Chapter Text
Over the past few years, Halloween hasn't been one of Barbara's favorite holidays. To be clear, it's hard to enjoy any holiday when people keep taking it as an invitation to kill whoever so much as sneezes at them funny, and Barbara's Dad isn't so irresponsible that he'd let himself stay home with killers at large, so--
Safe to say, she doesn't get out much those days. Tonight is different, though.
Tonight, Barbara has a plan, and a costume to match. It's been a long, long time since she's gone trick-or-treating, but she doesn't plan on getting any candy tonight. Stopping by the precinct with her new suit is enough sweetness for her.
Weeks of planning. Weeks of staying up sewing and then staying up more playing catch-up with her assignments, just so her Dad wouldn't know what she was doing. At least work isn't that stressful; though the same can't be said about her classes.
It's a little gauche, the suit--the costume, in fact, because it's just that. The look on Jim Gordon's face when she walks in dressed in a mimic of Gotham's very own Bat will be delicious. On second thought, though, maybe she should've picked a fabric that was less itchy to wear.
Bringing her car deeper into the city is a risky choice, so she leaves it behind as soon as she reaches a distance that won't have her sweating like a pig. She'd say that being closer to the GCPD HQ would make it any safer, but she'd have to lie to do it.
So far, the night is pretty calm, down on the street level. Barbara hears no screams and sees no plumes of smoke and it's already almost midnight. She doesn't want to make any preemptive calls (mainly because if the words "Maybe it's safe" leave her mouth, odds are things will go to shit immediately), but she's sure that Batman is probably dealing with something obnoxious that no one knows about.
Batman. The suit's meant to piss off her Dad, but Barbara wouldn't mind if the great big flying rodent sees it himself, if only so she can stick her tongue out at him and say she wears it better. She's met him before, and while his suit is definitely made of better materials, Barbara bets he wouldn't know a good fit and form if it bit him on the nose.
The cloak is like a liquid riot shield and looks perfectly fine in the dark, but in harsh lights (like the Batsignal, which is pretty much one of the only places she's seen him) he looks like a thick block of moldy, shapeless tofu. Combined with his naturally--how does one ask a vigilante if he wears insoles?--large size, it's not the best look. If it works for the shadows, she supposes it does its job.
And it's not like Robin's any better. They have all of those fancy gadgets, but they can't afford a pair of pants? Almost psychosomatic, Barbara feels a chill run down her arms, raising the hairs on her skin. She tries picturing walking around Gotham's nights in a leotard, vest, and cape, and gives another shiver for good measure. And that's not even mentioning the colors, and the puns.
("Thirty-seven different cheese puns while covered in blood, Babs. Climbing around the walls giggling like a spider demon, I have no idea where Batman found the kid--")
There's tons of theories about Batman and his little rascal. For one, the kid is visibly a kid, but the Bat could be anywhere from twenty to fifty and none of them would have a clue. Maybe he's not a person at all. Gotham's had stranger things than a physical manifestation of her will coming to life and punching people in the face. She's heard talk of them living in the sewers, in a great big cave system under the city ready to pop out of the ground like a pack of gophers.
But Barbara doesn't believe any of that. Maybe it's because she's seen the dynamic duo in person, but in her honest opinion they're all too...human. Namely, Barbara doubts that 'the tortured, corrupted soul of Gotham's dead innocents', as people so colorfully describe the Boy Wonder, would kick rocks and look at her out of the corner of his eye like a shy toddler.
And there's only one sort of creature with enough audacity to dress up at night in skin-tight leather and deal with problems like the city's a playground fight, pulled pigtails and all. And the name of that creature, in Barbara's mind, is rich white man.
She has no real proof of at least one of those claims, but she's confident in her odds. Before she can muse about it for too long, another breeze sweeps by the street, snapping her out of her thoughts to grip the cape tighter against her shoulders. The wind whistles around her ears, loud against damp, undecorated concrete. For all that it's a holiday, Gotham isn't particularly festive.
