes it out and slips through the solid glass as though it’s not there. She falls lightly to the floor of the dark penthouse inside, landing gracefully and standing up.

“Uh oh,” she says inside Barbara’s head.

Barbara sees it too: security cameras inside, pointed straight at her. Shadows will hide her from eyes outside, but not from cameras. Now Barbara Gordon, maskless and wearing nothing but panties, is on camera in Lex Luthor’s penthouse.

“Oh no,” Barbara says internally.

“We’ll take care of it,” Zatanna assures her. “Poison Ivy. Poison Ivy. Where’s the vault? The office.”

Luthor’s office is spectacular, with a few prices vases, paintings, and stolen tribal masks to bring it together. The rug on the floor is an animal skin, but it’s nothing from Earth. Barbara doesn’t want to walk on it barefoot, but Zatanna strides right across it.

“The vault is behind that painting of the Metropolis skyline,” Zatanna says. “But we need to take care of the camera situation first.” She goes to Luthor’s computer and scribbles something on the desk with her chalk. There’s a small puff of smoke, and a golden beckoning cat figure appears. Zatanna catches it as it falls out of the air and sets it on the desk, poking the raised paw to make it start moving. She taps a button and Luthor’s computer wakes up, demanding a password. Zatanna covers her eyes and punches several keys, apparently at random. A second later she’s in.

Barbara watches as Zatanna briskly deletes the recordings and disables the cameras.

“Hang on,” Barbara says.

Lex Luthor more or less runs the Legion of Doom. He keeps extensive files on all sorts of things that could be of interest to a person who dresses as a bat.

Should Barbara ask Zatanna to look at the files?

Or just let her get on with the heist?