I own nothing. DC comics own everything.

The Gauntlets
Jay Tryfanstone

Babs leaned back in her chair, stretching the tired muscles of her back and using one hand to try and massage the knotted muscles of her neck.

"Pumpf, " she muttered to herself "There are times when I could do without this."

"Without what?"

Startled, she swung round, to see the large, familiar space of black that peopled her workroom.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," she muttered.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, too long spent trying to log into this system. Too many people needing help. A large dose of PMT."

The black space shifted, vanished.

"Which way did you get in this time?" she asked, hardly expecting a reply. She heard the fan of her freezer open, the sound of kitchen drawers. "That coffee's been stewing for hours."

It was not coffee, but a bowl of raspberry ripple ice cream, complete with spoon, that ended up in front of her. She looked at it in astonished gratitude.

"That wasn't what I was expecting."

"I spoke to J'onn this morning. He said you'd been busy."

Enjoying the sweet, cold taste of the ice cream, Babs managed a distracted "Mmmm."

Hesitation. Then Babs felt gloved hands descend onto her shoulders, the powerful fingers digging into tensed muscles and massaging the knots that had felt permanently engrained.

"Hey - that's good."

"Alfred."

The hands continued their impersonal search and soothe technique as Babs relaxed into an ease that had seemed unreachable five minutes ago.

"How was the patrol?"

"Uneventful. I thought I'd check on you before I went home."

"That's a little...unusual."

"It's not often that you spend quite so much time on line."

"Well, there was Nightwing's financial data, and then BC's Martinique rescue..."

"And you did that download for Arsenal. I doubt that was easy."

"Finished now, thank goodness."

The hands smoothed, stopped.

"Can't you do the rest of me too?" asked Babs, half joking. "It's not often I get a massage that good."

There was a thread of surprise in that impertable voice.

"Are you sure?"

"Come on, Batman, it's not as if you haven't seen most of me before."

"It's taking an unreasonable advantage of your callers."

"My uninvited callers."

She waited, half expecting the silence of absence.

"Where do you keep your oil? Do you need to use the bathroom first?"

Oh, goody. "In the exercise room. There's a table in there, too - it's folded up against the right wall. Give me a couple of minutes."

He'd set up the table by the time she finished in the bathroom, but the room was empty. Physical modesty was one of the options Barbara had lost with the use of her legs: she'd stripped down to her briefs by the time Batman re-entered with a couple of large towels.

"Bat-briefs?" Definite shock. The man was almost transfixed in horror, and Babs had to laugh at his face.

"Tim bought them for me."

"I had no idea..." Batman eyed the offending garments with rancour. "Perhaps a little investigation...a buyout.."

"You quite like Lian's pyjamas, Bats, you know you do."

"That's different."

"I like them."

"Hmm."

Babs reached up to the hanging support riser, and pulled herself sideways onto the table, quickly picking her legs up and rolling round onto her tummy.

"Towel?"

"Mmm..Please."

Babs slipped the towel under her head, resting it on her crossed forearms. Looking across the room, she could see Batman's discarded cape, neatly folded onto a chair, with his gauntlets lying on top. She heard the snap of the oil bottle, and, a minute later, Batman's large hands began to rub the oil firmly into her back.

"If I'd known you were this good," she said. "I'd have put an addendum on every piece of work I do for you."

"I think you'll find someone else volunteering for that particular mission."

She felt the muscles of her back tense: knew he did too, the hands hesitating before moving on.

"Batman -" she said, with weary resignation.

"Just shut up?"

"Just shut up."

As the hands pressed and rubbed at Bab's grateful muscles, she let her eyes rest, half-closed, on the heavy gauntlets. Black, of course, a heavy, friction-resistant kevlar weave, each knuckle protected by a small matt circle of pure kevlar. Heavy enough to retain the shape of their owner's hands after wearing. Long, strapped cuffs, concealing, she knew, a picklock, a couple of useful gas and smoke pellets...probably an inflatable life raft with all mod cons. 'Hope Alfred packed the food' she thought, with a silent snort of amusement.

The hands went lower, moving down her back until she could no longer feel them. Although Barbara had no sensation in her body from her lower waist, where the Joker's bullet had smashed through the intricate weave of her spinal cord, she routinely exercised her whole body, retaining some degree of muscle tone in her legs through painstaking and repetitive drills learned from her physical therapist. Hired masseuses and her own hands eased blood flow, but the occasional need to insist that someone did have to massage the unfeeling flesh annoyed and upset her. Batman's simple acceptance was a pleasant surprise. But then, he'd been with her through some of the exercises, the painful therapy, the unfamiliar license other people could now take with her body.