Inevitable result of what started only a few Halloweens ago. That, she remembers, was a long, long year.
The wind roars particularly hard, and Barbara pauses. Gotham air is noxious at best and downright toxic at worst, but that has nothing to do with the goosebumps dancing over her skin, chill slipping under her costume like it's not even there. There's something more to it, though, something else setting her teeth on edge...
Just underneath the howling wind, Barbara hears the tail end of what can only be a scream. Before she has time to think about it, she's turning, running in the direction of the sound. Her muscles, so cold just a moment ago, heat up in a flash, her heart pounding its way up her throat.
What am I doing? It must be the suit. It's Halloween--there's every chance it's only a prank gone wrong, or every chance that Barbara's heading straight into something she's not going to come out of. The thought makes her swallow, even as she's rounding the last of a corner, mind going carelessly blank.
"How can you not have five hundred dollars?" The man in the suit demands, waving around a metallic contraption, voice muffled by the huge mask covering his features. "Five hundred is not that much money. What am I supposed to do with twenty five bucks? What costs twenty five, a loaf of bread?"
Ugh. For the disproportionate poverty level in the city, there's also a disproportionate number of rich bastards running around, always getting involved in shady shit and looking to make a quick buck. It's a vicious cycle of them losing money to crime, then trying to earn it back through crime, then losing everything again. The only reason they haven't driven the city into the ground yet is a mix of the barely competent mobsters holding up the underground, and the few other rich guys with two fractions of braincells to rub together.
She's been to the parties, courtesy of her Dad's invitations. If she really focuses, she could probably identify this dude by sleazy voice alone. The only high-society jerk she hasn't met (and then subsequently disliked) is probably the Wayne boy, and only because he's too much of a recluse for her to have gotten the chance.
So great. Her opponent's some entitled (formerly) rich guy with desperation on his side--could be better, could be worse. With If the fabric of her suit has any benefit, it's that it seems to be too soft for him to have heard Barbara coming. Or maybe he's just being too loud--probably on purpose, she thinks. The mask can't help with his hearing.
Still, Barbara freezes, galloping heartrate spiking even higher despite the fact that she's not moving anymore. The man's not particularly tall, and she'd almost mistake his suit and things for Halloween props if it weren't for the sound and shine on the things. She has no idea what they do, but she doubts it's anything good.
The woman the man is accosting clings to her purse like a lifeline, and Barbara has no doubt she'd have started running if he wasn't standing between her and the only exit. Their eyes meet, and for a brief second Barbara wonders if she's going to scream again...But the woman looks away quickly, swallowing hard.
Barbara has no idea what conclusions she's jumped to. But the element of surprise remains on her side.
It's a choice, for sure. To walk away now or step in and find out up close and personal what that gun-thing (it has a finger trigger, so it has to shoot like a gun, right?) does. Maybe end the night with a broken jaw or worse.
It's not the suit, she thinks in the few seconds of deliberation. There's never been something that Barbara threw herself at without intent of seeing it through. Even when she maybe shouldn't.
First it was school. Graduation. She heard 'you need this many credits to graduate' and she got them in a fraction of the time. Then her degree. She heard 'pre-law is one of the most difficult programs at the university' and she's been working her way through it like a dog, paying on the back of scholarships and grants.
Now there's this. A crossroads, literally and figuratively. Step back, or step forward.
In the end, it's not that hard of a choice at all. Barbara moves, and the world around her blurs in a whir of adrenaline.
When Barbara blinks back into herself, there's a high pitched sound in her ears. It's only a minute later at most, she thinks. Did I lose that quickly?
She looks down, and realizes she might have just severely overestimated the risk of the situation, after all.
The man in the suit is letting out a pathetic, thin shriek, his feet kicking behind her with his arms folded behind his back. There's no discernible words in the sound, but she gets the feeling there'd be a lot of swearing if there were.
"...Wow," she says, looking up to share a conspiratorial look with the woman, but finding her long gone. "Really?"
