These were the moments that really defined a person… the moments that determined the real measure of a man or woman – the moments that showed what being a true hero was all about. When the chips were down… when the specter of horrible, crushing defeat was looming over you… when the chance of success was so slim, it might as well not have been there at all… those were the moments when a true hero would look Certain Doom right in its beady little eyes and say “Yo, She-bitch. Let’s go.” You can see that defiant look in her eyes, the courage stirring in her heart, telling her to fight despite the odds, and you have to admit, it’s… inspiring.

Also, hot.

“So? What’s the verdict?”

You’re tempted to run with her idea. You even had an out. She gave you the rope she used to hang herself with. But at the same time, after all she’s been through, maybe showing a little mercy would be a good thing. If only for karma’s sake. “Well, you’re still pretty much doomed, BG, but… I think it’d be ok to show the condemned a little mercy. Just this once. Mouths restricted to witty banter only.”

There’s a sniffle, followed by an exaggerated sob, deliberately choked off halfway through. “Bless you.”

You laugh, and then, with exaggerated delicacy, start to tug her sock off. Her heel comes into view first, of course, flushed pink and lightly callused from all her time “on the job.” Then it’s her arch: high, pale, and shivering as you strip it of the last of its protections. And finally, those petite little pink toes, already trying to curl protectively in upon themselves, and the nails painted a distinctive shade of, what else? Eggplant-purple. You stuff the discarded sock into the boot and lay both now thoroughly unnecessary items of clothing aside before setting your fingers flush with the sole of her foot. Then, you just… leave them there. No tickles, no scratches, no movement of any kind. But she flinches nonetheless; she shivers, and she waits, her lower lip already quivering with worry and anticipation.

“So. Ready?”

”No.”

“Too bad.”

Her first shriek nearly bursts your eardrums. But it’s the good kind of screaming. Like the time Rebecca Tisdale opened her locker and found the bio lab’s entire supply of dead frogs stuffed inside. And how this conveniently happened the day after she called you “A worthless, horrible little scab.” Not that the two incidents were in any way connected. Of course not. No one could prove anything.

It doesn’t take long before you’re feeling very Zen – when you reach this magical balance of body, mind and soul… when everything seems to be in perfect harmony. You wouldn’t think it possible, but somehow your surroundings just seem to blend effortlessly into your awareness, from that constant, low background mutter of city noise, to Batgirl’s much louder and higher-pitched yelps and screeches. The way her hips bump against yours, and her cape flutters in the wind as she bucks and writhes… it all just rolls past. You are a leaf upon the wind, soaring wherever its currents take you.

And it seems those currents are taking you on a journey across the length and breadth of Batgirl’s sensitive little foot. You run your fingers up the sole of it, then all the way around to the top. You graze them over the soft skin of her instep, slide them back to her heel then quickmarch over to her toes which quiver and clench in a hopeless effort to fend off your assault.

She gasps, she snickers, she snorts, she groans, equal measures of joy and terror etched upon her face, and you drink in her reactions – all of them, astounded by the chaos sown in your passage. She squirms, she wriggles. She tosses her head, flinging her hair out of her eyes and into your face, and you laugh right along with her as she pulls and pulls and pulls at the adhesive coating her wrists, but to no more avail than when she’d first attempted it what seemed like a lifetime ago. You swear she’s a hair’s breadth away from gnawing off her own hands to escape, so raw, so palpable is her desperation, when suddenly her strength leaves her in one sharp, breathless gasp. She slumps, the giggles stopping, her voice reduced to a sad little mewling noise that just barely makes it up from the back of her throat.

Well. That just won’t do.

Someone needs a little pick me up. Time for the piece de resistance.