When Spidey Met Oracle

Than people like her.

"It's not that bad, is it?" he asked, noting the ashen look on her face.

"Uh... no," she replied, desperate to cover her fluster while she dug through his med kit. "You're fine -- You're, um, going to be fine."

A bit of blood had started dripping from this scalp -- a gash from his fall from the ceiling which was, she acknowledged, actually her fault, so she decided to tend to that first.

Despite the little funk he'd thrown himself into moments before, Peter couldn't help but brighten a little as she wiped the blood from his forehead. It'd been quite some time since he'd had a nursemaid at home. Barbara noted this bit of gratitude in his eyes that was only slightly tainted by swelling around his right eye socket.

"That's probably going to become a hell of a shiner," Barbara observed, appraising his burgeoning black eye. "You got a steak in the freezer?"

"Don't bother," he said. "I heal pretty quick so it won't last more than a day or two and I don't have to go out if I don't want to. Max gives me pretty flexible hours."

"Well what if Batman, Incorporated needs you for a consultation?"

Peter quirked the offending eyebrow, confused.

"Thanks to the deal I just made with Horizon, we practically have you on retainer now, Parker," she explained. "We own you -- or have an option to lease on occasion, at least -- and we're expecting some anti-Man-Bat ordinance ASAP..."

"I have some ideas," he told her uneasily as she cleaned the gash that was already closing. "I knew this kid once when I first became Spidey... He had a similar chiropteran mutation, but I managed to stop him before he hurt anyone. He wasn't really trying to, though... But I've done some work with refractive sonics that should be useful against biosonar and a lot of Curt Connors cross-species genetic research is probably applicable as far as cures go..."

"I was kidding, Parker," she sighed. She'd meant it as a joke to lighten things up, but was instantly sad when he took it so seriously. Barbara had gotten into the super-hero game when she was all grown up, but the guys who grew up with it... Like Dick and the other old school Teen Titans... They didn't know when to turn it off. Or maybe they just didn't know how. "How's your head?"

"Still a little funked up, but I'm feeling a little more lucid," Peter nodded. "Sorry if I was a rambling, sad mess for a bit there."

"Don't worry about it," she told him, dabbing a cut on his shoulder. "These moments when you're real are a nice little break from the desperate wisecracks."

"Folks love my jokes!" he insisted. "I busted this carjacking ring last week, and they were still laughing as the cops packed them into that paddy wagon."

"I'm sure they were," she murmured.

"So what happened to you?" he asked.

Barbara stiffened then. She'd been dreading this, of course. It'd been a while since she'd been through it, but it was the same thing every time she ran into someone from her old life. A million questions about her damn wheelchair. "Well..." she started to say, eager to just get it over with.

"It's just that I thought you were supposed to be this super mysterious worldwide web-head hiding in the digital shadows or something," he recalled. "When did you pack it all in and go totally corporate? I mean Wayne Enterprises? Really?"

This was a little unexpected. "Are you calling me a sellout?"

"If the private jet fits," he shrugged. "Batman must be pretty hard up for cash if he's willing to play along with this lame incorporation publicity stunt Bruce Wayne cooked up..."

"Parker..."

"I'm just surprised he managed to rope all the old sidekicks in, too."

"You're an idiot."

"Look, I'm not saying Bats is using the money for ski-trips or anything fun, because I've met the guy and think I know him better than that, but how many different black muscle cars does one burly obsessive really need?"

"Oh, and the world needs noise reduction headphones retailing at $39.99?"

"I've got them down to earbuds now," Peter beamed. "Noise reduction earbuds, Barbara!" She didn't seem impressed. He would have brought up the lightweight impact-resistant polymer he'd developed that was better than Kevlar, the thermo-reactive foam for firefighters, the cryonic cube technology for medical organ transportation, or any of the other innovations he'd whipped up during his time at Horizon, but he was pretty sure she knew all about it. Barbara was clearly a bit of a ballbuster. "Seriously, though, what's the deal?" he asked. "Why give up the whole IT-for-superheroes gig? Despite the fact that I hadn't heard of Oracle until eight months ago, apparently half the capes in New York don't know what to do without you..."

