[DC] Eggshells
Title: Eggshells
Characters: various Batfamily
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Five times a Robin was never born.
Notes: For au_bingo, theme 'Alternate History: Someone was never born'. Crit welcome.
1.
“What do you think you're doing?” The voice comes from the shadows, dark and foreboding and cold and furious, and the girl jumps in the air with a gasp.
“What?” Her heart's beating loud enough in her chest that she can't focus on outside noise, so when the shape - man - emerges from the shadows, she'd swear he hasn't made any noise at all.
Cape. Cowl. Pointy ears. Oh god it's the Batman.
“What do you think you're doing, wearing this?”
She can't see his eyes, his cowl has some kind of white lenses that blank his pupils out, but it's obvious he's glaring at her. It's not entirely unfounded, she'll admit it was just a bit foolish and maybe she looks presumptuous, but she's beginning to see red in front of his obvious distaste.
“Well, I was at this costumed ball, and then this two-bit villain came out of nowhere and took Mr Wayne hostage, and since you were nowhere to be seen and no-one was reacting, I decided I was going to act rashly and save his life.”
The considering look he shoots her is a close cousin to the one her father gives her when he's weighting how much he thinks she's bullshitting him. That doesn't do anything to soothe her anger, either. Just who does he think he is? Okay, Batman, but still...
“Don't do it again,” he says, and that sounds final.
She grits her teeth. She didn't do it to for gratitude, though she'd be lying if she claimed that wouldn't be nice, but she certainly didn't expect to get treated as though she'd messed up. Maybe that's why the next words come out more biting.
“Why? I mean, you obviously need some help.”
“I work alone,” he replies blandly.
Obviously. Everyone knows the Batman works alone. Other heroes band together in leagues or societies, but the Batman's a loner. That's probably why so many people think he doesn't exist. “And you're doing a such great job, is that it?”
At least he doesn't argue that. Well, she has to admit her dad never said the Batman was stupid. At least he's aware that the city is-- it wouldn't be fair or true to say it's getting worse. But it's not getting any better either. Batman alone can't change that.
“Are you suggesting I'd take you as my, what, apprentice?”
The amazing thing, she reflects later, is that he bothered to humor her at all, given how much trouble he'll make for her later when she tries to do this thing.
“I was thinking more along the lines of partner.”
This a lie; the last thing on her mind when she left home for the ball was 'gee, I wish I could be a costumed vigilante with cool gadgets'. Though she wouldn't have said no to the cool gadgets.
But she's still dizzy with the buzz of saving someone's life, and if it takes wearing a cape to do that, well, there are plenty of people out there working that trend. It's practically a respectable life choice nowadays. Maybe she's not Superman, but she feels pretty good about herself right now, even with Dark and Gloomy looming over trying to suck out all her good feelings.
He's close enough that she can distinctly see his lips thin.
“Go home. Don't let me catch you playing hero again.”
The whiplash of anger is so sudden it's like the world whites out for a second. After a moment, she can talk again.
“Is that what you're doing? Playing?” Her voice is shaking with anger. Humiliating, condescending...
But she's alone in the glade.
Whatever this is to Batman, he's right about one thing. He doesn't play well with others.
Well, it's not like she asked for his help. Because he obviously needs hers - not hers specifically, but someone's, since as previously noted, Gotham has not done noticeably better on his watch. If she has to do this on her own, then she will, won't she? They obviously can't work together, that attitude of his would push a saint to murder. But she'll do this. The Batman doesn't have a monopoly on the city.
2.
“I felt it best to tell you, Master Dick.” Alfred's voice sounded distorted to Dick's ears. Maybe because of the phone. “I wasn't sure how you might have found out otherwise.” Didn't want to imagine, more likely, but he was too discreet to say so. That was okay; in a flash, Dick's imagination showed him how else it might have happened.
It said a lot about the life of a hero and his relationship with Bruce that none was softer than this.
He laughed. “Yeah.” He racked his hand - the one that wasn't holding the phone - through his hair. “Man, I did not expect that.”
“None of us did.”
Dick blinked. “Oh, that's right. How's Babs taking this?” Idly, he vaulted over the closest armchair.
There was a considering silence on the other end. “Miss Barbara has... taken an interest in Miss Stephanie's accomplishments. She'll be downstairs several times a week, and Master Bruce has mentioned crossing ways with her numerous times over the past couple of months.”
Resting his weight on his left arm, he stuck the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and compensated with his right arm as a balancing pole. He stayed suspended over the armchair's arms, sitting in thin air rather than on the too-deep leather seats. “Batgirl hasn't been so active for years,” Dick murmured.
“Not since a while before you left,” Alfred agreed.
“I didn't exactly leave of my own free will, Alfred.”
“Of course, Master Dick. My apologies for making it seem so.” He sounded genuinely sorry. Dick relaxed when he heard no trace of sarcasm, flipping back to his feet on the back of the sofa.
“It's okay. I didn't call or write either you or Babs since then, either.”
“Indeed. May I trust you'll be correcting this oversight in the future?”
“Promise.” He was clinging to the phone like a lifeline, jumping back down on the floor. He landed with a thud and grimaced. Damn, the downstairs neighbors were going to complain again. “How is she like? Stephanie.”
He wasn't sure what he was asking. If he wanted to hear that she was nothing like him, that there was nothing he could've done to avoid being fired, that Bruce needed something different. Or that Bruce had replaced him, that he missed him. He wasn't sure which answer would hurt less.
He wasn't sure he didn't want to hear about her, either. Bruce's new Robin was a girl, he mused. Bruce's new Robin has living parents. Bruce is her guardian, but that's only until her mother gets out of rehab or her dad gets out of prison.
When she trained, did she like to be in costume? Did nights on the town leave her as giddy as Dick used to be, when the job went well? What parts of the suit had she changed, did the cape bother her as much as the rest of the Titans claimed it'd bother them?
Alfred considered. “She has a tendency to consider smooth, shiny surfaces as invitations to gliding, if that would answer your question.”
He was grinning, he realized only when his cheeks started hurting. He had no idea why; there was also a pain, deep beneath his ribs. “The stairway banister.”
“As well as some of the hallways, the main entrance, and the kitchen.” Turning the speaker on, he set the phone on the coffee table.
“The library?”
“Not anymore, I am pleased to say. I have insisted upon her that despite his apparent indifference, Master Bruce is rather fond of the remaining vases.”
The table could take him going into a stand on top of it; solidity was the main reason they'd bought it. “How old is she?”
“Miss Stephanie turned thirteen shortly before she came to us.”
Just a kid, but not a child. Barely older than he was when he started being Robin. She and he, they were on the opposite ends of their teens.
He tried to imagine her, this thirteen-year-old girl Robin. Who liked to glide on Wayne Manor's perfectly polished floors and who'd apparently smashed priceless vases, but luckily only those Bruce didn't care for.
“What else?”
“I am forbidden from cleaning up her room without forewarning.”
“Forbidden?” Locking the muscles in his shoulder, he pushed on his arm, jumping from a stand on his right to left arm.
“That is, Miss Stephanie raised the issue that she's a teenage girl to me, and we have come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement.”
“Oh, right. What else?”
“She has expressed similar interest to know you to me, Master Dick.”
Smoothly, he lowered back to his feet, and seized the phone again. “I... I'm not sure I'd be okay with coming back, even just for a visit. Not so soon. Maybe not for a while. Even if I didn't see her. Or him.”
The click of a key in a lock came faintly from the flat's entrance, followed by the creaking of the door being pushed, and the noise of footsteps.
“It wouldn't have to be about Miss Stephanie or Master Bruce, Master Dick. You have other friends in Gotham who would be most pleased to see you well. Miss Barbara, for one. Myself, for another.”
“I'll think about it, Alfred. Listen, I have to go, Kory's back.”
“Goodbye, Master Dick. Do remember to call sometimes.”
“I will. Bye Alfred.” He hesitated. “Say hi to Babs for me,” he added very quickly, and he hung up before he changed his mind. Or worse, asked Alfred to do the same for Bruce.
“Dick? Is it Donna?” Kory asked, her steps coming closer, until she stood in the frame of the door, the thick curls of her hair like a burning halo around her. “She said she'd call to tell us at what time is the movie.”
“It was Alfred,” Dick answered.
