Batgirl and Killer Moth in:  Suburban Secrets 2 - The Legend of Killer Moth's Moderately Priced Two-Story Home!

Barbara Gordon slowly stirred to life under the plush comforter, her eyes closed as she clung to that last bit of sleep slowly fading from her brain.  Her body ached, her head was pounding, and her eyes felt like they were drying out in their sockets, but that was nothing new in her line of work.  She rolled onto her back and pulled the comforter snug, perfectly content in its relaxing warmness as the faint sound someone mowing their lawn heralded the scent of fresh grass drifting in from an open window.  She smiled to herself, it felt like the first time in months she actually got a decent amount of sleep, and no amount of bruising and soreness could ruin it.  She stretched out wide in the king sized bed and-

Her eyes fell open.  Her bed was a twin, it didn't have a plush comforter, and she lived fifteen blocks from the nearest patch of grass.

She flew out of the bed, confused and alarmed, and quickly surveyed her surroundings.  King-sized bed, dresser, standing vanity, recliner, bookshelf, TV on the wall, walk-in closet, attached bathroom, everything neat, modern, and clean.  She tried to think but couldn't remember anything of what happened last night.  A lump in her throat grew as she realized she was clad only in her underwear, tank top, and socks, and panic started to set it.  She opened the curtains and winced through the painful blindingness of mid-morning sun.  She could see rows of neat little lots, some with homes on them, along a gently curving and tree-lined street from her second-story vantage point.  Across the street an older man huffed and puffed as he pushed his lawnmower, his bald head red as a beet; she contemplated calling out to him when she noticed a vegetable garden tucked into the corner of the yard surrounding the house she was in, something about it firing off a neuron in her brain.

Barbara paused for a second, her heart beating a thousand times a second with enough force she could hear it, and swallowed down her fear.  Forcing her self to re-examine everything, disparate bits of information began linking in her brain.  A suburban house whose interior looked right out of a magazine, the tree-lined street, the yard and garden.  She walked into the bathroom and opened the cabinet, recognizing right off the bat the scent of cologne that conjured images of old-time barber shops with striped poles that she had never stepped foot in, and suddenly everything settled into place.  She had been here before.  Not to this room in particular, but to this house.  His house.  She plopped back down on the bed and held her hands in her head.  What was she doing back here?  Turning back to the window, she finally noticed her Batgirl uniform folded neatly on a stool next the bed, a small note addressed to her sitting on top.

Grabbing the costume, she examined it carefully for anything that might explain what had happened.  Her utility belt was half-empty, her batarang supply depleted, and everything but her more specialized equipment looked like it had seen heavy use.  Disconcerting.  She turned her costume over in her hands looking for clues, but aside from some dirt on her boots that had that familiar Gotham gutter smell, everything was clean.  No, she thought as she turned the fabric over in her hands and detected a faintly floral scent, everything had been cleaned.  Babs lay the costume in her lap and looked at the note sitting next to her.  She didn't want to read it but knew she needed to.

 - Don't freak out.  You're probably very confused and more than a little frightened, but nothing bad happened; you're okay.  I'm downstairs and will explain everything.  Please don't be mad.  Dru-

"My god," Barbara whispered to herself as she let the costume and note fall to the floor, "he added a little moth doodle."  She spent a moment steeling and composing herself before digging taser knuckles out of her utility belt.  She wanted to trust him that everything was okay, she wanted to not be mad, but she didn't want to be in this house and couldn't understand why she'd come back.  And as much as it pained her to admit it, she was scared about what happened and why she woke up undressed and unable to remember.  She headed out the door and quietly slipped down the stairs to that living room she bailed from all those weeks ago, then saw him standing in the kitchen, his back to her as he puttered at the island.

"Hi."  She offered quietly as she walked into the room, hiding the taser knuckles behind her back.  Startled, Dru dropped what he was doing and turned to her with a look of relief on his face.

"Hi," he responded and tried halfway to smile at her, "how are you feeling?  Do you need anything?"

"I want answers, Dru."  She tried to hide her rising anger and paranoia behind a soft voice.  He looked so...normal and unassuming standing there, his secret identity of Killer Moth a seeming impossibility when compared to the bespectacled man in ratty jeans and an old tshirt standing sheepishly in his kitchen.  Barbara took a chair opposite from him across the island and rested her fist holding the taser knuckles on the marbled countertop with an assertive tap.  She pursed her lips and stared right into his eyes, afraid that her composure would be broken upon her realization that her supervillain paramour with whom she had a rather violent and complicated relationship was in the middle of making cookies.

