"Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one." - Voltaire

•••

Butch looked from all the hospital machinery down to Tabitha's face.

Reaching out, he trailed a hand down the side of her face, sadness filling his heart at how off-color her skin appeared.

She'd lost a lot of blood and spent the last several hours in surgery.

Somehow she'd managed to pull through, but now she was in a coma and when Butch had asked when she'd wake up -he'd been told it wasn't a matter of when, it was more a matter of if.

If she'd wake up at all.

"Why'd you have to go and be brave, huh?" He asked, his fingertips trailing over the familiar feel of her skin and the soft hair on her arm as he moved to hold onto her hand, "I just got used to you being around. Partners, right?"

The doctor had told him that talking to her could increase the likelihood of her waking up.

Give her something to hold onto and find her way back.

Only he was at a loss of what to say.

"How..." His voice shook, "How am I supposed to keep people in line now, huh? I don't think I can do this without you."

Tears welled up in his eyes, "You're one of the only people in the world who looks me in the eye when they talk to me, you know that? You laugh at my jokes. You actually like the way I look. I didn't think I'd ever feel like this again."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is... I... I..." He grew too choked up to talk anymore.

Tears started to run down his cheeks and he lowered his head, resting it on her shoulder as his tears started to soak into the hospital gown they'd dressed her in.

"Well don't stop now. I was just getting misty."

Jerking his head up, Butch wiped his face and glared at Oswald who'd been silently standing in the room for several minutes now. "What are you doing here?"

"Paying my respects." Oswald smiled, displaying the bouquet of flowers he'd picked up in the gift shop on his way up to the room.

Hobbling over to the foot of Tabitha's bed, he laid the flowers down on the table and commented, "She's looked better. I must say..."

"You will not hurt her." Butch spoke in a domineering tone.

He wasn't about to let anything else happen to the woman who'd made him feel alive again.

"Why would I do that?" Oswald questioned, feigning a look of wonder before going, "Oh, I know! Could it be because she shot Bird and nearly killed her, or hmm, because she stabbed my mother in the back!"

Butch drew his gun at Oswald's outburst.

He'd always been unpredictable.

While he was working under Oswald, he'd seen him flip and beat his own employees to within an inch of their lives for delivering him bad news on several occasions.

Aiming the gun right between the shorter man's eyes, Butch threatened, "If you touch her-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Bird called out as she walked into the room. Her eyes narrowing at Butch as she saw the weapon he had within a few inches of her best friend's face, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Bird!" Oswald called out, "There you are."

Up until just a few moments prior, he'd believed she'd been right behind him, but apparently something had side tracked her on the way from the gift shop up to the fourth floor of the hospital.

"Sorry." She apologized, "I got distracted."

Oswald's eyes fell to the glitter covered vase of flowers she was holding in her hands and he couldn't help but smile at her, "I should have known."

Bird had always had an affinity for shiny things and weakness when it came to glitter.

"Butch." She complained, walking over and putting her hand on his arm to lower the gun, "Put the weapon down. We're not here to hurt her."

A growing look of confusion painted his features as he watched Bird set the vase of flowers down on the table next to where Oswald had left his bouquet.

Bird and Penguin were two of the strangest people he'd ever met and at this point he had no idea what to think of their impromptu visit to Tabitha's hospital room.

Especially since they were both bearing gifts.

"If I really wanted her dead, I wouldn't have helped her after her brother impaled her with a sword." She spoke in a calm, but near emotionless tone.

"Yeah." Butch's brows raised and he kept a hold on his gun, which was now lowered to his side, "Why did you help her?"

He'd recognized the blood stained coat in the bag of belongings the hospital had given him with Tabitha's clothes and personal items, as the same coat Bird had been wearing earlier that day.

And one of the paramedics had told him that had it not been for the first aide Bird had done within the moments after Tabitha had been injured that she wouldn't have made it.

He'd just been having a hard time figuring out her motives.

"Oh, you know me." Bird shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal, "Always had a weakness for a pretty face."

Oswald nodded in agreement with her and Butch was even more lost as he looked between the best friends, but his expression did soften as his eyes met hers and he said, "Whatever your reason behind it... thank you."

"You're welcome." Bird beamed a smile, catching Butch off guard.

"Hmm..." Oswald hummed with a smile of his own, "I like this side of you, Butch. Soft and sentimental."

A chill ran down Butch's spine as he stared at them.

For two people who were rather small and unimposing in stature there was something chilling about the air in the room seemed to shift as they stood there smiling at him.

If they'd started laughing, he thought they'd look comparable to couple of hungry hyenas.

"Galavan has to pay Butch." Oswald was the first to speak again.

"Azrael?" Butch questioned.

"No!" Oswald shouted, "Galavan. See, I will not buy this whole uber villain nonsense. I mean if he wanted to wear leather, he should just wear leather. This is Gotham City -no one cares, right?"

