"Jason... oh, Jason. He wasn't a boyfriend," Babs said quickly, blushing slightly as she hadn't meant to give that impression. "Dick was... is. Kind of. I think. But no not Jason. He was just... another Robin. Before Tim." And she was under no circumstances going into the details on Jason. Let him deal with Tim first, then they could delve into Jason Todd. Babs put him in the back of her mind and concentrated elsewhere.
Ooh. The cave. That made her happy. She grinned, patting the bag that was slung over her shoulder. "I shoved you out of the way because you were too slow. Honestly, Bruce, you may be the world's greatest detective but my computer's just faster. I work for the JLA now you know." Babs was bragging, just a little bit, only because she never really had the chance at home. It was always Oracle and Batman over the computer, never Barbara and Bruce and as much as she denied it outloud, sometimes it was nice to know that he was proud of her, not Batman.
"Dick ? My Dick ?" He held his hand up in the age old symbol of 'this high' only his hand was somewhere at his waist. "He who calls Alfred from college for tips on how to do laundry the 'Alfred' way." He dropped his voice in an awed whisper. "In other words, the right way."
Bruce gave Barbara an appraising look. Hard. Penetrating. He was protective of both of them.
"Did it ever interfere with the..." He almost called it a job. But he had a feeling a Barbara from the future would long have figured out it was much more than that. "mission ?"
He moved towards the aquarium and rolled his sleeves up, dipping his hand into the water, his fingers found a notch on the replica of the manor and pressed in. A second later, as he was shaking droplets off his hand, the iron maiden in the corner opened.
He smiled at her. "Or we could take the chute, Ms. JLA."
"The elevator is just fine, thank you very much." But she was grinning now, as she rolled over to join Bruce. The chute had stopped being fun somewhere around age sixteen when it suddenly became more fun to tease Dick about taking it.
"Dick isn't so small anymore," Babs said as the iron madien started with the familiar jolt. "He's his own man with his own city and his own name now. I'm the one repairing his suits now when he comes in, not Alfred." She laughed slightly, remembering one time Dick had asked her to repair a suit and she'd looked at him like he was out of his mind.
"We've always leaned more towards the side of friendship than... the other stuff, except for a few times when we've tried. Mostly because we know it might interfere. We both take our work so seriously, and I guess we haven't found a balance yet."
He ran a hand through his hair, half smiling, half coughing as she talked. "Babs, you're talking to me about relationships. We're just in another dimension. It's not the Apocalypse."
He paused suddenly, switching back, as he'd always intended, to the topic of her legs. His hand going to her shoulder again. "Did Jim forgive us both ?"
Before they stepped into the cave, he needed to know.
"My father trusted you, both of you, Bruce and Batman." Babs covered his hand with her own. She hated to have to appeal to his slightly pschitzophrenic side, but it seemed nessessary to reassure him. "It was my choice, he gets that and he certainly didn't hate either of us for it."
Babs took the initiative and rolled into the steel hallway first. She recognised it as the secure upper levels of the cave-- if anyone ever managed to get in, they wouldn't realise they were entering anything special. "It hasn't changed," she said, looking around apreciatively, her eyes stopping at the lit cases at the side of the hall displaying three costumes. Bruce's, Dick's, and hers. They looked like museum artifacts almost, probably the point. "It was so long ago it feels like. ...Honestly I'm quite sure I couldn't even fit into that costume anymore."
On the one hand she wanted to wet herself with excitement. This wasn't by any means the gave she'd left back in her own Gotham. Not even six years in Bruce's future would the cave look like this, Barbara could vouch for that. This cave had all of the basics she remembered, the computers and research centers and the mini lab, but there was just so much more of everything and then about two more levels than she remembered. The batcave she knew was one level just across the floor of the cave with the stalactites hanging above them. This one seemed to have three levels, different things on each. They were above everything.
There was no denying that she wanted to touch it all. After she got over the shock of course.
"Bruce, did you...?" Babs trailed off realising the question was rather foolish. No, there was no way he could have done this in three or four days. "This is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Have you gotten to look at it all? Is that the car down there? Does Alfred know where it all came from?"
"Well if I'd known this was here I wouldn't have gone and gotten myself a clock tower," Babs laughed. "I got a job at GSU... which is really GSU, Metropolis University, and NYU all smooshed into one. There's a clock tower on campus, completely empty and a perfect spot to move some of my things into. I was going to have a lair, just like I was taught." It was a common trait of those who trained under Bruce, they all ended up valuing their privacy and if it took a lair to do so then so be it. She could tease him as much as she wanted about it, but there was no denying the truth in the jab.
"Though, with this availible I suppose I'll just be doing far less work their than I was planning," she said, looking around the cave again and nodding happily. "The Oracle network is set up primarily in my house right now, but I'm finding that sometimes the circut breaker disagrees with how many computers I have on at once. I needed to find a way to spread the work around. This is perfect. I've been monitoring the goings ons of The City as I assume you have."