"Okay," he sighed as he returned to scooping cookie dough out of a mixing bowl and onto a baking sheet.  "I don't know how much you remember, so I'll just tell you everything and see if it lines up.  Two days ago Penguin hires me.  Several of his runners had gone missing in Dixon Hills, he needed to know what was going on, and he needed someone outside his organization because he thought it might be an inside job.  So we set up some decoys and I follow them to see if anything happens.  Last night, one of them goes off course, and beelines straight for the slums."  He pulled another scoop of dough out of the bowl, rolled it in crushed peanuts and placed it on the parchment lined baking sheet.

"And?"  Barbara asked in an accusing tone.

"And that's it.  My memory stops sometime after midnight last night.  I'm on the top of a roof following a guy, then next thing I know I'm waking up on the floor of a derelict building underneath a hobo.  The room's full of Penguin's missing goons and homeless people, all unconscious, most of them look like they took a beating, a couple of them are cocooned to the wall, there are batarangs everywhere, and half a broken bottle stuck in my body armor.  I found you unconscious in another room.  Mad Hatter was next to you having some kind of seizure.  He had some new contraption strapped to his head that was smoking and sparking, and it looked like you ripped an electrical cord of the wall and jammed it into the gizmo.  Turns out it he was testing his latest invention using bums as guinea pigs and swiping cash from Penguin to afford it.  I called Penguin so he could clean it up, scooped you up before his guys got there, and brought you here."

Barbara glared at him and poured over her brain.  She could remember dinner with Alysia and Jo and...a phone call from Leslie about homeless people going missing in Dixon Hills.  At least that much checked out.  But beyond that everything sorta slipped away until her waking up just now.  "What were you thinking, Dru?" she asked crossly.

"What was I supposed to do?  Leave you on the ground?  Let Cobblepot's clean up crew deal with you?"

"NOT TAKE ME BACK TO YOUR HOUSE AND STRIP ME!"

"I understand how that could have given you the wrong idea, but you were covered in hobo blood and Mad Hatter vomit."

"I was terrified, Dru!"  She spat at him angrily, "I was half naked in strange bedroom with no memory of my night!  I don't even remember suiting up!  What other idea could I possibly have?  And why back here?  What if I need medical attention?  Just because you're fine doesn't mean I could just sleep it off!"

"What was I supposed to do?  Drop Batgirl off at County Memorial?  Swing by one of the off-the-books guys that I have to use?  Half of them are in bed with the mob, and the other half would sell you out in a heartbeat.  So yeah, you're right, bad move on my part but I didn't know what else to do!  I'm..." he trailed off for a moment as he sighed and his shoulders slumped like he was being crushed, "...I'm sorry, Batgirl.  I didn't mean to scare you like this, I just...what else could I do?"

Babs frowned and let the taser knuckles slip from her fingers.  She looked away from him and let silence hang between them.  Her face was still flushed, but the adrenaline was souring in the back of her brain.  She almost felt bad for thinking he would do something so vile to her, but she couldn't help but remember that deep down they barely knew each other.  Glancing up, they locked eyes briefly and Babs wanted to but could not think of anything to say.  Instead she just grabbed a glob of dough from the bowl and began nibbling on it as she turned her head away from him.  Peanut butter chocolate chip.  Not her favorite, but at least it didn't have walnuts in it.

"So..." he said after a moment, adding another ball of dough to the sheet pan.

Her eyes flitting back towards him but she kept her head turned.  "So..." she responded, scraping the last of the cookie dough off her fingers with her teeth and fidgeting uncomfortably.  "How were you planning on getting me back to Gotham?"

"I don't know, I thought maybe Uber or something."

Her head slowly turned towards him, her eyes wide with incredulity, "Your brilliant idea was for Batgirl to take an Uber home?"

The cookie scoop dropped in the bowl with a clang as Dru crossed his arms over his chest defensively, "I was going to stick your gear in a duffel bag and let you borrow some of my clothes.  It's not like your costume isn't armored athleisure wear at this point, so god forbid you get away with wearing one of my shirts over it," he waved dismissively.  "You sleep off the mind-whammy, hide out in my bedroom until my kid leaves, you slap on some of my gym clothes, and everything is fine."