“Is everyone alright?” It was a reasonable question for someone who lived in the superhero community, as for someone who knew Bruce.
“Yeah, it's. It's got nothing to with that, but.” He tried to say the words; no sound came out, like his mouth had frozen open.
“Dick?” Kory advanced to him, concern painted on her soft features.
“Bruce has a new Robin. A girl.” His fingers drummed on the hard plastic of the phone receptacle.
“Oh, Dick.”
“I think she wants to meet me.”
Kory's hand rested on his shoulder, warm and soothing. “Are you going to?” Her voice was as careful as if she'd been talking to a victim they'd just rescued.
Dick found he couldn't look at her, couldn't take the compassion he knew would be in her eyes.
“I don't know.”
3.
The phone started to ring as Helena was turning the key in the door. Cursing under her breath, she pushed the door open with a clang, wrenched the key away, and ran toward the phone, not even bothering with the door. If she could just answer before they hung up, she'd tell them to wait a moment while she closed the door.
Most of the time, her callers were either salespersons, and she wouldn't have hurried for that, or people who knew her from work - students with urgent questions, parents who wanted to see her, and the principal's secretary when arrangements for detentions had to be made. Missing one of these was problematic, as she didn't have an answering machine. It'd be more practical, but she kept pushing it back.
She snatched it on the sixth or seventh ring.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Helena.” It was a man's voice, low. Metallic. No-one she recognized, and she was immediately on her guard. The only people who'd be calling by her first name like they were entitled to it--
“Who are you?” To her own ears, she sounded angry, not nervous. Good. Good. She couldn't let them know she was unnerved.
Her extended family popping out of their box the same month the Huntress debuted? Like that could be a coincidence.
“Not whoever you think I am. You didn't answer my e-mail.”
She didn't even know she'd received one. Few of her students even had a computer, and Helena herself used the teachers' computer at school when she wanted to go on the Internet. “I don't get a lot of messages. Why? What do you want? Who gave you the right to call me that?” she added, because most people she knew called her Ms Bertinelli. Which said something about her social life, but Helena ignored it.
“Oh, I'm sorry.” He was amused. Helena forced herself not to snap. Yeah, she was a little high-strung. “Is Ms Bertinelli better? Or is there something else you want me to call you.”
He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. She kept her breathing even. He doesn't know. Don't jump to conclusions. You don't know he knows.
“What do you want,” she repeated.
I don't believe in coincidences.
“I wanted to make you an offer that you're entirely free to refuse. But I think you won't want to.” Oh yes. The son of bitch was amused.
Helena bit on her tongue before she could reply anything damning, and kept bottled the volley of Italian curses that she would never, and he could go to--
“If you've done any research about me at all, then you know I'm not interested in what my family's got to offer.” Her fingers were gripping the phone so tightly they twinged.
“I'm not calling on your family's part, Ms Bertinelli,” he tried to reassure her. “Rather the contrary.”
In that moment, Helena wished desperately she'd invested in more elaborate equipment. The police could track phone calls. Why hadn't she installed the same stuff?
Her mind was wildly flipping through everything she'd done in the past few months. Every lead she might have left.
Don't. Say. Anything.
Pretend to play his game.
Then you'll do-- what you have to do to keep the secret safe.
They cannot know.
“Why are you calling me?” she made herself sound impatient. Just in case it wasn't what it sounded like, she added, “I don't know you, and if you're just calling to waste my time, I've got better things to do than listen to silly, childish pranks.”
A sigh on the other end. “I'm not playing games with you, Ms Bertinelli. And I am not someone who wants to hurt you. You can trust me.”
“Right, a man on the phone who won't even tell me his name,” Helena grumbled.
“My name's Oracle. You and I are in the same line of work, Ms Bertinelli. I, too, am working in Gotham. We should join forces.”
An incredulous chuckle escaped from Helena's lips.
“...Damn, you don't waste time, do you? Zero to everything in sixty seconds on the phone?”
“I've made sure your line's secure. I wanted to have this conversation honestly.”
“Then why not just talk to me in the street where I could see your face?”
“If a stranger walked up to you and started babbling code, would you trust him? Besides, we might be overheard. Trust me; this way's safer.”
He had a point. And he hadn't said her name yet. Maybe she could trust him not to expose her.
“I'm not working with someone I haven't even met. You know who I am, and I have no idea who you are.” Helena hesitated, but added, “I don't trust you, and I'm doing fine on my own. I don't need anyone putting his nose in how I do things.”
That was untrue. If she could be certain where the help came from, if there was someone she could trust, entirely and without reservation, on whom she could count like she could count on herself, she would go for it in a heartbeat.
She hadn't run into anything she couldn't handle yet, and she knew she could easily hold her own against the goons that made up the majority of Gotham's criminal population. She wasn't scared for herself, but she wasn't efficient enough. On her own, she couldn't hope to put a dent in the mass of crime that was Gotham.
She had to do everything by herself, put hints together, track the crooks down, and that took time, and she had a day job.
Or she could abandon the ambitious angle and just-- patrol on rooftops and stop the crimes she happened to run into, knowing that any drug-dealing she could see was only the minuscule tip of the iceberg.
“We could meet. If that would help you to believe me. I'm not asking you to trust me on blind faith, Helena.”
There was almost emotion behind that metal. Like he meant it. Helena pondered the possibility.
Wait. Metal.
“A voice scrambler? You son of a bitch, you ask for my trust and you're hiding your voice?”
“Hel-- Ms Bertinelli, it's only--”
“How dare you? Do you think I'm that gullible, that stupid, you don't--”
“My name, Helena! I gave you my name.”
“If I believe you.” He - Oracle? -- didn't try to argue the point. Perhaps oddly, that did more to calm her and convince her he was telling the truth than if he had. “Even if I agree with a meeting, that doesn't mean I'll work with you.”
“I told you: I'm not asking you to trust me blindly. We can meet. You can take your time, think it over. Turn my offer down, and I won't betray your secrets to anyone. But there's not enough of us in Gotham. Not anymore. We need to put all our strengths together.”
“Like Batman and Robin, and Batgirl,” Helena acknowledged. That was probably why Two-Face had been able to get Batman, and the other guy, Nightwing. Neither Robin nor Batgirl had been there - they hadn't been seen in ages - and... Even Batman needed partners, apparently. That was why he'd been killed.
“Yes.” He sounded like he was going to say something else, but he didn't.
“I'll meet you,” Helena said, on an impulse. She glanced at her watch. “In one hour, at Rozner's House on Grant. Have a book and a flower on your table.”
“Make it two books,” Oracle said. “I'll see you there.”
He hung up, leaving Helena staring at the far wall. She'd agreed to it.
I can still change my mind. It's not too late. I don't have to show up. I can look through the window before I decide to go in. I can listen to what he has to say. I don't have to take a decision right now.
I don't have to say yes.
If she trusted his word. But why lie to her? He already knew her one precious secret. If he wanted to blackmail her, he could do it whether she showed up or not.
The only chance she was taking was that she might find someone with whom she could join forces.
There aren't enough of us in Gotham.
4.
After Tim leaves, Cass often swings by to the Cave.
Batman is always there or in the streets, and in the streets he's usually beating people up. She's not sure how to bring it up with him, or with someone else, or even if she should, but she mildly disapproves.
Usually there is a method to Batman's violence.
It doesn't always make sense to her at first glance - she's only starting to learn to be a detective - but after a while the logic becomes apparent. As more than just beating someone up to get them to answer. What Cass wants to know when she's with Batman, as part of her learning to be a detective, is: why him? Why are we looking for a person of this description? Why do this person's answers matter more than any of the crooks' we could have found with twice less efforts? Why are we watching this place when no-one admitted there would be a meeting there?
Cass is always full of questions.
She doesn't know how to voice them, and she's learning that being a detective means learning to solve these things on her own, so she keeps them inside, and she watches, and she waits, and she thinks.
She thinks of the questions as what Batgirl wants. She's always been curious, she remembers being interested in things no-one seemed to cared about even before the earthquake that sealed Gotham, but she also tended to be content much more quickly.
Before Batman, Cass could read body language; now she's learning how to read people on a much less shallow level.
Occasionally, that deeper understanding only confirms what body language tells her. Her observations tell her Batman lacks focus. It's a realization made even more unnerving when she knows that he's still as devoted to serving justice as he always was.
