Barbara Gordon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bodilesswarrior) wrote2014-11-08 01:44 pm
bodilesswarrior) wrote2014-11-08 01:44 pm
Entry tags:
32 - Video - Backdated to 3rd
[She's never felt so small.
It's the sort of thing she would hide, usually, but not today. Her shoulders are slumped, and her expression is worn, and her voice is dull.]
Everyone I know - I'd just like you to check in.
[Iris, of course, has been at her side since they got back. It's helped - it always has, holding her close - but it can't overcome everything else.
She made a promise.]
[Emperor]
You, especially.
[A strained, bitter smile.]
You can say "I told you so" if you want.
[Spam! Open to All]
[She needed to get out. Out of her tower, out of her head.
She's dressed in an old black tank, hair pulled back in a short, low ponytail. Her hands are wrapped in frayed strips of cloth.
As soon as she gets to the gym, she picks a punching bag and starts wailing on it. It's not about precision, or stamina; she'll pummel the leather until her hands bleed.]
It's the sort of thing she would hide, usually, but not today. Her shoulders are slumped, and her expression is worn, and her voice is dull.]
Everyone I know - I'd just like you to check in.
[Iris, of course, has been at her side since they got back. It's helped - it always has, holding her close - but it can't overcome everything else.
She made a promise.]
[Emperor]
You, especially.
[A strained, bitter smile.]
You can say "I told you so" if you want.
[Spam! Open to All]
[She needed to get out. Out of her tower, out of her head.
She's dressed in an old black tank, hair pulled back in a short, low ponytail. Her hands are wrapped in frayed strips of cloth.
As soon as she gets to the gym, she picks a punching bag and starts wailing on it. It's not about precision, or stamina; she'll pummel the leather until her hands bleed.]
[spam]
[But it takes the fight right out of her, somehow.]
It's why I latch onto people like you, you can do the thinking for me. What've I done now?
[spam]
I never want you to go, Iris. I - you're not a burden, never. Right now, you're... [Her voice breaks, a little bit.] You're one of the only things holding me together.
[spam]
[And then it bubbles up again, the grief and the rage.]
'E didn't say goodbye. 'E always told me 'e'd only go 'ome to die and 'e didn't even want to graduate and I offered to 'elp stop 'im, that's 'ow morally bankrupt I am, Babs, and 'e's gone anyway.
...who'm I going to fight with, now?
[spam]
[Her eyes are burning, again, and Iris blurs in the light and the shadows.]
I think he would have, if he had the choice. He loved you, too. [Another smile, as the tears begin to fall.] And I'm sure he'd say you're bound to find more people to argue with.
[spam]
'E'd be right about that and all. It's just not as much fun with any other bugger.
'E helped so much, all month on the wrong barge. 'E practically babysat Mason 24/7, 'e kept us all supplied with weapons. I knew 'e'd come back graduated. I just. I miss 'im so much, Babs.
[She rests in Barbara's lap, tries to be glad that she's safe and things are quiet again. She is, deeply and genuinely, glad to be with Babs again; Iris just does crisis mode so much better than default mode.]
'Ow was it over 'ere? That Cambridge seemed to 'ave taken a liking to Bianca.
[spam]
They intrigued each other, I think. [There's a fond sort of amusement in her voice, in amongst the bitter grief.] You know, it's funny - I think she ended up liking this Barge more than the other one.
[spam]
Those last couple of days, when we were crossed over? I don't 'ave 'er memories for the month, but I do for those days. She changed sides, Babs. She was fighting with all she 'ad for this Barge.
I don't know that she survived after the end. I'm pretty sure it killed 'er, but I don't know if she got to come back, after. But I know she'd decided to leave. Jack damn near graduated 'er, much as you can in a month.
[spam]
She really changed. ...Even if she doesn't - that matters.
[spam]
[Amazing and bittersweet; she'd been so looking forward to talking it over with Jack and Derek when she got back. But she doesn't need to mention that raw hole torn in her spirits: it's right there throbbing, perfectly perceptible, and poking it will only bring the tears on again.]
I'm going to go look for 'em. Soon.
[Soon, but not right away: Iris can't convince herself she has any chance to find them, and she needs a little time to shore herself up for the expected failure.]
Remind me 'ow the only thing worse'n winning a war is losing it, Babs.
[spam]
She still doesn't know how it all happened, what it all means. She's just as lost as she was months ago. Lost and small and useless.
And she laughs, soft and brittle.] I get it now, you know. I mean - I understood before, intellectually. But now I want to crash this damn ship myself.
[spam]
[She tilts her head up to stare into Barbara's eyes.]
Don't you dare imply to me that was for nowt, after all that. Don't you dare.
[spam]
I won't.
[No. Saving this Barge, these people, that still matters.]
Red Hood - she was helping, too.
But it wasn't enough.
[spam]
[That's all it takes, to take the fight right out of Iris in turn; Babs is never someone she can stay irritated at for more than a handful of heartbeats, and both their grief and sorrow drowns out anything harsher.]
It never is enough, though. It never 'as been. Not for you or me, or Jack, or Bruce or the Doctor, 'as it? It's always been like recalibrating the Proximan Chain dimension tunnel; by the time you've got one anchor point straightened out there's three more come adrift. Didn't we know that when we got into this line of work?
[She says it more like someone convincing herself than like someone really convinced; and yet she knows, and knows that Barbara does too, that it's always been true.]
It's never made any of us give up yet and it won't now. And Bianca's still got 'er TARDIS, you know. That Mikhail give me an idea, when I talked to 'im: we can still save those people, or at least give it a shot.
[spam]
It's worth it.]
Never hurts to try. [Well - no, that's not true at all. But it's never stopped her before.]