Rolling her eyes, Babs lowered her head to the island and reached for more cookie dough, only for Dru to move the bowl out of reach before she could grab some.  "I can't believe you've lasted this long as a supervillain if that's the best you can do thinking on your fe-"  Suddenly Babs shot up and pulled her tank top down over her crotch, acutely aware of her own pantslessness, as her head twirled around searching, "Where is your kid?"

"Relax, she's at a Girl Scout meeting, I don't have to pick her up for another two hours."  He dropped another ball of dough into the peanuts as silence returned between them and Babs laid her head back down.  "Can we, can we talk about what happened six weeks ago?"

"No."

"You've been avoiding me ever since then."

"I have kicked your ass three times since then."

"Once.  We've fought three times since then and you barely spoke to me each time.  Last encounter you bailed halfway through and left the midget Robin by himself.  I know things went weird last time you were here, but I kinda want to clear the air."

Gripping the island hard enough to turn her knuckles white, Babs lifted herself up and glared at him as she inhaled slowly.  "We're not supposed to be doing this."  She motioned back and forth between them.  "This is not supposed to be us.  Batgirl and Killer Moth do not have relationship discussions.  They're not supposed to have a relationship."

"Then what was everything?"

"It was supposed to be a very stupid, very sexy, very dangerous, and very fun mistake!  I kick your ass, we fuck.  End of story.  A thrill, a bad idea, a sexy redhead vigilante with a body to kill for and the hunky supervillain with a voice that melts panties she's got wrapped around her finger!  You remember our first time?  That alley, by the dumpster?  You with your eye swollen shut and me with my lip split so bad it needed stitches?  That's what it's supposed to be!  I want to block punches while riding you!  I want you to pin me to the ground and hurt me!  I want-" she stopped and looked around at the red painted walls, the tiled backsplash, the minimalist cabinets, the dining table and chairs tucked off the side, then back to Dru.  "You're not supposed to be a regular guy.  You're not supposed to be..."

"Domestic?" he finished for her with an irritated tone.

"You make it sound like I used it as a four-letter word."

"That's exactly how you used it last time."

She held herself as her lips quavered, "You're not supposed to be real.  Just a mugshot and a stat block in a computer file."

"Well I'm not.  Drury Walker has a house in the suburbs.  He's got a gym membership and belongs to the coupon club at his grocery store.  I've got a mom and dad.  I have a daughter.  I even have a bitch of an ex-wife.  And I know Batgirl is the same way.  Outside that costume you have friends and family.  I bet you have an apartment that you pay too much for and a job that doesn't pay you enough.  You might even have a bitch of an ex too."  He moved the bowl back to within her reach before grabbing the baking sheet and walking to the oven behind her.  "Our first time, that kind of sex equals violence shit you described, that lasted what?  Two months?  Then we realized that contusions and concussions aren't great for staying in the mood."  He put the cookies in the oven and set the timer.  "And then we switched to treating it like a victory lap or clandestine affair or whatever you want to call it.  And it worked.  Killer Moth and Batgirl would fight, and sometimes they'd fuck afterward.  Then remember back in January when that blizzard hit and we were caught out in it?"

She turned the chair to face him as he leaned back on the counter, "That was specific circumstances, it doesn't count."

"We went back to my hideout, huddled up up trying to stay warm by that shitty space heater, cooked dinner over a hotplate, and then what?"

"Made love," thought Barbara for a second before she pushed that notion down hard and tried her best to forget she thought that.  "We had sex," she mentally corrected herself, "uneventful, boring, barely enjoyable, lousy sex," she pretended with conviction.

"We spent the whole night talking about us when we figured out two people couldn't share a tiny cot and actually get some sleep."  He continued, "and we made it clear that no matter what, we weren't going to pull our punches.  Not ever.  That's not how we work.  We lay it out all out in the streets and whatever happens, happens.  And sometimes, when it's all said and done," he shrugged and smiled, "whatever happens, happens.  The only difference between how I treat you now and how I treated you one year ago is that I've stopped actively trying to kill you.  Let that sink in."

"I mean, thanks for that."  Barbara shrugged.  "And I know that what we said but this," she gestured wildly to the surrounding room, "I can't.  I can't.  I could do it when you were some guy I kinda know, but now, now I'm beating up some kid's dad.  And I know that I probably beat up lots of dads but they're them and you're you, and this," she returned to gesturing at the room.

