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Batman is back.
No, that's not --
Bruce is back, sort of. And Dick is still Batman, sort of, his shoulders still with that sullen curve she doesn't need Cass to be able to read. And Barbara is breathing down her girlsquad's collective neck, again instead of hers. And Tim is fucking -- Tim. And Cass is gone. And the Wonderbrat has started calling her things she's pretty sure are farm animals in his mother tongue whenever she tries to instigate rooftop tag and she just. She just has to.
If another person looks at Steph with even mild disapproval she might actually implode on the spot. She's read about that, instead of her required reading, half a textbook on the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion, in between horror stories about female hitchhikers getting torn asunder by people in nondescript mitsubishis and what kind of berries are edible in the wilderness. And between all that, packing a bag and pulling up her hood and shoving the Batgirl suit to the very bottom.
Batman is back.
She just has to.
She's out of Gotham and halfway to the horizon before she starts swearing. The ipod is blaring the artificial fuzz of a digitally remastered Hole album and her knuckles are white around the steering wheel and god fuck dammit all to hell.
She slapped him. When he told her she was good. She was worthy. She slapped him and her palms are still buzzing from the crack of it, his stubble and his stupid peeping jaw that even her stupid mask stupid does, now.
Steph doesn't need Bruce Wayne to approve of her. She learned that when he never put a little Snow White glass coffin up in the cave to house a Robin suit with a funky headband.
It doesn't matter what he thinks about this.
Except, you know. How it does. How it always will. She's got his stupid sign scribbled right across her chest.
She bangs her head on the horn until it blares then turns the music up. Girly screaming is the mood of the hour, anyhow. She leans out of the window to smack the Now Entering Star City sign and speeds up until her skin feels loose.
"No," Dinah says, before Stephanie has even rang the doorbell, opening the door a crack just to scowl through. "Absolutely not. Tell Barbara I'm ---"
"First of all," Steph says, jamming her boot into the gap so Dinah can't squeeze her out. "We're not telling Barbara anything, she thinks I'm in Philosophy 201 right now. Second of all," Dinah pushes against the door hard enough to make Stephanie's foot slip, but her bag is already pushing through the space. "We need to talk about superhero dudes coming back from the dead and disrupting the good thing you've got going on. Know anyone who might be familiar with that struggle?"
Dinah narrows her eyes, looking deadly and gruff and kind of so hot Stephanie wants to propose they elope. "You're one to talk, kid," is all she says, pulling her by the collar and hauling her inside.
Steph's been around enough teen boy capes to have heard a thousand sermons on the hotness of Dinah Lance, but now, in her civvies, a worn-soft black and yellow flannel shirt and a pair of distressed jeans, Steph is kind of taken aback by it all over again. Her sleeves are turned up, revealing the corded muscle of her biceps. You can see it, even as she sits sipping tea at the kitchen table. Dinah could knock you senseless and you'd thank her for the privilege.
"You're quiet, and I don't trust it," Dinah says, shunting a plate of cookies over to Steph.
"You didn't bake these, did you?" Steph's heard the stories. Barbara maintains that the food poisoning Dinah gave her after attempting chicken Alfredo is the worst injustice her body has been through.
Dinah scowls at her. "No, smartass. You're safe."
Steph tries for a placating grin, but it's hard to perfect it with a mouthful of cookie. They're disturbingly good. Triple chocolate, still warm. Definitely not Dinah's. "So, Bruce."
Dinah takes a sip of tea and kicks her feet up on the table. "Ollie."
"Dead guys," Steph says over the lip of her own cup. "They're such pains in the ass."
Dinah laughs then, sharp and hard enough that the mug in Steph's hand vibrates a little.
"I saw him," Steph says. "I'm glad. I needed to. And I slapped him, which I kind of needed to do, too --"
Dinah chokes.
"Kid," Dinah coughs. "You are so my favourite bat."
Steph grins at her. "Like that's hard." She runs her fingers around the porcelain mug, just to do something with her hands. "It wasn't about him, you know? The symbol was always meant to be bigger than the man, he told me that when I was in the green tights. But it finally meant something to me when I put on the Batgirl suit and he wasn't around to see it, you know? It was for me."
Dinah hums, and Steph thinks she can feel it catch on her heartbeat. Or maybe that's just the natural reaction to Dinah. "Leaving Star City, being a Bird for Barbara, that was for me, too. I needed to know who I was again. And then Ollie…"
"And then Bruce." Stephanie finishes, grabbing another cookie from the plate. It's delicate china, a sweet floral pattern on the edge, and Stephanie notices for the first time that there are flowers on every surface in the kitchen, stenciled on the wall. It's not girlish, exactly, but the femininity almost surprises her, clashing with the sleek chrome of everything else.
