bodilesswarrior | 27

[Iris is dying.

It takes everything inside Barbara, every ounce of training and experience, to be still. She knows she'll be too late. If she goes bursting in without knowing the situation, chances are high she'll just die next.

She knows better than that. It's not what Iris would want.

So she stays in her tower. She maps the way to Jack's cabin in her head, and she gathers her weapons, and she waits.

She's just about to make her own call - to the people she trusts most - when she gets Iris' message. When her heart sinks and bile fills her mouth.

She will not feel guilty or foolish or afraid; there's no time.]

[Voice]

[Barbara's voice is low and grim, betraying none of the rage or grief she feels.]

Jack killed Iris. I don't know why, not yet. She's in his cabin; he might still be there, he might have left.

There's something wrong with Mason - drugs, she said. Not sure how it's connected.

[A slow, deep breath.]

The laughter. The warped mirrors. They might be connected, too. They might not.

Either way, you need to stay on your guard. Look out for each other. Iris might not be the first victim, and she probably won't be the last. That's how the Barge is.

[Private to Cain]

You got one too, right?

[Private to everyone Iris is close to]

[She switches to video for this. She figures she owes them that. Everyone else that Iris loves.

There are no tears streaking down her face. Instead, her lips are curled in a fierce snarl, and her eyes are blazing. Still, her voice is steady.]

No one go out half-cocked. We don't know what we're dealing with, not yet, and the last thing she'd want is you getting yourselves killed.

[Private to Motorcycle Boy]

[Back to voice! Hoarse but calm.]

Harvey may be missing. Have you talked to him lately?

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[She laughs, low and choked. She has to, or she'll start screaming or destroying things and she doesn't have time for that.]

It's all right, he was kind enough to leave her for me.

I'm coming over.

[He doesn't give her time to argue. She will have better things to do than play nursemaid. He just arrives at her door with his favorite tea in his pocket and cats on his heels. Barbara has medical supplies and Iris's various comfort indulgences in her room already, but she will have better things to do than play nurse, things he can't. One knock, as always.]

It's me.

[She would have argued, and she's glad he didn't give her a chance. She opens the door remotely, from her station at the computers. (Useless. They're useless right now.)

Iris is lain out on the couch, arms tucked in, covering the mess of her shirt. Jonesy is sitting on the armrest, staring down at her.]

She resisted the urge to crush the carnation; it sits on the table, ready for any tests she can think of doing.

Barbara manages to give him a small, strained smile.]

I need to - I should put her on the bed. [Her voice is weaker, now, than it was in public. Brittle.]

If she wants to switch when she wakes up and has a clean shirt on, I'll carry her.

[Brisk, sensible; he's got more than a foot of height on Iris and also isn't in a wheelchair. It's not that Babs couldn't manage it perfectly well, but it would be literally no effort for him. It's a matter of resource allocation. And right now, Iris doesn't need anything at all. He comes over to Babs instead, reaches out to her idle hands, that familiar twitch, the horror of their emptiness. Holds and squeezes tight.]

I've never even talked to this guy. What do we know?

[It's a soothing tone, low and steady. And it's easier, of course, to frame it as something for his benefit, breaking it down to digestible facts and bringing him up to speed, letting her take a breath and focus on what they can do without telling her easy truths about Iris's resilience that won't help right now or platitudes about going easy on herself it is, in fact, a crisis, and she plainly will do no such thing. Pushing hard doesn't mean she can't get a steady foundation to brace from first; quite the opposite.]

[Barbara nods, because it does make sense, and she likes to think she's only stubborn for good reasons.

She closes her eyes, just for a moment, when he takes her hands. Just to feel that he's there, to know someone, at least, is safe and alive. (Alive, truly.)

When she opens them, her gaze is hard and determined. She'll grab this lifeline and haul herself all the way up again.]

Normally, Jack - Red Hood - is a good person. Damaged, like any Gotham vigilante, but good. I trusted him. [The words leave a bitter taste in her mouth, even though she's sure, really, that Jack isn't himself right now.]

There are a few options, here - it could be some kind of flood, so we need to watch each other, make sure no one else goes axe crazy. It could be possession, or mind control.

[And she stops. Takes a breath.] Or - well. In my world, Jack is the Joker.

[She doesn't want that to be what's happening. She doesn't want the Joker here, on their Barge, with her people. But it's one of the likeliest options.]

...the way he was on the mirror barge.

[It's statement and question at once; letting her know how much he knows, his degree of familiarity, what she can skip and where to continue. But it's seeking confirmation too: is he the same, that creature and the one she remembers, the one she suspects. And of course, as the words leave his mouth, spurred by the only strong association he has with the word, something sharper and more troubling is laid bare, like the shed skin of a monster waiting in the road, heavy with implication.]

There was no flood announcement.

[Plain and grave. Whatever it is, however it is, isn't that simple.]

No. [She didn't think it was, not really. It was just a possibility she had to roll out, just in case.]

The Admiral might be compromised again. The ship - I don't know. [She feels, suddenly, trapped in her own skin. She wants to fight, forge, fix, but she doesn't know where to start, she doesn't know what she needs or what she can do.]

On the Mirror Barge - he was the Joker I remember, from my world. [She gestures to Iris, and she doesn't let her hand tremble.] The bullet wounds...

Let's assume the Admiral isn't for now, not until we've got positive evidence for it.

[Rather than absence.]

What about the bullet wounds?

[Call and response, details, grounding. One thing to work on at a time. Jack is the place to start, or whatever he's become.]

[She hates assumption, but she knows they're useful, sometimes. Better to focus on what you know for sure.

She pulls her hand back, and gestures to her own abdomen.]

It's the same place, the same pattern.

[He had a file on a version of her once, at the very beginning of his time on the barge. He nods, mouth tight, quiet anger.]

So. We assume for now it's the Joker operating. Motivations, methods, lazy taunts.

Weakness? Likely moves?

[It annoys her, sometimes, to see people angry on her behalf. Not today.]

He's erratic - that's a strength and a weakness. We can't predict him, but he can barely predict himself. He might have played a long game here [and it makes her feel sick, knowing she might have been talking to Jack and - ] but only because he had to.

Jack might still be in there, somewhere. We shouldn't bank on it, but it could be something to exploit if we have the chance. [And no proper weaponry.]

He'll target Jack's friends, probably - Derek is already missing - and people he knows from Gotham. Harvey is MIA, too. Other than that - he won't care who he hurts, as long as it's entertaining.

27 - Voice

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