"We're on the same side, Butch." Bird promised, "And none of us are safe until Galavan is dead -again."

"We've all suffered by his hand." Oswald added, "Me, you, Bird and her brother, my mother and now his own sister.. Galavan must die."

Realizing that indeed the pair was not there to hurt Tabitha, Butch finally put his gun away

They were there because they needed help bringing a common enemy down.

"Come on, Butch." Bird tried to persuade him, "The three of us together again. It'll be just like old times."

"Yeah?" He questioned, "And what about Gordon?"

Through a strained smile, Bird tried not to think about how she'd ran off Jim yet again and breathed, "We have different ideas on how to tackle this problem."

"Go figure." Oswald commented, earning himself an unamused look from Bird before she looked back to Butch and said, "My brother isn't safe until Galavan is dead. Oswald isn't safe. Jim isn't safe, I'm not safe... Tabitha and you, as well. None of us can move on until he's gone."

"Okay." Butch finally agreed with a heavy sigh, "What's the plan?"

•••

"He's here." Alfred said into the phone as he called Jim to let him know that Bruce had returned back to Wayne Manor, "And he's safe."

"Thank God." Jim breathed as he jogged back to where he'd left the car parked, "What about-"

Knowing he was about to ask about Bird, Alfred frowned, "Still no sign of Lady Wayne. Seems your calls aren't the only ones she's dodging tonight."

"Okay." Jim got into the car and shut the door, starting the engine, "I'm on my way. You both stay safe."

Bruce finished clearing the books from the shelf in the study that had a hidden safe.

Ever since he'd stolen a gun from his sister and taken off to kill Matches Malone, Alfred had been keeping his own pistol locked in the safe that Bruce didn't know the combination too.

He watched as Alfred got to work on entering the combination and opening the safe.

Earlier that day, long before they knew Galavan would be coming after him, he'd pleaded with Alfred to let him go into the city.

They'd had a small disagreement in which Alfred reminded Bruce that he is his legal guardian and that was why he had the right to tell him no.

But it had ended with Alfred honoring Thomas and Martha's wishes to let their son make his own decisions and against his better judgment he'd let him go.

Peering inside the safe to where stacks of cash were left after the gun was removed, Bruce walked over to his butler who was loading the clip into the gun and admitted, "You're more to me than just an guardian, Alfred."

Stopping in the middle of what he was doing, Alfred turned to face the youngest Wayne with raised brows.

"You're my friend." Bruce admitted, guilt showing on his face for how he'd acted earlier that day.

"Your timing really is quite impeccable, Master Bruce." Alfred commented with a shake of the head.

"Aw." Bird pouted from the doorway, "Did I miss a family moment?"

"There you are!" Alfred called out, relief flooding over his features to see she was for the most part unharmed.

Bruce gave his sister a smile, glad to have her there and know she was safe, he told her, "Detective Gordon has been looking for you."

Nodding, Bird stepped further into the room with her arms crossed over her chest.

"He's worried, Lady Wayne." Alfred added.

"Yeah." Bird nodded, "That's what you do when you're in a relationship with someone."

Her arms fell to her sides and she admitted for the first time out loud to anyone other than Oswald, "Jim and I are together now."

Bird's eyes widened as she looked back and forth between her brother and Alfred as she waited on a response.

"I thought so." Bruce finally admitted. Giving his older sister a smile.

"You two..." Alfred breathed, motioning between the siblings, "Have the worst timing of anyone I've ever met."

"I'm happy for you, Lady Wayne." Alfred continued, "But for the moment we need to button down the hatches..." His voice trailed off as he noticed a strap going diagonally across Bird's body and saw something behind her back, "What have you got there?"

"Oh!" Bird exclaimed, walking closer to them as she reached back and pulled a sword from it's sheath, she proudly displayed the weapon, "I made a stop on the way here."

"You're going to kill Galavan... with a sword?" Bruce questioned, wearing the same expression as Alfred.

"No." Bird sighed, re-holstering the weapon, "I'm going to hold him off from killing us until my friends arrive." She explained, "Guns are useless. His armor is pretty much bulletproof. But he's got Azrael's sword and all I need to do is fend him off for a while longer."

"Friends?" Bruce asked, "What friends?"

"Okay..." Alfred breathed, "We haven't got time for nonsense right now. We have to make sure all of the doors are locked and the windows are closed and the lights are out; we need to make it as hard as possible for Galavan to find us."

"Detective Gordon is sure he's coming here?" Bruce asked.

"Well nothing is certain, is it? So we need to be ready-" Alfred began but Bird interrupted, "He'll be here. His number one priority is ending the Wayne bloodline."

"Then we should split up." Bruce said.

The trio agreed to split up and cover more ground in less time. To lock the house up as securely as possible and meet back down in the study.

The plan was to hide out in the secret room the stairwell behind the fireplace led to.

