![[I saw three ships]](../2005-1icon.png)
She wakes up because her leg hurts. There's a practical side that's telling her to reach over, grab two of the painkillers and let them do what they're supposed to, but it doesn't hurt enough for that, not really. She counts the pills to make sure her mom's not taking them, crushes them up and throws them away for her mom thinks she is, and avoids the little nagging voice that tells her she's doing this out of stupidity, fear or masochism.
She takes deep breaths and works through the meditation exercises he taught her, one of the first things he taught her (you know you're going to get hurt, you need to know how to move past it), and gets up.
Her crutches are by her bed. She hates them just as much as the pills, but less than the pain and not enough to make her stupid enough to risk permanent injury (and what are you saving yourself for, Steph? What now?) by not using them.
When she stands up, she can see herself in the mirror. Shorter hair, cut to even out the damage, busted leg and bandages around her stomach and chest. Her face is almost clear of the bruising and cuts, thanks to time and Tim's regular gifts of medical treatments.
She has excellent insurance, and she doesn't think about where that came from, which pays for the better-than-Medicare antibiotics, the lighter leg brace, the fact that she is getting better.
It shouldn't feel like a failure, getting better. Shouldn't feel like a slap in the face (knife to the gut would be more accurate and you know exactly how that feels, don't you Steph?), but it does. Part of her thinks — knows — that she shouldn't have stopped being Robin, not without permanent disablement.
One of the best things about having Cass for a friend is that sometimes—not always, because knowing what you're thinking doesn't necessarily mean she gets it—she just gives you exactly what you need. When Steph shows up in her new place in the 'haven, Cass takes one look at her and aims a kick, just in the right place to make Steph block it with one of her crutches. When Steph stumbles, losing her balance a bit, Cass frowns and does it again until Steph gets it right.
After three hours, Steph is hurting, all the new injuries and that whole body pain you get when you really use it.
Cass grins at her. "You love me," she says, smugly.
"I don't think that's the word you were looking for," Steph says, breathing hard. Cass leans into her, that thing that's not so much a hug as a line of contact. She's seen her do it to Tim a couple of times.
Maybe it's a Robin thing, she thinks, and then stops herself.
"It hurts too much. You haven't seen him?" Cass says. There are too many hims that could be, but Steph leans back against her and closes her eyes. Pictures him.
"I have. We went out for coffee at the hospital and he's taking me to my PT tomorrow. Waiting for me at the bus stop anyway." Tim doesn't have a valid driver’s license, and that's still worth a smile when she thinks about it.
"Not him, him. Robin." Cass gives Steph's shoulders a little push, just o make her listen.
When Steph woke up in the hospital, Tim kissed her. She didn't think there was anything strange about the fact that he was wearing the mask.
Cass switches position, bringing her arms around in a hug. Steph dips her head to her chest. "It's so fucking wrong that it fucking hurts to see him in that suit," she says.
Cass rubs the top of Steph's head with her chin, pushes her away and stands up.
"I want you to feel better," Cass says with her arms, stretching them out to show her the world. She stands in the side of the
"It's not my world any more," Steph says, then jerks her head with the force of the palm-punch Cass just got her with. Cass has her at the edge of the roof top with a tug and a twist that somehow leaves Steph perfectly balanced.
And there's what she should have noticed before. Underneath the sirens, traffic and the general sound of thousands of people living too close together is something just as familiar. Steph knows what a punch sounds like and this, this is that particular smack and crash that comes from someone being punched into a wall. The rhythm of the fight is wrong for a brawl; it's got that regular beat that comes from the fight being controlled by someone who knows what they're doing.
Nightwing is a beautiful thing to watch. Not even beautiful like Cass is, with every move an essay in grace and perfection, but something else. Tim told her, once, about the first time he went patrolling with him, how he almost got distracted watching him.
Steph rests her chin on her hand and watches. She never looked like that. Doesn't think she ever could, not now, not ever, but —
It's something else to watch.
She feels Cass stand behind her, even before she pets Steph on the head. "Nightwing," Cass says with the deliberation that means she's chosen her words, practised the shape of them in her head before speaking them, "Nightwing is not Robin."
Steph frowns and Cass digs her fingers in a little harder. "You should meet him," Cass says.
Steph closes her eyes. "Cass, please."
"No. You should talk," Cass says, like Steph's being so frustrating it hurts.
Steph lets her closed eyes do her refusing for her. Cass huffs and taps her side, just under her bandages. Cass’s way of letting her know that she’s letting her get away with for now.
Her mom doesn't ask where she was when she gets back. She thinks — no, she knows — that her mom finds the crutches and leg brace reassuring, proof that whatever Steph is doing on her late nights, at least it's in civvies. Steph comes in the front door so her mom can turn off the light in her room and pretend to have been sleeping, like she wasn't waiting up.
Steph does everything with the regular too-loudness of someone trying not to wake their mother up, brushing her teeth and checking her bandages, getting ready for bed.
