She'd had big dreams, she was going to accomplish things, and well - because she was Barbara Gordon she had done exactly that. She'd moved away from Wassail when she was still a teenager and gone to college, she'd gotten her degree and then she'd gotten to work and had been rising up the corporate ladder ever since, but part of her wondered if this was exactly the thing she'd been chasing when she'd left behind her town and the first boy she'd ever loved in search of something more.
"This is a great opportunity Barbara," Felix had said, "Just think about it, take the holiday, and then let me know." It was a big deal, a managerial position but it would mean leaving the country. Leaving her family, and her friends, the life she knew - and for what? To work just as hard at the same thing she was doing in another country? But this was the way things were done, wasn't it? That's what she told herself. But she wasn't so sure.
Maybe that was why she went home that Christmas, she'd gotten in the habit of staying away over the holidays, first because she'd been too homesick to go back without the fear that she wouldn't leave, and then later because she had other things to do, and then because work was always tugging at her. But now she had time, and she needed the break, so she'd packed a couple of bags and made the drive back home, right back to her old bedroom in her dad's house. He was ecstatic she was back for the holidays, and had made up her room like she'd never left it before. It had been a little much and Barbara had needed to get out of the house.
Which was how she ended up walking down old familiar streets, trying to clear her head when she saw him. Dick Grayson. The first boy she'd ever loved, probably the only if she was being honest, nothing had ever really felt right since him. She needed to avoid him right? She couldn't just say hi, it would be awkward, too awkward, she should just save them both the trouble - of course that was exactly the sort of thinking that tended to get her in trouble and just as she'd started to spin to try and avoid him catching sight of her, she stepped on a small patch of ice, just enough to have her foot flying out from under her and her arms going up as she was suddenly falling, a cry on her lips as she went toppling toward the pavement.