The Birds of Prey: Nightwing (Batman Fanfic)

Nightwing ||

-5 hours after taken-

My eyes sting as I try to open them, everything is blurred and misty. The lone light in the room winks at me lazily through my eyelashes. Someone is sitting very close to me, a woman. For one brief and utterly crazy moment I was transported to, what seems like, a world ago...

Barbara was sitting in her chair staring out of the window lost in a world of her own making, as she often was back then. She hates sharing her feelings, revealing that often even she can be vulnerable. After her accident she shut down completely, all traces of happiness along with any hope had been erased from her when the doctor told her she was unlikely to ever walk again. She spent months in the hospital, refusing to eat, rarely sleeping and shut up inside herself refusing any advances from me to help her. And I so desperately wanted to help her.

When I had talked to the doctor in the hospital after they had operated on her and he told me the extent of her injuries I tried to keep up a brave face for her, for her father, for Bruce and for myself. But I felt the cracks forming in my facade. The woman that I had loved for years and had planned to love for the rest of my years a cripple? I cursed and I raged until my throat burned, how could the world present such injustice. For someone as pure and true as Barbara Gordon to be delt such and unfair hand, disabled at life at the age of 21, never to walk again. Barbara is a selfless person, she wants to help anyone and everyone around her and I guess that is one of the reasons for her to become the vigilante: Batgirl.

She was happiest when she was wearing her suit and fighting crime but now she couldn't even sit up in bed without a lot of effort and some assistance. So cruel and unjust. But when I saw what she had done to herself a month after the accident, she had been starving herself, coming up with inventive ways to get rid of her food but she used the knife that came with her food to mar her skin with. The woman that I had fallen in love with was almost gone and I needed to find a way to get her back.

I went over to where she sat by the window and said "We're going out", this was not a question but rather a statement or a demand. Her head wipped around causing a strand of her, now short, hair to fall from behind her ear.

"I'm not supposed to leave the hospital" She had said in a voice that didn't sound like her own.

"I cleared it with doctor Whitely, he said that this is alright as long as I get you back on time. There will be no questions about where we are going or what we are doing and there will definitely be no objections from you." I swept in and brushed my lips lightly across hers, at first she stiffened as she always did when I kissed her after the accident bu she warmed up and reciprocated. I remember vaguely wondering why this happened but settled on the conclusion that she is not yet comfortable after her encounter with the joker which left her a cripple.

I began wheeling her out of the hospital, telling her that she won't need anything and that I had got everything ready and all she needed to do was relax. I got her into the car smoothly but there was a heavy silence in the car which I hoped would break once I got her to do what I had planned. I kept driving and soon we were out of the city and heading out to the countryside.

"You're making me suspicious boy wonder" She had said with a smile.

"Former boy wonder" I said flashing her with a grin.

Soon I pulled into a large but empty parking lot infront of a large striped tent that had been inned to the ground. I remeber having a huge sense of deja vu as I parked the car and staired at the familiar tent.

"I want to give you a sense of what my life was like before Bruce adopted me, how I lived before my parents died" I had never really talked about it with her in great detail as the pain of the memory was branded in my memory. She looked shocked by this and expectant which made me feel hopeful that this would make a difference.