Alfred insisted on taking the downstairs, figuring that would be the first point of entry of someone trying to break in.

Bird started to close up the back of the downstairs and then planned on going up to help her brother.

She'd just finished closing her last downstairs window and pulled the drapes across it when her phone rang.

Pulling it from her pocket she saw it was Jim calling.

"Jim." She greeted as she answered the call.

"Where are you?" Jim's voice was rough, his tone and words abrupt -not showing an ounce of the relief that hearing her voice had brought him.

"I'm okay." She insisted, "I'm at Wayne Manor. No sign of Galavan yet."

Blowing a breath into the phone and finally allowing himself to calm down a little since racing out of the cemetery much earlier that day, his tone softened some as he said, "You can't keep disappearing on me like that."

"I had to." Bird argued, as she neared the stair case to go up to the second floor.

"You didn't." Jim was at the ready with argument of his own.

"I did." She insisted.

"What happened to us making a great team?" He questioned, repeating her own words back to her from the night they'd broken into the Internal Affairs evidence room while trying to clear his name.

"We can only be a team if we're on the same side, Jim."

He opened his mouth, but no words came out this time.

She was right.

"Bird?" Jim asked into the phone when he heard a thud on the other end of the line, but he didn't get a response.

Instead the line suddenly went dead.

Throwing his phone over into the passenger seat, he switched on the lights and sirens in the patrol car, speeding through the glow and shadows from the city streets after dark.

Bird gripped onto the wood railing to keep her balance after nearly being knocked down the stairs by her brother.

"What's wrong?" She asked at seeing the panicked expression on his young face.

A look that made her forget all about her cellphone that had went tumbling down the stairs from their collision.

"He's here." Bruce managed to say, "A window was broken upstairs. It has to be him."

Without another word to him, Bird turned and ran down the stairs with her little brother just mere steps behind.

They could hear sounds of a fight ensuing as they neared the study.

Grunting and thudding, furniture being knocked over and glass breaking, shots fired and the ricochet off metal.

Bruce rounded the corner to the study just in time to see Alfred disarmed, having been knocked to the floor and Galavan above him, raising Azrael's sword into the air.

"Alfred!" He screamed out in fear.

But before any further damage could be done to him, Bird jumped in the way, sword unsheathed and at the ready.

"You!" Galavan smiled, eyeing her face and then down to the sword, "You think you can stop me?"

He should have sought her out in the cemetery earlier that day and went ahead and put a stop to her existence then.

"I think you're a dead man, Theo Galavan." Bird said the exact same thing she'd told him on the night they'd killed him.

"I am no longer flesh and blood." Galavan's voice roared through the room, "I am immortal and I have grown tired of you!" He shouted, bringing his sword down, but Bird blocked the blow with her own blade.

Alfred scrambled to his feet, searching for where his gun had landed.

Galavan might have been in bulletproof armor, but he wasn't wearing his mask. If he could just get a head-shot in then he could put a stop to this madman once and for all.

Bruce ducked behind one of the chairs, peering over the top as his sister expertly blocked each attempt Galavan made to slice and dice her with the sword.

That was until Galavan backed her against the wall, but Bird managed to duck just in time to avoid being injured.

She dropped to the floor and quickly crawled between his legs to get away.

Moving quickly, Alfred snatched up the sword Bird had dropped and was at the ready when Galavan spun around after pulling his weapon free of where it had lodged in the wall.

"Immortal!" Alfred snarled between his clenched teeth as the blades sparked upon impact with one another, "Let's see, shall we?"

Deflecting the attack, Alfred knocked Galavan's hands away and managed to land a good blow with the end of the sword handle to his forehead.

With a groan of pain, he stumbled back, giving enough of a interval that the butler was able to lunge at him, tackling him back against the wall.

All appeared as if Alfred was going to maintain the upper hand -until Galavan flipped him over the couch and the butler hit his head on the coffee table on his way down.

Bruce drew Galavan's attention when he let out a horrified gasp while watching Alfred's body fall limp between the table and couch.

"Bruce, go!" Bird shouted as she barreled forward with all of her strength and knocked their enemy to the floor, "Run!" She screamed.

Her sword fighting skills and determination might have been on par with Theo Galavan's, but she wasn't a match for his strength.

She'd managed to land a couple hard hits while she was on top of him on the floor, but it took little effort for him to kick her off of him.

Leaving Bruce to watch in shock and horror as Galavan picked his sister up and threw her straight through the large window onto a jagged bed of glass outside on the lawn.

Doing as he'd been told, Bruce turned and took off running.

Not knowing how seriously injured Bird or Alfred were at that point, Bruce knew he had to lead Galavan away from them.

He had to run for his life.

So he ran for the large garage here his father kept a collection of classic cars.

Turning the lights off, Bruce started checking the cars for keys.

Sometimes his father would keep a set of keys either above the visor or laying on a front tire.

Only now he regretted not having paid attention to which cars those were.

