Recovery [open]

[Barbara Gordon]

Light seeped though partially open blinds and into the hospital room.The rays illuminated the woman laying in the bed, her red hair a stark contrast against the white sheets and pillows. Already pale skin was blanched from the loss of blood. The steady beep of the heart rate monitor filled the room, giving proof that Barbara Gordon was still alive. The noise from the busy street below and the active hallway on the other side of the door was not enough to wake the sleeping woman.

Since coming out of surgery she had been falling in and out of sleep. Her period of wakefulness slowly becoming longer. She remembered hearing voices, those of people checking up on her but she had only opened her eyes a brief moment before falling asleep again. Dreams and reality merging seamlessly. She remembered opening her eyes and seeing her father sitting int he chair beside her bed, worry etched on his face. Another time she swore that Batman himself stood vigil. More often than not it had been a nurse checking her vitals. Since coming out of surgery Barbara had not been left alone for very long.

Voice and images fluttered through her mind. Stood at the edge of the roof top and used a grapple gun for the first time, the rush of adrenaline filling her. She sat crying on her bed, her father comforting her after her mother left them. She walked down the hall of Gotham Academy, Dick teasing and laughing at her. Batman stood watch over her bed, a faint trickle of pain filling her stomach. She was dancing with the other girls on the team, all smiles and laughter. Then Jason was pulling her along, urging her forward in his excitement to have the team meet her for the first time. She chased after a pair of thugs stopping short when a haunting red smile appeared in the darkness, pain and terror filled her body. She heard the faint voices of concern, mixed with Dick's laughter, music, and the startling sound of a gun shot. "It's up to her now." "Her vitals have stabilized but she still hasn't woken up." "I'm so sorry Barbara." "Come on, Barbie. You'll pull though and I'll take care of the clown." The images and voices slowly fade into the background before disappearing.

Babs knew it was time to wake up. Her mind urging her to open her eyes. Another part of her was refusing to listen. Opening her eyes would mean that reality would set in once again. She knew that she was alive but had no idea what else had happened after the Joker shot her. Who had found her? She remembered seeing Dick but that was impossible, he was in Russia with Hayley's Circus. Was her father okay? She swore she had heard Jason but had that could have been real? No, it couldn't have been. She tried to figure out what had been a dream and what had been reality but she couldn't. The only way to figure it all out was to open her eyes.

Blue eyes slowly made their appearance from behind heavy lids. She blinked a few times as she tried to focus on her room. A smile formed on her lips as she registered the other people in the room."Hey." Her voice was raspy from disuse, her throat in desperate need of water. It took a moment for everything to come crashing back to her. Where was her dad?! "Where's Dad?" Panic started to seep into her voice.

[Richard Grayson]

To say that these past hours of Dick Grayson's life had been stressful, would not even begin to truly encompass just how bad things had been for him from the moment he pressed that button on his phone to listen to Artemis' voicemail left for him on that night in Gotham. He hadn't gotten any real sleep since that point in time at all. Sure he'd dozed off for a brief period on the plane ride back here to the States, back home to where he immediately hopped into a waiting car at the airport and was driven right to the hospital where Barbara currently was being held, but that wasn't really any sort of rest to rely on. Especially considering how that brief moment of comfort came crashing to a halt.

He'd come across Artemis for the first time in...well, at this point he'd lost count in how long it'd been since they'd seen each other in anything other than picture mail and social media. That was a fact that he made sure that Artemis was well aware of his feelings on during that encounter in the waiting area after his run in with a rather unpleasant nurse. The conversation with Artemis had been...it had been....well, it was one that had been boiling for some time now and all the emotions were there that one would expect from people that at one time were pretty close friends and then suddenly not even available to each other for a simple phone call. Also, if you were wondering how close Dick and Artemis were before, just note that he was able to ask her and Wally to fake her own death. It takes a close friendship to even have the guts to ask someone to fake their own death. It takes even more to actually go through with asking them and it takes a great friendship for that person to agree with the request. That's where they were, this was where they were at now.