Then she lies awake until she's sure her mom's gone to sleep. It's not, actually, about the privacy — she gets more of that in the day, when her mom's out of the house — but more because she worked hard, getting her sleep patterns adjusted and she's not ready to give them up. These days, that means a lot of extra hours staring at the ceiling at night. She's seriously considering taking up crochet or something, just so she has something to use up her time.
She really doesn't need the extra time to think. Not about Cass, her perfect silhouette in the Batgirl suit. Not about Nightwing, the grace and strength in his movements as he took down the thugs.
There was this one move he did, a somersault that ended in a punch and kick in 1 1/2 time that reminded her of Tim. It was one of the first attacks she'd seen Robin do and it's strange seeing it on someone else.
She'd copied it, put it into use a few times when she was Spoiler and she’d used it the first time she was out as Robin out of some sense of symmetry. She can close her hand and remember how it felt, the difference in the thickness of the gauntlet giving it a different weight, the adjustments her body made to account for the change in cloak and —
Nightwing did it a little differently, accounting for the difference in reach, proportion, no compensating for the cloak, but it was the same move. From him to Tim to her, Robin to Robin to —
She digs her fingers into the palm of her hand, hard enough to break the skin, and breaths slowly until the moment passes.
For her birthday last year, Tim gave her a bunch of clothes that are nothing Steph would ever wear, which was exactly the point. It's a little like playing dress-up. This skirt is just long enough, floaty enough to non-Steph, and she can wear it with this top, have her hair like that and bam, she's a post-year in Europe, upper-middle-class, on her way to college kind of girl. These trousers and a pair of glasses and she's a just-past-dorky, kind of hot if you like chess and libraries and Lord of The Rings. They’re looks, and Steph can wear them and look — not like she's in disguise, but different enough that most people won't see Steph when they look at her.
It's easier, wearing those clothes now. This long wraparound skirt goes over the brace, that top covers the marks on her arms. She can wear her hair up and look like a librarian that got attacked by a vicious set of periodicals. It's easier, looking in the mirror when she's dressed as someone else.
Maybe she should dye her hair. Black or red or green or — no. Brown, maybe. Auburn.
She's meeting Tim at a coffe place, one of the hundred and one alternative to starbucks that offer organic coffee and fair-trade tea to the students around Gotham college. He's dressed as what she calls Modified Tim Drake, nice jeans and a buttoned shirt, dressed just a couple of years older than he usually does. She's reassured when she sees him look her over, catalogue and assess her outfit.
She doesn't wonder if she'd have got that look if she'd been Robin for longer.
This is something she's probably never going to tell Tim, but there's part of her that's sometimes kind of surprised when he kisses her. That he likes it, that he does it, that sometimes she sees that same sense of surprise in his face, that he's still that little bit shocked to be kissing her. It's like when most other teenagers were receiving that little bit of programming that says, "Hey, look at this. This is a person, this means sex." Tim missed it, like he doesn't get it until he's in the middle of it. She kind of thought he was gay at first, but it's just that for a guy with some serious stalker tendencies who watches from the shadows as a pastime, he can be really, really oblivious.
Tim isn't big into the PDAs, but she can feel the little bit of mutual desperation that makes him kiss her when they meet. He's got them a booth in the corner and the place is almost entirely empty. Schools in session, she guesses. He's got a large cup that's probably several espresso's worth of coffee.
"Your leg?" he says.
"You haven't gone through my medical records already?" She says. Tim flinches until he catches her expression. The smile he gives her isn't his real one, but it's as close to it as he gets in public.
"You could tell me anyway," he says.
"I have to wear the brace and use the crutches until the next check-up," she says. "But my PT thinks I should get them off soon."
Tim looks at her for a moment, curling his hands around his cup. "And you're — how are you?"
She looks down at her cup. "You know, I tried on my old uniform," Steph says. She keeps her words and voice neutral.
Tim stops, mid-sip. "Spoiler?" Letting her know this place is pretty secure.
"It didn't fit," she says. "I'm not Spoiler anymore. I'm not anything."
"Steph, you're still — "
"Don’t tell me I'm still Stephanie Brown," she says. Hisses. "You know, you know how meaningless that is. That's just — that's my parents and my background and it's not — " She's not sure what she's saying, because most of the time, she likes Steph, is even happy being her, but it's not… Something. Whatever.
Tim looks at his cup. "I always thought you'd be a good Robin," he says, not looking up. "Better than me."
There's a moment when she's just so angry she can taste it, before common sense bashes her over the head and she realises that he means it. "Tim. You're — " she shakes her head and tries to think of how to say it. "You're freaking amazing. You — I — How can you think that?"
Tim shrugs. "I'm the best kind of Robin that I can be, but I'm not always… I'm not always what Robin should be like."
"You're insane." Steph reaches over and smacks him on the back of his head for emphasis, taking the fact that he lets her as proof that he agrees. "You are Robin. How can you not be like — " She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and tries again. "The fact that you're still here says that you're a hell of an improvement over the guy before you." And maybe no-one's allowed to speak of Dead Boy Jason like that, but fuck it, she thinks she's earned the right.
