Mole Needs Love!

[Fic] Origin Story (Dark Knight, gen 1/1)

2008-07-26T21:00:29Z

Author: minim_calibre
Fandom: The Dark Knight, with a healthy heap of general DCU.
Rating: Safe for all audiences.
Notes: Because there's nothing wrong with fighting like a girl. And because, well, I think it needed to be done. This goes out to cereta, and all my old DCU pals. Unbetaed, because I needed to get it out of my head.
Length: ~1300 words
Summary: She's seven and a half years old when she moves to Gotham.

She's seven and a half years old when she moves to Gotham.

In her memory, the move is always surrounded by the hushed voices of adults: "Maybe she's young enough that she won't really remember." and "I can't believe it myself--Roger and Thelma always seemed so happy." and "I hear Roger's brother and his wife will have custody. At least she'll be with family."

Uncle Jim has been out to visit them four times. Her family went to Gotham see his twice, first for his wedding to Aunt Barbara, where she was the flower girl, and then for Cousin Jimmy's christening. That was two years ago.

Aunt Barbara doesn't come out for the funeral. "I'm sorry, Babs. Jimmy came down with chicken pox." Uncle Jim is kneeling beside her bed when he breaks the news. "She sends her love. You know she'd be here if she could."

All her things get packed away in shipping boxes. Everything else is marked to go. "Anything you want to keep, kiddo?" Tiny droplets of coffee cling to the rough edge of his walrus mustache.

She shakes her head. "No."

***

When she's eight, Aunt and Uncle get replaced with Mom and Dad. It's just easier, all told.

If she still thinks of them by their old titles, well, who's going to know?

***

She's nearly eleven and a half the day the police come to the door.

The hollow ache from four years earlier is back. Mom and Jimmy can't stop crying. Babs feels like she's been turned to stone.

She doesn't cry until her dad comes home.

***

She's not much older when Harvey Dent holds his gun to Jimmy's head and Batman saves them all. Mom tries to shield her, to cover her eyes, but her fingers leave cracks and peepholes, and Babs sees everything in a disjointed rush of motion.

Harvey Dent's comatose body is transported to the hospital. He's not expected to regain consciousness.

Gotham mourns.

Those who know the truth remain silent.

At night, Babs pictures the angles of the jaw beneath the cowl and frowns. There has to be a way to track him down. It becomes her private hobby, scanning each face she sees for signs of the Batman.

***

Dad lets her take self-defense classes after that. It starts with aikido and Krav Maga, moves on to capoeria and whatever else she can fit in a schedule that's suddenly packed with classes and as many extracurriculars as her school will allow. It keeps her mind off the tension at home.

Aunt Barbara and Jimmy move out shortly after Babs celebrates her thirteenth birthday. Babs thinks she knows the last straw. Two weeks ago, the headlines all said that Harvey Dent opened his eyes and spoke.

***

She excels in math and science, and all her teachers encourage her to take correspondence courses from Gotham State. She excels in those, too. She various adds track and field trophies to her collection of black belts. The first time someone tries to mug her, she sends him to the hospital with a broken nose. After that, her dad stops worrying about letting her walk home alone.

In Gotham City, Batman is spoken of in hushed tones. No one likes him, not since Dent fell. Gotham fears him, and Gotham needs him. Online, there are hundreds of sites with thousands of users, all speculating about who he is and what he's become. Babs has alerts set up on most of them for any new photos. She's written programs to analyze them against an ever-growing database of possible suspects.

Dad still talks to him. The signal's still gone, and no one's supposed to know, but she's heard that familiar low rasp more than once in the alley behind their house. Always before something big goes down.

Gotham fears Batman and Gotham needs Batman, and walking through the grey streets Babs wonders if perhaps Gotham doesn't need something else as well.

***

Halloween in Gotham is a dangerous time. But so is Arbor Day, and Flag Day, and pretty much every day that ends in y. Five years after the Joker's reign of terror ended in a trip to Arkham, and there are hundreds of "Jokers" running around the town. Hundreds of Batmen, too.

One of them doesn't make it to the party she'd planned to attend. She stumbles into a carjacking situation instead. A couple of amateurs, hoping to take advantage of the chaos and take home a taxi driver's night's haul, as well as whatever his fare has on her. They picked the wrong passenger to mess with. When the dust settles, they're disarmed, a crowd's gathered, and the taxi driver is trying to shake her hand.

"Nice job, Batgirl."

Batgirl. Babs likes the way that sounds.

She flashes him a grin and jogs off to cheers and wolf whistles from the crowd.

***

It's easy enough to modify the costume with bits and pieces of old equipment that Dad's left lying around. Babs picks up a wig at a secondhand store, the hair a brighter red than her own, and attaches it to the cowl. She adds padding to the chest to hide the soft body armor below, paints the area around the embossed bat a bright yellow.

Her ambitions aren't the grand kind. She's not in it to take down the mob, or put fear into Gotham's heart of darkness. Babs just wants to take care of the little things that Batman and her dad are too busy to take care of.