I'm missing something, Batman is saying. It's in the punches he throws and in the way he stands in front of the glass case containing the costume of the boy who was Robin before Tim.
You're too silent, Batman's back tells her sometimes, out of the blue, when they've both been alone in the Cave, working or working out. It's in the way it suddenly, painfully snaps ramrod rigid. There should be laughter.
Loneliness, his entire being spells out. Sad and alone in his own mind.
I'm here, she tries to tell him at first, with the flow of her own fighting side by side to his own. I'm serving the Bat, too. We haven't all left.
But she's not the one he's looking for.
No, not you, Batman's distraction answers. It's not hurtful, even if it hurts, a little. Batman's body tells her good job every night as she leaves; he's not unhappy with her.
Tim, Batman sometimes calls, looking at the place in the Cave where Tim used to park his cycle before going home.
She tries to tell Tim about it.
I'm not coming back and I don't trust you and I don't want to see you again, Tim says, more clearly even than with his words. His arms are crossed. And his words are pretty clear.
“I'm not coming back,” he says in that tone of voice that means facts and showing no emotion. “And, no offense, but I'd rather you didn't hang around. I'm out of it.” My father, his fingers clenched on his sleeves scream. I trusted Bruce and he used it against me. I'm with my dad now. You're with him.
Barbara waves her concerns aside. “He gets like this sometimes. You know how he is.” She drums with her fingers on her keypad. One of the things that Cass admires most with Barbara is how she can make sense of things that look like nothing to Cass and most of the world. When Barbara is hacking, for instance, what Cass reads is 11000010bastard0111ohyoudon't000100011101, zeroes and ones only rarely interjected with exclamations of surprise, anger, or jubilation.
“Is he making your life hell? You don't have to stick it out, y'know,” she adds. “I know you kind of got stuck on Bruce duty, but I can find you a mission for the Birds that'll take you out of the city for a couple of weeks. Any help would be welcome, with Canary out of commission.”
What she's saying is he's like this sometimes, you know how he is. And say the word, and I'm giving you two weeks of vacation and you can help me close this international drug ring. And fond thoughts and vague concern for Dinah, with her broken leg. And some other stuff, variations on god, Bruce, already? which is evident in Barbara's weariness and her fatalistic if it's gotta happen, it's gotta happen attitude.
This is the other thing Cass admires most with Barbara; what she says is always the truth.
She even talks to Bruce about it, when the fact that no solution is forthcoming gets as obvious as the fact that Batman won't want to talk about it the moment he realizes what she's talking about.
“Tim won't be coming back,” Bruce tells her, disapproving and staunch. I don't know why you're asking and I don't like it and I have no answer for you and leave Tim alone. “He's made it clear that he no longer wishes to be associated with us.” He doesn't want to play anymore, a little boy is saying. “Let's respect that.” He hurt me.
I'm missing something, Batman is screaming in front of the glass case. Longing.
And I don't know what.
It's frustrating. Batman is frustrating. Cass already knew this, she rode Batman's breakdown when her father wanted to paint him as a murderer same as everybody else. But it's extra frustrating this time, because no-one else sees what she does, and she's alone trying to fix it.
“He's not alright”, she points out to Alfred.
The look Alfred sends her means Master Bruce hasn't been able to hide anything from me since he turned nine, of course I bloody well know he's not alright. But this time, again, he doesn't know it.
“Can't you do something?” Cass asks.
Alfred turns away to start again to clean the stove. “Unless his, ah, emotional instability makes him a danger to himself or others, I make a policy not to interfere.” Until, Alfred's bent neck corrects. Until. And, God help me, but I don't know how to help him when it does.
Maybe it's no wonder all this annoyance has to go somewhere, and one night when they're roughing crooks up and Batman is driving Cass crazy wanting someone there who is not, one of the men they're fighting is trying to make Cass feel awful for being a girl, so she snaps. Punches him straight in the nose, and there's a satisfying crunch of cartilage and the trickling explosion of teeth. Neither feel as good as the sudden shock and pain and how did the bitch-- in the widening of the man's pupils.
Vicious satisfaction pumps inside her as the man yells and crumbles to the ground, and she has a moment wondering if that's another thing Barbara loved about being Batgirl.
The yell catches Batman's attention and he whirls around, jaw working to call-- Robin!
But he sees her and he stops himself, startling. What are you doing here? Where is--?
Cass stands there and is glad her cowl hides her face.
The remaining crooks take advantage of the incident to try and escape, breaking them out of Batman's RobinRobinRobin trance.
When she leaves at dawn, she watches him closely. He says good job and Robin and I miss you.
The next night, Batman is staring at the Case when she arrives.
You're too silent, she remembers, like an echo.
She mouthes the sentence before speaking up, making sure she'll get the sounds right, even if it'll come out slow.
“So, what are we doing tonight?” She breaks the silence, but not her rule about detective work.
5.
Dear Tim,
the letter doesn't go any further than these two words. For one thing, Steph doesn't have anywhere to send it. She has no idea where in the world Tim is right now; she hears he's been all over. For another, she's not sure how much she wants to say. Or if there's anything she wants to say at all.
They haven't parted on the best terms, Tim and her, and that's only about half the reason why she doesn't know how she feels about this thing.
All of this thing, she clarifies for the ironic little Oracle voice that's taken semi-permanent residence in her head these days. This being Batgirl thing, and this there being no Robin thing, and this being not just tolerated, but get this, a valued and sought-after member of the family thing . No more being a vaguely shunned outsider for this girl, no sir.
Steph is the hottest commodity in the Bat-family these days. It's nice, but it's strange. There used to be more people in the family. But Bruce died, and Tim left, and Cass left, so now it's only Dick, and Barbara, and Huntress sometimes, and her. She works with Batman and she works with Oracle, now.
When she pinches herself to make sure she's not dreaming, she's turned into the golden girl suddenly, it's like the Justice League is only a few steps away. Today Gotham, tomorrow the world, and the sky's the limit, or something. No even that, if the JLA files on the Bat-computer are to be believed - and that's a big if, Steph makes a point of not taking anything she finds typed on that computer for god's honest anymore.
Still, Steph's not sure how she feels about some stuff.
“Not the Batgirl part; that part is awesome,” she affirms as they're driving back to the Cave. Specifically: as Dick is driving her back to the Cave. Steph thinks he's just glad to have an excuse to see Barbara some more.
“It's not working with me, is it?” Dick asks with a quick smile, but also like he has vague concerns about the answers.
That sounds just like the sort of issues about Bruce and what being Batman means that Dick is cultivating, and frankly Steph is about the last person on Earth qualified to deal with that, so she skillfully doesn't tackle the rampaging issues, and just goes with the obvious, “Nah, you're cool.”
He smiles again. There's about a thousand reasons why this is inappropriate, but whenever he does that and she gets a glimpse of his dimple, she crushes on him. About the only redeeming factor she has is that everyone crushes on him. Cass once admitted she was sometimes attracted to him, and it took a lot to shake Cass' hormones.
“Well, good to know I haven't lost my touch.”
At times she wonders if he knows what he's doing could maybe, possibly, be construed as flirting. By, oh, anyone with a pulse. She could ask Oracle; hey, does your boyfriend know what he's doing, or?... If, you know, she had a death wish. Which she does not, no matter what has been implied and sometimes flung in her face over the years. The haters can suck it anyway; who's the goddamn Batgirl now?
“So, what's the bad part?” he asks after the requisite handful of seconds they both spend reminiscing about Tim, or in her case avoiding to.
“That kid,” she starts, and then she realizes she doesn't know how to continue this sentence.
“Ah,” he says, non-committal and with a quick glance her way. That makes her angry; because she knows he can see her with just his peripheral vision, that's the exact reason why he pulls his cowl down in the car, so she knows that he wants her to know he's glanced at her. Mostly it makes her bitter, like she's a bomb being handled. Boy, she doesn't miss that feeling from her Spoiler days.
She ensconced herself deeper into the seat. “Yeah, 'ah'.” She mulls over the silence as she tries to put her thoughts in order and at least try to explain why this gets to her. It's the third kid dressed as Robin they've caught in as many months. And sent home.
