Chapter Text
The next week, Steph found herself waking up, curled up next to Clark on his couch. Clark was asleep, and Damian’s feet were on Clark’s lap. Damian was sleeping, too. Credits were rolling on the TV, and Steph remembered that she and Clark had gotten outraged when Damian had said that he’d never seen Cinderella before, and had forced him to watch it with them. Steph looked around the room and noticed that everything seemed oddly domestic. They had been in Metropolis five weeks. That’s more than a month, Steh realized. She wondered if Bruce and Dick and Tim and Cass and Barbara and Jason were doing okay. She hoped so. Clark stirred sleepily. He looked at her.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” Steph answered. “Can you check on Gotham?” Clark’s eyes softened with sympathy, then his eyes glazed over as if he was looking at something far away. His gaze snapped back.
“There’s lead in the way,” he informed her.
“Oh,” Steph said. “Can you check sometime when there’s not lead in the way?” Clark nodded and smiled.
“Sure,” he said. Steph smiled at him back, then looked at Damian’s feet on Clark’s lap. She tapped his foot. It didn’t lash up and kick her in the face, which was either a testament to how relaxed he was or to how much he’d changed since his League ways. Damian lifted his head up a little to look at Steph.
“What?” he growled out. Steph smiled at him, big and sunny.
“Why did Cinderella get kicked off the soccer team?” she asked.
“Is this a riddle? Because those are childish and--”
“Just ask why, Damian,” Steph sighed. Clark looked between the two of them, bemused.
“Fine. Why?”
“Because she kept running from the ball!” she answered. Damian’s glare deepened. Clark chuckled.
“You’re just as bad as Grayson,” Damian said.
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Steph informed him. Clark laughed.
-----
“Gotham’s fine,” Clark reported. “All three Batmen are fighting and are alive and well. Some villains are captured.” They were on the roof of the Daily Planet, so Clark could see the dome that was Gotham.
“What about Black Bat?” Steph asked, concerned. “Is she okay?” Clark’s eyes glazed over and he nodded.
“She’s fine. She’s with a Batman.”
“Catwoman? Red Hood?”
“Both fine,” Clark said.
“What about Abuse?” Damian asked unexpectedly from next to them. Clark looked confused.
“Who’s Abuse?” Damian described him briefly and Clark’s eyes glazed over again. “He’s not anywhere,” Clark said. He rested a hand on his shoulder as if to offer him sympathy. Damian shook it off.
“I have no emotional connections to Abuse,” Damian said.. “We just teamed up together once or twice. See how Colin’s doing.” He described Colin to Clark. Clark looked for him, then smiled.
“Colin’s fine,” he said. “Do you have anyone else, Stephanie?”
“My friend Nell,” she asked. She described her to him and Clark found her quickly.
“She’s with Colin, actually,” he said. “They look like they’re friends.”
“Eww,” Steph said. Damian nodded.
-----
The next time Steph and Damian went out as Superrobin(s), they spotted a bunch of shady looking thugs circling the streets in an alley. They had no comms or special tech, so the kids hid behind garbage cans in the alley to eavesdrop. The thugs were talking about a drug deal. Steph didn’t understand all of it, but it sounded seriously illegal. It sounded like they were gonna get a buttload of money, though.
“Let’s go,” Steph whispered to Damian.
“You take the top, I’ll take the bottom,” Damian whispered back. “One...two...three…”
“Not so fast,” a cold voice said from behind them. Steph whirled around. She could feel Damian do the same. A bald man in a nice suit stood there, with his arms crossed and a cruel smile on his face. He was familiar, although he wasn’t like any of Gotham’s villains.
“Lex Luthor,” Damian snarled, and Steph suddenly remembered. Ah yes, Lex Luthor of LexCorp. He was a sadistic genius with an unlimited supply of Kryptonite. And judging by the movement in the corner of her eye, the thugs were closing in on them. Oh darn.
“Yes, Superboy, it’s me. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been wanting to meet you two,” Lex said. “But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take you in.” He snapped and two of the thugs pulled out glowing green rocks from their bags. Steph realized, suddenly, that Lex had no idea she and Damian weren’t Kryptonian. They wore Superman’s shield, so they must seem it. Plus the way Steph and Damian had been working, Bat-style, which is 98% dramatics/mystery and 2% crime fighting, he had no solid evidence of any technique in which they fought. In addition, most of the people they’d saved had probably been hysterical, and made stuff up about them flying to the rescue or something. Steph realized all of this in a manner of seconds. It took her another two seconds to form a plan and act on it.