Batman tries to warn her off. She should be quaking in fear, but she's not. Instead, she's memorizing details, trying to make out the shape of his eyes under the shadows of his cowl. There's something familiar there, nagging at her.

***

It's pure luck that she finally figures it out. Luck in the form of winning the Wayne Enterprises full scholarship to Gotham State University, with an internship to follow.

Bruce Wayne shows up late for the photo op, shirt untucked and hair disheveled. He shakes her hand, his palm too calloused, grip too firm for Gotham's most notorious bachelor. His face shows none of the puffiness she'd expect from a lifetime of debauched spectacle. Thin lips part in a brilliant white and patently artificial smile.

"Mr. Wayne," she's careful to gush, eyes fixated on the line of his jaw. "Gosh, this is such an honor."

***

The computer security at Wayne Enterprises computer systems is difficult to crack. Difficult, but not impossible. She reads over design variations for armor and vehicles, taking notes as she goes and covering her tracks when its time to log out.

When she's learned as much as she feels she needs to know, Babs meticulously leaves behind just enough breadcrumbs to bring a Fox to her door.

"Miss Gordon," he says, settling in on the couch. "I believe you left me a message. Before we get down to business, I just want to say to you that I admire your father greatly. I hope you're not going to disappoint him in his own house. Now what can I do for you?"

Babs smiles, handing him a stack of printouts. "I was hoping you could help me with a development project."

His eyebrows rise nearly to his hairline. "Young lady, you do realize it's still blackmail, even if the motivation is some misguided notion of helping out?"

"Batman's just one man. Gotham's a city of millions, and Gotham could use my help. Gotham can use all of our help." She stands. "Think about it, Mr. Fox. And if you decide you can't, I'll just go back to doing it all by myself."

"He could stop you, you know."

Babs smiles again and corrects him. It won't be the last time. "No. He won't. He can try, but he won't."

[Admin] Sigh. Time to start posting here. Again.

2008-03-17T03:00:47Z

I admit, I'm lazy. I *hate* moving around. Hate, umm. Remembering to stay logged in to more than one place. Hate using Semagic, even.

But seriously? There's increasingly little value-added to LJ beyond the established connections and feeds. Which, if I get off my ass, I can recreate.

I've been on LJ longer than I've written fic, by the way. My first LJ (and my current account, later on) was created back in the day of invite codes. I've been on LJ almost as long as I've been in this house, in fact.

But in three or so weeks, as it happens, we're moving out, into a new place that better suits our needs and isn't, in fact, actively hostile. (There's an entire post in me somewhere about my personal mixed feelings regarding the move. I'll probably never make it.)

Maybe I need to do that with my virtual home, too.

Actual content later, I suppose.

[Random] Filled with gronk and blah.

2007-10-08T17:40:39Z

I am working at home today.

I am wondering how long it will be until I just give up and take a nap. I am that bored.

Anyone read anything good lately?

[Random] Journals n' Me

2007-08-25T05:35:43Z

I had this noble notion that I'd be crossposting, which failed to take into account that I'm the bitch of the update window.

Which means, other than fic, I'll probably be having different random content in all active locations. I'm not really bothering with GJ, as I have it, but am not fond of it, so it'll probably just sit there for now. JF has turned into Occasional House and Garden Bitching. Here... well, here's where I'm reading the flist most often, but I haven't really defined here as a space, you know?

This is partly due to the August Brain Death.

I mean, seriously. The month has vanished in a pit of blah.

Hmmm. I think here may be where I am goofy and think about porn.

[Fic] Johnny and Mary (SPN, John/Mary, adult, 1/1)

2007-08-25T03:36:29Z

Title: Johnny and Mary (1/1)
Author: minim_calibre
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing John/Mary
Rating: Adult for teenaged fumbling and such.
Spoilers: Pre-series, so none for the show. Possible slight spoiler for SPN Origins issue 1 or 2.
Author's Notes: 1261 words. femmenerd was talking about awkward first times, which was what was intended, but then it went slightly more melancholy and sentimental than that when I was discussing it in email with the Cheersquad. This was the result.
Summary: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. Oldest story in the book, really.

It's a crisp September day in 1968 when Mary walks into 9th grade history class and into John Winchester's life. Fifth period, the second to last and longest of the day. They're only a week or two into the school year, only five minutes into class, and already John's wishing he could be anywhere else. Then there's a knock on the classroom door, and everything around him shifts slightly to the left.

A new student, just moved to Lawrence with her uncle, as it turns out. She's tall and quiet, with sharp features that soften slightly as he catches her eye. Green eyes. Cat's eyes, with blonde hair that falls in two tight braids down her back. Mary doesn't talk much, smiles less. He hears through the grapevine that both her parents are dead.

The first time he hears her laugh is the first time he asks her out.

"You should laugh more," he tells her.

She raises her delicate brows over those green cat's eyes and gives him a smile he can't read. "Should I?"

John bowls on ahead. "Maybe smile more, too."

The smile turns wide and a little wicked, and John is out of his depth. "So if I go get a burger with you, you going to give me something to smile about?"

"If you play your cards right."