A bit anticlimactic, for a brush with crime. Barbara has the nonsensical thought of Batman and Robin as particularly inflated stuntmen, before she shakes it out of her head. One crazy guy in an alley with what looks like homemade (seemingly useless) tech that she got the drop on hardly compares to the insanity that's been lurking around, lately. Still, a streak of thrill brushes down her spine, leaving her almost dangerously lightheaded.
No thank you for me, she thinks, but it's not as bitter as she tries to make it feel.
It takes a couple of tries to get her phone out to call the police, but eventually she manages it...after a good whack to the forehead makes the man slump in her grip. After that, tying him up with a bit of her costume is easy.
It only takes her a second, in comparison, to decide to get the hell out of dodge. Helping is one thing. Letting her dad see her in this suit after pulling something like this is a whole other ballpark.
If she's lucky, nothing will happen, and she'll get to scare the crap out of him some other day. Maybe next Halloween. Though she's starting to think the day might be a little bit cursed, overall.
No matter. She gives the man a kick with her heel, walking away with a swish of her newly ripped cape, shivering as another breeze slips by when she walks back onto a main road. Next time, she'll bring an actual coat.
"Daisies," her Dad complains a few days later. Barbara pauses in doing the dishes, eyeing him lying over the breakfast table with a brief sense of trepidation then turning back to the sink. "Just like damned daisies! Where does he keep finding these kids? Does he grow them in a lab somewhere?"
"Hm," Barbara lets the choked sound turn into a hum, resuming the circling of the sponge. "Who?"
"You know who," he groans, and the sound is followed by the obvious slurping of coffee. Gross. "He won't admit it, but I know she's one of his. Like Robin wasn't enough."
The association both jars and annoys her. She's seen the newspaper clippings ('New Bat in town?'), and it's not like she can't guess that they're talking about her. One night. One night, one incident, and suddenly people have expectations and the like. Not only that, but they think he found her.
It's almost insulting, to think that she's just another underling in spandex. Then she catches herself, because she's not doing this. This. All of it. She's not a vigilante! It was a one-time deal!
"I don't think she's part of it," Barbara says, knowing that continuing the conversation will have him moody, even though he started it. Sometimes it feels like Barbara's listening to a housewife complain about her husband, which is not a thought she likes having about her Dad and the Bat in any capacity. "Probably just a good, costumed Samaritan,"
And she's not lying. Barbara isn't part of Batman's little tribe. What's a group of bats called? Whatever it is, she's not in it. She has no intent of following after him like a good little batling. She's already got one too many grown-ass men trying to tell her what to do with her life, thank you very much.
He makes a considering, grumpy noise at her, turning into a deep sniff and clear of his throat. "Maybe. I hope you're right. If that little girl knows what's good for her, she'll stay home."
Barbara freezes. "You don't think she can cut it?"
She's not going to take it as a challenge. She's not. Barbara Gordon is not a creature functioning solely off of vicious spite and contrarianism. She has more decency than that. She has-
"From the description, she's a flimsy little thing," her Dad says, halfway warning tones that make her spine stiffen, the other half amusement. The same amusement he gets when she's spitballing careers and throws police officer or CIA agent out into the air. Like an allergic reaction, her shoulders come up, Barbara's throat tightening so much it hurts to swallow. "She got lucky once. City doesn't need little girls getting ideas right now."
She still hasn't thrown the suit out, actually. The cape fabric is shot, but easily replaceable. The whole of it can be upscaled and padded pretty easily, given she's the one that designed it in the first place. Barbara was going to seam-rip it for scraps this afternoon.
"I guess we'll see," she says, washing away the soap coating the clean plate in her hands. The water is cold, even through the gloves.
There's a pair of sneakers she can sacrifice. They don't quite fit anymore, but the sole is still thick and useable. Cutting it out should be easy. In a couple of days, she can probably fix up a new cape, too.