"Damn it." Bruce breathed as he checked yet another tire and came up empty handed.

"Don't hide little boy. Face me. Face death." Galavan said as he entered the garage,, "You know the Waynes are a blight upon the city. A selfish, arrogant family. A family with no belief, no honor."

In a scrambled crawl, Bruce ducked behind a different car and felt for keys on the tire as Galavan slowly walked through the large open space, letting the sword he carried scrape against the cement flooring.

"You are your father's only son, Bruce. When I kill you and then your sister -I'll eradicate the Wayne name forever. It will be as thought you never existed..." Galavan's voice trailed off when he caught sight of Bruce's shoes next to the front tire of a sleek back car.

Only, as he got closer he saw that the shoes were the only part of Bruce there.

He'd fallen intro a trap the young Wayne had set.

Starting the car he'd found the keys for, Bruce shifted it into drive and stomped the gas pedal, running right into Galavan and driving with him still on the hood through the garage doors.

Only his body had fallen off somewhere between the garage and the driveway.

After a bit of maneuvering, Bruce managed to stop the car.

Frantically he looked around for any sight of Galavan -but he didn't see him.

His knuckles turned a ghostly shade of white as he clutched onto the steering wheel.

He wanted to keep driving.

A part of him was terrified and just wanted to stomp the gas pedal again, get out onto the road and find somewhere safe.

But he couldn't.

It wasn't only him that Galavan planned on murdering.

He wanted to wipe out the Wayne bloodline and that meant he was just as determined to kill Bird.

Switching gears into park, his breathing was heavy and erratic as he stepped out of the car onto the paved driveway in his socked feet.

Running around he checked under the front of the car, hoping that somehow he'd trapped Galavan underneath and he hadn't managed to walk away.

Standing up, Bruce looked around as he tried to formulate a plan.

If he couldn't find their attacker, then he needed to get to his sister and then Alfred.

But before could take another step, a leather whip was wrapped around his neck with so much force he felt like his head was going to explode.

Gasping for air, his feet kicked against the pavement.

He desperately clutched onto the whip as Galavan dragged him along until he collapsed on his knees.

This was it, Bruce thought was his vision grew fuzzier, his chest ached like he had the full weight of an adult elephant sitting on it.

But just when he was sure this was the end, the pressure was gone from his neck.

Falling onto his side, all Bruce could do was make noises as he gasped for air, feeling like his throat would never recover.

Leaning down, Bird removed the end of the the whip she'd just sliced apart from her brother's neck and then turned to face down their enemy.

"Did you steal that from your sister before or after you tried to kill her?" Bird questioned, slightly swaying from side to side.

Her entire body felt like one huge bruise and there was still a rather large shard of glass sticking out from her arm from where she'd gone through the window.

But luckily she had her wits about her enough to leave it in instead of pulling the object out.

"Enough!" Galavan huffed.

He was in more pain from the collision with the car than he'd care to admit.

"Enough... fun and games. It's time for you both to die."

He took a staggering step forward, reaching back for where he had Azrael's sword holstered.

"NO!"

Bird's voice roared out of her like a lion, even catching Galavan off guard.

Gasping for a breath and reaching up to wipe the mixture of blood and sweat from her face, Bird's chest heaved as she screamed, "You will not touch my brother again!"

"You're going to stop me?" Galavan seemed amused by the notion.

"Bruce, get in the car." Bird's voice was airy as she spoke to him, but never took her eyes off of Galavan, as she continued her instructions to her brother, "Get out of here."

"No..." He hoarsely cried out, still clawing at his own neck while continuing his ongoing struggle for a breath.

"Very well." Galavan said, "First and foremost, I came for the boy, but you were never going to survive this either."

Bruce scrambled as he tried to get to his feet, he didn't know what he was going to do or if there was anything he even could do, but he wasn't going to get back in the car and leave her there.

"I remember." Galavan said, "You told me once that you'd rather die on your feet than live on your knees."

He raised his sword up in the air, ready to kill the girl who'd been a thorn in his side for far too long.

Looking her over as she stood facing him with a fire in her eyes, he added, "That's exactly how your story is going to end-"

The end of his sentence was cut short as the sound of gun shots echoed through the night and bullets ripped into his back where the armor wasn't nearly as strong.

Bird and Bruce looked past him to see Jim walking towards them up the drive, gun in hand, firing one shot after another into the back of the man who was set to kill them.

Turning to face him, Galavan looked at Jim and commented, "Unexpected..."

Without a word to him, Jim fired every last round until Galavan fell motionless to the ground.

Stepping over his body, Jim rushed to Bird, "Are you okay?" He questioned looking between where she still seemed unsteady on her feet and then to behind her where Bruce was coughing and rubbing his throat.

Bird's grip finally released on the handle of the sword she'd been clutching onto.

It fell to the pavement with a clank and suddenly all the pain she was started to hit.

