He had crept up on her, the boy with the pixie boots. By the time she'd realized she loved him, it was too late. It had always been too late, really. Dick had been dating a girl about a hundred times prettier than the bookish Barbara Gordon, who'd enjoyed a flirtation, but never seriously hoped to compare with the girl with golden skin and fiery red hair.
She'd tried to hate him, too. After one moment when she'd thought things just might be different, and he just might be hers after all. She had been wrong though, deceived, but the anger she'd tried to nurture had been unsustainable, especially after his other relationship ended, and the unspoken reason turned into subtext.
Babs knew she was like Bruce. Once, they had been a trio - Batman, Robin, and occasionally, Batgirl. She had not been the dark, brooding figure her mentor was, but she was fierce, intelligent, and determined. Robin, Dick, had balanced them, and he still did, both of them individually. After she'd been shot, Babs had sunk down into deeper and darker places she'd needed to drag her way out of. She'd done it through sheer determination and hard work that continued unrelentingly. It was Dick who pulled her away and helped her live. With him, she had a life outside the one she'd built from the ashes of the girl who'd once flown above the streets of Gotham with him - and never would again.
With him, the salvation was worth it.
"I can do it, you know," she grumbled half-heartedly, betrayed by a soft chuckle. She started to follow him into the kitchen but didn't make it before he was back. Helping him unpack the bags, opening containers to look inside, Babs hummed noncommittally.
"You'd know better than I. I only saw Dinah at the bachelorette party, and she seemed fine then." But that wasn't really what he was asking, and she shot him a look, thinking about it. "Alright, so I'm worried," she admitted. "I know that they love each other, and I don't believe either of them would have taken this step if they weren't completely serious about it and believe it would work; especially Dinah. She's smart, she knows what she's getting into." Babs scooped something onto her plate without looking to see what it was, lost in thought. "It's just that - Bruce doesn't have the greatest track record, does he? Granted, they either don't know about him, or aren't capable of dealing with that knowledge, but others he has a tendency to just... push away... I just really don't want her getting hurt because he gets his head up his ass again."