“Oh no, Kryptonite, our only weakness,” Steph said, trying to sound faint. “I can feel the power being drained out of me!” Damian looked at her like she was crazy. She made a tiny gesture that meant in Batspeak to play along. He did so, and dramatically.
“No….no…” Damian said, falling to his knees and clutching his chest. “This isn’t possible…” Steph collapsed in a dead faint, skipping the acting and just going right for the chase.
“I’m sorry, Superboy, but it is,” Lex said, sounding entirely too smug. Damian fell over next to her, and Steph wondered if Lex had, like, tapped his shoulder or something and Damian had fallen over in his state of “weakness”.
“You won’t get away with this,” Damian croaked. “Superman will save us.”
“Oh, my dear child,” Lex said. Steph could see his manic grin in her mind. “That’s exactly what I’m hoping for.”
-----
Steph felt herself being carried and then put down. She felt Damian next to her. She heard and felt a plane take off. She kept her eyes closed. The plane landed. She was roughly carried someplace and strapped to a vertical table. She heard Lex pacing and saying to a guard that they should come to any time now. She waited for another minute before opening her eyes blearily and looking around as if confused. Damian’s eyes were already open. He looked bored, but when Lex turned to face them, he put on a simpering expression of fear. Steph strained against her restraints.
“L-let us go, you monster!” Steph cried.
“Hmm,” Lex said, frowing. “Superman is always much calmer when he loses his powers.”
“We aren’t Superman,” Damian whimpered. “If we were, we’d have busted out of here long ago.” Lex made sure the Kryptonite was still in place before he walked up close to them.
“You two really are children,” Lex said. He sounded disappointed. “Why does Kal have two children fighting his battles for him?”
“Why are you hiding behind Kryptonite?” Damian retorted, evidently unable to pretend to be cowering for too long.
“Yeah,” Steph said. “I mean, we’re just kids.”
“Kryptonian kids,” Lex corrected. “That means super strength, super speed, super vision, super hearing….” Steph tuned Lex out as he continued to list all of Superman’s powers. He wasn’t facing them anymore, so Steph turned to Damian.
"/Is he monologuing/?" she whispered in Swahili.
"/No/," Damian responded, rolling his eyes. Or at least Steph assumed he was rolling his eyes. They were covered by the white lenses of his mask. "/Monologuing would be revealing his plan, idiot. He is simply listing things we already know, and if we did have those powers, we’d be even more familiar with./"
“Are you speaking Kryptonian?” Lex asked. For a genius, he was sort of dumb.
"/Maybe/," Steph said. Lex frowned, then looked out the window.
“Where is Superman?” he muttered. “He should be here by now.”
"/Wasn’t he in space/?" Steph asked.
"/Yes. Keep up, Brown/," Damian said.
"/So we’ll have to rescue ourselves, then./"
"/Were you going to wait around for Kent to rescue you? Because if you were, then--/"
“Okay, stop talking,” Lex interrupted. “Clearly I’ll have to run some tests to attract him.”
“Tests?” Steph asked in a small voice. Lex grabbed a box of Kryptonite and snapped, summoning some guards. The guards wheeled the table Steph and Damian were strapped to and went down a hall, following Lex. Steph looked at Damian, whose gaze was hard. An understanding passed between them. When they arrived at the room there the testing would take place, Steph had to close her eyes to steady herself. She eased back memories of the Black Mask and focused on the task at hand. Lex unstrapped them--and unstrapping one was unstrapping them both--so Steph fell out onto the floor. Lex held on to Damian’s arm.
“We’ll start with you, shall we?”
“No,” Steph said. Damian seemed to understand.
“Like hell you’ll be doing anything to me, Luthor,” he hissed. He wrenched his arm out of Lex’s grasp. Steph jumped up and reached for the guards. There was a flurry of flips and the sound of leather gloves hitting flesh. Lex and the guards were taken off guard, but after a few seconds they managed to fight back. Damian picked up two spears of glowing blue Kryptonite and started sparring with all three guards at once, while Steph kicked Lex in the crotch then tied him to the table. She used the table as a springboard and flipped over Damian’s fight, looking for a way to seal up the Kryptonite. She found a big chest that looked lead-lined, and she shoved as much as she could into it. When she turned around, only one man was still fighting Damian, with the other two knocked out. Damian clobbered the last man over the head, shattering one Kryptonite spear. The man went down and Damian tossed the other spear back to Steph, who caught it and put it in the chest.