Mary's rope-thin, but she puts away two burgers, an order of fries, half her chocolate shake, and is giving his fries a speculative look before he's even done eating his first burger. He shakes half his fries out on her tray, and says, "You must have a hollow leg." before he remembers you're not supposed to talk to girls about their eating habits.

If she minds, she gives no sign of it, just smiling as she twirls a fry in a puddle of ketchup and pops it between her lips. He feels something press and rub against his left calf, realizes with a start that it's her foot. "So why don't you tell me about yourself, John Winchester? I hear you're a bit of a thug."

He chokes on a sip of his drink, and Cherry Coke burns its way up his nose. By the time he recovers, her foot's back on her side of the table, and her hands are folded demurely in front of her.

"Who told you that?" He hasn't been busted for fighting even once this year.

"Everyone."

"Well, everyone's wrong."

Mary's not the first girl he's kissed. She's not even the first girl he's kissed with tongue and furtive hands sneaking under the edge of a sweater to stroke warm, soft skin. She's just the first he ever hopes will be his last, and when she breaks away and murmurs, "Goodnight, John." he just stands there at the corner of the sidewalk, hand against the tree she'd pressed him up against and a dumb grin plastered across his face as he watches her walk up the stairs to the front door of her uncle's house.

For months, they don't go far beyond kissing, though John wakes up at least once a week, tangled in sticky sheets, a phantom taste of Mary on his tongue. He gets into one fight--one--and no punishment will ever be as harsh as Mary saying "John." with her mouth downturned. Christmas, he gives her a dime store brooch in the shape of a heart. She pins it to her jacket, even though he knows it's not her style. She gives him a book, a dog-eared copy of On the Road. "My copy," she explains. "Yours now."

He understands, he thinks, and reads it, even though it's not his style, anymore than the brooch was hers.

She calls him Johnny in between kisses, and for the first time since he was ten years old, he doesn't hate the way the pet name sounds.

On a spring picnic, he slides a hand all the way beneath her skirt, rubs that eager, awkward hand over the soft cotton of her underwear. Mary's eyes screw tight and she arches into his palm and tells him, "More."

All he has to go on is instinct and dirty magazines stolen from his dad. John takes his free hand and pushes up her shirt, lowers his head to suck her nipple through her bra. Mary covers the hand between her legs with her own, guides it to where she's wet and hot, and John sees stars. He's barely able to hold himself together until she shudders under his mouth and hand, then he rolls off her, undoing his fly just in time to spend all over the picnic blanket.

Mary cleans up the mess with a napkin and a dazed smile. "Well," she says. "That was..." Her hands dance around, like she's trying to snatch the missing words out of the air.

And John tucks an escaped strand of golden hair back behind her ear. "Yeah," he tells her. "Wow."

Two weeks later, it's goodbye. They're at the picnic spot, hands looped loosely together, bodies stretched out on the freshly-crushed grass when Mary drops her bomb.

"You're moving?" He stares at her, hoping it's a joke.

"At the end of the week." She's the somber waif from history class now, not the Mary that he knows. "It's my uncle's job. I thought... I'm sorry, John."

Mary leaves, and life goes on. John's back to fighting and detention. He loses his virginity to a girl who's not Mary a month before he goes to Vietnam. He loses a lot of himself in the jungles of the war.

It's 1976, and John's back in Lawrence. Bicentennial flags all around in preparation for the 4th of July, and at 22 he's already feeling old, the pimple-faced kids hanging around the garage half a dozen years and half a world away from who he is now. He hopes for their sake the distance never closes.

Halfway to his car he hears her voice, "Johnny?" and thinks for a minute he's losing his mind, but it's her, it's Mary, walking towards him, her hair waving loose around her shoulders and a smile like the sun.

"Hey." He's covered in axle grease and motor oil, still in his blue coveralls with the last guy's name stitched in red above his heart.

This time, it's Mary who asks him out.

"What are you doing back in Lawrence?" His head's still spinning, still waiting for this to all turn out to be a mirage.

She finishes chewing the huge mouthful of cheeseburger and says, "Working." Then she ducks her head, looks up at him from under her lashes. "And maybe part of me hoped you were still in town when I took the job."

They catch a movie after dinner, then he drives her back to her building and walks her chastely to her door. It takes two more dates before he works up the nerve to kiss her, and he might have never, except it's the fourth day of July, and people are already lighting off fireworks and Mary notices he's jumpy, leads him into her basement apartment saying, "It's quiet here." and he's got his mouth over hers before they're even all the way through the door.

"This kind of fireworks," he says, much much later when they're wrapped in her Vera poppy print sheets and each other's arms, "I can handle."

"So I noticed." She kisses the crook of his arm, and settles in, and for the first time in a long time, John feels like he's come home.

[Admin] Crossposting test

2007-08-04T17:39:31Z

Because I, apparently, have the technology.

If this worked, I should be able to hit all three things with one blow.

[Admin] ROLL CALL!

2007-07-20T03:30:18Z

Okay, my peeps: who all's over here?

Where are the backup comms?

What's the game plan?

::MWAH!::