“It's just, I was that kid at one point, okay?” She bangs her foot on the dashboard. “I was just like them, I put on a costume and I went out, to fight crime, and also because it was fun! And today I'm still doing it, except at one point things got-- twisted or something, and one day I'm not the kid who gets told she's not good enough and she has to stay home, I'm the one who decides who's allowed to join in and who is not. And it's mostly 'not'.”
“Batgirl--”
“Nah, that's a Steph issue,” she slips right off, because one of the things she appreciates most in the contrast between working with Dick vs working with Bruce, as far as Batmen go, is that Dick accepts being corrected and that he won't pretend he wasn't bullshitting. “I'm pretty sure Batgirl's got nothing to with it.”
He snorts “Yeah, you'd be surprised. But okay. Steph--”
And you know what, she wasn't done after all. Because that's really not the only thing bothering her about it. “And what's up with these kids anyway? That last one, she wasn't even in middle school. Gotham can't be so bad that eight-years-old want to fight crime, is it?”
Dick grins - and it's both complicit and almost derisive. “C'mon, like you didn't want to fight crime when you were eight?”
The sad thing is how she doesn't even have to count. “Okay, point,” she concedes. “And one of them took enough risks that he broke his leg slipping off the emergency stairway before we caught up with him. But still!”
“But still,” Dick agrees. Steph starts; she expected an argument. Something about responsibility, and protecting the innocent, and people with no training or skills; in fact, anything from Batman's and sometimes Tim's impressively large repertoire she's had quoted at her over the years. Not a euphemism, by the way. Ew. Instead, Dick sighs. “I'm not a fan of that part either, if you want to know.”
“Really? I mean-- wow, really? Wait, I didn't mean it like that. You're not? So, er, you think there's another way too?”
A look passes over his face that Steph can really only describe as a Look. And he's not even looking at her. But there's Experience behind it. O-kay. Seems like she's stumbled over one more fraught topic for Dick Grayson.
For such an amiable guy, he's sure got a lot of them. Steph's starting to suspect that the reason everyone's so taken with her recently is that most of the remaining members of the Bat crew are the saner ones, and they only seem sane on a local scale. Makes sense, but it says some dark things about her possible future. As opposed to every other possible future she's had predicted at her.
The expression shifts into simple uneasiness for a moment, and if Steph knew how to take it back, she would. But she's blanking on what to blurt out to derail the intrusion into probably painful details at the moment. If she didn't turn off the comm-link with Oracle when she works with Batman, by common agreement - Barbara's time is always in high demand - she might've had something to bounce off of.
“Well, it's obvious sometimes this way doesn't work. Look at you, or Barbara, or Helena. Even Tim and me. And Cass. We've all had a point when we were told to-- to drop it. And here we are!”
It's one of these moments in life where if Steph was holding something, she'd drop it. But she's not, so the swift rearranging of her world on its axis is mostly soundless, accompanied only by the engine's faint purring.
“You and Tim?” she ehoes. “And, wait, Barbara too?-- Tim was told he wasn't good enough? But Tim is, is, he's perfect!”
Tim wasn't fired, but she doesn't say that, because she doesn't want to sound like she's holding a grudge or like she's over-sensitive and it still hurts, though it does and she's not. Or worse, like she's jealous.
And Barbara went through the same rejections she did, according to Dick. Wow, she'd never have thought so. Oracle was always so harsh when Steph was just Spoiler, and even now that she's Batgirl, she's very quick to point out Steph's lackings. Very quick. And she's so-- competent and demanding and, and over-qualified at basically everything. Is that in Steph's future too? This turning Bat-crazy thing might have some perks after all. Still not a win on the love-life front, though, so maybe she could consider her options before signing up on the Oracle life course.
“Not at the beginning. Bruce wasn't-- Bruce never welcomes anyone. Almost never,” and that sounds like a story Steph is not going to ask about. “But I see your point, Tim's special.”
Tim's her special ex-boyfriend who left Robin's costume to the Gotham crew, and now he's out there, doing... whatever his special little brain is pushing him to do. He's so special he pulled out the Red Robin identity from nowhere and declared himself a grown-up and told Steph to put her costume away for good and left.
And now there are kids popping on every freaking rooftop wearing homemade red and green and gold flashy uniforms because somehow, they've got the message that there's a vacancy.
They're out of Gotham proper when Dick picks up the conversation again, driving over the soft hills of Brighton.
“You know, when Tim left, I almost offered you to become Robin again.”
Well, that's just... She can't help it; she bursts into laughter.
“I know,” Dick acknowledges, and it's to his credit that he doesn't sound pissed, not even a little bit, by her hiccups of hilarity.
“Oh god,” she moans, banging her fist on the dashboard. “Oh god oh god oh my god don't do that to me I can't breathe.”
He waits until she's calmed down enough to wipe the tears of laughter, and that takes-- minutes of golden, perfect laughter. “Good thing I never got around to making you the offer, huh.”
“I'm not sure I know how I would've taken it,” Steph answers honestly. “In a way it's flattering. It was flattering when I was seventeen, and it was after Tim had set this amazing record and I was told I could get that job. Like I could hope one day I'd be that good. On the other hand...”
“Been there, done that?”
“Bought the T-shirt,” Steph confirms.
“I was the Teen Wonder, and all I got was this lousy retirement plan.”
“I was fired from Robin-hood - ask me how!”
He chuckles. “That was bad,” he accuses, grinning from ear to ear.
“And you haven't seen the rest of the list I've got at home.” A beat. “Okay, I'm calm now, so... why didn't you?”
“Why didn't--?”
“You know. You wanted to ask me to be Robin again, despite my lamentable failure the first time. You didn't. So, what made you change your mind?” She raises an eyebrow at his guarded expression, and goes on to preempt, “I wouldn't have said yes, not with the deja-vu and all, but you started to talk about it, and you didn't have to. Is it because Tim is still Robin?”
It's funny, how easy her relationship with Dick is. He was always nice to her when she was Spoiler, but they've never been close. They still aren't.
It's just easy, in a way that not many relationships with Bats have ever been for her. She's been in love with Tim for a long time, and she loves Cass like the best friend she's ever had, but even these relationships required effort. Work, whatever you want to call it. Bantering with Dick doesn't.
Steph reflects that it could be the subtitle to her life right now: bantering with Batman. She'd need to find a similarly snappy sounding subtitle for the section about Oracle. 'Oracular with Oracle' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
“I was... I had doubts about it. I thought there was a chance you'd get extremely mad, on a very deep level, that you'd be offended because you weren't that girl anymore and you'd outgrown Robin.” The words come out hesitantly, cautiously. Like he's wrestling with words and meanings. “...And then Cass left and you were Batgirl.”
“So you didn't,” she repeats for confirmation.
He sends her one of these frowns that she's starting to learn mean 'what are you doing?'. “You're Batgirl,” he says again, like she'd missed that vital piece of information before somehow.
And if she stops just a moment and think about it...
“Yeah, okay.” She nods, glad that at least some things make equal sense to the both of them out of shamefully lame puns. “So not because of Tim.”
Dick shrugs. “He's Red Robin now; not Robin. I think that makes a difference. But he would've taken it badly if I had gone behind his back to find a Robin without telling him, like a replacement, and he probably would've taken it worse if it was you. I was trying to locate him and ask him, but that made me hesitate as well. I didn't really look forward that part.”
On her seat, Steph is starting to identify the feeling that's been bothering her about kids dressing up as Robin. It's part like the nagging feeling you get when you've forgotten something important, and part like her lungs are being squeezed.
“So... the offer doesn't stand, but the position's still open?”
Slowly, Dick turns his head to meet her gaze. “Yeah,” he answers, sounding like his throat has turned dry.
It's not a question when she says, “Kids aren't going to stop turning up until there is a new Robin, are they.”
“No,” Dick acknowledges.
She licks her lips. This is the question that needs to be asked.
No, that's a lie, that's a question she's under no contractual obligation to ask, that's a question to which she needs to know the answer. As a Gothamite, as a crime-fighter, as Batman's partner and Oracle's protégé, as Batgirl, as a girl who was Robin and who was Spoiler and whose dad was a criminal and who grew up with Robin as one of her heroes.
“Are you looking for a new Robin?”
“No,” Dick denies.
Steph doesn't think he's lying. She's just not sure how long his resolve will hold.
Especially if he hates that part; the part where you send them home and refuse to let them fight. Sometimes, that's the part that doesn't work.