Just a few days, or a couple of hours if she hurries. And Barbara knows all about hurrying things along.
"Has anyone ever told you copyright infringement is a crime?"
The familiar, unnervingly cheery voice pipes up behind her, and she barely stops a yelp by jamming her foot into a wet puddle next to an air conditioning unit. The water barely splashes, but the fabric of her suit soaks it up in seconds, too deep to be stopped by the stitched-on soles.
Unnerving, she thinks, because no part of her had felt him approaching. She's only three stories up...but then again, she's three stories up. Barbara turns to face Robin--Batman, she's sure, wouldn't say anything while brooding creepily behind her--with a scowl, registering his actual words a couple of seconds later.
He's taller than she remembers; a benefit of puberty, and what's probably the same diet that let Batman grow so tall people still mistake him as a wall sometimes. His face is thinner under the mask that covers his nose and cheekbones, but there's enough fat at the sides that Barbara still wonders how old he is. Young, for sure. Cute enough, but not quite her type.
Barbara crosses her arms over her chest, and Robin's smile grows. The sight prickles. "Is that really your starter? You're not the pinnacle of the law yourself, buddy."
He laughs. Hard. His shiny yellow cape flutters with the motion, but not as much as she'd expect, belying the heft and quality. The soles of the shoes she glued to the bottom of her suit squeak with moisture as she shifts, and another bout of pricking annoyance sweeps through her.
"What are you doing here?" She continues, willing her cheeks to cool as he straightens. He's impeccably stable, despite the fact that the fencing covering the edge of the rooftop (some sort of terrace?) is less than half of the width of one of his feet. It's like he has magnets in his pixie boots--something that she concludes is entirely possible after a second thought. "Just gawking?"
The white lenses are incredibly discomforting, Barbara finds, especially when they're directed at her. His smile turns more bland, more secretive after a moment.
"Spying," Robin says, and the word is so sincere Barbara thinks she heard wrong. Robin cocks a hip, leaning back with the sway of the fence. "Duh. You didn't think we'd just let you stomp all over our territory, did you? Batman's not happy you're wearing his symbol."
She should probably feel more chastised at it. More contrite, given she actually did step in on his symbol, what with the suit being a costume of him originally. But somehow...
The patronizing words, with the big guy not even daring to show his face, rub at her the wrong way. Barbara scoffs, "Full offense, but I don't need your permission to help people. Gotham's her own city, not Batman's."
"Yeah?" Robin hums. The wind blows hard, and despite herself Barbara feels nervous for him. Why can't he come down like a normal person? "I don't think he'd agree. You are using his name, Batgirl."
Her face twists. That stupid name. She knows she's technically not quite twenty yet, but she's closer to that than being young enough to feel comfortable being called girl like that. But Barbara can't say that, and it's already been a couple of weeks, too long to correct the flow of the rumors. For every time she says she's 'Batwoman', someone else calls her 'That New Batgirl Chick', and it sucks that the name sticks enough that she catches herself saying it in her head.
"And do you agree?" Barbara asks instead of indulging that particular thread of conversation. If Batman has a problem with how others call her when this is the only suit she has, then he can pay for a replacement for the rebrand. It was way too expensive to make just one suit, and Barbara's still just a part-timer at the library.
Robin snorts, doing an entirely unnecessary cartwheel that sets her teeth on edge. "You think I'd be here if I did?"
...Yeah, Barbara does think that, actually. Robin's a free little bird, but Batman calls the shots for the two of them, for the most part. It's a little creepy, how attached at the hip they are. She knows her Dad's been watching them carefully for anything nefarious between them, even if he doesn't actually suspect anything. She wouldn't rule it out, but that's mostly because she hasn't spoken to the man more than three words at a time.
Robin's outfit isn't as big of an indicator, if she's honest. She remembers all too well what kids tend to wear when given the choice to pick their own wardrobe, and Robin is more dramatic flair than person. Whatever's going on there, she's of the personal opinion Batman has very little to do with it.