Tim gives her that little Robin not-quite-smile. "Jason isn't who I think of, when I think of Robin."
No, of course he isn't, and it probably says something about her and more about how well she knows Tim that she's flattered by the comparison, instead of deeply disturbed. She smiles back at him and thanks him by not asking how he's doing.
The fact that Steph thanks Tim by not making him talk about everything doesn't mean she doesn't worry. The fact that she's working on not thinking about everything herself doesn't mean she doesn't have a healthy streak of masochism. It could be either of these things that make her take a trip to the 'haven, find a nice little corner in a bad bit of town where she can pick up on what's going down, head out there and wait for Tim to show up.
It's exactly as painful as she expected to watch that streak of red and green. Tim's better than she was at using the cloak to conceal until the last moment, and then he comes down in a bright flash of colour and controlled, targeted violence. It makes her press her arm against the bandages around her stomach and lean harder on her bad leg.
It's over too quickly and Tim's on to the intimidation and investigation part of the evening, and he looks just as good doing this, just as right. Sharp and focussed, and she breathes in too loudly.
And realises that she's not alone at about the same moment that her fellow voyeur does. She uses the crutches to help her spin, turn, then holds it at his throat while her heart beats faster. He freezes and looks down the alley and so does she, holding her breath and hoping Tim was too distracted to pick up on these sounds.
"Nightwing?" She's never seen him in civvies, but she can recognise the shape of his face, pick out his body even in those clothes. There are a lot of people it could be, but she caught his expression when he was looking past her at Tim, and that look only belongs on the face of someone that knows Tim.
Nightwing looks at her and frowns. She waits for him to call Tim, or at least ask why she's here, and she flushes. Stalking Tim, hanging in alleys like some voyeuristic loser, getting on watching him go off on some thugs, it's pathetic, and Nightwing knows.
Except his expression when he looks at her is a little too blank, and there's something just a little too familiar about the way he looked at Tim. She can see that he sees it too, this uncomfortable sense of intimacy, just caused by doing the same thing at the same time, even if not for the same reasons.
She pushes him against the wall, using one of her crutches on the back of his leg to get him off balance, then presses up against him and kisses him. It's not right, she knows, but it's just easier than anything else. Easier than thinking of Tim back there, efficient and effective and right in her costume. It's easier and Nightwing is easier, not quite with her but not pushing her away either.
She uses her other crutch to push herself up against him. She can't wrap herself around him, not with the brace, but this is close enough and he's still, but it's not enough of a rejection to get her to stop, because she can feel his tension and —
And then he kisses her back, moves his hands away from the wall and holds the side of her face like the lover neither of them is and he twists and moves so she's pressed against the brick. She can feel it, clearer and rougher than it would be in costume and his jacket is open, falling on either side of her. Neither of them are in uniform and they could be other people, civilians, except that they could never be that and he looks — his eyes aren't exactly like Tim's but he's close enough to a grown up version, Tim's big brother and it's so freaking perverse and fuck, but he knows how to move.
"Tim," he says and she thinks he might stop, but it's not that kind of Tim. Not a warning or a bit of sanity, just saying Tim's name before he kisses her again, his hands tender and his mouth not.
"Ro — Robin." She's not sure how she said that and why, but his hands are away from her face, up her shirt. They trace the bandages, press against the right bruises, push her sportsbra down and she can't think, can't speak and that's exactly why she started kissing him. He has one hand down her panties and he keeps her steady and upright when she comes.
He looks like he's been punched and she has to keep her leg straight, so it's awkward when she slides down into as close as she can manage to kneeling. She opens his jeans and takes him in. It doesn't take long and he clenches his hands when he comes. When she looks up he looks dazed, like he's not sure how he got there.
He steps back and helps her up. He doesn't avoid looking at her, but his whole body language is shouting guilt.
"He won't be upset that I blew you off in an alley," Steph says, loudly enough to be cruel. She's not sure if she's lying.
He flinches anyway. "I shouldn't have done that," he says. "I shouldn't be here."
"None of us should," she says. She picks up her crutch. "When you see Tim… Nevermind. It doesn't matter what you tell him.
Steph had sort of been planning to see Cass after, but she decides against it. There are a lot of things she doesn't want to explain to her. Why blowing Nightwing in an alley is a perfectly natural response to everything is just one on the list, but it's pretty high up there.
Cass turns up on her bed the next night, suit on and cowl down. Steph comes home and finds Cass leafing through some of her old notebooks, the ones that have World History in the centre and drafts of different superhero costumes in the margins. Some of them are embarrassing — blatent plagiarising of Versace and/or Starfire, or ones so loaded with weapons and armour that Steph wouldn't have been able to stand up in them. There are a few proto-Spoiler suits and a mask on the back of her old maths book that has a familiar design.
"You know that personal space thing? Where you don't go around invading other people's possessions?" Steph says, putting her bag on the bed.
"Yes," Cass says, not looking up. "I know what it is."
