Ghostwriter

Chapter 2

Barbara Gordon stares at her screen in slight disbelief, but then her face breaks out into a smile and she laughs, because some civilian has finally gone and done it: someone beat her to her own case.

She snuggles into her wheelchair at the clock tower and looks up at the ceiling, grinning.

Transfuse, a company that she'd been prodding for a year or two but hadn't really been able to focus on due to various spandex-clad distractions, left a loose end. A really, really big one, according to the small blog she was reading. They left someone alive to tell the tale of a company gone sour, which was great, because that meant that if Barbara could find said person, they could be a witness in a trial.

This is all assuming that this person had actual substantial evidence, of course, which they might not... but even if they didn't, Barbara figures it'd be a good place to start for her own campaign against Transfuse.

"What's up with you?" Jason Todd walks up from behind her and leans over her shoulder to peer at her screen. His hood tucks under his armpit, and he smells like sweat and smoke.

Barbara wrinkles her nose and thinks about lung cancer and her father, but pushes away the thoughts after a second. She's just happy that Jason came by often-ish now days, and scolding him would only drive him away again.

"Nothing. Just a lead."

The white screen reflects off the crevices of his face, and the dark room only serves as a contrasting backdrop. His green eyes lit up like eerie lanterns on Halloween night. "Hm. That civie doesn't know what kinda bear he's poking."

Barbara turns to look at him. "Ghostwriter's barely got over a hundred reads, and only about four posts on the blog. It's unlikely Transfuse knows about this already." They would soon, if the blog got any traction. Which, with a little help from the Oracle, it would, but only after Barbara found her and made sure that this Ghostwriter was legit. Until then, for Ghostwriter's safety, she would limit the traffic on the blog as much as possible.

"They call themselves 'Ghostwriter'? Are people just giving out names in cereal boxes now?" Jason huffs.

"It's the internet. Everyone's got a fake name on here."

Barbara opens up a tab on her labtop, takes a swig of black coffee, and starts hacking away. Time to find this "Ghostwriter". Or at least his/her computer.

"... have you pinned down the virus in my systems yet?" He'd been coming by to use her computers since then (he knew better than to try and steal hardware from her, even if it was for a good cause).

"I dunno, ask Tim. I gave it to him to fix." Barbara taps her space-bar twice.

"I don't want to ask the replacement." Jason rolls his shoulders back and stands up.

"Well, that's your fault." She glares at him from the corner of her eye.

"You sound like Bruce." His eyes snap down to her.

"You sound like Damian." She focuses on the black and white screen before her-- Oracle has work to do, goshdarnit.

"Eh, I prefer his mother." Jason smirks.

Barbara's nose scrunches and she promptly unfocuses, and she sputters a half-stunt response, "And I prefer Dick, but that's not going to happen so you can just..."

Sometimes her mouth works faster than her brain, so she pauses to see how she could take that back. That wasn't even related, and it wasn't a good comeback either.

"Relax, Babs. I know."

Barbara's shoulders drop, and she disconnects from her computer to swivel around in her wheelchair and get a good look at Jason. "You know?"

"It's not hard to tell. You two have been chasing each other's tails for the past ten years, and then he finds his soulmate and... I'm sorry, Babs. It sucks." Jason shoved his hands into his brown leather jacket and looks away.

"Manon's not who he deserves." The thought of Manon Roux and how she stood for everything that they fought against and the reality that Dick was willing to forgive her for it  makes Barbara's blood boil. Her face flushes red, and the tips of her ears burn.

"No, she's who he got." Jason, apparently finding some irony in it, grins.

Barbara's blue eyes ice over. "She's a merciless killer who only cares about herself."

"What's wrong with being a merciless killer who only cares about yourself?" Jason's grin drops and his arms cross.

"Everything! Everything is wrong with that! And don't even try to pin that label to yourself— you help people, even if you kill people to do it. She just kills for hire."

"I sell drugs that ruin people's lives."

"But you don't sell to kids, you use your connections for the greater good, and you don't kill innocent people!" Barbara folds her hands on her lap. Her fingernails claw at her palms. Why was he sticking up for her? Dick, she could somewhat understand: it was base instinct to defend your soulmate. Jason, on the other hand, had no reason!

Jason shrugs, "Neither does she, if you look at her kill-record. Well, for the most part," He snorts, and Barbara suspects that it's because he knows full well that Manon massacred more innocent civilians than the assassin herself cared to admit, "Besides, didn't Bruce bully her into stopping? But that's not what this is about, and I'm probably the last person you need to give you relationship advice. Talk to Alfred or something."

"Alfred? You get your relationship advice from Alfred?" Instead of confronting the problem head on, Barbara settles for a jab. She didn't need stupid Jason Todd telling her to get stupid relationship advice that she didn't need. Stupid. It was all stupid.

"You don't?" Jason places both hands on the back of her chair and leans over her. The aura of smoke and salty sweat washes over her again. His gaze snaps up to the ceiling. "You know what, forget it. Forget I said anything."

Barbara huffs. "I will. Why'd you come again?"

"To check up on my hardware." It was unsurprising that he came here without a mission in mind. Gotham had slept well for the past month, and crime seemed to dull to the usual grit and grind rather than anything challenging. The entire phase had the entire Bat clan on alert. The worst always seemed to pounce after a time of relative peace.

An alarm screams to her left, and Barbara glances over at it. "You wanna take it?"

"Fire rescues aren't my thing." Jason rolls his shoulders.

Barbara stares at him with cold eyes. "It's right next to a safe shelter for abused kids."

Jason turns on his heel. "...I'm in route."

The cherry red helmet clamps down on his head, and he's off.

AN:

So, first look at Jason and Barbara. And a glance at Manon Roux/what's going on in the author's head but she can't seem to freaking get down on paper. Yeah, Manon's her own thing, but she might pop up here and there. Kiddo needs her own book.  Who knows?

I know. *mischievous glare*