"Here's what I think," Dinah says, reaching out across the table and touching the back of Steph's hand, warm, a little rough. "You've always known what you want, Stephanie. Sometimes to the point of recklessness. Whatever it is being Batgirl means to you, Bruce can't actually do a damn thing about it. Putting on a silly suit and beating the crap out of people isn't innate in anyone, you know, but I think you're old enough now to know what you've gotten yourself into."
Stephanie kind of flushes all over. "I had to get out for a while. Just to…"
Dinah smiles, a hundred thousand kilowatts. "And all the crime in Gotham will still be waiting for you when you get home. Trust me, I'm as much a part of that hellhole as you are."
Her hand is still touching Steph's, and Stephanie wants to tug it. Wants to… something. "I always forget you're one of us, really. You could have been a Bat."
Dinah laughs again, rough and undignified, the sound making Steph's stomach swoop. "Believe me, my mom gave me plenty of issues to take out on the riff-raff without needing to take on any of Brucie's." She pulls her hand back and grabs Steph's cup, shoving it in and her own into the sink with a clatter. "If you need to take out your frustrations on something, I think Mia and Connor are down in the training room."
Steph feels her face heat before she says it. "You don't want to take me on yourself?" She folds her arms across her chest, tries to make her adulthood look a little more defined.
"Not when you're looking at me like Roy's friends all used to." Dinah raises an eyebrow, but there's still something like fondness shining in her eyes.
"I mean, that just sounds like chickening out to me," Steph fires back, leaning against the counter with her hip.
Dinah holds a hand to Steph's chin and tilts it down enough to kiss her on the forehead, and Steph feels her heart pound against her ribs. "Nice try. And to think I was going to tell Mia to take it easy on you."
Steph could process that, or she could focus on Dinah's hand being so warm on her, on the firm, sure pressure of that kiss on her skin.
Mia does not take it easy on her.
It feels good, laughing as she spins and flips away from strikes. Mia's not as chatty as Steph but she coaxes it out of her until they're both almost more breathless from quipping than they are from trying to kick each other in the mouth.
She feels bruised in the good way when Mia gets her on the mats, on her back, pinned down by the lighter girl. She could toss her if she really wanted, Mia isn't as controlled as Cass. She's trained with Connor and Dinah, though which is almost as good.
Stephanie holds her own, and it feels like a puzzle piece slotting into place. She flips them over, gets Mia's hands pinned and pulled away from her body, then tangles their legs like a wrestler would, keeps her trussed up and immobile until she grins and calls time. Connor isn't even watching them, is in the corner doing a tai chi sequence with so much control it makes Steph want to hit him, a little. Dinah, though, is whooping from the side of the mat.
Mia scowls at her and mutters kiss ass under her breath, and Dinah smacks her lightly on the shoulder for it.
Mia does turn back to Stephanie, though, her eyes glittering as she starts to stretch out her abused muscles. "You should come back here," she says. "Patrol with us sometime. Star City won't know what hit it."
Steph glows, a little bit, under the look Mia gives her. She's not Dinah's, or Ollie's, really, but she has that Queen slant to her smile. "Yeah," she finds herself saying. "Yeah, I think I might."
"Get a room," Dinah yells, now grappling with Connor, the two of them moving smoothly as water.
And Steph knows, and wants to flinch, a little, but Mia looks at Steph, cooly, then back at Dinah. "Don't give me ideas."
Steph swallows and stretches her arms above her head. She knew she should have found a bow and arrow instead of doing gymnastics. "How do you deal living in a house full of crazy hot people?"
Mia looks at her and laughs. "Girl, you're a bat."
And yeah, okay, point taken.
Dinah offers her dinner, and promises she wasn't the one to make it, but Steph…
If Steph stays, she's going to do something. She's going to press Dinah against the kitchen counter and kiss her so hard it ruins every conversation they ever have again.
If Steph stays, she's going to ask Mia to run away with her.
If Steph stays, Barbara is going to send someone to get her, and Steph will have to meet her eye and say something she still doesn't have a language for.
Instead, she writes her number in purple sharpie on Mia's forearm and hugs Dinah so tightly she gets pins and needles in her arms, holding onto a fantasy before letting it flutter away. She crams herself back into the compact, takes seven to eight deep breaths, then finds the road again.
She's going home.
Eventually.