"I didn't give it up," she told him. "I just scaled it back a bit because I got too big and that became a distraction. In order to do what I do as best as I can I had to make a few sacrifices."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. said you were dead," he said quietly. "I thought you were dead. Was that just to avoid a conversation?"

Barbara laughed at that. Not that bright titter he remembered so well. This was darker. Sardonic. A snicker verging on a scoff almost as ominous as that creepy distorted Oracle voice from the comm-link. "No," she said when she was done scaring him. "I did that to protect myself from this asshole who'd been coming after me and mine for a while... If I threw you off my scent, that was just a bonus."

"Because you never wanted to see me again."

"I thought I explained that, Parker."

"You really didn't."

"Then I guess I'm not going to," she said.

"So explain to me how a woman who knows everything about me but wants nothing to do with me manages to walk into my place of business and not expect to see me?"

"I didn't walk," Barbara sighed.

"Sorry, figure of speech," he grimaced. "But you know what I mean..." She didn't respond. She just silently fished through his medical supplies. "Barb...?"

"Maybe after what happened the last time we... whatever... I took a little break from keeping tabs on you," she admitted. "How was I supposed to know you'd get your act together?"

"You told me to!"

"I didn't think you'd listen!" she replied. "And even if you did, what were the chances you'd get this on the ball that quickly? I know how capable you are, Parker, but Horizon Labs? Maybe an internship, sure, but the Lucky 7? You don't even have a doctorate!"

"Fair enough," he supposed. But that only got her the briefest respite. "So, how long was this break from cyber-stalking me?"

Barbara only hesitated a moment. "It ended about two hours ago."

"I really got to you, didn't I?" Peter beamed.

"Shut up and turn around," she sighed. "Those burns need treatment."

"If you say so..."

"Where'd you get this ointment?" Barbara asked, desperately trying to change the subject. "It's the absolute best for burns..."

"Parting gift from my infamous supermodel conquest," he told her. "Apparently it's also good for a dab under the eyes without the pore-clogging worries of petroleum jelly. I've got more stashed away somewhere if you want to take some home with you."

"No need," she said. "As you can imagine, I don't get roasted as much as I used to. Besides, I know the billionaire playboy who bought the Guatemalan company that makes this stuff."

"Of course you do," Peter sighed.

"This has another application I like," Barbara informed him matter of factly.

"What's that?" Peter asked.

"Be a good patient and maybe I'll show you someday," she teased.

Peter fell silent, puzzled, as Barbara slathered the three strips of burnt flesh with that cooling salve. The quiet between them grew steadily uncomfortable as her fingers lingered on his back.

God. What was she doing? Was she flirting with him? Hadn't she been yelling at him ten minutes ago?

"Are you okay?" he asked her then.

"I... I'm not sure what you mean."

"Is he still coming after you?"

"Who?"

"The guy you faked your death for."

"The Calculator? He's been dealt with."

"'The Calculator'?" Peter laughed. "They're really running out of names, aren't they? Thank god I got to Spider-Man before somebody else snatched it up. I ran into that Nightwing guy once when he was in the city. He got me confused with some scumbag called Black Spider. I was wearing a different costume back then, though."

"You should try staying consistent, Parker," Barbara said, trying not to imagine how close he and Grayson might have gotten during this little encounter. "And I assure you, the Calculator's not the joke he started out as. Honestly, I'm surprised I have to take this much shit from a guy who has his hands full with guys called Kraven and the Hypno-Hustler."

"I'm so tired of taking crap for the Hypno-Hustler," Peter groaned. "It's not like I picked the guy's name! And I've fought him maybe two times. He's hardly my arch-nemesis... And we're straying from my point... This Calculator guy's not an issue anymore?"

"Not really."

"But you were just fine with me still thinking you were dead, too?" he asked her then. "You really didn't want to see me, that much?"

"Yes," she insisted again.

"Why?"

"You want the truth?" she asked. It was obvious now he wasn't going to let this go. "Ever since... since I stopped being Batgirl, everyone looks at me differently, because of this..." she told him, gesturing toward her chair. "I've done everything I can to prove to them that I can still play my part, and I know deep down that they respect me, but it's still through this fog of guilt. Everyone I know and love in the world pities me, Peter, and there's not a whole lot I can do about that."

