73. I don't love you anymore? Whatever comes to mind
Hello,
First, lemme state that I do not ship DickBabs past them being first love, and young love, long term I don’t see it lasting as they both seem excellent at bringing out the worst in each other at the worst times. The break up, on again, off again, romance DC has going for them berates what they mean to each other, romantically and platonically, and it irks me.
As friends, I think Dick and Barbara bring out the best in each other, I think they are good for one another in this sense. But as lovers, it always manages to bring out the worst of them. I adore their friendship, I like the quirky middle school love they can have going; slipping notes to each other and being dorks in general; it shows how much they care about each other. But when they date… it’s like watching a train wreck occur in slow motion at high speeds
So again, just to be clear, I don’t ship DickBabs, but I adore their friendship.
And I should be writing I’ve Got the Umbrella and NOT writing spoilers or subplots, or sidelines for Hopes for a Bastard’s coming stories. Bad Blu, very bad Blu.
Anyways, here’s Spoilers for Written in the Stars….
Perfectly Imperfect…
There were words ineveryone’s life that they didn’t want to hear.
‘I don’t love you anymore’ or ‘It’s me, not you’ or ‘I’msorry but…’ or ‘There’s another woman’ or even worse ‘I’m gay’ (that one wasn’tas painful, it only sucked if a guy had been using you as cover to keep hissexuality from the world; then yeah, that one sucked).
And as Barbara sat in her chair, trembling, and staring atthe Save the Date she’d received in the mail and the letter that accompaniedit. The letter was unopened as she sat there in her apartment as she sat there atthe invitation for the wedding…
The wedding of Richard John Grayson to Koriand’r.
Barbara wanted to scream, she wanted to throw things, breakthings, she wanted to curse this world for the cards it had dealt her and theperfection required to be her.
Her father, her uncle, her mother, her brother, they had allneeded her to be prefect. She needed to be strong, she had to be happy, cheerful,she needed to have the strength to keep her front of being perfect up.
She had been that girl, the perfect one, she didn’t set atoe out of line. She was the straight A honor student who helped kids like Dickstudy, she was in gymnastics, set for the Olympics, she was going to college,she’d get a degree in criminology, she’d work her way up through the GCPD withher father’s aid, cleaning up the department. She was happy, she was good at beinga friend, the perfect daughter, and the best she could. The only rebellious thingshe had ever done was being Batgirl! And even that she had excelled at to beperfect.
And now she wasn’t perfect!
The Joker had shattered that perfection she had used to keepher life. He had taken it all away from her!
Joker had stolen her legs, her purpose, her life, her love,he had killed her as surely as if he had shot her in the head! In some ways Barbarahad thought Jason lucky, lucky he didn’t have to deal with the pain of beinginvalid now.
But that was until she had learned Jason was alive, and Jason…Jason had come back and from what she had seen of him, he had come to survive ahell. And he didn’t even care!
Barbara shivered as she rolled away from her table, therewas a knock on her door as she pulled down her tea pot.
“It’s open!” she called out as she started the tea. If itwas a rogue or something, she didn’t care.
“Hey Babs, okay, so I was having problem with the Batwingprogramming, and Tammy is driving me nuts. I swear she’s almost onto the fact I’min the Batfamily,” he said as he walked on.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll look at it,” Babs said swiftly as she triedto clean her tears away before he saw them.
“Babs?”
“I’m fine,” she dismissed. “Just allergies, I need to dustmy fans again,” she lied pulling off her glasses.
“Is this about the Save the Date I’m looking at on yourtable for Dick’s wedding?” he asked.
“No,” she trembled.
“Uh-huh, why don’t you look at me when you say it,” Lukeordered sharply, and she glowered over her shoulder at him.
Barbara and Luke’s unconventional friendship; if it couldeven be called that, had been when the Court of Owls had acted again, and Dick,Tim, and she had needed help rescuing two years ago. Luke had found out hisfather was in on the Batfamily when Lucius had been attacked in his office andtortured for the access to the tech, Luke had found out and intervened. He’djust been discharged from his service, and he had actually been at WE for a jobinterview working Wayne Security and in their hurry and urgency to save Damian,Luke got swept up into their ranks and stayed. He and Kate, they stayed.
Now, Barbara had always known Luke, he was a few years olderthan she, and he’d been close to Dick when Dick was adopted by Bruce. She hadn’treally cared all that much for Luke, he was annoying to her because when she’dhad legs all he had to do was stand and hold the ball out of her reach, Dickbeing a monkey would clamber all over Luke.
Then he had joined the ranks of the Bats, and now they hadthis odd friendship, that she didn’t always know what to make of because hewasn’t as annoying now, as when they’d been kids. God she hated him when they’dbeen kids.
He was always composed, perfectly, and tall, and smug, hehad had the arrogance of knowing he was the best, smartest boy and bestathlete, but the war had changed him. Now he was different, not as smug, andshe found his presence tolerable.
“I’m fine,” she dismissed.
“You know it wasn’t going to last, Babs,” Luke said softly.
“What the hell do you know about it!?” she snapped as shespun her chair around to glare at him. She fucking loved Dick! Loved him withall her heart! She found herself glaring at Luke who stood there very calmlyholding the Save the Date in his hands.
