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With a near-silent thump , Stephanie landed on the pavement.
The shadows were almost alive, seeming to chew at the edges of her cape. Four street lights had been lost to the shootout that ended just moments earlier, leaving the alleyway even darker than normal.
Someone, during that firefight, had thrown a brick at a goon who Steph had definitely known was there, thereby preemptively saving her from a gunshot she totally would have dodged .
Steph had seen them duck into this alley, she’d swear on it.
A loaded clothesline obscured her view. Knowing that a likely-frightened possible-civilian could be lurking behind the thin wall of cotton, she crept forward slowly.
Then froze when the device in her ear crackled. “Steph, kiddo, you ready for movie night?”
“ Codenames, Nightwing. But he’s right, we should be heading back.”
“Re- lax , B. We got the best hacker on the planet guarding our lines.” Steph says, and smiles when she hears Babs snort. “I just gotta check something.”
Whoever had thrown that brick had saved her life, and she was going to find them.
Steph burst past the sheets and shirts, crowing her victory-
Only to spot a smoke-grey cat, much too small to be the brick-thrower. And also lacking thumbs.
“Oh. Just you.” The cat mrrows indignantly at her. “I saw something,” she mutters, “I swear .”
“I’m sure you did,” Batman murmured, amusement clear even through the communicator. “It’s time to turn in.”
“Mock me at your peril , masked man!” Her tone was playful, despite the confrontational word choice.
With a heavy sigh, but no backward glance, the third Robin left the alleyway and climbed onto her bike.
Slipping out from the shadows beneath a gargoyle, a brick-thrower snatched up his camera bag and turned homeward.
For the night, Tim’s work was done.
Someone was following them. She was sure of it.
She’d felt eyes on her back through their whole patrol.
“Robin, pay attention.”
“I told you, old man, I’m trying to spot our creep!”
B looked at her, pressing his lips into a thin line, before sighing. “ He said he felt someone too.” Steph knows who he’s talking about, and feels a little honored that B even mentioned her predecessor. On patrol, even!. She knows he doesn’t like to.
Also, Jason thought he’d felt a watcher too?
“Really, how often?”
B grunted .
Yeah, that was about as much of an answer as she was going to get.
Patrol continued mostly as-normal, but she caught him subtly scanning the shadows near as often as she was.
The second time she followed a smallish-person-shape only to have cornered a cat, Steph reached a genius conclusion.
“It’s a shapeshifter, of course !”
Batman grunted, effortlessly lifting his wayward partner by the cape and dropping her into the batmobile’s passenger seat.
Boy-shaped once more, their watcher fled.
It went on like this for another month, before-
“There it is again!”
“ Robin! ”
Heedless of Batman’s reprimand, Steph dove .
In response, the inhuman shadow-shape bolted , weaving its way around obstacles Steph struggled to dodge.
The chase seemed to last forever, Steph keeping up only out of a sheer, furious determination that any Green Lantern would weep to face.
That is, until she tripped on some weird lump and tumbled down towards the sidewalk. She hit the building’s fire escape twice, and slammed straight through the plastic lid of a dumpster.
That was going to fucking hurt.
It took her a good moment (or twenty) of gathering herself in order to slither miserably onto the pavement.
And of course, just her luck , there were a bunch of goon-types heading in her direction.
“Well, well, lookie here boys. We got ourselves a wonder girl.” Ugh.
“It’s girl wonder, morons , and you don’t ‘got’ anything.” The bravado was false- she was injured, badly, and Batman had fallen behind at least four blocks ago.
A dark shape swept over the alleyway, making all but two of the goons flee, cursing the Bat as they went.
Oh. Maybe B hadn’t fallen behind, after all.
Then she looks -
The black-shrouded figure crouching on the fire escape was not in any way human .
“Holy shit,” she breathed, as the remaining thugs raised firearms to point at the frankly terrifying creature.
“Robin, report! ” B snaps over the comm, but Steph can’t bring herself to answer.
It had a long, black snout filled with jagged, white teeth. Its neck, serpentine, curved down to a mass of shadowy body, which balanced compactly on the metal railing of the stairs. It had wings- massive bat wings -spread and seeming to block all light entering the alleyway.
Those teeth seemed to flash as the beast snarled, and then boomed-
“ MINE! ”
The thugs wisely fled.
And then it was looking at her.
What came out of her mouth was not an ‘eep’.
The creature moved smoothly, silent, like it really was a mass of shadow rather than a living thing.
Steph was a little awed, underneath all the terrified.
It stopped a little away from her, staring.
“Uhm… hi?”
The neck stretched and now Steph was holding her breath as that mouth full of teeth got closer- A black nose was gingerly sniffing at her leg, where a shard of dumpster plastic had made a definitely-going-to-need-stitches gash.
“ Hurt.”
“Get away from her!” B roared, swinging in from nowhere and slamming full force into what Steph was just now acknowledging was a dragon .
A dragon who talked .
“Wait!”
B still stood between them, poised to strike, but he paused.
The dragon didn’t lunge at them, but still glowered. Presumably because Batman had just been kicking all willy-nilly, Steph would be kinda mad about that too.
And yeah. Looking at the dragon now, they weren’t all that big. At least their body wasn’t. The wings, stretched out, were still massive, but the body probably wasn't any bigger than a German Shepherd.
Steph wiggled, trying to sit up better, and B hissed out a ‘ Robin ’ but she ignored him.
“You talked. ”
The dragon’s attention turned back to her. B went stiff .
“Yeah, you.” She grinned up at them. “You asked if I was hurt, and earlier you yelled-”
“ Mine. ”
“Yeah, that!”
“ Not yours.” B snapped, missing the point entirely. Their new dragon friend hissed. “She is not yours .” he reiterated.
And yeah, Steph could appreciate his assurance that no one owned her, because Steph definitely owned herself, thankyouverymuch, but now was not the time.
The dragon stepped forward again, pressing their nose right into B’s face, “ Mine. ”
Steph could see where this was going before the words moved through his clenched teeth.
“No, Robin is mine. ” Ugh, macho bullshit. “Robin belongs with Batman .”
The dragon snorted on him, sounding amused.
Mine too. ”
B puffed up, like an angry cat, she swears it.
The dragon appears to be immune to his posturing. “ Gotham ,” they say, “ mine. My place. Territory . ”
“Gotham is your home .” Steph inserts.
“ Yes, ” the dragon hisses, sounding pleased. “ I protect. Mine . ”
Bruce growls, probably at having his turf stepped in, but Steph gets it . This isn’t a declaration of ownership, it's one for a prospective partner .
The dragon protects Gotham, they protect Gotham. “We can protect our city, together. And we can protect each other.”
“ Yes .”
This is gonna be so cool.