Alfred came limping down the driveway to them, "Looks like I missed all the fun." He tried to joke, relieved to see that while both Waynes were bloody and beaten, they were alive.

"Bird?" Jim asked, his hands gently landing on her upper arms, "Are you okay?" He repeated.

"My arm." She breathed.

Thinking she was hurt and his touch was making it worse, Jim let go of her until he saw the glass protruding from her left arm.

"Oh my god!" He exclaimed, quickly shrugging out of his coat and trying to situate it around the glass shard to apply pressure, "We need to keep your arm up, okay?"

He spoke as he raised her arm up above her head.

"Bloody hell!" Alfred yelled as he took out his phone to call for help, "What happened?"

"The windows." Bruce's voice was dry and hoarse, "He threw her out of them."

"How are you still standing?" Jim questioned, helping to keep her badly injured arm above heart level.

"I don't know." She admitted with hiss of pain.

"Come on. You need to sit down and I'll call Bullock." Jim said, wrapping his other arm around her and starting to lead her over to the car Bruce had parked in the driveway.

"Behind-" Bruce tried to warn them but couldn't get more than a single word out before he broke into a cough.

But one word was all it took to understand what he was trying to tell him.

Alfred pushed Bruce to safety behind him, and Jim quickly spun around, taking a protective stance in front of Bird and drawing his gun as Galavan rose to his feet.

Aiming right between his eyes, Jim was ready to fire the kill shot into Galavan once again.

Only when he pulled the trigger nothing happened.

"You should know by now that bullets don't kill this monster, Jim." Oswald said as he walked through the open gates up the driveway.

Coming to a stop, he swung the closed umbrella he'd been carrying as Galavan turned to face him, Oswald said, "My last one got stuck in your throat. So I'm thinking about shoving this one somewhere else."

Bird let out a weak chuckle in response to his words.

Jim lowered his empty gun, putting his arm back around Bird and letting her lean against him for support.

Oswald smiled as Galavan pointed the tip of his sword at him.

A smile that tensed as he looked behind their nemesis to where Bird was standing in Jim's embrace.

"Jim." The detective's name tasted a little more bitter than usual as he looked at him, "A little tip for next time; always bring the right tools for the job."

Focusing back on the sole recipient of his hatred, Oswald parted, "See you in hell, Theo."

He stepped to the side and Butch walked into view, carrying a rocket launcher.

"Get down!" Alfred yelled, taking Bruce beside the car to shield him from the blast.

Butch watched to make sure Jim got Bird shielded by the car too before he took aim and fired the blast right to the center of Galavan's chest.

There was a blinding flash of light followed by an explosion that left their ears ringing.

Everyone seemed in shock, except for Oswald, Butch and Bird who'd known this was the plan all along.

To blast Galavan into so many pieces that no one could ever put him back together again.

Oswald and Butch walked closer to where Galavan's destroyed remains and tattered clothing were still on fire and Bird stumbled towards the same scene.

"Are you alright?" Oswald asked, watching his best friend's from across the flames.

"I will be." She managed an appreciative smile.

Looking behind her to where Alfred, Bruce and Jim were slowly coming back into view from behind the car, Oswald pulled in a deep breath and yelled, "You're welcome."

"Let's go, Butch." He instructed as he turned and walked away.

"Night fellas." Butch waved at them before pausing to look at Bird earning a smile from her as he repeated her earlier words, "Just like old times."

"See." Bird breathed as she watched them leave, "I told you we just had to hold him off until my friends arrived."

•••

"How's you arm?" Bruce questioned as the door to his bedroom opened and his older sister walked in, with her arm bandaged up and in a sling for the time being.

"I'll live." Bird offered a smile up and tried not to let the pain she was in show on her face as she gingerly sat down on the edge of his bed.

This was probably going on the fifth time that Azrael had managed to throw her across a room as if she weighed little more than a paper weight.

Though this time was by far the worst seeing as how she was thrown though glass.

Bruce watched her as she used the hand on her good arm to rub the opposite shoulder.

Here they were, thrust into a life or death situation yet again, and he still wasn't able to react the way he'd hoped.

He hadn't been frozen in fear the entire time, which was a small step up from the last few years, but nowhere near where he'd hoped his training would have gotten him.

What good is having the physical strength and battle know-how if he wasn't able to deploy it in the times that really mattered.

"I don't understand." Bruce finally said out loud, "I wanted to fight back tonight. I thought that if Galavan really was coming here that I'd be ready and then..."

His voice trailed off.

"You did fight back, little brother." Bird reminded him, "You hit him with a car."

"Not the way that you and Alfred fought." He argued with her.

"We've both had more experience." Bird assured him.

There was a serious look in her eyes as she stared at her younger brother, "It's normal to be afraid when some guy with the strength of three men comes after you wielding an ancient sword said to hold supernatural powers."

"You weren't afraid."

