Justice League Femme

Epilogue One: Batgirl

The setting sun cast an orange glow over Gotham City's skyline. For once, I didn't hear any sirens going off tonight, just regular city traffic. The weight I often felt while on patrol wasn't there tonight. I sat on the ledge of the roof of Wayne Enterprises and let out a relieved sigh. It had been a month since we defeated Brainiac. I had gone back to the ship to help upload Justice League files that Diana and Kate might need for their mission to revive the cities Brainiac had bottled. The last thing that I had heard, they had been able to revive twenty more cities that he bottled up.

I pulled out my phone from my utility belt and went to the Messaging app. I tapped on Kara's name. "How's recovery been treating you?"

After a moment, she started typing. "It's been really smooth," she texted, "Kal's been helping me with regaining my strength."

I smiled at that. "I'm happy to hear that," I texted back, "and everything else?"

"School's school mostly," Kara replied a couple moments later, "I've been on unpaid leave at CatCo for the time being. Hoping to be back sometime next week." There was a delay before she sent another text. "Oh, funny story: my family met Mon-El when I came back from the medbay." There was a laughing emoji with a bead of sweat coming down from its forehead at the end of the text.

I smirked as I read the text. "Ooooh! Spill the tea."

"They really like him. Even Kal has been seeming to take a liking to him." She added a blushing emoji at the end of the text.

"I'm happy for you, Kara," I texted.

After a few minutes with no response, Kara started typing. "I don't know if anyone else on the team told you, but Mon-El and Nia, they aren't going back to the 31st century."

My eyes widened as I read the text. "Get out!"

"Nope." There was another blushing emoji. "Nia wants to stick with the team because of the friends she's made with us. Mon-El had mostly the same reason." There was a pause before she added on. "Well, there was an extra reason for him to stay." She put a red heart emoji at the end.

I smiled as I read the text. "I'm happy for you two. You guys are adorable." With that, I slipped my phone back into my utility belt.

"Looks like someone just finished taking her fifteen."

I looked over to see Dinah in her Black Canary attire standing a few feet back. My eyes widened as I stood up from the ledge. "The hell are you doing here?" I ran over and hugged her.

"Been a while since I had talked to you," she answered, "and I figured I should see you in person."

I furrowed my eyebrows slightly. "How did you do that? Star City's on the other side of the country!"

She shrugged. "Eh, I had a friend of ours help me with the favor." She cocked her head slightly to the right. I turned my head to see Cisco on the other side. He had his goggles over his eyes and had his Vibe jacket on.

My smile widened. "Hey!" I hugged him tightly as he approached us. My cheek grazed against his, getting lightly scratched by a fresh layer of stubble. My body jolted slightly at the feeling. Warmth rushed to my own cheeks.

After a moment, I pulled back. I looked between the two of them. "It's been too long. How have you guys been?"

Dinah smiled. "Well, I'm back in Star City, so Green Arrow and Black Canary have been kicking a bunch of ass lately." She paused for a second. "We've been trying to help the city pick up the pieces. When they were in the bottle, they were cut off from a lot of resources. Queen Industries has been trying to follow in Wayne Entrprise's footsteps with forming a social program to the communities most affected by the lack of necessary resources." She let out a sigh. "It hasn't been the easiest thing to do, but Ollie and I, we'll get through it together."

I turned to Cisco. "How about you?"

He flashed me a small smile. "I'm back in Central City with The Flash. He went through a pretty speedy recovery." He chuckled at his own joke. "Caitlin's back in Central, too. She's been helping the three of us defend the city. Both as her and as Frost."

"That's terrific, you guys!" I beamed at them.

"What about you, Babs?" Cisco asked.

I smiled at that. Him calling me Babs was new, yet familiar at the same time. It was like getting a hug. I could feel myself beam harder. "I'm doing alright. My dad's recovering. Bruce is back to being Batman. I've really just been either patrolling or in classes lately."

"Hey," Dinah said. She cleared her throat. "Have you reached out to Harley at all?"

My beaming dimmed at that. I could feel my stomach drop. "Oh." I rubbed the side of my neck. "I have."

"How is she?"

I took in a quiet inhale. "She...she could be doing better."

Dinah's eyes widened slightly. "Really?" She paused for a second. "I thought with everything that happened that she'd be the one to bounce back from this the easiest. Hell, she was cracking jokes when Brainiac abducted us."

"Harley always does that," I replied, "regardless of what's going on underneath. It's the way she copes." I thought for a moment, back on how she had interacted from the moment we found her in that nightclub all the way to the moment Kara impaled Brainiac with the shard of kryptonite. I could feel a shift. Her aura before was playful in the beginning. Her teasing was light then. By the time Brainiac was incapacitated, Harley came off as more jaded, more tired. I remembered the morning before Brainiac abducted us. The way she looked off into the mountain range in the Mojave desert was so dreamy. I knew she hadn't been right ever since she threw herself into that vat of acid to gain Joker's trust, but that look, the way she was so spaced out, it was unlike anything I saw from her before.

"I can see the look on your face, Babs," Dinah said, "I can tell you think this is off for her."

I nodded. "Yeah, it is." A small sigh escaped me. "Tomorrow after classes, I'll try to get a hold of her."

"You should."

I looked back over the city's skyline. Just like earlier, there were no sirens blaring to hint that any crimes were occurring, no cries for help, no gunshots being fired. A cool gust of wind blew past me as the routine Gotham traffic was the only sound that echoed. I let out a soft sigh. "This is new." I turned to face Dinah and Cisco. "Patrol's off tonight. We need a well-deserved break."

"You sure?" Dinah asked.

I nodded.

Suddenly, there was a ping. Dinah put a finger to her ear. "What's up, Ollie?" She paused for a moment, listening closely to her comm. She nodded. "Will be back over soon." She put her finger down. "Gotta go. I have some patrolling of my own I have to go do back in Star City." She gave me a weak smile before coming over to hug me. "I just wanted to check in on you, Babs. It's been a while."

I hugged her back. "Of course. It was nice to see you, too."

Dinah pulled back. She looked over at Cisco and asked for a breach to Star City. After a second, a blue breach formed at the ledge of the rooftop. She walked over before looking back at me. "If you ever need any backup," she said, smirking slightly, "just holler."

I cracked a small smile and gave her a tiny nod. "Will do."

Her smirk formed into a full smile. With that, she turned back and walked off the rooftop through the breach. Not a moment later, the breach snapped out of existence.

I looked back at Cisco. "You gotta head back to Central City?"

He shrugged. "In a bit." There was a pause. "Hey, so you know how we're not patrolling tonight?"

I nodded. "Yeah..?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "So I was thinking, there's this arcade in downtown Gotham. I've been wanting to check it out for a while now, but because of the whole Brainiac situation, you know." A rosy hue appeared on his cheeks. "And I was wondering if maybe, possibly, since you know Gotham more than I do, we could maybe check out that arcade together..?" He paused. "I mean, if you didn't have anything else planned or if you wanted to. No pressure."

I smiled at that. "Meet me at my place in fifteen. We can go out then."