Bab's mind drifted from her warm and stretching body back to the gloves. This particular pair must be coming to the end of their working life: there was a gash across the tip of one thumb, and one of the kevlar patches was star-crazed. 'Must have been something tough to do that.' She thought to herself. Who knew what those gloves had seen, done? Certainly not her. She remembered the stiffened leather of the gloves Batman had worn, years ago, when she had been Batgirl, the safe clasp of those sure black fingers. For a man who was taciturn to the point of frustration, those hands had said a lot. 'I'm here for you. Fly: I'll catch you.' A thought struck.

"Batman," she said, twisting her upper back to face him. "What happens to your old gloves?"

"What?" Batman looked up from the muscles of Barbara's calf, thinner and paler now than it had been when she was Batgirl.

"You know, all the gloves that wear out?"

"I don't know." There was mild surprise in his tone, but Barbara could not guess whether this was because he'd been asked or because he didn't know the answer.

"I know Alfred keeps the costumes, but you get through gloves a bit quicker, don't you?"

"Yes." Batman's attention had returned to her legs. "I'll ask him. Lie back, you'll tense those muscles again."

Barbara obediently shifted back into position, feeling the table shift as the big man's hands left her feet and returned to her shoulders.

"Arm?"

She stretched one out, supported on the table, felt Batman's hands start to pummel the muscle. He must have thought to turn the heating up; she was warm and relaxed, now, almost drowsy, her mind drifting to Robin's small gloved fingers. Robin's small gloved fingers...clasped in hers. She shivered.

"You're tensing again." Batman's voice held a deep note of warning.

"Sorry."

"Bats...I don't expect a massage every day. Or, in other words...why?"

A considering silence. Babs felt Batman's hands move to her own fingers, warming and stretching the ligaments, carefully massaging each little pad of muscle.

"I..wanted a chance to speak to you."

"And you had to get me trapped on a massage table to do it?"

"It seemed convenient."

"Ulterior motives, hmm? I should have known. What is it? You want me to con the IRS over Waynetech's R&D budget again? Mess up Clark's by-line on the Globe's next printing? Find out BC's cup size?"

"You and...Dick."

Damn. She could feel every muscle tense again, forced herself to relax. Batman's steady hands continued to stroke her fingers.

"What?"

"He's not happy."

"It's none of your business."

"Neither are you." Batman's tone was detached.

"That's the PMT. Most of us girls get that, Mr. Playboy, even those of us trapped in -" she stopped.

Silence. Batman's hands left hers, poured some more oil, returned. She relaxed: he wasn't going to say more. The feel of his fingers was infinitely soothing: her gaze returned to the discarded gloves, resolutely rejected the images of herself encased in that steel cage. She'd made another life for herself. Stretch and soothe, warm. Mmmm.

Almost uncomfortably warm.

A feeling that her mind recognised and rejected, the little prickles of sensation that could almost become...something more. The sudden sensitivity of her skin, an enlarged awareness of just how those strong fingers caressed and touched her flesh.

No.

And then the warm wetness of Batman's mouth around one of her fingers, his tongue curling and probing gently at her skin.

"Bats..."

His mouth left her finger, blew warm air onto the exposed tip of that single finger.

"Ride with me, Barbara?"

The deep warmth of his voice.

"What are you-?"

His mouth again, a touch of teeth on the thin skin of her inner wrist. Sensation, unexpected, unfelt for...years.

"Bats..."

"Trust me...just a little."

Fingers again, his mouth enclosing and caressing, a deep, drugging, rising beat of blood and feeling...

"I can't.."

He must have heard the panic in her voice, shifted, moved to crouch level with her head.

"Barbara."

She opened her eyes.

"I can stop now...or I can carry on."

"But I can't..."

"Can't what?"

His deep blue eyes searched her own, the pupils slightly enlarged, she noted, in a part of her mind that was not wholly preoccupied by this astonishing feeling of arousal.

"My body..me..."

"Whoever said you can't have sex if you're paraplegic?"

"But I can't feel.."

"I think you can. I know I'm probably not the choice you'd make, but...trust me?"

('I'm here for you. Fly: I'll catch you.')

She nodded, her eyes closed. ('I didn't really do that..')

His mouth on her fingers again, circling, the rough surface of his tongue, like a cat's, lipping at each nail, the small thickness of hardened flesh from the routines she put herself though everyday. The warmth rising through her skin again...but nothing below her waist. A familiar and old resentment, felt and rejected in sensation as Batman nibbled up the outer length of her arm, paused to circle and stroke the soft skin of her inner elbow.

"Mmm..."

"Good?"

"Mmm-mmm."

"I'll carry on then." The big man's breath was warm on her skin, the depth of his voice resounding in her ears.
Hands and tongue again, an intense pleasure against the skin of her shoulders and neck: she arched in pleasure, felt Batman's teeth bite, very gently, at that point between neck and shoulder. He growled into her skin: little vibrations of sound that did something very...interesting..to her stomach muscles.

