So there I was, cruising the new stories at Luba Kmetyk's Fonts of Wisdom
page, when I ran across a pretty good story by Jody Revenson.  It featured
an evening between Nightwing and Oracle, and was generally well written.

Okay, so what, right?  Well, there was this one line that sorta snagged
ahold of me there, and wouldn't let go.  It wasn't all that important,
really; it just explained that Oracle had slept with Nightwing years
before, back in the days when they were Batgirl and Robin, and that there
was a seven-year age difference between the two.  The way Jody wrote it,
Nightwing was sixteen at the time.  Which would make Ms. Gordon
twenty-three.  Which got me thinking.  If Robin was sixteen, then he was a
minor.  And as a minor, he was still the Batman's ward.... and that's
where this story came from.

Silhouette on a Dark Night


        She crouched on the edge of the roof, looking out into the darkness
and listening to the wind.  It was getting ready to storm, but it hadn't
started yet; what with this weather, there weren't many people out tonight.
        [Even carjackers gotta sleep sometime,] she thought.  She toyed a
little with the fringe on the arm-guard of her left glove.  Even though she 
was wearing her work clothes, her mind wasn't on work tonight.
        [What a day,] she thought, letting her lips curve into a contented
smile. She'd been with Dick most of the day . . . . [Sick days certainly do 
come in handy sometimes,] she thought, feeling the humid air brush her cheeks.
Sure he was, he was just a kid, but -- she whistled through her teeth --
*what* a kid!
        She sat in silence for a moment, clicking her tongue over her teeth
as the thunder rolled in over the harbor.
        "Barbara."  The voice was unexpected, and she jumped just the
slightest fraction of an inch.  She turned, still balanced on her haunches, 
doing her best to look like she hadn't been surprised at all.
        She wiped the smile from her features, steeling her face into her
best approximation of the 'Batman On Patrol' cast-iron mask.  "Batman.  What's
a nasty boy like you doing in a place like this?"
        The bravado was lost on the Batman.  On the other hand, most bravado 
was lost on the Batman.  "We need to talk," he said, his scratchy bass voice
echoing against the cold, wet brick rooftop.  It was an unpleasant sound.
        "About what?" she asked, her voice steady.
        "You know."  He didn't move from the opposite edge of the roof; he
stood stock still, drawn to the full, intimidating six-four.  In the dark, she
could just barely make out his mouth beneath the edge of the layered kevlar
mask, but she could tell he was grimacing.
        "No, I don't.  Maybe you should spell it out for me."
        There was a long pause; the lightning flashed out, drawing nearer to 
the city.  "Don't make me say it," the Batman said in the pause before the
answering volley of thunder.  His voice was tight.  If anything, it was an
uglier sound than before.
        "If this is about Dick and me --" she started with more than a hint
of self-righteous indignation, only to be cut off by the blunt chop of his
hand in the muggy air.
        "Don't waste my time, Barbara," he said, walking toward her, a
raspy-voiced spectre in black.  She could see his eyes; they were bright.
"Don't assume I'm a fool.  Do you think that I'm not aware of what goes on
inside the walls of my own *house*?"
        It was the first time she'd ever heard him raise his voice.  It made 
his usual low, gruff tones sound pleasant in comparison.
        "It's none of your business," she said, rising to her feet, trying
to match him brick-for-brick in her wall of toughness.  She thought she
did a pretty credible job, on the whole.
        And then the Batman did a very peculiar thing.
        He laughed.
        Nobody who hears the Batman laugh ever forgets it.  It's really not
a nice sound.  It's like nails on a chalk-board, or the screech of tires
and the shattering of glass; the Batman's laugh, so the more literate of
Gotham's criminal element say, sounds like the scream of a soul being
dragged through the gates of Hell.
        She licked her lips and swallowed; her throat was dry.  He locked
his eyes on her, and suddenly she could look nowhere save at the two brown,
bloodshot orbs.
        "It is absolutely my business, Ms. Gordon," he said, very slowly, as 
if he were talking to a very young child.  "Dick Grayson is my ward.  He's 
this far --" he held up his left hand, his thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch
apart -- "from being my son.  I am responsible for him.  That makes it my
business."  The Batman smiled, and in that moment you could not have guessed 
that it was Bruce Wayne under the mask, even if you knew the secret.... but 
then, as Wayne himself often said, maybe it wasn't.
        She shook her head, caught up in those terrifying eyes and willing
her legs to stop shaking.  "Look, if Dick and I want to be together --"
        He looked at her, and suddenly she had to stop talking.  "Don't
embarrass yourself, Barbara," he said softly.  "Don't try to justify this to 
me.  I don't want to hear it."
        The Batman turned away from her, staring out over Little Bohemia, the 
hot wind rustling his cape ever so slightly.  "I know Dick's had a crush on 
you for two years.  I know he's near killed himself trying to impress you.  
I don't approve, but I do understand."  He turned back to her, moving so
slowly that they were standing nose to nose before she'd even noticed he'd
shifted an inch.  "What I don't understand -- what I don't *care* to
understand -- is what interest a sixteen year old child holds for a woman
of twenty-three."
        "He's old enough to go out and work the streets with you, isn't he?" 
she protested, but even in her own ears, her voice sounded whiny and weak.
        The Batman's voice boomed along with a clap of thunder.  "He is a
child, Barbara.  Mature for his age, but a child nonetheless."  He seemed to
shrug, and a sound came from his throat that just might have been a sigh.
        "When it happened the first time, I wasn't happy," he said, his voice 
scraping through the heavy air like a blunt knife on a murderer's jugular.
"I would have talked to Dick about this before now, but then...." he made 
a gesture that every father makes at times, "this happen.  I don't care 
why you did it.  Maybe you just gave in to temptation.  Everybody does, one
time or another."
        The Batman shook his head, and it seemed as if time was pressing down
on him, weighing in heavily on his shoulders.  "But after this afternoon,"
he said, "I had to say something.  So I'm giving you fair warning, Barbara."
        "What?" she said, trying not to sound as nervous as she was.
        "What happened between you and Dick will not happen again," the
Batman said, and it was not an request, not even an order; it was as if he 
was simply stating a commonly accepted fact.  "You can continue to work with
us, to spend your off-time with us if you like; ask him to help you fix
your motorcycle, if you care to.  But it will not happen again."
        She raised her head, sweeping her hair back and mustering up her
last ounce of defiance.  "And what if I want to make my own decisions here?
What then?"
        The Batman snorted.  "You're perfectly welcome to make your own
decisions about anything else.  Just not about being with Dick."  He looked
at her, and there was no hesitation, no theatrics, not even any anger in
his frozen bloodshot eyes.  "Then I call your father and I file criminal
charges, Barbara."
        She looked away, and when she looked back, there was nothing but
the dark, and the rain falling softly on Little Bohemia.


Any comments would be greatly appreciated; all questions will be answered,
all criticism will be read carefully if not completely taken to heart, and
all flames will be deleted on sight by moi:

Falstaff
gratton@worldnet.att.net
"Someday, Logan, Alpha Flight will have all the rescources we need.  I'm
picturing a training area, using machenery to test the recruits without
having them train against each other.  I'll call it the Danger Room."
"Mac, that's the stupidest idea I ever heard in my life."
                --Mac Hudson and Wolverine, Alpha Flight Special #1

Thanks, and please respond!