"Barbara..."

"There was always you, though," she sighed wistfully. "Out there in the world, swinging over a street on a web, kicking some asshole in the face that deserves it. Doing all the insane things I used to do... The things I still dream about... My crazy one night stand from back in the old days. The one person who'd always think of me without that little cloud of sadness. And I hate myself so much for needing to have just that one person out there who could, but I did. I... I do. Just one person who thinks of me and just... just thinks I'm amazing... Who doesn't feel sorry for me..."

"I don't feel sorry for you!" Peter insisted, twisting around, but the look she gave him when he said it -- the contempt -- set him back, compelling him to honesty. "Okay, okay, I do feel sorry, Barbara," he admitted, turning away again. "God, I just feel for you. And I get why you didn't want to see me now. I understand what you mean about needing someone out there, because I always liked to think that there was at least one woman I'd been with that I hadn't completely screwed up yet. One who walked away unscathed before it went wrong..."

"Goddamn it, Parker, this isn't about you!" Barbara groaned. "What happened to me belongs to me, so please, don't make it about this imaginary cosmic curse in your life. That's just self-loathing and... and narcissism."

"Narcissism? I'm not a narcissist," Peter said. "What about all the self-deprecation?"

She ignored him. "I've spent so much of my time with brilliant idiots who think the world revolves around them and that they actually have control of everything, but they just don't. Neither do you. Nobody does. You didn't do this! This... this isn't on you. God, it wasn't even really about me... So don't... This isn't about you."

Some bit of time passed before Peter let himself speak. "I'm..." he started to say, but she cut him off, grabbing his shoulders to swivel him toward her.

"Just today, just for right now, I need you to be completely different from so many of the other men in my life," she told him then. "I need you to actually respect me for me -- an actual person -- and not as some... some extension of your own ambitions and failures. Do you think you can do that?"

She studied his face before he spoke, because for Barbara Gordon this was the measure of a man.

He started to say something but stopped himself, taking a deep breath. "I'm not sure," he finally admitted, "but I'll do my best."

"Honest but optimistic," she sighed. "That's the right answer." Then she kissed him.

It was something she'd never asked, but it was always at the back of her mind...

She liked to believe that Blue Beetle would have been honest but optimistic given the chance. There was so much about Parker that reminded her of Ted Kord. Or maybe, she started to realize, so much of Ted that had reminded her of Peter when she learned that the Beetle was her secret internet friend a few years back. She wasn't sure. Though there had been times in the beginning when Babs almost wondered if the "Beeb" in her chatroom was the bug boy she remembered and still wondered about. Eventually, she did the research, and of course, it turned out that during one of their late night gabfests, Spider-Man had been fighting the Scorpion with pictures by Peter Parker to prove it in the next day's Daily Bugle.

Barbara did know that she didn't want to make the same mistake now she made back then with Ted when they met in person. She told him she just wanted to be friends, but she'd just been so scared. When he said the same thing at the same time, that just scared her even more.

When she was with Dick things were different. He was one of her oldest friends, not somebody she needed to get to know better. Dick Grayson was always honest and optimistic. She would have married that brilliant idiot if she hadn't been so worried that he wasn't really ready... that he hadn't really figured out that the man he already was more than anybody else would ever need... that he wasn't still under Bruce's shadow. Because Dick had this weird urge to be Bruce without being Bruce and there was no way to do both... As far as she knew, no man could dedicate himself purely to saving Gotham without it consuming everything else. Her father certainly hadn't. But Barbara believed in her heart of hearts that if anyone could figure out how to do that impossible thing, it was Richard Grayson... but he couldn't do it and be her husband at the same time. Not then. Not yet. Maybe someday, but not anytime soon...

Barbara consciously pushed all that to the back of her mind as she grabbed Peter Parker's shoulders to draw him close. Parker, for his part, seemed dumbstruck by all of this, which was good. She knew he had been about to say something and that it was probably going to be stupid and this seemed the best way to shut him up before he ruined the moment. That said, it was one of her favorite things about him. There were so many men she'd met who had to posture and parade around to show everyone how smart they were. Granted, most of them had been supervillains or corrupt politicians, but the good guys weren't exactly immune to massive egos. Peter wasn't like that. He was a genius, but never had to flaunt it for his sense of self-worth. He said the most moronic things sometimes and was fine with it. Like he had nothing to prove. She worried briefly that this came from his outlandish self-doubt, but decided to ignore that thought, too. There were only so many things she could save him from at once.