Steph waits. "And you think that might apply here?"
"No," Cass says. The line of her back tells Steph that she's just having fun, a little Cass-joke.
"You need to spend time with people that don't view stalking as a reasonable alternative to hanging out together." She leans over Cass's shoulder. "I'd just seen this thing on the Titans. That's why the Troia-look."
"Heels," Cass says.
Steph shrugs. "I thought I might need the extra height for intimidation." Before she realised that short and scary was entirely possible. "I even practised kicks in them," she says. She brushes her fingers over the page, feeling nostalgic, even if she wouldn't want to go back to then. "I was just playing dress-up," she says. "It was — I wasn't really serious about it. Just fantasising." She turns the page and grimaces. "Oh, the bondage queen — Yeah, Catwoman is pretty much the only one that can carry off that look. Well, maybe Wonder Woman could, but…" She laughs. "Just costumes, not anything real."
Cass closes the book and looks at Steph. "Do you want — " She pauses, formulating her sentence. "Costumes are fun," she says.
Steph shrugs. "Yeah." She thinks about the clothes Tim bought her. "It's fun, being someone else." Especially when you don't know who you are, only who you're not."
Cass reaches around to the back of her neck and unhooks the cowl, then passes it over to Steph. She's smiling. Cass has the best smile. She's the only bat with a mask that covers her whole face, but with Cass it's necessary, because no-one who sees that smile can forget it. "We can swap," Cass says. "You can be me."
Steph raises an eyebrow. "Then who are you going to be?"
"I can be Batgirl," Cass says. She laughs at Steph's expression.
It's funny, being in Batgirl's uniform. It's closer to Spoiler than Robin in some ways, and she likes the reaction it gets, that instant recognition. The internal armouring means that Steph can forgo the leg brace. Good for looming in the shadows, but it means that she's already fighting, already fought, before anyone's even really seen her. Cass looks good in the old Batgirl suit. Or cute, maybe, would be a better description. Little girl playing dress-up in her big sister's clothes, wobbling a bit on the heels and — huh. Literally. Which is funny and bizarre, seeing Cass showing anything other than grace, but that little adolescent awkwardness is just too damn cute.
Cass straightens up and glares at her. Steph holds out her hands. "What? I didn't say anything."
"Swap," Cass says firmly. "You can have them."
Steph raises an eyebrow, then remembers that Cass can't see it. "You're letting me wear the old Batgirl suit?"
"The original," Cass says. "And yes. It's better on you."
Steph hesitates, but it's been a good night. Even dressed in the wrong suit, she feels closer to right than she has in too long. Just being out here, and they hadn't done anything much, no metas, no major organised crime, but…
She can do it. Even if she's only playing pretend for the night in Cass's costume, she can do it.
Steph meets Cass's eyes. "Maybe. At least I can walk in heels."
It actually is better on her. The fit and the style suit Steph more than Cass, better for her broader shoulders, her more solid build and — and the thought is somewhere between coldly analytical and too girly — it looks better on someone with more in the way of breasts and hips. Steph isn't built like Wonder Woman, but she's not as sleek as Cass is either.
And she does like the extra bit of height the heels give her, if not enough to actually have them in any costume she'd design. She likes that little bit of extra colour, the way she can make the fight a show in it.
They end up on a roof looking out over the city and Steph is breathing hard. Her leg is hurting, the kind of pain that tells her she needs to stop, like, now, but it's good. Cass looks over at her, her body relaxed and happy and more than a little smug, then nods at something over Steph's shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
Steph doesn't flinch at the sound of that voice.
"Playing dress-up," Cass says. It's not quite a challenge, but it's getting there.
"In — you gave her the first Batgirl costume?" Nightwing says, sounding angry. "You can't do that, you — "
"She knows," Cass says. She crosses her arms. "It's only for tonight."
Steph nods, awkward and aware of treading on someone else's ground. "Yeah. Steph's just letting me borrow it for the night."
"She knows," Cass says again, more firmly. "Do you think she couldn't?"
Nightwing looks at her, obviously unhappy and Cass makes a sound of disapproval, gestures at them in what could be dismissal and turns her back on them, vaulting off the roof. She's practically invisible before she's more than ten foot away, leaving them standing there.
"You know that I'm not, I can't wear this for real," Steph tells Nightwing. "It's just a… a gift. One night only, no repeats." She smiles at him, and it doesn't have the effect she was going for. He doesn't look any more relaxed. Steph rubs her neck and catches her hand in her hair, combing through it.
"I… I know," Nightwing says eventually. He looks at her. "I'm sorry." It's an awkward apology, but sincere.
"This is the thing," Steph says, sitting down on the edge of the rooftop and kicking at it with the heels of her boots. "I know your name, but I don't know if I'm allowed to use it." She shrugs. "We didn't get around to covering secret identity etiquette."
