It's his job...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kip_/]

Oracle is the brains of the Justice League and the Bat family, the entity who knows all, sees all. If that is the case, then Kip (he's going to lose the codename sometime) may the heart. He works along with Oracle, behind and beside, keeping to the quiet, a jazz-infused aide de camp. In the year (year?!) he has been working as support for the Justice League, he has come to know them all, love them all, a blind guardian angel for heroes who can move mountains, race the dawn and touch the sky. They are his family, much as his precious Aunt Justine, and it is his duty - no, his honor - to watch over them, each of them, to know where they are, what they feel, what they need, sometimes how they hurt.

He knows about John Stewart and Diana now; tuning the Watchtower's computers and adding a new firewall helped there. And he has figured about Guy Gardner and Roxanne. A man who has nothing to do all day but listen hears all sorts of things.

Kip knows where they are, what they feel, what they need, sometimes how they hurt, and while he has remained strong and vigilant for them, sometimes he cannot figure how to heal those hurts. That fact comes to him hard and fast when, through Dr. Mid-Nite's open communicator, he hears Molly Mayne-Scott's scream of immeasurable anguish, a sound that plants a dagger in his soul. And what can he do? Listen.

As always.

Tears rolling down his cheeks as he waits for a sign he is needed, for something - please God, anything - he can do, Kip closes his eyes tightly and whispers, "Please Lord, help me to help them. Please show me how. Please. Please."

He prays and prays, because prayer is all he knows, but in his head, Molly's scream still reverberates and his heart bleeds. Three yeras since the Joker blinded him, and Kip has never felt helpless. Until now. But still he listens and waits. It's his job.