"Keep the tower." Though his voice hadn't dropped into the timber it had in the study, when he first saw her. The tone was business. And in this place, business meant Batman.
"If you found it safe enough to move into, it means it doesn't move. We'll need bolt-holes. It can be Station One."
There was silence a moment, a beat. And then. "The day Tim arrived, I found a newspaper. Have you noticed the crime rate's increased since you arrived ? Since the guns arrived ?" He tilted his head to meet her eyes.
"Show me," she said immediately after he'd mentioned the prision. The building wasn't on her map yet, or at least it hadn't been that afternoon. She would have to recheck her feeds.
"It's interesting that you noticed the crime rate." Babs desperately wanted to open her laptop and show Bruce what she'd been doing, but she would wait until they'd gotten to the main computer. "When I showed up The City was much calmer; that was a month ago. I caught the first glimpse of a super on my monitors earlier this week and then yes, it seemed right after that I noticed a spike in crime. Where there are heroes, there will be villans I suppose. But it's certainly an interesting observation. Most, if not all, of what I've noticed is petty crime and I'm wondering if it's natural citizens of The City, if there are any, or if it's petty criminals that have been pulled out of their own times."
That whichever Bruce had designed this cave remembered to include her in the security codes warmed her heart. And reassured her slightly. She would ask Bruce later about the full extent of security he'd found in the manor and if she could look at it for her Clock Tower.
When they reached the center platform Babs went immediately to a counsol on the side, letting Bruce take the main hub. She opened her laptop and turned it on. "Organised might be too strong of a word, but yes they've certainly been banning together more of late. Not sure what's going on with that quite yet," she said as her computer juiced up. "But you've found Lex? I'll have to add him. Tony Stark... he was a surprise. I can't remember him being a big name back in our world, and I'm thinking he's either from the future or somewhere else entirely. It's possible."
"Found." He said, dropping back to his normal voice. "Might be too strong a term." He slipped into the main console seat and brought up a scan of the newspaper that had informed him of the status of his business.
"Aware is more like it." He turned to meet Babs' eyes, the shadow play from the lit monitors casting interesting shapes across his face, hinting at his cowl.
"But it means we can probably expect Kal-el and a few of our more interesting opponents."
She scanned the article on the screen quickly, taking in the important details and committing them to memory. "I would love to know what state of mind you were in when you decided to combine with LexCorp." A new mystery about the Bruce who had been here before them.
On her own computer, Babs typed in a variety of passwords to connect to her network. It had occurred to her to show him something after he mentioned Superman. "I caught that on one of the feeds I have on a security camera in the city." It was the fifteen second clip she'd picked up of the golden streak shooting across the sky. It was obviously a person, but at the angle she couldn't tell who it was. There were several people from their own world who could create such a hue when flying.
"There're definitely supers showing up, I got this too," she switched over to a video of someone who was obviously a Green Lantern. He flew up from the ground after changing in an ally near a bank and then landed on a roof top before the clip blacked out. "I want to say, I know which one that is, but I'm not one hundred percent sure."
Picture in picture looped the footage of the golden arc across the sky. Bruce nodded at her words. There were a range of possibilities for the Green Lantern, terran and galactic. But the footage kept most of his attention. Who was that ? And what made Babs so sure it wasn't a foe ?
He brought up a few other images; City United Bank, City Credit Union, City Penitentiary, City Police Plaza.
"I don't think either I or Lex had anything to do with the merger. We were needed here, for some yet unknown reason." He finally looked over at her. "A single city, no matter how big, couldn't support us within it's economy. Not unless we were forced to work together for our own best interests."
"Odd how this city seems to think for itself," Babs muttered as she added the City Penitentiary to her own maps and files. She felt better the moment it was done, knowing everything was secure and up to date. "It knows its economy, exactly where it wants it citizens. It probably knows exactly who it wants too."
Brushing a strand of hair from her face, she looked over at Bruce. "Will you be patroling soon? I have no problem covering you from here or the tower, I'm sure Tim could help too."
Briefly, he wondered if it showed. Two weeks and all he'd done was train and sleep, when he wasn't actively trying to make sense of the City; taking pictures, looking for his offices, for the proper officials that Bruce Wayne should know.
The moment settled over him like a cloak. Stretching. Saying yes would be to accept his place here, for now.
"We need someone to dedicate their time to finding out why we're here, who's holding us, what they want, what they hope to gain. If you decide to coordinate patrols, Barbara that's all you can do. The City changes too much. Until we find a way to make it change at our will, the job will be much harder. Blind spots appearing, buildings releasing grappling hooks..."
He met her eyes, his like blue ice. " And so far, there's no Jim, here. Just plenty of the type of men he replaced."