Characters: various Batfamily
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Five times a Robin was never born.
Notes: For au_bingo, theme 'Alternate History: Someone was never born'. Crit welcome.
1.
“What do you think you're doing?” The voice comes from the shadows, dark and foreboding and cold and furious, and the girl jumps in the air with a gasp.
“What?” Her heart's beating loud enough in her chest that she can't focus on outside noise, so when the shape - man - emerges from the shadows, she'd swear he hasn't made any noise at all.
Cape. Cowl. Pointy ears. Oh god it's the Batman.
“What do you think you're doing, wearing this?”
She can't see his eyes, his cowl has some kind of white lenses that blank his pupils out, but it's obvious he's glaring at her. It's not entirely unfounded, she'll admit it was just a bit foolish and maybe she looks presumptuous, but she's beginning to see red in front of his obvious distaste.
“Well, I was at this costumed ball, and then this two-bit villain came out of nowhere and took Mr Wayne hostage, and since you were nowhere to be seen and no-one was reacting, I decided I was going to act rashly and save his life.”
The considering look he shoots her is a close cousin to the one her father gives her when he's weighting how much he thinks she's bullshitting him. That doesn't do anything to soothe her anger, either. Just who does he think he is? Okay, Batman, but still...
“Don't do it again,” he says, and that sounds final.
She grits her teeth. She didn't do it to for gratitude, though she'd be lying if she claimed that wouldn't be nice, but she certainly didn't expect to get treated as though she'd messed up. Maybe that's why the next words come out more biting.
“Why? I mean, you obviously need some help.”
“I work alone,” he replies blandly.
Obviously. Everyone knows the Batman works alone. Other heroes band together in leagues or societies, but the Batman's a loner. That's probably why so many people think he doesn't exist. “And you're doing a such great job, is that it?”
At least he doesn't argue that. Well, she has to admit her dad never said the Batman was stupid. At least he's aware that the city is-- it wouldn't be fair or true to say it's getting worse. But it's not getting any better either. Batman alone can't change that.
“Are you suggesting I'd take you as my, what, apprentice?”
The amazing thing, she reflects later, is that he bothered to humor her at all, given how much trouble he'll make for her later when she tries to do this thing.
“I was thinking more along the lines of partner.”
This a lie; the last thing on her mind when she left home for the ball was 'gee, I wish I could be a costumed vigilante with cool gadgets'. Though she wouldn't have said no to the cool gadgets.
But she's still dizzy with the buzz of saving someone's life, and if it takes wearing a cape to do that, well, there are plenty of people out there working that trend. It's practically a respectable life choice nowadays. Maybe she's not Superman, but she feels pretty good about herself right now, even with Dark and Gloomy looming over trying to suck out all her good feelings.
He's close enough that she can distinctly see his lips thin.
“Go home. Don't let me catch you playing hero again.”
The whiplash of anger is so sudden it's like the world whites out for a second. After a moment, she can talk again.
“Is that what you're doing? Playing?” Her voice is shaking with anger. Humiliating, condescending...
But she's alone in the glade.
Whatever this is to Batman, he's right about one thing. He doesn't play well with others.
Well, it's not like she asked for his help. Because he obviously needs hers - not hers specifically, but someone's, since as previously noted, Gotham has not done noticeably better on his watch. If she has to do this on her own, then she will, won't she? They obviously can't work together, that attitude of his would push a saint to murder. But she'll do this. The Batman doesn't have a monopoly on the city.
2.
“I felt it best to tell you, Master Dick.” Alfred's voice sounded distorted to Dick's ears. Maybe because of the phone. “I wasn't sure how you might have found out otherwise.” Didn't want to imagine, more likely, but he was too discreet to say so. That was okay; in a flash, Dick's imagination showed him how else it might have happened.
It said a lot about the life of a hero and his relationship with Bruce that none was softer than this.
He laughed. “Yeah.” He racked his hand - the one that wasn't holding the phone - through his hair. “Man, I did not expect that.”
“None of us did.”
Dick blinked. “Oh, that's right. How's Babs taking this?” Idly, he vaulted over the closest armchair.
There was a considering silence on the other end. “Miss Barbara has... taken an interest in Miss Stephanie's accomplishments. She'll be downstairs several times a week, and Master Bruce has mentioned crossing ways with her numerous times over the past couple of months.”
Resting his weight on his left arm, he stuck the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and compensated with his right arm as a balancing pole. He stayed suspended over the armchair's arms, sitting in thin air rather than on the too-deep leather seats. “Batgirl hasn't been so active for years,” Dick murmured.
“Not since a while before you left,” Alfred agreed.
“I didn't exactly leave of my own free will, Alfred.”
“Of course, Master Dick. My apologies for making it seem so.” He sounded genuinely sorry. Dick relaxed when he heard no trace of sarcasm, flipping back to his feet on the back of the sofa.
“It's okay. I didn't call or write either you or Babs since then, either.”
“Indeed. May I trust you'll be correcting this oversight in the future?”
“Promise.” He was clinging to the phone like a lifeline, jumping back down on the floor. He landed with a thud and grimaced. Damn, the downstairs neighbors were going to complain again. “How is she like? Stephanie.”
He wasn't sure what he was asking. If he wanted to hear that she was nothing like him, that there was nothing he could've done to avoid being fired, that Bruce needed something different. Or that Bruce had replaced him, that he missed him. He wasn't sure which answer would hurt less.
He wasn't sure he didn't want to hear about her, either. Bruce's new Robin was a girl, he mused. Bruce's new Robin has living parents. Bruce is her guardian, but that's only until her mother gets out of rehab or her dad gets out of prison.
When she trained, did she like to be in costume? Did nights on the town leave her as giddy as Dick used to be, when the job went well? What parts of the suit had she changed, did the cape bother her as much as the rest of the Titans claimed it'd bother them?
Alfred considered. “She has a tendency to consider smooth, shiny surfaces as invitations to gliding, if that would answer your question.”
He was grinning, he realized only when his cheeks started hurting. He had no idea why; there was also a pain, deep beneath his ribs. “The stairway banister.”
“As well as some of the hallways, the main entrance, and the kitchen.” Turning the speaker on, he set the phone on the coffee table.
“The library?”
“Not anymore, I am pleased to say. I have insisted upon her that despite his apparent indifference, Master Bruce is rather fond of the remaining vases.”
The table could take him going into a stand on top of it; solidity was the main reason they'd bought it. “How old is she?”
“Miss Stephanie turned thirteen shortly before she came to us.”
Just a kid, but not a child. Barely older than he was when he started being Robin. She and he, they were on the opposite ends of their teens.
He tried to imagine her, this thirteen-year-old girl Robin. Who liked to glide on Wayne Manor's perfectly polished floors and who'd apparently smashed priceless vases, but luckily only those Bruce didn't care for.
“What else?”
“I am forbidden from cleaning up her room without forewarning.”
“Forbidden?” Locking the muscles in his shoulder, he pushed on his arm, jumping from a stand on his right to left arm.
“That is, Miss Stephanie raised the issue that she's a teenage girl to me, and we have come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement.”
“Oh, right. What else?”
“She has expressed similar interest to know you to me, Master Dick.”
Smoothly, he lowered back to his feet, and seized the phone again. “I... I'm not sure I'd be okay with coming back, even just for a visit. Not so soon. Maybe not for a while. Even if I didn't see her. Or him.”
The click of a key in a lock came faintly from the flat's entrance, followed by the creaking of the door being pushed, and the noise of footsteps.
“It wouldn't have to be about Miss Stephanie or Master Bruce, Master Dick. You have other friends in Gotham who would be most pleased to see you well. Miss Barbara, for one. Myself, for another.”
“I'll think about it, Alfred. Listen, I have to go, Kory's back.”
“Goodbye, Master Dick. Do remember to call sometimes.”
“I will. Bye Alfred.” He hesitated. “Say hi to Babs for me,” he added very quickly, and he hung up before he changed his mind. Or worse, asked Alfred to do the same for Bruce.
“Dick? Is it Donna?” Kory asked, her steps coming closer, until she stood in the frame of the door, the thick curls of her hair like a burning halo around her. “She said she'd call to tell us at what time is the movie.”
“It was Alfred,” Dick answered.
