I'm a coward.  I'm reminded of it every time Barbara wheels over to me, smiling at me in that way.  The way that says, You're a good guy, a hero, I'm glad to know you... Yeah, right.  A hero who can save lives, put himself in the face of danger for someone he doesn't know and probably will never see again, but can't even be there for the one he loves.

I guess I really am my father's son.  Bruce hides his feelings from everyone; disguising them behind his masks, under that cowl or his playboy exterior.  Me?  I joke.  I laugh it up and make people giggle.  It's how I deal with pressure.  I’ve been doing it since I was kid.  When I was Robin, it always seemed to make bashing that guy's face in a little easier if I made an awful pun while I did it.  Made it like some silly TV show.  The brave sidekick helping his partner, but keeping his sense of humor while he did it, making the audience chuckle along with him.  I swear sometimes I heard a laugh track during those busts.  It just made everything seem easier, seem not so scary.

Joking helped me deal with the fact that even though it was bad guys I was beating up, they were still people that I was hurting.  You learn to get over that real quick in this business. But it's hard to deal with the first time you see that blood, watch some punk throw up his lunch, see a man's eyes roll back in his head as your left to his jaw knocks him out.  Talking to an imaginary audience covered up the sound of someone's nose cracking or his bones breaking.

I learned to get over that, to do my job and not be a sissy about it.  I still made jokes, but they were more because I wanted to, not because I had to.  Like a trademark.  Hell, it was fun.  I got tough.  But when things in my life got tough, this tough guy went running.  I don't deal well with my world being rocked.  Kinda crazy for a former circus kid and current crime fighter, but I need stability.  I need to know what I can depend on.  We may have moved constantly, but Haly's Circus was always the same.  The area outside may have changed, but the tents were always set up the same, the people never changed and my parents were always there, flying through the air with me.  Even when I moved to Wayne Manor, I settled into a pattern.  Granted it was different than the average American kid's, but it was mine and it was the same.  Alfred was always there, Bruce, the cave... it was home.  Then Titans Tower was home.  I had a new family and although I still wanted my old one, I was settling into a routine and everything was okay.

Barbara has always been one of those constants in my life. From the day she showed up at Wayne Manor, a sweet-faced pre-teen excited about baby-sitting at such a famous man's house, she's been there for me.  God, Barbara, possibly the greatest woman I know.  I was in awe of her as Robin.  She was beautiful and delicate and just plain female, and she could beat the hell out of some of the biggest and baddest villains around.  The perfect woman to an eleven-year-old.  I had one of my first sexual fantasies about that woman, though I'd never let her know that.  She'd tease me mercilessly.  Even when I got older I'd compare women to her. Kory was the only thing that ever came close and even she came up short.  You never forget your first love.  Especially if you're still in love with her.

Barbara and I never went beyond friendship.  I always wanted to, but my childish nerves kept me from confessing what I felt for her.  I think somewhere deep down inside I knew that even if I did it wouldn't matter.  I was just too young.  But even after I came of age and those six years were no longer an issue, it was too late.   We'd both moved on in our lives and remained just friends.

But not just friends, best friends.  Barbara was still one of those things I could count on.  She'd always be there, like Alfred, to feed me and listen to me.  She knows more about me than I think I know about myself. And she's never been afraid to kick me in the ass, to say "Grow up and get over it, Grayson."  It's ironic that I needed that kick in the ass when I found out Joker had shot her.  No, had not just shot her; had humiliated her and tortured her and took pictures so he could taunt her father.

I don't remember a lot after I found out.  I do know that I broke most of my dishes and my television in the hours afterward. Hours of crying.  No screaming, though; people might hear and know. But lots of crying, the kind that makes your head hurt and you want to throw up and you're on your hands and knees on the floor and you have absolutely no dignity and you think you want to die but you can't because you're still crying.

Did you know there are different kinds of pain?  When my parents died it was the kind that left me dazed, with a gaping hole in my heart.  When Bruce fired me as Robin, the pain was burning.  Hot and angry with a sick feeling in my stomach.  When Kory and I finally broke it off, it was just the opposite.  Cold and numbing, so cold I couldn't feel anything for a long while.

But when I found out Barbara had been shot, the pain was everywhere, like *I* had been shot.  All over and indescribable. After the anger and the throwing of stuff and the just absolute horror, I felt like that bullet had ripped through *my* spine.  I couldn't get off the floor, I didn't have enough energy to do anything but cry and feel totally helpless.

But I wasn't helpless.  I could have gone to see her.  I could have been there to hold her hand and tell her it would be okay and I was there.  But I just laid there on that floor.  Some big tough guy.

I did go see her the next day.  I stood outside her window and had every intention of climbing inside and playing the big heroic vigilante, coming to see his injured lady love and tell her it's okay.  But I looked at her covered in medical machinery and panicked.  Wonderful Barbara, who could swing from buildings and beat up crooks and tell jokes just as bad as mine and put me in my place, couldn't even breathe on her own...  If I could have run I think I would have.  As it was I swung from the hospital so fast I almost missed the next building and killed myself.

I eventually went with Alfred to see her when she was a little more alert.  I played the jovial yet concerned Dick Grayson, but it was all I could do to keep from bolting.  Barbara just wasn't how she was supposed to be and that freaked the hell out of me.  I think she and Alfred sensed how I felt; he never left me in the room alone with Babs and she never asked why I didn't come sooner.  Somehow that made it all worse.

Now she's Oracle and just as wonderful and strong. Physically she's more muscular in her upper body than she has ever been; she's beaten me more than a couple of times in arm wrestling.  Emotionally, just as comforting and deep, if not more. We've both gotten used to her chair, I try not to stand over her when we talk and she berates me for doing so when I forget.

But there are times... when she's not looking... I feel that shame all over again.  I've often thought that if I had gone to her as soon as I found out, I could have helped her.  That my belief in her ability to heal would have been added to everyone else's and she would be magically fixed and able to walk.  But she can't and it's like it's my fault.  Guess I get that from dear old Dad, too.  We blame ourselves for things that we can't control. Babs would probably call my guilt "ego," and that makes me smile. But it doesn't make her any better or me any braver.

There are times when I swing through the Bludhaven skyline that I close my eyes and imagine I'm in Gotham, and Barbara is right there beside me.  That she's able to walk again because I loved her enough to heal her.  That she loves me as much as I love her and we'll always be together.  That I'm the hero Barbara thinks I am, the hero I wish to God I was.  But as I land, reality hits me as hard as the concrete beneath my feet.  And I go on fighting crime and trying my damnedest to make sure I'm the best man I can be.  For her.