So she kissed him. Her soft lips brushing his before parting slightly to tease out the tip of her tongue. Barbara felt the brief flutter of his surprise as his mouth opened to hers. She vaguely suspected he thought he wanted this as much or more than she did, but he couldn't be more wrong. As his tongue met hers, Barbara tried to tell herself that she hadn't come to Parker's place for this -- to be with him -- but she had to wonder. No. She'd come here to settle accounts. For closure. But how had she really expected this encounter to end? She could have rolled right out of his door... God, she never had to come here in the first place.

For so long she'd told herself a lot of lies why she'd avoided Peter Parker, but at the end of the day, maybe the real reason was that she wasn't sure she could keep her hands off of him. As much as she'd tried to ignore it, that undercurrent of desire was always right beneath the surface. It'd been there when he was just a voice in her ear or a grainy blur on a screen, and now with him right in front of her in the flesh, here it was, again, boiling up. Barbara pushed Peter back when she heard herself moan, taking the moment to study his face once more, and she found this look of bewildered wonder that just made her want to kiss him again.

"I'm not exactly sure what's happening right now," Peter confessed. "Maybe I'm still a little foggy..."

"Do you like where this seems to be going?" Barbara asked. She leaned forward to kiss that tender spot where his jaw met his neck.

"Uh, so far so, um, spectacular..." he said. "Be honest... This isn't a hallucination brought on by that bump on the noggin, is it?"

"How honest are your hallucinations?" she asked.

"They don't usually feel this good," he acknowledged, "but Mysterio's been able to whip up some real doozies..."

"Don't overthink it, nerd boy," she suggested before leaning in again. Barbara knew it'd been a while for her, and now started to suspect that this was true of him as well when his arms encircled her without hesitation, drawing her up from her chair. She still didn't realize he'd scooped her up until the snag. Peter broke their lip-lock, confused why the chair was dragging behind her.

"Catheter," she explained with a wince.

"Right, I'm an idiot," he apologized, setting her back down.

"Please don't watch this," she begged before going to the delicate task of removing it. "There are a few, um, connections I've got to take care of."

"Anything else I need to worry about?" Peter asked, with a hand over his eyes.

"Just a few... hundred little insecurities I have about my body that I do not want to talk about at all."

"Good thing I'm only in this for my own selfish gratification, then," he said lifting her out of the chair again once she was done. "You can feel as shitty about yourself as you want while I do stuff to you."

"You're an asshole," she laughed as he carried her out of the bathroom.

Then this... this smile spread across his face.

"What?" she asked him then. She was worried he was about to pretend not to know what she meant -- one of Peter Parker's go-to moves, she'd started to realize -- but he didn't.

"You... you just ran away from me so long," he told her. "But here you are."

Barbara smiled then, too. She couldn't help it. "Here I am," she said. "You got me. So what do you want to do with me? I believe there was some mention of 'stuff' a moment ago... What exactly did you have in mind?"

"I think it's probably better if I just show you."

"Well in that case, we should definitely bring that jar of burn ointment..."

"Oh, you still want to play doctor, huh?" Peter asked, turning back toward the bathroom, transferring Barbara to a fireman's carry over his shoulder as he went back for the salve.

"Something like that," she smirked, enjoying the view of Parker's ass from her perch facing his back while he hauled her through his apartment like some Neanderthal pal of Vandal Savage dragging some poor cavegirl away to rut.

"I thought we were going to your bedroom," Barbara said, confused when he tossed her down on his living room sofa.

"I can't wait that long," Peter told her, setting the jar on the coffee table.

"It's maybe forty feet away, Parker," she protested.

"Actually I think it's only thirty," he guessed climbing over her now, "but I really can't wait."

"You're ridiculous," she sighed. Barbara reached up to take off her glasses but Peter grasped her wrist gently.