"I think you're full of it," she says, turning around with a kick that makes the fencing wobble. Robin squawks behind her, the metal making strange vthmm noises as he tries to find his balance again. "Go home, Bird Wonder. It's not nice to follow a lady around after dark."
An arm wraps around her collarbones, tugging her back and making Barbara bring an elbow back to strike at Robin's solar plexus. His hand grabs it before she can make contact, his stupid, mid-pubescent voice clicking in her ears.
"You haven't even gotten to know me!" He whines, grip surprisingly firm as she digs her nails into his forearm. "I have this plan, and I was thinking we could--"
He cuts off with a screech, pulling away so quickly she barely has the time to loosen her teeth from where they dig into his suit. The fabric leaves a weird taste on her tongue, like rubbing soap mixed with dirt into her tongue, all coarse and textile dyes. She sputters as Robin gapes, gripping the arm with a tooth-shaped dent in it.
"Manners," she spits one last time, scrunching her nose in his direction, dread filling her as the skin on his neck starts looking pink. Uh oh. "Don't touch me without asking, squirt."
He's still not quite tall enough to match her, but he'll probably beat her in another year or two. If she's lucky, his intelligence might grow to match, but she won't hold her breath over a kid that wears bright yellow to be stealthy.
"You bit me." His voice is almost entirely nasal, echoing behind her as she sprints towards the edge of the rooftop, jumping the fence to a slightly lower building. "Where are you going!? Didn't like the taste of Boy Wonder? Come back!"
It is fun to mess with him, she thinks absently, ducking out of the way of a round red disk thrown wide over her head. It's point to her; if he were really mad, the thing would've beaned her no matter what. Robin doesn't miss unless he wants to.
It's not her duty to bring him down a peg or two, but maybe she can categorize it as a public service. After wandering around for weeks with nothing but crooks for company at night, his shouts of indignation are pretty welcome, even if he is a brat.
And if they put the chase on hold when Robin's communicator beeps with a mugging a few streets away, that's neither here nor there.
The specificity of the language of breaking and entering means that it's not what she's technically doing when she makes her way inside the GCPD headquarters to 'borrow' some supplies. Using her Dad's discount for things can only account for what she's using--hacking into the information systems fills in the rest, but it's hard to hack something that's only available on paper.
Not to say that making her way into the precinct is easy. If it were anyone but her, she doubts that things would go this smoothly. She knows the building like the back of her hand, first from her Dad's former cubicles to when he started getting bigger and bigger offices, the peeling paint and grimy corners almost homely next to the grimacing faces of other cops.
She's not friendly with all of them (her jaunts into their servers make it really hard to think positively of them, lately), but she knows most of them by name if not by face, at least. Barbara can give a halfhearted wave at Bullock, a nod towards Essen, and her biggest, most innocent grin to Esperanza, who raises an eyebrow at her presence but doesn't say anything, thankfully.
The knowledge that she's technically doing something wrong, though, makes the back of her neck prickle as she smiles her way past Officer Pauling and slips into her Dad's office. He's out taking a statement--that much she knows from the radios--but he should be back soon. She's timed it perfectly, after all.
From there it's fast. The files aren't always in the same place, but the benefit of knowing Jim Gordon is knowing his habits, and this week he's been complaining about bending over so much. Barbara finds the files she needs on the incident a couple of weeks ago in a bottom drawer, including her Dad's personal notes, and takes a few seconds per page scanning each one.
She's sitting next to his desk when her Dad walks in, spinning around in the chair at the front of his desk with a beatific smile at his shocked expression. It'd be more suspicious if Barbara left, after all. Better just to stick to the usual and act like she's just bringing him food.
"Oh, you shouldn't have," he says, betrayed by the hungry glint in his eye, looking at the stir-fried broccoli through the steamed up cover. Hook, line, and sinker.
