Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s a familiar release of air as the train halts at the Narrows platform. She keeps her eyes trained on her phone in case Stephanie boards. It’s only happened twice, but there’s a cordiality expectation that Babara engage in small talk with her protégé and her caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet. 

That, added with Stephanie’s lack of finesse when it comes to keeping their nightlife on the down low, means it’s best to see her in the Cave or Zoom office hours. Anything else is too public and too high stakes. 

She selects the last four prompts in today’s Connections (the category was camera parts, embarrassing, really that it took her so long) and swipes over to her email. 

Extension for html final? Hi Prof. G, Is there any way I could get the weekend to finish up the final project? I’ve…

Barbara huffs, double tapping to send it to the appropriate course folder. There are seven more messages with a similar tune across the two other courses. As if her students don’t have half the semester to code a half-decent website. As if her courses aren’t structured with so many universal design elements that they’re practically unrecognizable from the other sections.

She chalks it up to typical procrastination and the disproportionate wheedling students try with female professors. Maybe next semester, she’ll change her name to Barney. She’s only on campus for labs anyway. See how long it takes the students coasting on the scores of their online assignments to figure it out. 

She snorts. That’d be an interesting experiment. Somehow, she doesn’t think her department chair will let her get away with it. 

Name changes are listed under ‘warning signs’ in the faculty handbook, where rogueish behavior is discouraged.

The train lurches forward again. No one got off and only a handful of teenagers hopped on, taking advantage of the late start Thursdays Gotham’s public high schools boast. 

The river rushes beneath the train tracks. Pollution levels are relatively low today, according to her news app. She watches out the window as the upper east side comes into view. Familiar streets, familiar people. 

A sushi place has a Grand Opening banner snapping in the heavy, late autumn wind. A man strains to keep up with his labrador pulling him up the sidewalk. A traffic cop prints out a ticket for a beat up Honda Civic parked in front of a flashing meter. 

Everything is coated in a layer of snow, already half melted. 

Another screeching halt, easily cutting through her shut off noise cancelling headphones, used more as a social cue and to hide comms rather than for their actual purpose. Dick got them for Damian and Damian found increasingly absurd places to hide them.

A beeping emits as the train’s ramps extend. She glances up and recognizes the woman and her turquoise walker. They nod to each other. 

One more stop until the Coventry, when Barbara will transfer to the bus that cuts west to campus. She’s lucky her building’s along the F2 line. A second transfer might actually be her villain origin story. Or the impetus for her campaign to the city’s transit authority. Whichever’s easier. 

Central Collections was two blocks from her house with very smooth sidewalks and her favorite coffee shop in between. She misses that commute. 

She declined Dick’s offer for an accessible WE van when he learned she accepted the lecturer position at GU. Because in Gotham, a master’s in library science, a ‘hands on’ teaching philosophy, and a meticulously coded GIS program are qualifications enough for the computer science department. She has a sneaking suspicion they hire underqualified candidates to avoid future Mr. Freezes and Scarecrows. 

Two wasted PhDs, in her opinion. 

She stifles a yawn, refusing to feel tired when she hasn’t even been shackled in end-of-semester grading jail. 

Last night was… rough. Stephanie took a nasty spill when her grappling line slipped off an icy railing. Dinah had to dip on the Birds mission because Mia pulled a disappearing act. Helena couldn’t stop with the snarky comments about priorities. Donna sent a request for intel regarding an upcoming Titans mission. 

To top it all off, when she finally arranged herself in bed, shooting pain in her legs kept her up the scant few hours she had to sleep. 

The start of a headache that she hopes doesn’t scale into a migraine hovers in her temples. With luck, coffee will nip that in the bud and carry her through the two three-hour labs she’s scheduled to teach today. 

Or maybe her students will all balk at the crummy weather and stay home. Honestly, it wouldn’t be the first time. 

Like the trumpets of heaven, her phone pings. 

Absent from lab today I am caught up on all my work and the snow around my dorm isn’t cleared, so I won’t be at…

One down, twenty-nine to go. 

Barbara smiles to herself, but it slips quickly, imagining her piling night life inbox. 

She doesn’t keep her night work communications on her personal phone. Being arrogant about her hyper-secure devices will breed complacency and set a bad habit for her less stringent peers. Systems are only as secure as the people who use them. 

Still, it’s not hard to feel overwhelmed with the messages she can’t see. Birds of Prey, Titans, Outlaws, Justice League, Gotham’s bats, Keystone’s speedsters, Star City’s archers. 

Cyborg refuses to field most hacking requests and Batman’s no longer available to lighten the load as capes are referred to her time and time again. And yes, Barbara loves Oracle, loves saving exponential lives with dual-monitors and a wrist rest keyboard. 