"Well..." Bird sighed, "Like you said the disregard I show for my own life is alarming." She tried to joke, but could see he wasn't in the mood for it.

"Of course I was scared." She admitted, "How could I not have been? And Alfred might not show it either, but there were times tonight when he was scared too."

"Maybe so." He conceded, "But it didn't hold either of you back from standing up to him."

This wasn't the first dangerous spot they'd been in where he'd been told by one or both of them to run while they fought back.

He didn't want to be the boy who ran from danger anymore.

He'd been training to be the man who'd stand tall in the face of it.

"I was just trying to buy time." Bird shrugged.

Immediately regretting it when her shoulders and back ached even worse with the movement.

That was another thing he hadn't understood, was how his sister who didn't seem to trust much of anyone had been so sure her friends would show up and come to her aid.

Not to mention the fact that the two people who showed up were both known criminals. The ones the papers warn you to watch out for, yet they'd saved the day.

"You knew they'd show up. So much so that you bet your life on it." He commented, giving her a questioning look as he spoke.

"With Butch it's complicated." Bird couldn't help but chuckle, "We're old friends, but this was more of an enemy of my enemy situation."

"And with Oswald Cobblepot?" He questioned.

"That's not complicated at all." Bird shook her head, "He's my best friend. You know that."

"Yes, but how did you know you could trust him to that extent?" Bruce asked.

It didn't feel like so long ago that he'd fully put his trust into Galavan, only to be betrayed.

"With some people it's like..." Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of what to compare it too, "Something just clicks into place. I can't really explain it."

"What?" Bird pushed when he looked down to the blanket on his bed and seemed to almost shrink down.

"I'm just thinking about how much I still have to learn." He admitted.

It wasn't just a matter of continuing his training and getting stronger.

Bird had told him more than once that surviving in a place like Gotham was just as much mental as it was physical and now he understood what she meant perfectly.

He had to start learning how to read people better.

What seemed like natural instinct to Bird, was something he was going to have to work on for himself.

She'd said from the very beginning that she didn't trust Galavan and while Alfred was more silent in his disapproval of the man, they'd both known something was off when Bruce wasn't able to see it for himself.

"It's been long day." Bird rose to her feet, "You should try and sleep."

When Bruce looked up at her she half-smiled, "Get some rest. The crisis has been averted."

With a slow nod, he didn't say it out loud, but all he could think was how long until the next crisis.

There seemed to be no shortage of those as of late.

"Goodnight, Bruce." Bird quietly said as she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

"Goodnight." He replied as he watched her leave his room and pull the door shut behind her.

Crossing through the upstairs of the house, Bird slowed to a stop as she saw Jim putting the last bit of tape on that was holding the cardboard over the broken window.

A temporary fix until Alfred could get someone there to repair the damage.

His suit jacket was off, as well as his white button up shirt that was draped over the edge of the stair banister.

Leaning up against the wall, Bird stayed silent while she watched as he finished pressing the last bit of duct tape to the cardboard and wall.

Feeling a set of eyes on him, he glanced over his shoulder and caught Bird watching him.

"Hey." He greeted looking her over and internally breathing another sigh of relief that she was okay, knowing that one variation in how the events of the night could have let to entirely different outcome.

Turning around the rest of the way to face her direction, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Just taking in the view." Bird answered with a small smile.

"That so?" Jim asked, unable to hold back a laugh as he gathered up the tape and scraps from the floor to move them over to nearby decorative table.

"I'm, uh..." Bird breathed, her face twisting up some as she continued, ""I'm glad you showed up when you did."

"Yeah." Jim nodded, "Me too."

They both stared at each other in silence.

Both knowing they'd been in the wrong at different points over the last few days.

Now that it was over.

Now that Galavan was dead and never coming back, Bird wasn't entire sure where they stood.

"What now?" She questioned.

"How's Bruce?" Jim asked her.

"Coping." She answered with a small shrug, "He's in bed -exhausted, just like the rest of us are."

"Well, the windows are fixed up for now until Alfred gets someone here for repairs. Bullock's holding a press interview in the morning over what happened-"

"An interview with no mention of Oswald or Butch?" Bird clarified.

"Yes." Jim breathed with a sigh.

"And us?" She asked.

Throwing a shrug in at the end of her question for good measure. An attempt to pretend his answer didn't matter so much.

But he knew her better than that.

Jim could see through the empty gesture.

The truth was that their feelings for each other had bubbled to surface and started to grow long before they were officially in a relationship.

Meaning that the way felt about her was with the full knowledge of her past crimes and the lengths she'd go to -to see the means to an end.

There was no other way this could have ended than with Theo Galavan's death -again.

It was something he'd known all along but had tried to hold out hope that it could be different this time around.

A conversation he'd had with Bird months ago sprang to the front of his memory.

It happened on the same night Bird had gunned down Matches Malone in his own home; one in which he'd finally started to admit that he regretted shooting Galavan in cold blood.

