Dynasty: A Batman Tale Part 20

NOW

From the main balcony of the watchtower, Barbara could see the entire Gotham skyline. The sun would rise in a few hours, until then the light from the Bat-signal filled the sky above Gotham City. It had been years since her father had turned it on.

Oracle's system hacked in everywhere. She was tapped into video feeds all over the city, and currently was watching a live feed from Central of her father entering an interrogation room to speak with Allen Porter. Barbara accessed the microphone as her father sat down across from the man wearing the orange jumpsuit. “You want a deal? Tell me everything and we’ll talk. I’m not saying another word until I’ve heard ev-er-y-thing.” Jim relaxed into the chair and didn’t say another word. Although he was the Police Commissioner, he was still a great detective and knew how to work over a perp in an interrogation room. Barbara could see even what she knew her father must have seen, this was a broken man. Perhaps smart enough to get a deal, but this man was scared and within seconds he had cleansed himself of everything. He laid it all out for Gordon. “For the first time in my life, I was doing good for myself, finally I wasn’t in no trouble with nobody, I’d done my time. My brother and I both, we was lying low and for good reason. We heard that a big time job was in the works. I knew it was a bad idea, but Adam he was hurting for money. Well, both of us were, not a lot people hiring former felons, know what I mean.” Jim remained silent allowing Porter to continue, “The dude who recruited us was massive, but his face was all fucked up. They called him Clayface. I thought it was bullshit. I mean I’d heard of the boogeyman growing up. Stories of the Joker and his crew terrorizing Gotham, Adam and I used to pretend we was them when we were little kids playing around. You know?” Jim did not answer. Porter went on, “Adam thought a chance to work for them would payoff really good…,” Porter started sobbing. “We were down there. Way down there, underground for days digging in. Placing explosives, all of downtown is wired to cave in. We were almost done, we’d been minding our own business, but then Riddler who had been there almost the whole time, blurts out one of his riddles. My brother tried to answer it and got shot in the face.” He was becoming hysterical allowing the loss of his brother to sink in. He took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. “I’m not stupid I knew we were all next, so when I saw the chance at getting out of there without being noticed. I took it and ran.”

Barbara watched her father sit up from his relaxed position. He remained silent for a few seconds taking in Porter’s tale. He put both his hands out on the table palm down and slowly stood up over Porter. “Where?” He demanded.

“One hundred yards down track 16 on the water side at the West 127th street station, there’s an old turn of the century emergency stairwell that’s next to impossible to find if you don’t know it’s there.”

Barbara started bringing up all schematics for that area, including early historical archives. There it is! According to the plans Barbara learned that the stairwell in question led down another hundred feet into Gotham’s underbelly. The city’s pioneers used those tunnels to lay the foundation for Gotham’s metropolis. Then Porter said something that Barbara didn’t quite catch, she rewound the feed recording back a moment and pressed play. Porter mumbled something under his breath, she listened to it again, isolating the audio as much possible. Oracle played it one more time. She listened intently as Porter mumbled “I’ll never eat oysters again, that’s for sure. I Can’t stand the smell.” Confirming her findings from the dirt samples found on the Mad Hatter Jervis Tetch. She immediately transmitted everything she had including the audio from Porter’s confession to the Bat-cave.

THEN

Growing up the only daughter of a police detective meant there wasn’t much that Barbara would be able to keep from her father. He was after all extremely astute and incredibly good at his job. So Barbara knew her father could never fathom the sheer size of the secret she’d been able to conceal from him.

Fighting alongside Batman and Robin had become part of who she was. She had been face to face with her father on numerous occasions, he was blind to his baby girl underneath, never able to see past the cowl. Jim once said he assumed she was Batman’s daughter, however, after Jason’s death he became more curious. The truth didn’t evade him much longer.

Batman and Batgirl had chased Joker into a housing tenement where he took hostages. To evade capture the clown prince locked all his captives in a utility closet and set it ablaze giving him time to get away. Batman rushed to follow after, but Batgirl cried out, “Batman stop wait!”

Batman stopped and turned around angrily not wanting to lose the Joker again. She saw it on his face. He wanted to make Joker pay for killing Jason. The tension in his face softened when he saw she was pointing in the direction of the innocent screams coming from the burning room. He headed back towards her, “Your right!”

They rescued all the hostages and Joker got away. She saw her father arrive on the scene and take control. He waved a thanks gesture towards her. She nodded back, firing her grappling hook gun up towards the roof. Three-seconds later, she had ascended and stood on the ledge of the building, Batman’s voice spoke in her earpiece, “You did well tonight.”

“Because I knew it was more important to rescue those people from burning to death.” Barbara snapped in return trying to hide her frustration, but now that it was over, realized she was mad.

There was silence in her earpiece. Were you going to leave those people to die, to chase that maniac down? You told me we are not driven by revenge. Maybe WE aren’t, but YOU are!

