30 Days of Demonfire

Cold

I cough. It hurts deep in my chest. Everything hurts, really. My head, my skin, but especially my chest.

I'm on the ground and someone's hand is on my shoulder so that I stay on my side while I cough up a lung.

There are harsh beams of light cutting through the murky darkness of Gotham at night. Helicopters. There's a circle of light directly over me and I raise my hand over my eyes. Robin's black and yellow cape has been thrown over me but I can't remark on it because I'm coughing too much.

I remember everything. I wish I didn't, but I do. I couldn't save that last person. The lights from the helicopters are still in my eyes and I fumble around for Robin's hood, which I pull over my head and down over my eyes.

"Do not cough on the cape," Robin warns me, and I guess I know who to thank for pulling me out of the river. Yippie.

I swat his hand away from my shoulder and curl my knees so that I'm kneeling on my own. This would be a lot better if I could stop coughing.

I draw the cape closer to me and I shiver. I'm not used to being cold. It sucks.

"That was foolish," Robin tells me as my coughing begins to slow down.

I nod.

"You could have died. As it was I had to perform CPR–"

"You what?" I demand hoarsely, clutching my chest.

"You inhaled water."

That certainly explains the coughing. I'm tired. Really, really tired. "I couldn't save him," I say, and I want to punch a hole in the ground but I can't because I don't have any energy left so I'll settle for sleeping for the entirety of tomorrow.

"The child is okay," Damian tells me, and he's watching me curiously.

"I couldn't save his dad."

"We cannot save everyone," he says somberly. "You almost drowned for all your efforts."

"Thanks for saving me."

"Tt. It is certainly not the last time that will happen, Grayson."

For some reason, that makes me stop and furrow my eyebrows at him. It was almost friendly. "Maybe I'll return the favor, one of these days."

"Doubtful."

I just sigh, too tired to put any effort into being angry or offended, and I focus on my shivering. I don't get cold often and I sort of want to remember what it's like. Not that I'm opposed to warming up a little.

"Nightstar," a woman's voice calls and a lady with brown hair and lots of highlights, dressed professionally and walking on her tiptoes to avoid sinking her pointed high-heel shoes in the damp ground. A man with a camera and a big light attached is following her. "GCC wants your opinion on the–"

I don't know what to say. It's not usually me who gets singled out for this kind of stuff. My throat hurts and I feel shitty and being the main feature on the midnight block of the news segment really doesn't sound like any fun.

"Nightstar is unavailable for comment," Robin says, calmly and firmly.

"Then, Robin, would you–"

"There are plenty of victims and rescue and emergency personnel on site. I suggest you speak to one of them and learn of their trying experiences instead of glorifying our actions

The woman frowns but the camera is still on us. She turns to face it and she says, in a completely different tone of voice, "We're gonna cut that." She looks at us again before she continues her tiptoe–walk through the crowd.

"Thanks," I mumble, and I lean my forehead on my knees. I'm really cold, and I'm soaked with dirty river water, and I'm so, so tired. When I try to light a starbolt, my palm glows pathetically and if I'm lucky I get a pink spark. If somebody attacked me now, I'd be screwed.

My dad finds me after a few minutes and he makes a big deal of feeling my forehead and asking Proxy for my temperature and scolding me and thanking Robin for not letting me drown. I'm so glad to see him that I don't even care and I hug him as tight as I can. I never get to hug anybody as tight as I can because it would hurt them, but I don't have to worry about that right now.

The night isn't half over, but I'm spent. I'll be going home after this, and most likely so will Huntress, and Batwoman will probably go to her job at the hospital even though it's her night off.

There are teams of people going in the river now. They're not rescuers. They're looking for bodies. There are gonna be a lot, even though my family did their best and there were tons of firefighters and cops and paramedics who helped out, too. And the knowledge that we can't save everybody hangs really heavy in my chest.

My dad's about to take me home when Batman finds the three of us together. He usually tries to be where people are not, but I shouldn't be surprised that he's here now. This is a big deal.

"You did well," he says to me. Bruce loves me and I know that, but he doesn't like the way that I patrol on my own on such a loose schedule and I think he had higher hopes for me as a vigilante. He doesn't smile at me, but the grim frown that's usually more of an upside-down smirk is softer and I think this is what Batman looks like when he's trying to show some approval.

My dad sighs because I don't think he wants my near-deaths experience to be met with praise, but I don't care. This is a breach of protocol but I hug my grandfather, because I need it and even though he would never in a million years say so I think he needs it, too. He pats the top of my wet hair and I let go.

My dad takes me to the Firewall to change and I realize that I never gave Robin his cape back. I'm still really cold and my dad fusses over me, but I'll feel better once I get some sleep and some sun.
I go back to my apartment alone (although dad follows me from the rooftops because it is after midnight and I am a temporarily depowered teenage girl) and when I get back home I take a hot shower and put on my fluffiest pajamas.

I turn on the news and it's full of Highlights-and-Unreasonable-Shoes reporter lady interviewing a bunch of people. There's actually a really cool shot of me jumping off the bridge, and I was so scared at the time that my hair left a trail of flames in the night air. Maybe that's why Highlights wanted to talk to me so badly; to get an interview with the girl with the flaming hair.

The kid I saved is named Matthew McGinnis. His mom is at his side now at the pediatrics unit in Mercy West hospital, and there's an interview with his doctor, the lovely and capable Stephanie Brown.
That makes me feel so much better. There are all kinds of shots of people in shock blankets and on stretchers and of the vigilantes.

...And the last thing they decide to remark about before it turns one and old baseball games come on is a freakin' image of me sitting next to Robin, wearing his cape with the hood drawn up. The speculation around us just sitting together makes me sort of mad, but it's so ridiculous that I don't pay much attention to it. This'll be more annoying for him than it will for me. A while ago, there was a lot of talk about Batgirl and Robin, but he and Nell never dated and she was actually dating Superboy at the time. You learn pretty quickly that most of the news is idiotically dramatized and you stop taking it seriously.

I turn off the TV and I try not to think about what it must feel like to drown in the Gotham River. I’m so tired that even though I have to fight to keep those thoughts out of my mind, I fall asleep pretty quickly after that.