He was finding it difficult to live with the blood he'd accumulated on his hands, while Bird seemed entirely unphased with her own crimson stains.

When questioned about how she lived with so many deaths on her conscious; so much blood staining her hands, she'd simply answered that it washes off.

And maybe for her it did.

But not for him.

For Jim, the blood he'd spilled left a stain he couldn't wash off.

He knew there were conversations that they'd need to have eventually.

That the lengths Bird was willing to go to would surely continue to be the center of many disagreements.

But not tonight.

No, tonight the battle had been won and Gotham City was a little safer than it had been with Azrael running around.

"Us?" Jim questioned, eyeing her as he picked up his button up shirt from the banister and turned back to face her.

"Yeah." Bird nodded, letting him she really expected an answer, "Us."

"We go home." He breathed.

Drawing on the relief he felt that she was safe, for the moment at least, Jim managed to offer another smile.

"And sleep for a month." He joked, as he wrapped an arm around her and nodded over towards the stairs, "Maybe two."

With a new found smile of her own, Bird chuckled, "We can't. I've got that silent auction at the end of the week. The charity fundraiser, remember?"

•••

"Hello?" Bird groggily spoke into the receiver of the portable phone she'd managed to pull from it's charging base on her bedside table after she'd knocked nearly every thing else off onto the floor.

"Why is your cellphone off?" Were the first words from Barbara's mouth, "It's going to straight to voice mail."

With a loud ground, Bird looked over beside her in the bed to see Jim wasn't there. Raising up further to see if the light in the bathroom was on, Bird answered, "It's broken."

Waking up a bit more when she realized he wasn't in the bathroom either, Bird asked, "Barbara, what do you want?"

"Just wanted to say hi." Barbara answered back, feigning an apologetic tone as she added, "Sorry if I woke you up."

"Uh-huh." Bird rubbed her hand over her face again as she sat all the way up and leaned back against the padded headboard, "Have you ever been sorry for anything you've done, B?"

"You know what they say..." Barbara smiled against the phone she was pressing tightly against her face, "Die with memories -not regrets."

"You're lucky." The blonde continued, "You've got Jim all to yourself, don't you? I always had to share him with the GCPD. All the nights we'd go to bed together and I'd end up waking up by myself hours later. But he's right there beside you, isn't he?"

Looking up towards the shadowed ceiling, Bird loudly blew out a sigh of annoyance into the phone at her words.

It had been a long day and the last thing she wanted to do was spend the night on the phone with Barbara Kean. Especially when all the blonde wanted to talk about was how she was never going to get over Jim.

"Oh?" Barbara realized after cringing from the pain Bird's breath had caused in her ear, "You're alone..."

"I'm hanging up and going to sleep." Bird started to say, but Barbara interrupted her, "You're not worried about where he is?"

"No." Bird answered, if only for the sake of arguing with her.

"I know where he is." Barbara practically purred into the phone, waiting with baited breath in hopes that Bird would snap at her. Show some kind of reaction that she was worried he might have been with her.

But the brunette stayed silent, her steady breathing even more even than it had been when she'd answered the phone.

Pulling in a deep breath, Barbara's jaw tensed, "Don't worry, B. He's not with me."

"Thanks, but I don't need you to tell me that-"

"He's probably in your dining room. Probably going over case files or something." Barbara spoke over her, "Technically he's not a cop anymore, but it's still in his DNA. Needing to find that next case to solve, the next obsession to keep him up at night. You see, Jim always needs to be chasing the next bad guy so he can keep reminding himself he's the hero."

"Oh, wait." She continued, "He's not searching for the next case yet because he's still neck deep in trying to solve the only case that matters to him right now. Finding out who killed your mommy and daddy. Hey, did you know I helped him with that recently-"

"The Artemis Club?" Bird guessed.

A small smirk taking shape on her lips when the other end of the line went silent, "Yeah, he told me."

Bird stopped herself just shy of saying that they didn't have secrets between them.

She was still holding in the secret of her involvement in her birth mother's death.

Barbara's grip tightened on her phone receiver.

One of the things that bothered her the most about Jim's relationship with Lee, was how he didn't keep near as many secrets from her as he'd hidden when he was with Barbara.

Now it was growing increasingly clear to her that Jim would be keeping even less from Bird.

After all, they had started to share secrets together long before they'd even have considered themselves friends.

Bird was one of the first people who'd known he hadn't really killed Oswald Cobblepot when the orders had been given.

She'd worked from within Falcone's inner circle to save Jim's life and even Barbara's on countless occasions.

Even after Jim had moved on to his relationship with Lee, Barbara had never lost hope in getting him back.

After all, she'd known Jim had a dark side. Not too different from the darkness she carried inside of herself -a darkness that Lee lacked.

But it was different now that he was with Bird.

Someone who didn't only possess a darkness, but often wore it on display.