Someone behind him makes a curious noise, and Barbara blinks at a familiar blond pushing his way past her Dad's shoulder and into the office. Her dad puffs up, all bragging, sarcastic pride. "See, Bard? Almost makes having kids worth it."
Bard--Jason, he always insists, but Barbara wants to make him earn that--hums, smiling at her with straight teeth. "Very nice. Aren't you sweet, Miss Gordon?"
Barbara rolls her eyes. If she was looking for some pretty boy to clumsily flirt with her, she'd just wait until nightfall. Though it is nice to know the late nights and caffeine abuse haven't been dimming her charms--there's a nasty bruise on her lower jaw that she spent ages covering up with makeup. When her Dad clears his throat, Barbara realizes she's been quiet a suspicious amount of time, and the look on Bard's face is getting a little too smug for her liking.
"Down, boy." She scolds, standing up properly and pretending to brush dust off of her coat. "Think of it as an apology for being cranky. I'm going home now--studying to do."
The fact that most of the studying is going to be enhancing the files she has now and covering her tracks on the CCTV is neither here nor there. Barbara would rather not put her Dad's willingness to arrest her for vigilantism to the test while she's deep inside a GCPD precinct. She's not dumb.
"Thanks," he says, gruff but not unkind, perhaps a little stunned at her rush. As if by reflex, his hand twitches in her direction, but Barbara is already walking out the door.
There's a muffled conversation when it closes behind her, and though she can't discern the words Barbara hands around for a few seconds anyway. It's only when there's a small smack resounding even through the door that she walks away entirely, the refrigerated bag with her phone inside somehow feeling heavier than the food, something strange tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Barbara doesn't like moths. She used to not have an opinion either way, except maybe a tentative dislike based on a few shirts chewed through by the little things, but now she can firmly say she hates them.
The Halloween Fiasco was just the beginning. Moths, she learns, are the most annoying nemesis to have. The root of the cursed name that has Robin clinging to her even now. In her honest opinion, a better first nemesis to have would've been someone who didn't look like a silk cocoon someone chewed up and covered in concrete, but she's resigned to the fact that most men in this crime and vigilantism business are complete trainwrecks when it comes to looks.
And, well, considering that Barbara only half-disagrees with Poison Ivy's methods (mainly the general disregard for human life and consent, but perhaps she could be persuaded), having a woman to fight would probably not work out the way anyone would expect.
She will give the flying annoyance credit, though. He's really good at slipping away. Not that it's a good thing, but still. For someone that's pathetically easy to identify (as she suspected, a formerly rich white man. Barbara wishes she could be surprised), he's been incredibly difficult to nail. When she's particularly upset about it, Barbara gets the visual of putting him up against a massive corkboard and sticking pins in him until he stays still.
"Man, he got away again? Is he covered in oil or something?"
...Sometimes Barbara also pictures doing the same thing to Robin. Only sometimes, though. Mainly because she's already playing with fire on whether the Bat will come chasing after her if anything happens to him.
She's seen him, the stupidly large, mostly shapeless mass of Batman lurking in the shadows. Watching the two of them like some creep, though a part of her thinks he almost looks...longing.
Which is stupid, really. If a grown man is staring at two teenagers (she's pretty sure Robin's a teenager by now, at least) with any sort of yearning, that's the kind of person all three of them are dedicated to slapping around. So some of Barbara's wires must have crossed somewhere. It's hard to identify feelings when spotting the guy is like an antelope trying to spot a lion in the savannah.
She looks up, Robin hanging upside down above her, like he doesn't have anything better to do. There's something at the edge of his smile, though, something tense that rankles at the back of her head. It's not any of her business, frankly.
"Nothing more slippery than a rat with nothing to lose," she says by way of explanation, though she doesn't have to justify herself. Robin hums, looking down at her with his cape hanging low, and a part of her flares. Barbara tugs on the cape, and he yelps, swinging back up and out of her reach. "Why do you always come after the bad guys have gotten away?"