Dick wasn't finished with this discussion with Artemis, but he'd grown tired of waiting on someone else to tell him it was okay to see his girlfriend. He'd been worried sick the entire trip back to Gotham, he'd been worried from the moment he listened to the messages on his phone and getting here now and going through what he'd been through since arriving at the hospital was doing nothing whatsoever to help matters. It was killing him to just sit there, helplessly while Barbara was laying in a bed alone. Granted her father may have been there at this point, he wasn't sure, but Dick felt like HE needed to be there with her. He hadn't been there when she needed him to be there the most, he had to be there now.

After a while, Dick finally stood from his seat in the waiting area and made his move once he'd seen the nurse leave the area for whatever reason, he really couldn't care less what she had to do. He looked back at Artemis briefly before he took off. "Screw this, I'm going to see her," he told her as his stride carried him through the hall right towards Babs' room which saw two police officers sitting outside the door. Before he could reach the door they were already rising out of their seats, raising hands to stop him in his tracks. "Woah, woah, I can't let you in there," the taller of the two officers said. Dick instantly recognized the officer, he had been on the force a long time. One of the guys that Commissioner Gordon trusted a lot. He regularly was tasked with taking he and Barbara home or picking them up or stopping by the Gordon's home to check up on them by the Commissioner when the two of them were younger. "Stevens, come on. This is me you're talking to. You know I'm not here to hurt, Babs," Dick pleaded with the older man. The man sighed. "She's not even awake, Dick," he replied. Dick looked at him, his eyes pleading his case just as much as his words. "I don't care. I need to see her," he shot back quickly before sighing himself, running a hand through his dark hair. "Look, I just took a nine hour flight to be here only to have a nurse make me sit in a waiting room without filling me in on anything that's going on with her. I don't need a piece of paper to say that Babs is family. You know us.....please?" Stevens looked into Dick's eyes, before looking at his partner and then stepping aside. "You owe me," he told Dick as he sat back down in his seat, his partner following suit on the other side of the door. "Thank you, I'll make it up to you at some point, you can let Artemis in as well, she's cool," Dick responded before he rushed into the room, closing the door behind him.

Stepping into the dark room, he looked at the bed sat just inches away from the wall, Barbara's sleeping form laying comfortably in it. Dick swallowed and slowly stepped over to her bedside. He looked at her, giving a quick look over of her. Even at a point as low as this for her she was beautiful. He leaned down, pressing a kiss gently against her forehead as she slept. "I'm so sorry, Babs....I should have been there for you," he spoke softly. He reached down, taking hold of her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. He didn't know if she could hear him or not, but either way, his plan was to be right there until she woke up. He looked up, turning away from Barbara and letting go of her hand when he heard the door opening, Artemis obviously coming into the room. "She's still sleeping," he whispered to the archer as a heads up. However, Babs' voice snapped his attention away from Artemis and back to the bed, Dick's eyes lighting up at the sight of his girlfriend's beautiful blues. "Hey, sweetheart," he responded to her greeting, pulling a chair up beside her bed now. As she started to panic, he reached out, a hand resting on her shoulder. "Hey, it'll be okay. Your dad is..." he caught himself, turning back to look at Artemis for an answer about her father. He hadn't even found that information himself. He got right off the plane and came here with his focus solely on getting to her.

[Artemis Crock]

Old Gotham, Gotham City, Connecticut
Gotham General Hospital
28 December, 2021
21:37-5UTC

Artemis Crock had been taught many things in her short time in this plane of existence, but if there were ever an instance in which she wished she could implement the ideas of a lessons she once despised it would be now. As a child she had been taught that emotions were a weakness that existed for the sole purpose of being used against oneself, thus training to conceal them were enforced by her father. This had been one of the many reasons that she struggled to connect with people on a personal level as an adolescent, but as time passed she forgot every word her father ever spoke and grew into her own. Now she was wishing she had not.