“I...I don’t understand,” Lex said. “W-why…? Superman never--”
“Sorry to break it to you, but we’re not Superman,” Steph said. “We are an entirely different breed of hero.”
“Vigilante,” Damian muttered.
“Shut up, Superchild,” Steph said. “Either way, you just got owned by a couple of prepubescent members of the Superfamily while surrounded by Kryptonite. How does that feel?” Lex glared at her. Steph smiled. Damian smirked. Clark came in through the window.
“Hey guys, sorry I’m late,” he said. Clark surveyed the scene in front of him. “Though it looks like you didn’t need my help.”
“Have we ever?” Damian scoffed.
“No, probably not,” Clark said, smiling. Then he scooped up Damian and Steph, ignoring Damian’s protests, and flew back out the window.
-----------
Clark flew in a different direction than his apartment, so at first Steph thought they were going to the Fortress. But the Fortress was in a different direction, and they don’t go that far before Superman landed. On a farm. He set them down and Steph saw fields and fields and a really pretty farmhouse.
“Where are we?” Damian demanded. “What are we doing here?”
“If you’re going to get kidnapped and tortured by being Superboy and Supergirl--or Superrobin, whatever--then you can’t anymore,” Clark said. “And I know you won’t listen to me, so. Welcome to Smallville.”
------------------
It took five minutes for Steph to realize that Martha Kent was a gift from God. It took five more minutes for Damian to realize not to mess with her. It took another few minutes before Steph’s mind was blown with the pure realization that maybe, just maybe, impossible as it seemed, Alfred was not the absolute best cook in the world. Steph wasn’t making any commitments yet about who was better, but holy cookies, Batman, that woman could cook.
Clark left them and returned a few minutes later with their clothes. He tried to leave, saying he had to be up early, but Martha laughed and said, “Son, you always, without fail, wake up at the crack of dawn whenever you stay here. Sleep now, and sonic boom your way to Metropolis later.” Then she told Steph and Damian to call her Ma. Damian fidgeted uncomfortably and told her that he preferred to refer to everyone by their surnames. Ma said that that was fine, but call her Ma. Maybe Ma Kent. Then she sent them off to bed, and took their Superrobin suits to the laundry.
Steph was pretty sure she was in love.
----------------
The next few days were nice. Ma let Damian beat up some scarecrows with a stick, so he wasn’t entirely insufferable. She also had them both do chores, which Damian complained about and Steph did graciously.
And Steph mentioned one day that she was a waffle person, and the next day Ma put a pile of the most fluffy, beautiful waffles Steph had ever seen in front of her. Steph was ready to cry, and Damian teased her for it, but she just ate the waffles. They were really, really, good and Steph knew that in the breakfast front, at least, Ma had surpassed Alfred. She felt almost blasphemous for thinking it. Supermom cooking better than the Batler? No way. But it was true, though Steph still firmly believed in Alfred’s dinners and post-patrol snacks. She had heard good things about Ma’s pie, though…..
Food aside, Steph liked it at the farm. It was a nice change of pace from big cities that were at least partially owned by Bruce Wayne. Damian didn’t admit it, but Steph thought he liked it there, too.
---------------
They were at the farm for three weeks before Clark came back. Steph was shucking corn (who’d ever thought she’d need to do that?) and Damian was murdering yet another scarecrow. Ma had it set up so he’d kill one, then he’d have to fix it, then he could kill it again. It was therapeutic, Steph suspected.
Clark landed in front of them in his full Superman glory. Steph looked up from her spot on the porch, her fingers tangled in corn silk.
“Get dressed,” Clark said, his voice tight. “We’re going on a field trip.”
---------------
A few hours later, Steph was in the Watchtower. As in space. As in the Justice League. As in fangirl screeching.
They’d found a way into Gotham, apparently, but it was too dangerous to let them go with. So Clark had decided to bring them up there so they could watch, at least. There were cameras all over the monitors, showing places from all over the world. Steph thought that Babs would explode if she ever saw this. Wonder Woman (!!) set up the monitors to show Gotham from all angles. Then the JL prepared to leave.
“Good luck,” Steph said, trying not to fangirl too much.
“And to you as well, Super….?” Wonder Woman said, at a loss as to what to call her.
“Batgirl works,” Steph said shyly.