“Is everyone alright?” It was a reasonable question for someone who lived in the superhero community, as for someone who knew Bruce.
“Yeah, it's. It's got nothing to with that, but.” He tried to say the words; no sound came out, like his mouth had frozen open.
“Dick?” Kory advanced to him, concern painted on her soft features.
“Bruce has a new Robin. A girl.” His fingers drummed on the hard plastic of the phone receptacle.
“Oh, Dick.”
“I think she wants to meet me.”
Kory's hand rested on his shoulder, warm and soothing. “Are you going to?” Her voice was as careful as if she'd been talking to a victim they'd just rescued.
Dick found he couldn't look at her, couldn't take the compassion he knew would be in her eyes.
“I don't know.”
3.
The phone started to ring as Helena was turning the key in the door. Cursing under her breath, she pushed the door open with a clang, wrenched the key away, and ran toward the phone, not even bothering with the door. If she could just answer before they hung up, she'd tell them to wait a moment while she closed the door.
Most of the time, her callers were either salespersons, and she wouldn't have hurried for that, or people who knew her from work - students with urgent questions, parents who wanted to see her, and the principal's secretary when arrangements for detentions had to be made. Missing one of these was problematic, as she didn't have an answering machine. It'd be more practical, but she kept pushing it back.
She snatched it on the sixth or seventh ring.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello, Helena.” It was a man's voice, low. Metallic. No-one she recognized, and she was immediately on her guard. The only people who'd be calling by her first name like they were entitled to it--
“Who are you?” To her own ears, she sounded angry, not nervous. Good. Good. She couldn't let them know she was unnerved.
Her extended family popping out of their box the same month the Huntress debuted? Like that could be a coincidence.
“Not whoever you think I am. You didn't answer my e-mail.”
She didn't even know she'd received one. Few of her students even had a computer, and Helena herself used the teachers' computer at school when she wanted to go on the Internet. “I don't get a lot of messages. Why? What do you want? Who gave you the right to call me that?” she added, because most people she knew called her Ms Bertinelli. Which said something about her social life, but Helena ignored it.
“Oh, I'm sorry.” He was amused. Helena forced herself not to snap. Yeah, she was a little high-strung. “Is Ms Bertinelli better? Or is there something else you want me to call you.”
He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. She kept her breathing even. He doesn't know. Don't jump to conclusions. You don't know he knows.
“What do you want,” she repeated.
I don't believe in coincidences.
“I wanted to make you an offer that you're entirely free to refuse. But I think you won't want to.” Oh yes. The son of bitch was amused.
Helena bit on her tongue before she could reply anything damning, and kept bottled the volley of Italian curses that she would never, and he could go to--
“If you've done any research about me at all, then you know I'm not interested in what my family's got to offer.” Her fingers were gripping the phone so tightly they twinged.
“I'm not calling on your family's part, Ms Bertinelli,” he tried to reassure her. “Rather the contrary.”
In that moment, Helena wished desperately she'd invested in more elaborate equipment. The police could track phone calls. Why hadn't she installed the same stuff?
Her mind was wildly flipping through everything she'd done in the past few months. Every lead she might have left.
Don't. Say. Anything.
Pretend to play his game.
Then you'll do-- what you have to do to keep the secret safe.
They cannot know.
“Why are you calling me?” she made herself sound impatient. Just in case it wasn't what it sounded like, she added, “I don't know you, and if you're just calling to waste my time, I've got better things to do than listen to silly, childish pranks.”
A sigh on the other end. “I'm not playing games with you, Ms Bertinelli. And I am not someone who wants to hurt you. You can trust me.”
“Right, a man on the phone who won't even tell me his name,” Helena grumbled.
“My name's Oracle. You and I are in the same line of work, Ms Bertinelli. I, too, am working in Gotham. We should join forces.”
An incredulous chuckle escaped from Helena's lips.
“...Damn, you don't waste time, do you? Zero to everything in sixty seconds on the phone?”
“I've made sure your line's secure. I wanted to have this conversation honestly.”
“Then why not just talk to me in the street where I could see your face?”
“If a stranger walked up to you and started babbling code, would you trust him? Besides, we might be overheard. Trust me; this way's safer.”
He had a point. And he hadn't said her name yet. Maybe she could trust him not to expose her.
“I'm not working with someone I haven't even met. You know who I am, and I have no idea who you are.” Helena hesitated, but added, “I don't trust you, and I'm doing fine on my own. I don't need anyone putting his nose in how I do things.”
That was untrue. If she could be certain where the help came from, if there was someone she could trust, entirely and without reservation, on whom she could count like she could count on herself, she would go for it in a heartbeat.
She hadn't run into anything she couldn't handle yet, and she knew she could easily hold her own against the goons that made up the majority of Gotham's criminal population. She wasn't scared for herself, but she wasn't efficient enough. On her own, she couldn't hope to put a dent in the mass of crime that was Gotham.
She had to do everything by herself, put hints together, track the crooks down, and that took time, and she had a day job.
Or she could abandon the ambitious angle and just-- patrol on rooftops and stop the crimes she happened to run into, knowing that any drug-dealing she could see was only the minuscule tip of the iceberg.
“We could meet. If that would help you to believe me. I'm not asking you to trust me on blind faith, Helena.”
There was almost emotion behind that metal. Like he meant it. Helena pondered the possibility.
Wait. Metal.
“A voice scrambler? You son of a bitch, you ask for my trust and you're hiding your voice?”
“Hel-- Ms Bertinelli, it's only--”
“How dare you? Do you think I'm that gullible, that stupid, you don't--”
“My name, Helena! I gave you my name.”
“If I believe you.” He - Oracle? -- didn't try to argue the point. Perhaps oddly, that did more to calm her and convince her he was telling the truth than if he had. “Even if I agree with a meeting, that doesn't mean I'll work with you.”
“I told you: I'm not asking you to trust me blindly. We can meet. You can take your time, think it over. Turn my offer down, and I won't betray your secrets to anyone. But there's not enough of us in Gotham. Not anymore. We need to put all our strengths together.”
“Like Batman and Robin, and Batgirl,” Helena acknowledged. That was probably why Two-Face had been able to get Batman, and the other guy, Nightwing. Neither Robin nor Batgirl had been there - they hadn't been seen in ages - and... Even Batman needed partners, apparently. That was why he'd been killed.
“Yes.” He sounded like he was going to say something else, but he didn't.
“I'll meet you,” Helena said, on an impulse. She glanced at her watch. “In one hour, at Rozner's House on Grant. Have a book and a flower on your table.”
“Make it two books,” Oracle said. “I'll see you there.”
He hung up, leaving Helena staring at the far wall. She'd agreed to it.
I can still change my mind. It's not too late. I don't have to show up. I can look through the window before I decide to go in. I can listen to what he has to say. I don't have to take a decision right now.
I don't have to say yes.
If she trusted his word. But why lie to her? He already knew her one precious secret. If he wanted to blackmail her, he could do it whether she showed up or not.
The only chance she was taking was that she might find someone with whom she could join forces.
There aren't enough of us in Gotham.
4.
After Tim leaves, Cass often swings by to the Cave.
Batman is always there or in the streets, and in the streets he's usually beating people up. She's not sure how to bring it up with him, or with someone else, or even if she should, but she mildly disapproves.
Usually there is a method to Batman's violence.
It doesn't always make sense to her at first glance - she's only starting to learn to be a detective - but after a while the logic becomes apparent. As more than just beating someone up to get them to answer. What Cass wants to know when she's with Batman, as part of her learning to be a detective, is: why him? Why are we looking for a person of this description? Why do this person's answers matter more than any of the crooks' we could have found with twice less efforts? Why are we watching this place when no-one admitted there would be a meeting there?
Cass is always full of questions.
She doesn't know how to voice them, and she's learning that being a detective means learning to solve these things on her own, so she keeps them inside, and she watches, and she waits, and she thinks.
She thinks of the questions as what Batgirl wants. She's always been curious, she remembers being interested in things no-one seemed to cared about even before the earthquake that sealed Gotham, but she also tended to be content much more quickly.
Before Batman, Cass could read body language; now she's learning how to read people on a much less shallow level.
Occasionally, that deeper understanding only confirms what body language tells her. Her observations tell her Batman lacks focus. It's a realization made even more unnerving when she knows that he's still as devoted to serving justice as he always was.