Nightwing sits next to her, crouched down. He doesn't do it exactly like Tim does. Tim gives the impression of being hidden, even when he's making a show of it and Nightwing is just open, in a way that has nothing to do with hiding in a cape. He holds out his hand. "Dick Grayson," he says. "And you're Stephanie Brown. Not that we should be using our real names in costume, but… what should I call you?"
Steph laughs. "You think I'd be wearing this costume if I knew that?" She looks at him. "All I know is that I'm not her anymore. I'm not Spoiler. I tried the uniform and it felt — "
It felt as wrong as the first day back at school after she'd given up her baby, when everything was wrong and different and she was in the same place and didn't fit, and it had stayed that way until she'd figured out how to make it, how to be the Steph there that could work for her and the world.
"I'm not Spoiler and I can't go back to being her, and he fired me. He said I could be Robin, and then he said I couldn't anymore, that I wasn't good enough and — " And that she'd never be good enough, even if he hadn't said the words. That there was no point in training her because something in her was just the wrong shape and would never fit. "I'm happy for — for Robin," she says. "He should be Robin, it makes so much sense when he's Robin. You ever watch him work?"
Nightwing, Dick, nods. "He's better at it than I was," he says.
Steph smiles in spite of herself. "He says the same thing about you."
Dick looks at her and smiles. "He's always been amazingly blind about the most obvious things. It's not about the summersaults. He's just better at bringing the fight to him. He makes them fight on his ground, on his terms, always. I've never been able to do that like he does."
Steph leans over and rests the side of her head against his arm. "I still love watching the way his freaky little mind works. You know, when he's just figuring out all the angles and — "
"The way he looks when he jumps off a roof," Dick says, like he's laying down an ace. "He took down this meta yesterday — "
"You saw him yesterday? He didn't say anything," Steph interrupts. It takes a moment, even when Dick looks down guiltily, for it to register. "You… you fucker!" She aims a slap to the back of his head, which he takes, just like Tim does, or Cass, letting her hit him. "What are you trying to do to him? Why aren't you — "
"I can't." He says, his voice clipped, short. "I can't be around him right now. I'm just — I'm no good for anyone. I can't let him — "
"You selfish, selfish… Argh!" She stands up and walks along the edge, swinging her leg slightly to compensate for the brace. "You can't let him be around you because you're too fucked up? Do you know Tim at all?"
"I know him well enough to know that he — he puts all of himself into helping the people he cares about," Dick says. He stands up, smooth and graceful and angry. "He doesn't leave anything left for himself. I can't let him do that to himself, not now, not when he's — He has enough to deal with. I can't let him take on my problems as well." he sounds good, strong and focussed and sincere. Steph resists the urge to shove him off the edge.
"Do you think I like him seeing me like this?" She says. She keeps her voice low. It's not quite her working voice. She takes a little of that from Tim and Oracle, as neutral an accent as she can comfortably manage. This is closer to the one she uses when she's out of uniform. "Do you think I liked him seeing me after, when I couldn't stand, when I was…" she spreads her hands and gestures at herself. "I didn't want to let him help me. I did it because even if seeing me fucked up fucked him up, it'd fuck him up even more if I didn't. I can't let him not help me, just because I hate seeing him hurt for me."
Dick looks at her and raises one eyebrow. She wonders if he got that from Tim or Tim got it from him. "That's a pretty convoluted argument," he says.
Steph can't read him. She shrugs. "He's a pretty convoluted kind of guy, except for when he isn't. And you shouldn't be stalking him from the shadows without talking to him, because you think it'd be bad for him. Tim already has that role pretty much claimed." She wraps her arms around herself. The Batgirl costume, this Batgirl costume feels different to Cass's. The material isn't as smooth. It feels thicker, coarser. The fit is different, designed for someone with a longer torso, not as broad across the shoulders.
There's a silence and she's not as good at letting them stand as some people, so she coughs and says, "Just so you know, I don't know if I can actually call you Dick. I mean, Dick? Did that streak of masochism in the Robin family tree start with you?" The city sky is orange, streetlights reflecting off the sky.
Dick's smile isn't exactly happy. "There's no-one else it could have started from."
Steph crosses her arms and stares at him, frowning. "You know how Tim is about you, right? He's not exactly…" she laughs. "He's pretty freaking obvious about it, if you actually spend more than five minutes with him."
Nightwing looks uncomfortable and almost embarrassed. Shy, if that wasn't such a patently stupid thing to say about a guy that goes about in the definition of skin-tight. "I — Tim's always been — "
"I can't trust you to be even close to intelligent about this, can I?" Steph says. She hates this, hates talking about things like this. It's not her, but he's being so fucking stupid about it. "You need to see him. You need to — if you need him, you have to let him — " She shakes her head to clear it and her hair rustles on her shoulders. "You're going to see him."
Nightwing hesitates, then nods.
"Tonight. Now. Or I swear, I'll get Batgirl to kick your ass so hard, even if you did visit him, you wouldn't be any good for it."
He smiles, just a little, as if he can't help it and Steph decides to ignore the complete lack of sense that she's making.
