What Do You Want?

After breaking up with Dick (in Nightwing #87), Babs has a visitor.  This story has nothing to do with any of my other stories.

All characters are the property of DC Comics.  No money is being made on this story and no infringement of copyright is intended.

I felt a slight breeze on the back of my neck from the open window and sighed.  Couldn’t they learn to knock?  It could be Tim but Cass was more likely.  She was in and out of the Watchtower all the time.  It was unlikely to be Bruce, unless he had heard about….

“Barbara.”

Of course he had heard about my breaking up with Dick.  He’s the Batman, he knows everything, particularly the things you least want him to know.

“What do you want?”  My tone was barely civil.  I did not turn to face him.

“Have you traced those accounts I asked you for?”

We both knew that he could have just called for the information.  Mechanically, I reeled it off for him.  Then, pointedly, I added, “Now get to the real reason you’re here.”

Silence.  Then, “Are you expecting me to tell you you’re making a mistake?  That love conquers all and you should grab at your chance at it with both hands and never let go?”

I managed a chuckle at that.  “That advice would sound really weird on your lips, wouldn’t it?”

“I do have a question, however.”

“Oh?” I asked, guardedly.

“I knew, when I chose this path, that I was giving up any chance for happiness, turning my back on the possibility of loving or being loved.  That I would spend my life alone.  That, if I lived that long, I would spend my old age by myself, with nothing, not even happy memories, to break the solitude.”

He paused and his words seemed to echo in the suddenly lonely Watchtower.

“I don’t regret that choice.  But is that how you want to live your life?”

I spun my wheelchair around but, of course, he was gone.  The window curtains billowed in the breeze.  All alone, I dropped my head into my hands and wept.