The attack against Barbara Gordon had devastated the young woman, thus making her entire body ached terribly in the death ridden silence which only a hospital was capable of producing. Having been in that atrocious place for God only knew how long one would have thought she would be more stable, but that was anything but the case. The continued fluctuation in emotions had drained what little strength she had left from her body and the continued silence on the part of her former best friend left her feeling even worse. The flaxen haired archer now realized that abandoning her former life because of issues which she could not control was a horrible decision, that keeping herself hidden in the shadows after returning to Gotham City was anything but the right answer, and that if she had not done any of the former she might have been able to save Barbara. There were clearly several other items tacked onto the list of ‘Things I Should Have Never Done’, but right now the most latter had become the darkest and one that provoked all consequences which she had been hoping to avoid; the reintroduction into the life of the former Boy Wonder just happened to be the first.

To say that their pleasant discussion was painful would have been a blatant lie for it was downright devastating. Emotions which neither of them knew they possessed had come to light amidst the bickering and, in all honesty, Artemis wondered how they had not been ejected from the hospital. The disapproving looks of the nurses in combination with the complaints of disgruntled patients should have gotten them escorted off the premises hears ago, but someone was clearly looking out for them. She supposed if any good had come from their little screaming match it would have been that it destroyed the awkward barrier which the duo had built up over the years. They could now sit next to one another without wanting to strangle each other which was a good thing considering it was all they could do.

After one heated argument, two unprompted naps on the behalf of Artemis, three demands by the head nurse to leave, and twelve hours later the two young adults were still waiting to be given any information about the injured redhead. Dick was clearly tired of waiting. The dark haired male had been tapping his foot for at least thirty minutes when he finally shot up from his seat and declared that he was going to see Barbara, he then proceeding to waltz past the head desk. Of course the insistent nurse who had been the bane of their existence demanded that he come back and take a seat, but she did nothing besides that – Hell, she did not even get out of her chair! It Artemis had not been so focused on pursing Dick she probably would have laughed at the woman who was currently screeching at the both of them, but she made sure to take the time out of her day to flip the bitch off before picking up her pace.

As the female came around the corner she had to wonder how far her companion would get before someone stopped him, but that question was answered with a ‘not very far’ the second she rounded the corner. He was clearly pleading with two police officers, both of which he seemed to know amazingly enough; the amount of dumb luck Dick possessed was ridiculous in her opinion and yet she did not bother to question it tonight for fear of jinxing their entrance. A short exchange or words and favors later the two men were letting youngest of them pass through the door, thus turning four into three and placing her at the center of attention. Perfect. “Like he said: I’m cool,” the flaxen haired archer stated in a cool yet awkward voice to the men who were staring at her oddly, she quickly slipping in the door and closing it behind her silently.

The words 'she's still sleeping' were the ones which Artemis heard upon the lock clicking into place and the words which made her heart clench desperately in her chest, the image of a broken man holding the hand of his battered girlfriend entering her vision as she made her way to the end of the bed. She probably should have said something in that moment to signify that she had heard him speak, but could not think of anything sufficient for this instance. After all, what did you say to someone who was in this position? Apologizing and promises of a brighter tomorrow were just too unrealistic…

Soft yet panicked words which were clearly that of Barbara suddenly broke the dismal thoughts which she was lost in and the male quickly began soothing her panicked voice as she begged them for answers about her father. The situation had gone from one extreme to another then back again in a matter of seconds and not having any answers, Dick turned to the clueless archer for help. ”Your dad is fine, Babs,” she began in a hushed voice, steel grey eyes flickering back over to Dick as a means of saying that she truly had no idea how Commissioner Gordon was. “He’s a little shaken up from the whole ordeal, but he’s safe.” Everything she breathed was a unconfirmed hope and attempt at making the injured female calm down if only slightly, but in the back of her mind she had to hope that it was all true.

[Nightwing]

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