“You know, you can lie to a lot of people Barbara, but notto me,” he stated coldly as he stood and walked over to her slowly.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know a lot more about you than you’d think.”
“You wouldn’t understand anything I’ve been through for aminute!” she hissed.
“Oh no?” he mused humorless. “A bad thing happened to you,the world fucking forgot to stop and notice, kept spinning. You picked up thepieces, reesembled who you were before the bad thing happened, but that leavesa bitter taste in your mouth with a sharp tongue and bad attitude. You won’t letit go, that fucking feeling, it’s all you got some days when you wake up, itfuels you, it’s what drives you to get up some days. Other days feels like it’sdrowning you and you want someone to hurt as much as you do because the worldforgot about your pain.”
“You can’t even imagine,” she started.
~~~*~*~*~~~
“Dick and you, yeah, before you two had a shot, I’d haveeven put money on it, before; Barbara. But now, you are sodesperate to hurt someone and drag them down to your level that there’s no wayanything you start with anyone would last. And it’s not because you’re unlovable,that’s the opposite of the problem here. The problem is you don’t like this newreality or the new you and you fight it tooth and nail to cling to a you thatno longer exists. And that anger is why it wouldn’t last.”
Luke had known Barbara since he was ten, he hadn’t alwaysliked her. She was younger, brattier, and annoying. She was also Miss Perfect,but he learned real quick to see through that. Then Dick had come along, andthe poor kid worshipped Barbara’s façade; not her, the perfect façade he hadmet. Luke knew that was doomed from the start, well, maybe not before theJoker, but after it, it was all fucked to hell. And he’d watched Dick Graysonclaw his way through the pain of losing his little brother and girlfriend, to onlyhave the girlfriend cut him down and drag him down to her level of agony.
Luke was actually very relieved when Dick and Babs hadfinally ended. Kid deserved to be happy, he deserved love, real love, the loveof a woman, not a façade, and that was where Kori came in. Dick and Kori, thatwas real, true, once in a millennium, soul mate, rewrite the stars kind oflove. It was real, and Dick was a better man with Kori than he ever could bewith Barbara.
No, this didn’t make Barbara a bad person, he actuallyadmired her tenacity to pull herself up from the gutter and to find a way toadapt to her life. He had lost friends before their deaths because they couldn’tdo what she had done. He had watched some good friends just give up. And whileLuke didn’t always like Barbara, he could always admire her and play itstraight with her.
The freckled redhead glowered at him, and her glassesglinted dangerously as they glared at one another.
“I’m not upset or hung up on Dick,” she stated.
Luke resisted rolling his eyes at that. And he wasn’thaunted by nightmares of Jason Todd; but that was tales for a different time.
“I’m Not!”
“Oh, no, I believe you Babs, to a degree,” he clarified forher.
“I’m not!”
“Barbara, he’s in love, he’s getting married, they have abeautiful daughter, who has stolen all our hearts. It’s okay to be hung up onit, but don’t get it in your head to wreck it for him,” Luke warned her.
“I would never do that!” she snapped.
“I know all about how you left her to die, Barbara, and Iknow about it from Tim before you think to go skins someone’s balls off,” hewarned her as he held up a hand to pacify her. He had only learned about itwhen the teen was so sleep deprived and thinking about a coming alien invasion,the very aliens that had apparently kidnapped Kori from Kom and Lobo and hadbeen annihilated by Raven; apparently. He didn’t know about that last bit forsure, as it wasn’t in files he could read.
Barbara looked like he had just fed her a sour apple.
“You’re human, I get it,” he shrugged. “But you and Dick, itwas never going to work Babs, and you have to let it go.”
“I am,” she admitted bitterly. “I just… he’s my oldestfriend, I’m happy for him, I really am. I get it now. But…”
“But.”
“It was supposed to be me,” she admitted softly and hewalked over as he slowly knelt to her level. He pulled the glasses off as thetears fell and she furiously tried to wipe them away.
“It’s his loss too, Babs,” Luke reminded her.
She sobbed as she slumped forward, and he wrapped his armsaround her. They weren’t really friends, but they’d grown up together. He’dbeen for forever, so they were something important.
“Hey, if you’re up to it, if you want to go, you can be myplus one,” he said as he rubbed her back.
“You’re just asking out of pity,” she sniffled against hisshoulder.
“Well, partially, and partially because, he is the circusmonkey and he’s important to both of us,” Luke smiled slightly as he pulledaway. “And Babs, I don’t pity you. Admire you at times, and respect you always,but I don’t pity you. Never have. You survived, now you just have to stoppitying yourself.”
“I…”
“You. Survived.” Luke repeated that, because it wasimportant.
Just like him surviving Jason Todd had been important,before Jason had come home and before he even really knew that it was Jason whohad just about killed him.
“Why couldn’t he just love me?” she whispered against hisshoulder.
“He does Babs, just not the way you want,” he assured her.Luke was tempted to hoist her out of the chair and flop down on her couch withher, but he didn’t. It wasn’t his place, so for now he’d just hold her.
They were kind of friends after all, and kind of friends didthis for the people their cared for.
She smelled like lavender, and lemons.
It was kind of an odd combination to notice, as he ignoredthe kettle and just held her.