"I should have seen this coming." Barbara finally said into the phone after what had felt like months of silence.

Not giving Bird a chance to question what she was talking about, Barbara elaborated, "You and Jim."

He'd started talking about Bird not long after her parents had been killed.

It had started with mentions her name coming up in casual conversation -nearly always spoke in an annoyed tone.

She got under his skin in the way few people could manage.

Barbara couldn't exactly pinpoint when that had changed, when the irritation faded from his voice when he spoke of her.

"He'll break you." Barbara warned in response to the extended silence on the line.

"I don't think so." Bird spoke up.

She hadn't fallen asleep like her former friend was beginning to wonder.

"He broke me." Barbara argued with her, "Broke Lee bad enough she fled town."

Clearing her throat and taking a drink from the glass in her other hand, the blonde questioned, "What makes you think you'll be any different?"

"What I think -is that you're trying to get in my head and it's not gonna work, B." Bird shrugged.

She'd spent far too long second guessing everything in her head earlier that year and she wasn't about to let someone work their way into her mind now.

Pushing the blanket off of her bare legs, Bird swung her legs off the bed and slowly stood up, stretching her back and looking down to her bandaged up arm.

It had been a struggle just to get her nightie on for bed that night.

"You know I'm right, B." Barbara was quick to argue, but the snappiness in her tone was gone and her voice was softer.

She sounded more like the person Bird first met a few years ago versus the one she'd turned into.

"You need to move on." Bird's voice quieted as she pushed the doors of the master bedroom open and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway, "I can't imagine what a burden all that bitterness and jealously must be to live with every single day. We barely speak now and it's exhausting me."

Leaning her head back, the blonde let out a small laugh and nodded, "I can see why you think I'm jealous. I mean you are living the life that should be mine with him. But no, B. I don't envy you."

"Oh, yeah?" She nearly whispered, her bare feet lightly padding against the steps as she made her way down stairs in search of Jim, "Why's that?"

"You might not consider us friends anymore, but I do. And I know you. I watched you do everything in your power to try and change for Harvey, remember?" She reminded her, "And we all saw how that ended up..."

"That's the thing though." Bird argued, "Jim already knows who I am-"

"Exactly." Barbara agreed, "That's how I know that you'll spend every day worried about losing him. Wondering just how much bad you can do until he stops looking at you the same way. Which skeleton in your closet will be the one he can't handle."

Bird didn't answer as she stepped into the door way of the dining room and saw Jim sitting at the table.

Papers and folders scattered across the large table.

She didn't have to go further into the room to know he was going over the case file of her parents' murderers for probably the thousandth time.

As if something new would suddenly jump off the pages.

Galavan's return had put their investigation on hold.

But that problem was over now -and they were back to figuring out a way to best tie Hugo Strange to the murders.

"It will happen, Bird." Barbara cautioned, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Taking the phone away from her ear, Bird ended the call without so much as a goodbye to her old on and off again friend.

The beginning of their conversation had been little more than an annoyance. A desperate attempt by Barbara to get under her skin and inside of her head to split them apart.

For reasons that defied all logic, Barbara was still convinced that she and Jim were meant to be. That no matter what happened between now and then -that they'd be together in the end.

But by the end of the conversation, Bird was wishing she'd never answered the phone. That she'd hung up the very second she heard the blonde's voice on the other end of the line.

Her words had finally struck a nerve; more so than Bird would care to admit.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim thought he'd caught sight of a shadow, he turned around expecting to see Bird -but he didn't see anyone.

Rubbing his eyes, he knew he should go back to bed and try and get some sleep.

He'd been so tired that night when they got home that all he'd managed to do was strip down to his boxers and undershirt before crawling into bed.

But after an hour of tossing and turning, he knew laying there for a minute longer was pointless.

His mind wasn't going to let him sleep.

Not when they still needed to find a way to bring Hugo Strange to justice for his involvement in the Wayne murders.

So rather than risk waking Bird up from his inability to sleep, he figured he'd get up and give all the files they'd collected another look.

His legs felt like they had weights chained to them as he made his way up the stairs and to the master bedroom.

He paused for a minute outside of the double doors, before opening them as quietly as possible and walking into he dark room.

Even though he knew he was probably so worn out that he'd been seeing things downstairs, he really thought someone had been in the room with him.

So much so that he was nearly surprised to find Bird sleeping soundly in bed.

He crossed the large room and sat down on the side of the mattress, but when he started to move the blanket his hand brushed against something hard and as he picked it up he saw it was the portable phone.

"Bird?" He whispered.

Leaning over towards her to see if she was really asleep or not, but if she was awake she didn't answer him.

He'd heard the phone earlier, but by the time he'd stood up, it had stopped -so he thought it was probably someone realizing they'd dialed wrong and hung up after only a few line trills.

His gaze fell back to the phone until he finally just laid it over on the nightstand next to where his cellphone was plugged in to charge.

•••