I'm missing something, Batman is saying. It's in the punches he throws and in the way he stands in front of the glass case containing the costume of the boy who was Robin before Tim.
You're too silent, Batman's back tells her sometimes, out of the blue, when they've both been alone in the Cave, working or working out. It's in the way it suddenly, painfully snaps ramrod rigid. There should be laughter.
Loneliness, his entire being spells out. Sad and alone in his own mind.
I'm here, she tries to tell him at first, with the flow of her own fighting side by side to his own. I'm serving the Bat, too. We haven't all left.
But she's not the one he's looking for.
No, not you, Batman's distraction answers. It's not hurtful, even if it hurts, a little. Batman's body tells her good job every night as she leaves; he's not unhappy with her.
Tim, Batman sometimes calls, looking at the place in the Cave where Tim used to park his cycle before going home.
She tries to tell Tim about it.
I'm not coming back and I don't trust you and I don't want to see you again, Tim says, more clearly even than with his words. His arms are crossed. And his words are pretty clear.
“I'm not coming back,” he says in that tone of voice that means facts and showing no emotion. “And, no offense, but I'd rather you didn't hang around. I'm out of it.” My father, his fingers clenched on his sleeves scream. I trusted Bruce and he used it against me. I'm with my dad now. You're with him.
Barbara waves her concerns aside. “He gets like this sometimes. You know how he is.” She drums with her fingers on her keypad. One of the things that Cass admires most with Barbara is how she can make sense of things that look like nothing to Cass and most of the world. When Barbara is hacking, for instance, what Cass reads is 11000010bastard0111ohyoudon't000100011101, zeroes and ones only rarely interjected with exclamations of surprise, anger, or jubilation.
“Is he making your life hell? You don't have to stick it out, y'know,” she adds. “I know you kind of got stuck on Bruce duty, but I can find you a mission for the Birds that'll take you out of the city for a couple of weeks. Any help would be welcome, with Canary out of commission.”
What she's saying is he's like this sometimes, you know how he is. And say the word, and I'm giving you two weeks of vacation and you can help me close this international drug ring. And fond thoughts and vague concern for Dinah, with her broken leg. And some other stuff, variations on god, Bruce, already? which is evident in Barbara's weariness and her fatalistic if it's gotta happen, it's gotta happen attitude.
This is the other thing Cass admires most with Barbara; what she says is always the truth.
She even talks to Bruce about it, when the fact that no solution is forthcoming gets as obvious as the fact that Batman won't want to talk about it the moment he realizes what she's talking about.
“Tim won't be coming back,” Bruce tells her, disapproving and staunch. I don't know why you're asking and I don't like it and I have no answer for you and leave Tim alone. “He's made it clear that he no longer wishes to be associated with us.” He doesn't want to play anymore, a little boy is saying. “Let's respect that.” He hurt me.
I'm missing something, Batman is screaming in front of the glass case. Longing.
And I don't know what.
It's frustrating. Batman is frustrating. Cass already knew this, she rode Batman's breakdown when her father wanted to paint him as a murderer same as everybody else. But it's extra frustrating this time, because no-one else sees what she does, and she's alone trying to fix it.
“He's not alright”, she points out to Alfred.
The look Alfred sends her means Master Bruce hasn't been able to hide anything from me since he turned nine, of course I bloody well know he's not alright. But this time, again, he doesn't know it.
“Can't you do something?” Cass asks.
Alfred turns away to start again to clean the stove. “Unless his, ah, emotional instability makes him a danger to himself or others, I make a policy not to interfere.” Until, Alfred's bent neck corrects. Until. And, God help me, but I don't know how to help him when it does.
Maybe it's no wonder all this annoyance has to go somewhere, and one night when they're roughing crooks up and Batman is driving Cass crazy wanting someone there who is not, one of the men they're fighting is trying to make Cass feel awful for being a girl, so she snaps. Punches him straight in the nose, and there's a satisfying crunch of cartilage and the trickling explosion of teeth. Neither feel as good as the sudden shock and pain and how did the bitch-- in the widening of the man's pupils.
Vicious satisfaction pumps inside her as the man yells and crumbles to the ground, and she has a moment wondering if that's another thing Barbara loved about being Batgirl.
The yell catches Batman's attention and he whirls around, jaw working to call-- Robin!
But he sees her and he stops himself, startling. What are you doing here? Where is--?
Cass stands there and is glad her cowl hides her face.
The remaining crooks take advantage of the incident to try and escape, breaking them out of Batman's RobinRobinRobin trance.
When she leaves at dawn, she watches him closely. He says good job and Robin and I miss you.
The next night, Batman is staring at the Case when she arrives.
You're too silent, she remembers, like an echo.
She mouthes the sentence before speaking up, making sure she'll get the sounds right, even if it'll come out slow.
“So, what are we doing tonight?” She breaks the silence, but not her rule about detective work.
5.
Dear Tim,
the letter doesn't go any further than these two words. For one thing, Steph doesn't have anywhere to send it. She has no idea where in the world Tim is right now; she hears he's been all over. For another, she's not sure how much she wants to say. Or if there's anything she wants to say at all.
They haven't parted on the best terms, Tim and her, and that's only about half the reason why she doesn't know how she feels about this thing.
All of this thing, she clarifies for the ironic little Oracle voice that's taken semi-permanent residence in her head these days. This being Batgirl thing, and this there being no Robin thing, and this being not just tolerated, but get this, a valued and sought-after member of the family thing . No more being a vaguely shunned outsider for this girl, no sir.
Steph is the hottest commodity in the Bat-family these days. It's nice, but it's strange. There used to be more people in the family. But Bruce died, and Tim left, and Cass left, so now it's only Dick, and Barbara, and Huntress sometimes, and her. She works with Batman and she works with Oracle, now.
When she pinches herself to make sure she's not dreaming, she's turned into the golden girl suddenly, it's like the Justice League is only a few steps away. Today Gotham, tomorrow the world, and the sky's the limit, or something. No even that, if the JLA files on the Bat-computer are to be believed - and that's a big if, Steph makes a point of not taking anything she finds typed on that computer for god's honest anymore.
Still, Steph's not sure how she feels about some stuff.
“Not the Batgirl part; that part is awesome,” she affirms as they're driving back to the Cave. Specifically: as Dick is driving her back to the Cave. Steph thinks he's just glad to have an excuse to see Barbara some more.
“It's not working with me, is it?” Dick asks with a quick smile, but also like he has vague concerns about the answers.
That sounds just like the sort of issues about Bruce and what being Batman means that Dick is cultivating, and frankly Steph is about the last person on Earth qualified to deal with that, so she skillfully doesn't tackle the rampaging issues, and just goes with the obvious, “Nah, you're cool.”
He smiles again. There's about a thousand reasons why this is inappropriate, but whenever he does that and she gets a glimpse of his dimple, she crushes on him. About the only redeeming factor she has is that everyone crushes on him. Cass once admitted she was sometimes attracted to him, and it took a lot to shake Cass' hormones.
“Well, good to know I haven't lost my touch.”
At times she wonders if he knows what he's doing could maybe, possibly, be construed as flirting. By, oh, anyone with a pulse. She could ask Oracle; hey, does your boyfriend know what he's doing, or?... If, you know, she had a death wish. Which she does not, no matter what has been implied and sometimes flung in her face over the years. The haters can suck it anyway; who's the goddamn Batgirl now?
“So, what's the bad part?” he asks after the requisite handful of seconds they both spend reminiscing about Tim, or in her case avoiding to.
“That kid,” she starts, and then she realizes she doesn't know how to continue this sentence.
“Ah,” he says, non-committal and with a quick glance her way. That makes her angry; because she knows he can see her with just his peripheral vision, that's the exact reason why he pulls his cowl down in the car, so she knows that he wants her to know he's glanced at her. Mostly it makes her bitter, like she's a bomb being handled. Boy, she doesn't miss that feeling from her Spoiler days.
She ensconced herself deeper into the seat. “Yeah, 'ah'.” She mulls over the silence as she tries to put her thoughts in order and at least try to explain why this gets to her. It's the third kid dressed as Robin they've caught in as many months. And sent home.