Tim's already changing back into civvies when they get to his place. She's not sure what he's more shocked about, seeing her dressed like this or seeing Nightwing and that's what makes her realise how distant Nightwing must have been. She wants to hit them both for being so fucking stupid about it all.
She satisfies herself with pushing Nightwing towards Tim.
"Tim," Nightwing says, a little helplessly.
"You — long time no see," Tim says. His smile doesn't fool anyone. "Someone might think you were avoiding me," He says it like he knows it's stupid, but believes it anyway.
"I haven't been…" Nightwing starts to say, then he shrugs awkwardly and she's seen enough of him to know that awkward is a sign of something very wrong. "It's not because of you," he starts to say, and then that tails off as well.
She's surprised when Tim makes the first move, although maybe she shouldn't be. His face is tight and unhappy and he kisses Nightwing like he's giving up hope. She thinks he might feel guilty about doing it in front of her, if he had enough space to be, but it's all taken up with this unhappiness. Nightwing doesn't do anything and Steph is hit with the sudden conviction that it's going to end like that, with Nightwing being stupid and hurt and Tim being too clever and hurt, and…
"When I kissed him in the alley, he said your name," Steph says out loud. Nightwing hadn't said it like that, but it's the right thing to say because Tim brings his arm up to Nightwing's shoulder and pulls him down. The wall is a good place to lean against and Steph is used to getting this right/wrong feeling when she looks at Tim by now. They're fucking beautiful like this, and Tim's her boyfriend and she blew his, his Nightwing in an alley after they watched him work and there's nothing about this that's right except for the way Tim looks.
"He watches you," she says. "We both do. Watch you at work, even when it hurts too much to talk to you."
"Tim, I — " Nightwing shakes his head and then kisses Tim. He does it like Tim's something special, and a little like he's testing that he's real. His hands and holding Tim's arms just a little too hard and she closes her eyes.
She leaves, because she's afraid of what she'd do if she stayed.
Dick Grayson is waiting for when she finishes at the doctors. He raises an eyebrow when she walks out.
"They let you off the crutches?" he says.
"Yeah." Steph wonders is she's meant to resist the urge to ask him what the hell he's doing here, but decides that it's a hell of a lot better than asking him how it went last night. "What the hell are you — "
"You want a ride?" He moves away from the car he was leaning against and gestures at it. "Though I would have brought the bike if I'd known you didn't have the sticks anymore."
"Sure," Steph says. "I…" She shakes her head and gets in the car.
Dick's a good driver, on the comfortable side of fast. He lets her play with the radio and she tries to find a station in Gotham that doesn't play the bouncy bubblegum pop or depressing classical stuff that the DJs favour. Talk radio, talk radio, classical, salsa, pop, pop, Enya, classi —
"He fired me too," Dick says.
Steph jerks her head up so fast she almost gets whiplash. Dick is smiling, this little half smile that doesn't make him look at Tim. It's a smile that says he never really got used to being hurt, but he's had time enough to get amused by it and it tells Steph on a very basic level that she'd be failing as a woman if she didn't try to make it all better for him, and that she'd bitchslap anyone who tried to do it before she got the chance.
She's not the type to randomly hug people, so she just frowns. "Why?"
"He had his reasons," Dick says, and the smile still has that little bit of hurt, but it's inviting her to share the joke. "But Bruce's reasons… I don't think they're always the reasons he thinks they are."
"I didn't — I assumed you'd left. You grew out of it or something," Steph says.
"No. I don't know if I would ever have left on my own. Robin was mine," Dick says. "Was me. Bruce…" he shakes his head and leans forward over the steering wheel, waiting for the lights to change. "Maybe he was right, maybe it was time for me to leave Gotham, but…" He looks at Steph in the rear-view mirror. "It made it harder when he gave my name, my costume, to Jay."
"I trust Tim's judgement," Dick says. He puts one hand on her shoulder, rubbing it a little, keeping his eyes on the traffic. Steph can recognise the automatic contact of the tactile. "If Tim says you'd make a good Robin, I believe him."
Steph feels her mouth twist, like her face isn't sure if it should smile or cry. "That's — " She looks down, then puts her hand on Dick's where it is on her shoulder. She wants to say that it doesn't help, that it's a fucking consolation prize. Miss Congeniality, hey, if I got a vote, you would have won, meaningless, but…
"When you're better, we should meet up again," Dick says. "We could do a little training.”
Steph jerks her head up and has to remember to close her mouth. That smile… “You… are you allowed?” She says, and then realises how stupid it sounds.
"Batman isn’t the only way to this,” he says. He pulls in to a parking space and Steph was too caught up in her own issues to realise where they are until he does. In all fairness, she hasn't seen this place in daylight.
"Is Tim there?" She says, waiting for some kind of clue.
"Not yet. He's doing a dayshift in Metropolis today, following up on a lead, but he'll be back soon. A couple of hours, tops." Dick looks at her and rubs the back of his neck, looking tired. He had a bitemark on his hand. "You and Tim need to talk," he says.
"And you're just giving me a ride to make sure that happens?"