There is no ‘but.’ No ‘however.’

It’s the other pieces of Barbara’s life that take the loss when the cape demands rise. Dinners with her dad (his cooking has thankfully improved beyond Stouffer’s lasagnas), stitch and bitches with her librarian friends (she needs to return Laurie’s F-5 crochet hook), Jackbox games with the Batgirls (Cass is surprisingly good at Trivia Murder Party while Stephanie crushes Quiplash), museum visits with one of the Batboys (the max she can tolerate at a time, she’s not handling their baggage for free). 

She didn’t realize how easy it was to multitask when she was managing the information desk. Now, her courses require maintenance. Students require reassurance. Deans require documentation. 

She’s inundated with newsletters she never signed up for. She drifts off during committee meetings that are unnecessary to begin with. She gripes as her office hours remain attended by the same three students who all have As anyway. 

Academia is toil and labor. She’s already gotten a request to write a letter of recommendation, a thought that makes her want to hyperventilate. 

She should vent to her dad about it next time they call. Maybe by the time she’s got it out of her system, she’ll know what to scrape off her plate. No input actually needed, call it rubber duck debugging. 

The thing is, Barbara liked being a librarian. When she was little, books were the places that explained where moms are, why brothers are cruel, how fathers say I love you. 

Cam Jansen showed her how to leverage her memory. Nancy Drew taught her deduction. Jack and Annie honed her creative problem solving. 

Above all, these characters taught her bravery. Perseverance. Determination. 

In the hospital bed, then in the rehab center, Barbara found herself re-reading the books that brought her so much comfort as a child. 

Taking the job at GU though, that was all Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey. The lengths the babysitters go to protect and care for their charges… Yeah, when Stephanie paid her registration fee a week after donning the Batgirl cowl, Barbara was pretty much committed.

Cass being so far away aches, but Barbara can at least keep an eye on one of her girls. 

Once again, the train slows and stops. The reservoir in Robinson Park is just visible, a few courageous joggers in thermal athletic gear encircling it. 

She wonders if Stephanie will be in the afternoon lab. With straining grip strength, Barbara refrains from telling Stephanie to take the day off. 

The bump on her head from last night’s fall might not have resulted in a noticeable concussion, but the remaining bats were out late with rumblings of Red Hood being back in town. He’s killing again and Batman has been pretty slow on the draw despite Robin’s urgings. 

Another buzz of her phone as the train speeds toward her stop. She reaches to pull down the cord, then remembers this isn’t the bus. Instead, she presses down the additional time/ramp button for her car. 

Building locked? Hi Professor Gordon, I’m at Kane and the doors are locked? I tried swiping my gothcard but…

Her TA, not Stephanie. Why she expected Stephanie, she doesn’t know.

The headache is making itself a nuisance, she decides as she shoots off an assurance to her teaching assistant. She considers logging into Canvas and canceling lab. Her heated blanket is calling her, the dull ache of worry about one student in particular is expanding unprompted. 

Evidence suggests that telling Stephanie what to do often results in the opposite, but if the whole class cancels, what’s she going to do? Show up anyway? 

Barbara snorts. More likely, she’ll let herself into the Cave and gripe about not being invited to the mission—the only reason Barbara’s canceled class so far. Pushing through bad pain days and hectic schedules to be as many lab sections as possible. 

Unfortunately, her sense of justice means she can’t cancel class for one student no matter how strongly she feels about the topic. While today’s lab isn’t mandatory attendance-wise (another check in the favor of canceling altogether), it is the last chance her students have to run questions by her about their final projects. And based on some of the emails she’s gotten the last week, some of the students need all the help they can get. 

It’ll require a double shot of espresso, but giving this one last boost is important to her. 

If nothing else, holding class will hopefully diminish the possibility of grade grubbing horror stories she’s heard from her colleagues. 

She rolls her shoulders. Yeah, no. Class will be held. If Stephanie doesn’t show, then she’ll be taking a well-deserved nap. If Stephanie does show, then Barbara gets visual confirmation that her bird’s alright. 

Win-win, really.

The overwhelm encroaches again. Checking on Stephanie, checking on Cass. Fulfilling all the Bird-Titan-League consults. Grading over a hundred shitty websites. Crocheting the last few rows of the second baby blanket. Emailing the nth person about the strip of wood in the faculty longue’s doorway that, even with her full vigilante strength, she cannot angle her wheels over. 

It’s crushing and it’s freeing and it’s too much and it’s not enough. 

The train rumbles to a stop. She unlocks her wheelchair after the car settles. The Coventry stop is trash littered and rat infested. It’s a block away from her bus stop, with an elevator ride in between. It smells like fresh weed. 

She propels herself down the ramp and onto her next task.