“Good luck to you two as well, Batgirl and Robin,” Wonder Woman said, smiling.
“We’ll be back before you know it,” Flash said.
“Don’t try to work the teleporters,” Green Arrow said, frowning.
“They won’t,” Superman assured them. “Right?” He turned a Super Glare at them. Unfortunately for him, both Damian and Steph were aware that he was a big Disney nerd from Kansas, so they weren’t actually threatened. In addition, they were Batkids. They were exposed to the Bat Glare™ daily. Nonetheless, the kids promised to stay in the tower. Then the League teleported away, one by one.
-------------
It started out with the League just circling the dome, going around it. Then they huddled up and Steph wished there was auto.
“This is boring,” Damian complained.
“It it not,” Steph said. “It’s been two seconds. Give them time.” Wonder Woman flew up to the top of the dome, landed on it, yelled something down to her comrades. Flash ran up the side and joined her, and looked at something. Superman was standing off to the side, listening, it seemed. He was probably trying to avoid the Kryptonite in the wall, Steph thought. Flash sped back down and consulted with Green Arrow and Black Canary. Then they all stood to the side, and Wonder Woman grabbed a sheet of metal--about ten by fifteen feet long--off the top, throwing it to the side. Steph saw no visible difference in the giant dome over Gotham, but Wonder Woman yelled something that looked like “Quick!” and Superman flew Green Arrow up and Black Canary rode piggyback on Flash. All of them disappeared into the hole at the top.
“Lame,” Damian said. “I’m going to explore.”
“Wait,” Steph said. “Shouldn’t we--”
“No,” Damian cut her off. He got up and left. Steph sighed and watched the monitors.
-----------
Ironically, Steph woke up by the lights turning off. She looked around. All she could see was the glow from the monitors. The dome was unchanged. Steph wished Batman wasn’t so stubborn and there were cameras in Gotham.
Steph got up and almost tripped over Damian, who was laying on the ground, holding a sword.
“Where did you get that?” Steph asked. She saw his smirk in the light of the monitors.
“Father’s rooms are surprisingly well stocked,” he said. Steph rolled her eyes and laid down parallel to him, but like five feet away. She fell asleep again to the sound of Damian swishing his new sword around.
-----------
When she woke up, Steph could tell something was off. Once glance at Damian confirmed this, even though it was still dark. As one, they turned around. All Steph could see were shadows. IN fact, more than shadows, because--
“Father?” Damian breathed, then Batman stepped out of the shadows, looking battered but alive, and Steph launched herself into Bruce’s arms, and Damian flew into Dick’s--had he always been standing there?--and she buried her face into his shoulder, smelling leather and Kevlar and blood and that distinct Gotham smell.
“You’re alive,” Steph said, her voice muffled.
“Same to you,” Dick gasped, sounding like Damian was squeezing him. Steph pulled back from Bruce’s shoulder and looked at his face. He hadn’t shaved in a while.
“Can we come back to Gotham now?” Steph asked. The corners of his mouth twitched up.
“Batman needs a Robin,” Bruce said. Steph imagined that his eyes shifted to Damian and Dick. “And Robin needs a Batgirl.”
--------A YEAR LATER-----------------------
Clark Kent sat in the corner of the event. He could hear socialites giggling and people making business deals. He kept an ear on Lex as he shifted his gaze to seek out the man of the hour. It took him a second, but he found Bruce Wayne, waving his drink around and telling a highly dramatic story to a pair of models. Clark figured he’d interview the billionaire later. His gaze drifted around the room. He spotted Tim Drake-Wayne, the rising CEO of Wayne Enterprises, talking to a group of reporters, including Lois. He saw Dick Grayson, Brucie Wayne’s oldest, doing much the same as his adopted father, except the girls he was chatting up were redheaded, not blonde. There were other famous people to see, but right behind Dick were two kids. They looked like they were bickering, with the boy’s arms crossed and the girl’s eyebrows furrowed. Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s only biological son and Stephanie Brown, Bruce Wayne’s newest ward. Clark watched them. He didn’t tune into their conversation, preferring to keep his ears to where they should be. Steph’s eyes wandered around the room, and caught on Clark. He didn’t move. She elbowed Damian, nodding towards the reporter. Damian made eye contact and gave a curt nod. Steph smiled at him. Clark put a finger on his lips and melted into the crowd, winking.
---
Here's an awful drawing of Superrobin!Steph