The failure--not a failure, she thinks, just a setback--stings more than she'd like, but letting Robin see that side of her feels worse. And it is annoying that he's always dragging her off to deal with his problems, but can never show up to lend a hand.
Not that she wants him to take all the credit for when she finally catches Killer Moth, that is. The media's had a field day with watering down her role in the scrapes they have managed to get into together, like Barbara isn't practically killing herself just to keep her grades up and get into sufficient shape to not lag behind.
Her Dad hasn't mentioned it yet, but it's only a matter of time before he notices that she hasn't needed his help moving furniture, or that she doesn't complain about lifting boxes at the library anymore. It's a ticking time bomb, that is, but Barbara will deal with that problem if it ever blows up.
He hasn't even noticed that one of the bars on her windows isn't actually stuck in place anymore. That one, at least, she can probably play off; she's had the tantrum over those scripted out since he finished installing them.
"I have very important things to handle," Robin says, then leans forward in a faux-conspiratorial whisper. "World-saving things, you know. I'm going to be a very big deal soon."
She sighs. He's always saying things like that, just barely cryptic enough that she's not sure if she should take him seriously or not. It doesn't help that the Batman's been seen doing things on a similarly big scale as what he's talking about, but somehow Barbara doubts that Robin gets let in on the plans of the new Justice League.
(Justice League. The name is good, if a bit on the nose. There's very little metaphor in it, which is probably good for clear interpretation of their intents, but the artistry in it is missing. She wonders who came up with it.)
"Sure." She agrees, because if she doesn't then he's going to get all whiny, and the moon's dipping about as low as Barbara's desire to deal with him like that. It's cute, in a pouty way, but not when she needs about forty cups of coffee in her system. She stretches her back, wincing at the bruises that have bruises, and turns to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Robin tilts his head at her, the streetlight he's perched on swinging precariously. "It's still early."
Barbara blinks. If Robin thinks three in the morning is early, she's not sure she wants to ask about his sleep schedule. "It's a weeknight? I have class. I'm going home."
Robin's mask stretches, widening eyes obvious even hidden behind his lenses. "You go to school? Why would you do that?"
Barbara...recalculates the odds that Batman and Robin aren't living in some cave under the city, disconnected from society as they know it. "It's called college, actually."
"Is there a meaningful difference?" Robin tilts his head, frowning. Barbara gapes. "I mean, it's basically just school, but older. Why don't you just not go?"
Her mind draws a blank. Robin doesn't go to school. Robin, a teenager, isn't going to school. Barbara, who practically bent over backwards to ensure her attendance record was perfect and graduated early to boot, doesn't know if she's more horrified that this is happening or that Robin doesn't seem to mind.
Her brain clicks back on. Of course he doesn't mind. He's a teenaged boy. Barbara summarily redirects her indignation at Batman once again.
"Is Batman not making you go?" She demands, hands on her hips, thumb jabbing into a small rip in the fabric of her suit. "What, does he keep you in a cave until it's time to come out?"
Robin snorts. "No. The cave gets cold in this weather. And Batman can't make me do anything, because then he'd be a hypocrite. Not that he isn't already..."
His voice turns strangely bitter at the end, but Barbara's too busy digesting the information to analyze it further, or to pay attention to the rest of the weird, salty rant he descends into.
(Go figure, the guys who punch criminals in the face have issues. Big whoop.)
The confirmation that they have a literal cave is one thing. She's joked about it before, but this is the first time Robin's mentioned it plainly like this. So maybe they are living like cryptids underground, which is...something. And apparently, Batman didn't go to school, either.
She tries to picture it. The big block of Bat-tofu sitting at a desk chair, learning multiplication for the first time. "Pfft-!"
"-leaving me behi--Wha? Are my woes funny to you? You're just like B! Come on, I'm spilling my heart out here!"
She can't breathe. Barbara falls to her knees, shoulders shaking, and Robin descends from the streetlight, haranguing her for the next five minutes.
Elsewhere on the streets, the shadows move up and down, as if sighing.