Surveillance
by Lucy Gillam 

"...has to be a difficult adjustment."

"Well, you know Dad. He's nothing if not adaptable. He's developed a keen interest in woodworking. Has two new canes made already."

He tells himself the surveillance is necessary. It has only been a few months since Blockbuster managed to find her, and if it could be done once, it could be done again. That others were required to address that situation is unacceptable. In the future, he would be more informed.

All of this is completely true. And he even manages to believe it most of the time.

"...didn't even know he was still working. Wasn't he arrested a few years ago on a DUI?"

"Which is hardly a career-ender in Hollywood anymore. More like a rite of passage. And stop thinking like a cop."

They're watching a movie, and for once Dick seems content to remain still on the couch with her. Or perhaps he is simply too exhausted for his usual restless acrobatics. That's another situation that will soon need addressing. Even Batman has to admit that the infiltration of the Bludhaven police department was not only a sound strategy, but a necessary one as well. Still, the necessity has passed, and it's time for him to return to his real work.

"Care to put those functional limbs to use?"

"And what would your pleasure be, my lady? Chamomile? Raspberry zinger?"

"Plain old Earl Grey. I have work to do after your inevitable departure, and some of us mere mortals require the occasional burst of caffeine."

Dick heads to the small kitchen, moving for a moment out of the camera's range. Batman again considers whether more than the single camera on each floor is necessary. There is nothing to say that trouble couldn't start in any area of the clocktower, after all.

Dick returns to camera range, steam now rising from the mug, and takes his place beside Barbara.

"You know, there are those who would say a task well performed deserves a reward of some kind."

"Oh, would they?"

"They would. Positive reinforcement. Key to good leadership."

She leans in to kiss him, setting the mug on a coffee table with what looked like the ease of long practice. Batman glances at the clock with a frown. It's well past midnight, and while Dick spending a rare afternoon off relaxing is understandable, if he insists on returning to the police department the next day, he would do well to catch up on his sleep. Nightwing can do his city little good on two hours of sleep a day. (The voice in his head that always sounds vaguely like Alfred reminds him that he has frequently gone for months on just that, but he ignores it as irrelevant.)

It is not that voice that tells him he is watching them too intently (more intently, in fact, than they're watching the movie, being distracted rather frequently by one another). It is not this voice that tells him that other things in the city require his attention (and that now, as their touches grow more intimate, would be the time a discreet, not to mention sane, person would look away). It is not this voice that tells him he is spying on his son's romantic encounter (and that he was, after all, the one who chose to give that title to Dick).

It is not that voice that tells him these things. Instead, it is Barbara's eyes as she looks over Dick's shoulder and straight into his camera.

He turns the camera switch slowly enough to tell himself he is not acting out of reflex, or guilt, and certainly not to avoid the pity in her eyes. It is simply time to focus on more urgent things.

He even manages to believe it.

****

"...has to be a difficult adjustment."

"Well, you know Dad. He's nothing if not adaptable." Barbara smiles, thinking of her father's last visit. "He's developed a keen interest in woodworking. Has two new canes made already."

She knows he's watching, of course. She is almost insulted that he apparently thinks he can put surveillance equipment in her tower without it being noticed. For all that he relies on various people for their expertise in certain matters, he tends to forget that the reason he relies on them is that they're better at those things than he is. Or perhaps he simply can't admit that they are.

That he hasn't yet caught on to the program which tells her when he's watching is proof, however, that she is better.

She wonders sometimes what he tells himself, what reason he gives himself for watching them (and it is them he watches; the times he looks in on her alone are only glances that she could actually believe are just security checks). She also wonders when she'll have to confront him about it, or worse, when she'll have to tell Dick, who really will confront him about it, and everyone who's ever worn a costume could predict how well that will go. She supposes that she ought to be angrier about it, but really, she can afford to be a little magnanimous. He'll never try to take what he wants, or even ask.

Dick's hand is absently stroking her hair, the calluses occasionally catching on a strand. He doesn't appear to notice.

"Huh. Isn't that...." Dick struggles for a name. His near-photographic memory seldom extends to matters beyond his work. "What's-his-face. I didn't even know he was still working. Wasn't he arrested a few years ago on a DUI?"

That, of course, he would remember. "Which is hardly a career-ender in Hollywood anymore," Barbara points out. "More like a rite of passage. And stop thinking like a cop."

Actually, she's impressed that he's paying even that much attention to the movie. It's hardly worth it. Selecting movies for the two of them is no mean feat. Mysteries and crime dramas he tends to either solve in the first half hour or nitpick to death. Science fiction seems to lose its impact when one of the viewers has actually been to other planets. And other dimensions. And hell. And much as it pains her to admit it, they're both too cynical for the average romantic comedy (even if she secretly downloads them once in a while when absolutely no one is around). So she tended to pick screwball comedies, and let's face it: Monty Python only made so many movies.

Still, it would be nice to think that his mind isn't in Bludhaven, on a case for the PD, or for Nightwing, or possibly for both.

Barbara reaches for her empty tea mug and holds it out to Dick. "Care to put those functional limbs to use?"

Dick stands and takes the mug with an elaborate bow. "And what would your pleasure be, my lady? Chamomile? Raspberry zinger?"

"Plain old Earl Grey. I have work to do after your inevitable departure, and some of us mere mortals require the occasional burst of caffeine." She silently dares him to make a comment about caffeine not being good for her. Please, yes, start a discussion about healthy living.

If the thought occurs to him, he's wise enough not to say anything. Instead, he bows again and goes into the kitchen. Barbara wonders idly about the camera's range. She has no illusions about which one of them he's watching.

Dick returns and hands her a fresh mug of tea, with just the right amount of milk added. It's these small things -- remembering that she likes milk but not sugar -- that make the aggravation and worry of his recent life worth putting up with. Well, that and his smile. And his ... other features.

"You know," he says as she takes her first sip of tea, "there are those who would say a task well performed deserves a reward of some kind."

Barbara raised an eyebrow. "Oh, would they?"

"They would. Positive reinforcement. Key to good leadership."

"Well, you would know." Barbara leaned forward to kiss him, setting her tea mug on the coffee table behind him.

They settle into a familiar position, him leaning against the arm of the couch, her leaning against him. She's been thankful for his grace many times: as Batgirl, when he caught her more than once after a slip or a line break; as Oracle, when he's caught himself, or dodged a hail of bullets. She never quite expects to be thankful for it simply as Barbara, because he is somehow able to move her without making her feel as if she is being moved, as if she needs to be moved.

His kisses are so much more serious than almost anything else he does, sweet and earnest, and it isn't until he begins pulling her shirt from her jeans that she wonders if the camera is still operating, and knows somehow that it is.

Dick is kissing her throat now (and he really is obscenely good at that), and she tries not to think of a man alone in a dark cave, watching the one thing he wants most in the world but will never allow himself to have, that he put once and forever out of his reach with a single legal document. She tries not to feel pity for him. He would hate that, more even than he'd hate that she knows. And he is the last person she wants to be thinking about here, now.

Barbara turns and looks into the camera. She will not need to look at her program tomorrow to tell her that he has shut it down