Dick looks at her. "He's my little brother," he says. "I want him to have the things that make him happy."
Steph looks at him. "You know how creepy that sounds, on a number of different levels."
Dick shrugs and smiles. "Maybe. Would you expect anything less?"
Dick's wrong. Steph waits almost three hours before Tim shows up.
"Steph," Tim says. He says her name like he always does, looks like he always does, except for the hickey on his neck, half-covering the scar, that she's pretty sure she didn't put there. The fact that she's not 100% certain, that Dick apparently goes for the same things she does makes her feel — something. Another of the big, unclassifiable things that she doesn't have words for.
Doesn't matter. You don't get to push someone at your boyfriend and then go crying when he takes them up. Not when you're not sure if he counted as your boyfriend anyway.
Tim looks at her, then he reaches his hand up touches the side of her face. It's the first time he's touched her in uniform since the hospital and she's not sure what she should feel, if she should feel anything.
"I don't have a clue what to say to you," Tim says. "I… thank you? Or maybe, you shouldn't have interfered. I don't…" He looks at her and she's prepared when he kisses her. She's braced for the kiss goodbye and she's ready for it, but…
It doesn't feel like that, and she can put one hand on the side of his neck, let her thumb go over that mark and kiss him back. Feel his hands on her waist, and it's weird to have him in uniform and her in civvies, weird enough that she thinks about going back and asking Cass about borrowing the Batgirl uniform just so she's properly dressed for this, but…
Think of it as a disguise, as undercover, and that works, makes it better, good enough for her to start going through the process of disarming enough of the Robin costume for her to get to Tim. She's familiar with it now, in a way she wasn't before, so even with the obvious differences, she can open it up without setting off too many alarms.
Tim stops kissing her and pulls away, starting to take one of his gloves off. Steph grabs his hand before he can do it.
"Do you want to?" she says, looking him in the eye. The mask. Tim frowns underneath it, opens his mouth to say something and she can see it click.
"Steph," he says, twists his hand out of her grasp and around so that he's holding her wrist, tight enough that she can feel every grip on the gauntlet. He pulls her in and there's no way to see his eyes when the lenses are down, but doesn't need to. It's there when he pulls her off balance and on to the floor.
Steph rolls him over so she's kneeling on top of him. The brace on her leg clicks and it hurts, but it's worth it. She pulls his hand under her skirt. "Robin," she says.
It's weird, but she smells more like herself than she has done in a while. She hadn't even noticed, or maybe hadn't let herself notice it, but since the incident, since she got fired for not being the Robin Batman thinks he wants (and it's not like she can blame him for wanting Tim back, but it’s a relief to feel justified in her anger at him), she hasn't smelt right.
She does now, because under the smell of sex and sweat, there are faint traces of something else. The smell of gunfire and the traces of the docks, adrenaline and blood and the flat, almost non-smell of the Robin suit. It's second hand, something that Tim earned tonight, but she's missed it.
She showers anyway, because she's too practical not to, but it gives her enough strength to go to her chest and take out the boxes for Spoiler, the various souvenirs and tools, and then, underneath, feel on the flat surface for the release, wait the 34 seconds for it to disarm and then lift out the false bottom.
It's wrapped up in tissue and beyond repair, cleaned and useless. Alfred sent it — she can recognise that particular care to detail that leaves you flayed — but she doesn't know if he did it on his own, or if it was a message from Batman. The special linings, the lock-picks in the collar and the tools in the belt have all been removed. It's being declawed, and there's only one gauntlet left. The torso is wrecked, a big fucking great hole in it, the tights ruined by the same thing that took out her knee and it's a monument to her failure.
If she lets it be.
She lays it out and nods. Not much to work on, but the first Spoiler suit was mostly spandex and pleather anyway.
Steph's getting almost comfortable with Tim's safe-house. It's not in the best part of the 'haven, but it's not in the worst either, good neutral ground and lots of empty buildings around it. She takes the high road up there, but takes it easy on the jumps. Her leg still isn't completely fixed and she needs to build up her stamina.
She makes herself at home and waits with the lights out, letting her eyes adjust. The furniture clashes enough to make the place look lived in, even if she knows it isn't. New TV and old chairs, a couch that acts as a daybed. A few random blurred snapshots that could be anyone stuck on the wall.
Tim probably knows she's here, so she's not surprised when he gets in after what must be a short patrol. She's a little more surprised when she hears someone come in with him.
"I thought about calling first to tell you I was coming, but I thought hey, that's what security systems are for," Steph says, stepping out from the shadows. She switches the lights on. Tim and Nightwing and in uniform, masks on. She'd wanted to do this with Tim first, but maybe it's best this way.
"I got Cass to let me use some of the material from one of her spare uniforms," Steph says. She holds up one black gauntlet and wriggles her fingers. Nightwing and Tim aren't saying anything, so she uses it to draw along the black V that stretches across her breasts, the Robin R floating on top. "Home Ec comes in pretty handy sometimes."