"Ohh-"

He shifted, moving to line and delineate the strong muscles of her back with his tongue and breath, one hand curving and pushing at the relaxed muscles of her shoulder, the touch no longer impersonal: possessive, designed to arouse. To her astonishment, her breath was beginning to shorten, her world narrowing to the feel of those callused fingers, the warmth of his mouth and her own blood, the removed sensation of power and muscle held in check above her.

"Turn over for me, Barbara?"

Since when did his voice caress the muscles of her diaphragm, so deep, with an unexpected tenderness that she had never heard..

"Barbara?"

Oh yes. She turned over, supported by those strong hands. A moment.

"I don't think you realise...quite how beautiful you are."

Absolute sincerity. Senses recovering a little.

"Why, thanks, Mr Wayne...all this attention could turn a girl's head."

"That's exactly what I intend."

He was doing it, too, mouth returning to her fingers, a steady suck and caress that said, both, 'we have all the time in the world' and 'I'm taking you somewhere you want to be..' One hand resting lightly on her stomach, stroking in slow, circling movements, an expected trail of feeling that left her anticipating every move...His mouth left her fingers, continued up her arm: little nips, smoothed by his tongue...her breathing gone now, and he must feel quickening rise of her chest...

Ahhh, his mouth on the underside of one breast, the nipples tightening and swelling, the feeling of impatient engorgement that begged for touch...Gone, and she let out a gasp of frustration that prompted a brief snort of knowing amusement.

"Later.."

His mouth on her stomach, a slow tracing of the powerful muscles that controlled her stance in the wheelchair..No.

And for an instant his hand left her hip to fasten around the hard tip of her nipple, a strong and knowledgeable pressure just this side of pain that made her gasp and arch towards the abandoning hand.

"Concentrate." He growled against her skin.

His mouth was arching around the curve of her ribs, his body shifting again, one arm either side of her holding his weight above hers as that searching mouth investigated the underside of her other breast, the tender curve of skin above her armpit, the odd, cold weave of the cowl brushing against her breast for instant. She was shaking, now, her hands gripping the sides of the table.

He moved again, one hand circling her stomach again, feeling the telltale jumping of the muscles: paused, licked quickly at one erect and darkened nipple.

Barbara's hands came up to grasp his head. Batman smiled into the soft, lightly scented flesh, circled the nipple slowly, licked from underside to tip, Bab's breath coming shorter, her hands sliding on the cowl until he took one second to push it back and they could fasten onto his hair. Oh yes. Yes please. Now, please.

Batman took the nipple into his mouth, circled it once with his tongue, and sucked, hard.

Babs felt as if something had exploded in her chest, light, gold waves of sensation across her skin, the familiar, strange, long-gone non-light of orgasm in her eyes and head: oh, sweet, so sweet...

Her own breath, short and quick, but easing.

He'd moved, crouching beside her, his head resting in the cradle of her hips, one hand curved protectively around her waist, eyes shut. His breath, she noted gratefully, was a little strained.

"I don't know what to say."

He smiled, a slow, tired smile.

"Did you know?"

One hand was still tangled in his hair: she stroked, gently.

"I did do..a lot of reading."

"About this?"

"About everything."

"I thought.."

"I guessed you thought." He opened his eyes, looked at her steadily. "Barbara..a chair does not the woman make."

"I didn't think..."

"Actually, sometimes, you know, not thinking is the best option. Maybe you'll remember that next time Nightwing drops in the door."

A slow and dawning realisation. "You planned this."

"I wasn't certain. But I did think it was one objection."

"You bastard," she said, her hand tightening on his hair. But her tone was affectionate.

She closed her eyes, thought.

"Can I do...the other?"

Felt him move, opened her eyes. His own held hers for permission as he slid the briefs aside, ran his hand down the unfeeling line of her labia, drew one glistening finger back. Licked it.

"Can't see why not." His hand gave a passing caress to her stomach. "I don't know if you've got any sensation in your cervix.." He smiled, stood up and passed her a towel. "Maybe you should find out...some other way."

Batman reached for his cape, unfurling it around his shoulders with practised ease, bent for the gauntlets.

"Hey...thanks." Barbara said drowsily. "Thank you."

Batman made sure the chair was in easy reach. "I don't think there's anything I can say that won't sound hackneyed," he said. "er..it was a pleasure, don't call me, this never happened..." His mouth quirked at the corners.

"I'm phoning Dad the moment you leave.."

"No you're not. But there is someone you should call." He looked at her for a moment, and was gone.

Babs smiled into the towel, too comfortable to move just yet. A world of infinite possibility. And a phone- call to make.

Fin