“It's just, I was that kid at one point, okay?” She bangs her foot on the dashboard. “I was just like them, I put on a costume and I went out, to fight crime, and also because it was fun! And today I'm still doing it, except at one point things got-- twisted or something, and one day I'm not the kid who gets told she's not good enough and she has to stay home, I'm the one who decides who's allowed to join in and who is not. And it's mostly 'not'.”
“Batgirl--”
“Nah, that's a Steph issue,” she slips right off, because one of the things she appreciates most in the contrast between working with Dick vs working with Bruce, as far as Batmen go, is that Dick accepts being corrected and that he won't pretend he wasn't bullshitting. “I'm pretty sure Batgirl's got nothing to with it.”
He snorts “Yeah, you'd be surprised. But okay. Steph--”
And you know what, she wasn't done after all. Because that's really not the only thing bothering her about it. “And what's up with these kids anyway? That last one, she wasn't even in middle school. Gotham can't be so bad that eight-years-old want to fight crime, is it?”
Dick grins - and it's both complicit and almost derisive. “C'mon, like you didn't want to fight crime when you were eight?”
The sad thing is how she doesn't even have to count. “Okay, point,” she concedes. “And one of them took enough risks that he broke his leg slipping off the emergency stairway before we caught up with him. But still!”
“But still,” Dick agrees. Steph starts; she expected an argument. Something about responsibility, and protecting the innocent, and people with no training or skills; in fact, anything from Batman's and sometimes Tim's impressively large repertoire she's had quoted at her over the years. Not a euphemism, by the way. Ew. Instead, Dick sighs. “I'm not a fan of that part either, if you want to know.”
“Really? I mean-- wow, really? Wait, I didn't mean it like that. You're not? So, er, you think there's another way too?”
A look passes over his face that Steph can really only describe as a Look. And he's not even looking at her. But there's Experience behind it. O-kay. Seems like she's stumbled over one more fraught topic for Dick Grayson.
For such an amiable guy, he's sure got a lot of them. Steph's starting to suspect that the reason everyone's so taken with her recently is that most of the remaining members of the Bat crew are the saner ones, and they only seem sane on a local scale. Makes sense, but it says some dark things about her possible future. As opposed to every other possible future she's had predicted at her.
The expression shifts into simple uneasiness for a moment, and if Steph knew how to take it back, she would. But she's blanking on what to blurt out to derail the intrusion into probably painful details at the moment. If she didn't turn off the comm-link with Oracle when she works with Batman, by common agreement - Barbara's time is always in high demand - she might've had something to bounce off of.
“Well, it's obvious sometimes this way doesn't work. Look at you, or Barbara, or Helena. Even Tim and me. And Cass. We've all had a point when we were told to-- to drop it. And here we are!”
It's one of these moments in life where if Steph was holding something, she'd drop it. But she's not, so the swift rearranging of her world on its axis is mostly soundless, accompanied only by the engine's faint purring.
“You and Tim?” she ehoes. “And, wait, Barbara too?-- Tim was told he wasn't good enough? But Tim is, is, he's perfect!”
Tim wasn't fired, but she doesn't say that, because she doesn't want to sound like she's holding a grudge or like she's over-sensitive and it still hurts, though it does and she's not. Or worse, like she's jealous.
And Barbara went through the same rejections she did, according to Dick. Wow, she'd never have thought so. Oracle was always so harsh when Steph was just Spoiler, and even now that she's Batgirl, she's very quick to point out Steph's lackings. Very quick. And she's so-- competent and demanding and, and over-qualified at basically everything. Is that in Steph's future too? This turning Bat-crazy thing might have some perks after all. Still not a win on the love-life front, though, so maybe she could consider her options before signing up on the Oracle life course.
“Not at the beginning. Bruce wasn't-- Bruce never welcomes anyone. Almost never,” and that sounds like a story Steph is not going to ask about. “But I see your point, Tim's special.”
Tim's her special ex-boyfriend who left Robin's costume to the Gotham crew, and now he's out there, doing... whatever his special little brain is pushing him to do. He's so special he pulled out the Red Robin identity from nowhere and declared himself a grown-up and told Steph to put her costume away for good and left.
And now there are kids popping on every freaking rooftop wearing homemade red and green and gold flashy uniforms because somehow, they've got the message that there's a vacancy.
They're out of Gotham proper when Dick picks up the conversation again, driving over the soft hills of Brighton.
“You know, when Tim left, I almost offered you to become Robin again.”
Well, that's just... She can't help it; she bursts into laughter.
“I know,” Dick acknowledges, and it's to his credit that he doesn't sound pissed, not even a little bit, by her hiccups of hilarity.
“Oh god,” she moans, banging her fist on the dashboard. “Oh god oh god oh my god don't do that to me I can't breathe.”
He waits until she's calmed down enough to wipe the tears of laughter, and that takes-- minutes of golden, perfect laughter. “Good thing I never got around to making you the offer, huh.”
“I'm not sure I know how I would've taken it,” Steph answers honestly. “In a way it's flattering. It was flattering when I was seventeen, and it was after Tim had set this amazing record and I was told I could get that job. Like I could hope one day I'd be that good. On the other hand...”
“Been there, done that?”
“Bought the T-shirt,” Steph confirms.
“I was the Teen Wonder, and all I got was this lousy retirement plan.”
“I was fired from Robin-hood - ask me how!”
He chuckles. “That was bad,” he accuses, grinning from ear to ear.
“And you haven't seen the rest of the list I've got at home.” A beat. “Okay, I'm calm now, so... why didn't you?”
“Why didn't--?”
“You know. You wanted to ask me to be Robin again, despite my lamentable failure the first time. You didn't. So, what made you change your mind?” She raises an eyebrow at his guarded expression, and goes on to preempt, “I wouldn't have said yes, not with the deja-vu and all, but you started to talk about it, and you didn't have to. Is it because Tim is still Robin?”
It's funny, how easy her relationship with Dick is. He was always nice to her when she was Spoiler, but they've never been close. They still aren't.
It's just easy, in a way that not many relationships with Bats have ever been for her. She's been in love with Tim for a long time, and she loves Cass like the best friend she's ever had, but even these relationships required effort. Work, whatever you want to call it. Bantering with Dick doesn't.
Steph reflects that it could be the subtitle to her life right now: bantering with Batman. She'd need to find a similarly snappy sounding subtitle for the section about Oracle. 'Oracular with Oracle' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
“I was... I had doubts about it. I thought there was a chance you'd get extremely mad, on a very deep level, that you'd be offended because you weren't that girl anymore and you'd outgrown Robin.” The words come out hesitantly, cautiously. Like he's wrestling with words and meanings. “...And then Cass left and you were Batgirl.”
“So you didn't,” she repeats for confirmation.
He sends her one of these frowns that she's starting to learn mean 'what are you doing?'. “You're Batgirl,” he says again, like she'd missed that vital piece of information before somehow.
And if she stops just a moment and think about it...
“Yeah, okay.” She nods, glad that at least some things make equal sense to the both of them out of shamefully lame puns. “So not because of Tim.”
Dick shrugs. “He's Red Robin now; not Robin. I think that makes a difference. But he would've taken it badly if I had gone behind his back to find a Robin without telling him, like a replacement, and he probably would've taken it worse if it was you. I was trying to locate him and ask him, but that made me hesitate as well. I didn't really look forward that part.”
On her seat, Steph is starting to identify the feeling that's been bothering her about kids dressing up as Robin. It's part like the nagging feeling you get when you've forgotten something important, and part like her lungs are being squeezed.
“So... the offer doesn't stand, but the position's still open?”
Slowly, Dick turns his head to meet her gaze. “Yeah,” he answers, sounding like his throat has turned dry.
It's not a question when she says, “Kids aren't going to stop turning up until there is a new Robin, are they.”
“No,” Dick acknowledges.
She licks her lips. This is the question that needs to be asked.
No, that's a lie, that's a question she's under no contractual obligation to ask, that's a question to which she needs to know the answer. As a Gothamite, as a crime-fighter, as Batman's partner and Oracle's protégé, as Batgirl, as a girl who was Robin and who was Spoiler and whose dad was a criminal and who grew up with Robin as one of her heroes.
“Are you looking for a new Robin?”
“No,” Dick denies.
Steph doesn't think he's lying. She's just not sure how long his resolve will hold.
Especially if he hates that part; the part where you send them home and refuse to let them fight. Sometimes, that's the part that doesn't work.