Batgirl looked around to see if she could locate Batman’s location, knowing it was pointless. He’d only be seen if he wanted to be. Her earpiece crackled again, “You did real well, thank you.” Barbara’s anger faded away at the sound of those words.

She headed home for the night. Her cell phone that was patched into her earpiece rang. Her dad was calling.

“Hi Dad, what’s up?”

“Oh not too much, just wrapping for the day, was thinking about you.”

“You’re so sweet.”

“Yeah you mind if your old man swings by and checks in on his little girl.”

“Sure, I’m just getting home myself.”

“Great, I’ll see you in five.”

She was telling the truth, she was just getting to her apartment’s rooftop, where she had managed to conceal a small yet very secure and private shed within a disguised pigeon coop. She quickly changed out of her armor, cape and cowl. She fed the pigeons and stepped through her top floor apartment window. She strolled through the kitchen and placed the kettle on the stove and turned the flame on high. After her night, she could use some coffee and knew her father would appreciate a cup.

The doorbell rang.

One of these days I’ll tell you the truth dad. Her father was a good man. He was a great cop and on his way to becoming an incredible commissioner. No longer were she and Batman considered lawless vigilantes, the Gotham Gazette instead now used the word ‘Heroes’, and all because her father believed in what they were doing.

The doorbell rang again.

“Hold on Dad, I’m coming.”

She began to open the door, but just as she did, somebody kicked it in from the other side, putting Barbara on her back. Looking up to see who, Oh my God! The albino skin, blacked out red eyes, blood smeared smile. Joker was standing over her.

“Oopsy daisy, did Batgirl fall down?” Joker quipped. He was holding a Smith & Wesson .357 Caliber revolver aimed in her direction. How does he know about me? Fear took over, and Joker could read it from the expression on her face.

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, I knew the big bad bat would never let those people die. I knew you two would stop chasing me and be Mister and Misses save the day. So I pulled up a front row seat on the roof just across the street.” He started laughing. “I watched you fly all the way to the tip top of that building and followed you all the way here, home. What a workout it was keeping up with you, but the look on your face right now made it all worth it. I’ll admit it though, I kind of lost you when you got up here. I wasn’t sure exactly what apartment you were in.”

Joker tapped his forehead with the barrel of his gun. “Call it deductive reasoning, but when I saw Barbara Gordon’s name on the building directory. COME ON!” Joker laughed. “Any-who, I got a message for Bats, go ahead and get up.” Joker took a step back giving her space to rise. She did as told and stood up. Joker grinned at her. “Thank you!” He said and pulled the trigger.

The world went black, then she heard her father’s voice. She felt cold. She tried to open her eyes and saw her father crying over her, Barbara tried to speak, but only managed to utter the words, “Batgirl and Joker,” before the blackness took her again.

The bullet hit her midsection in a downward angle and missed all of her vital organs, but it hadn’t missed everything. The bullet shattered parts of her lower vertebrae. When she woke up days later in the hospital, she didn’t need a doctor to tell her she would never walk again. She saw her dad sitting in the chair next to the bed. He was smiling at her.

“Hey baby.”

“Hi daddy.”

Before she could continue Jim grabbed her hand. “I’m proud of you Barbara.” She could tell he meant it with all of his heart. Barbara became aware of more people in the room, standing at the foot of the bed was Bruce Wayne.

“You’re father and I had a long overdue conversation.” Bruce said. “Needless to say everything is taking care of. Whatever you need. I mean anything, it’s yours.” Bruce nodded towards Jim, looked back at Barbara, attempted a smile and walked away.

NOW

Barbara was surrounded with everything she needed. Oracle’s watchtower had helped keep the city safe for over a decade. Though the organized element of Gotham’s criminal population was squashed, there still existed a cache of outlaws running rampant.

Barbara rolled into the cage and plugged in. She could control all her systems from her chair. She was running multiple programs that were streamlining live feeds from around the city and matching them up with facial recognition software. Oracle’s system was set up to look for the criminals before they would strike. The police couldn’t infringe on people’s freedom. They would not be legally allowed to use such methods, but Barbara used any intel to help give them an unknown edge in their battle against crime. She had figured out exactly how to continue with her life after losing the use of her legs. It was the only time she ever felt helpless. She hated being stuck in that hospital bed, unable to move without help, unable to help herself, but mostly unable to help others. Her life had become about helping as many people as possible. The satisfaction she had felt roaming the rooftops of Gotham as Batgirl was on the verge of dissipating, that’s when she decided to become Oracle. Barbara decided to take Bruce up on his offer for anything she needed. After explaining the idea of Oracle and Watchtower, Bruce purchased the Pruitt Tower building, then gave her a blank check.

A little red light on Oracle’s console started flashing, alerting her to an incoming message on her secure network. It was from Dick. She began to read the message. This can’t be right! It doesn’t make any sense. What does Dick mean that he thinks both Bruce and Alfred are hiding something! She continued to read and gasped with concern, Bruce is coughing up blood!