"Steph," Tim says, and swallows. "You look like — " he frowns a little, like Cass looking for words.
"What?" Steph says. "Do you think it gets the message across?" She looks at Nightwing now and turns around. Yellow, stylised wings on the bottom of the cloak, and maybe she was pushing it, but…
"It's not subtle," Nightwing says. "Thank you. For the compliment."
"Thank you," she says. "For the clue." She puts one hand on her hip and smiles, making it a Robin grin, wide and sharp. It's the first time in weeks that she's felt right in her own skin. Her body still isn't quite back to fighting form, but she feels almost drunk on the rightness of it.
Nightwing looks at Tim, and she thinks they might be talking, but she can't catch any of their silent communication and Nightwing looks back at her and walks over. She can feel a surge of adrenaline, like she wants to fight or dance or fuck and when she grins at him, he smiles back before walking around to stand behind her.
"You could have met up with us earlier," he says.
"I don't think I'm ready for a full patrol yet," she says. "I'm reckless maybe, but not stupid."
"Hmm."
It's being held. Nightwing's hands on her hips, holding her back to his front and it's familiar, being held like this, but in ways that don't match. He feels more like her boyfriends before, taller, broader, but he smells like Tim. Same compounds used in his costume, same post-patrol smell of sweat and controlled violence. It's not exactly the same, but it's closer than any civilian would get, and 99% of the capes as well, and it's a good smell, makes Steph feel wired and at home at the same time. She keeps her breathing steady, but she rolls her hips against him.
"I — " Tim looks at her, at Dick. "You look how I felt the first time I saw myself in the uniform."
"I think it's a universal," she says.
"A lot of people feel that way when they see you in the suit," Dick says, enough humour in his voice for them to take it seriously.
Tim makes a sound like he's choking. It makes Steph want to purr, or at least push against Nightwing again.
"It's one of my kinks," she says, and lets her voice show her smugness.
"You've done this before?" Nightwing says. "In uniform?"
"You don't already know?"
Dick laughs and even if she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t feel it, she’d still know it was happening just by looking at Tim. "That stalking thing is really more Oracle."
"So that's where he gets it from?" Steph says, moving one of Dick's hands up to her breast. She lets her head fall back on to his shoulder. It feels good, and not just because Dick knows what to do when a girl in costume presses herself against him, or because Tim is watching, but because it's banter, it's being part of it, of the family.
"No," Dick says. "No, that comes naturally to him. Did he ever tell you that he was stalking me for years before he ever made contact?
"Years of just watching you?" Steph says. She leans her head back against him and looks up. Her skin is buzzing with this, with the feeling of things falling in to place. "Tim has way too much self-control," she says, grinning and she knows that it's a little bit more like his grin than it was a few days ago.
"Yeah." Dick lowers his head so his lips are almost touching hers. "Wanna see him lose it?" He whispers.
And she has to brace herself to stay standing, because it's not like she's been thinking about that for years, no, really. Dick Grayson, Nightwing at her back and Tim in front and it's just — it shouldn't be this easy, but it is, because she knows, she gets it, she's part of it. Like riding the high of the first time she put on the costume, that same sense of vindication and fuck, because she can feel Nightwing explore her new one, looking for how to get in to it.
"You have excellent hands," she tells him. "Just so you know." Fights the urge to laugh, and then doesn't because she knows he's not going to take it the wrong way. It comes out of her, a giddy relief and she can turn around and push up so she's got her legs around his waist, holding on tight enough to make up for the slipperiness of his uniform. The material is closer to the one Cass uses than she or Tim, but smoother even than that. She strokes it, then kisses him.
Excellent mouth as well, and she knows he used it on Tim, even if she hadn't stuck around to watch. It makes her kiss him harder, then stop and rest her forehead against his, feeling the edge of his mask on her skin. She can watch now, this time.
Dick walks with her wrapped around him over to the daybed, then she's sitting on his lap and it's familiar, making out in the back seat or on other people's sofas, back when she dated people that would never, never matter too much to her, would never know her or be a part of her.
He doesn't know her either, not like Tim does, but he's not a civilian, not an outsider. He's closer to her, to what she is, than Batman or Cass, even. She thinks she could call him Robin and it'd be okay.
"Steph, I — " Tim swallows and she hadn't heard him move until he was standing right behind her. She moves out of the way enough so he can lean over and kiss Dick, and that presses her against both of them in a way that has her breath coming out uneven. "Robin," Tim says. She doesn't know who he's aiming it at and it almost doesn't matter. Tim sits next to her and Dick, who's really making her think that this isn't his first time playing both ends against the middle, takes his hands and brings them up and around to Steph's breasts.
It's awkward on the daybed, really not designed for three or even two, but they make it work, even managing to stay on it after.
"You could go to San Francisco," Dick says. He's careful to keep his voice neutral, just offering her some options.
Steph nods, holding on to Tim so the movement doesn't send her tumbling off the bed. "I could go anywhere." She strokes Tim's neck, feeling for the scar. "But I've never been to San Francisco."
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