They stared at each other for a long time not saying a word until Killer Moth shrugged and opened a drawer, pulling out a knife.  "Well, if that's how you see it, I don't really have any reason to let you live."

"Very funny, Dru."

After a moments hesitation Babs realized the lack of mirth in his actions just as he sprung towards her.  Quickly she raised her leg, shoving him back into the counter while pushing herself to the island where she grabbed the taser knuckles.  Jumping forward as the knuckles lit up with a loud crackle, she whipped her arm around and knocked the supervillain square in the side of the face sending him reeling.  Reaching down, she let fly an uppercut that sent him up and back, leaning on the counter to keep himself upright.  With the opening she stepped back and planted her foot firmly, and threw all her power and weight into a strike that stopped a hair's breath from the bridge of his nose.  That wasn't a knife he was holding, it was a citrus zester.  If he wanted her dead he wouldn't have waited for her to react before striking.  There wasn't even anything sharp in the drawer he opened.  Babs flicked off the electricity as Dru chuckled and pulled himself upright.  "You...ass!" she stamped her foot and slapped him in the face.

"You were okay with that kind of shit from me when we started."  He rubbed his jaw as he opened and closed it.  "And you certainly didn't have any issue beating up this dad right now.  So where is bad between us?"

Babs' face burned as red as her hair as she contemplated continuing her assault, but his words did sink in.  Two weeks ago he nailed her in the thigh with a throwing knife and dropped her flat on her back off a loading dock, and what did she do?  She bailed and let Robin handle him.  Maybe, perhaps, she was the one with the problem here.  They managed to make their trainwreck work so far.  She inhaled deeply and admitted to herself that he might be onto something.  But she wasn't going to admit it to him.  "Alright, Killer Moth," she tossed the knuckles on the counter behind him, "I can...maybe...see how this can work out between us."

He put his hands on her waist and pulled her close.  "Not mad about what I just pulled on you?"

"Furious.  But never apologize."  She walked her fingertips up his chest, "feel free to admit what you did last night was moronic though."  She leaned up and they kissed, Dru moving his hands down and cupping Babs' ass.  Breaking their lip-lock he raised an eyebrow at her and motioned his head in a silent question.  Babs kissed him again and whispered, "what kind of supervillain asks for permission?"

Gripping her tight, Dru lifted her up onto the counter as Babs' locked her legs around him.  Running her hands under his shirt she lifted it over his head as he began to work her panties down as he kissed and bit her neck.  Digging her nails into his shoulders, she lifted up and bit his ear, growling, "Just tear them off."  As the seams began to pop there came a sudden whoosh of air as the front door opened then slammed loudly.  Dru and Babs' eyes went wide as the stared at each other in confusion.

"DAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDD!" came a shout from the living room to answer their confusion, "we had to wrap up early because Brenda lost her other thumb during woodworking class.  I got a ride home with Nia."

Barbara began to freak as she scrambled to get her partially torn panties back into place, "What do we do?"

Dru looked around and tried to think of something, "hide out in the garage!" he hissed.

"Oh man, that smells great," said the girl as she walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get a drink without paying attention to Dru and Babs.  "What-" she stopped as her mind took a second to process and realize that not more than five feet away was her shirtless father and a strange, pantsless woman sitting on the counter with her legs wrapped around him, "THE HELL?"

"Kitten!"  Dru stammered and freed himself from Babs legs, standing between the two women as Babs slid off the counter and hid behind him.  "I wasn't...you're not suppos-it's not what y-"

"Oh my god, Dad, were you and her?  Who is she?"

Babs peeked out from behind Dru as he continued to flail helplessly on a verbal level.  Of course he didn't know what to say, he still didn't know her name.  What was he going to do, introduce her as Batgirl?  She cleared her throat and tried her best to put on a smile and pretend that she wasn't half naked in torn panties in front of a preteen.  "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...Sorry we, uh, had to meet this way," she said though teeth gritted so hard they hurt, "I'm, um, I'm-"  Internally Babs screamed at herself to not say her real name.  She was Dinah.  Or Cass.  Or Helena.  Zinda.  Stephanie.  Tim?  Finally she blurted out, "I'm...Barbara."

The internal screaming grew louder.