Chapter Text
Stephanie
There were many things that Stephanie would like to be doing right now. Patrolling. Sleeping. Stuffing her face with waffles. Hell, she would take reading through reports over this. But nooooooooo, she was stuck following Bruce around in the cold, damp, and reeking sewers on something that she is convinced has to be a wild goose chase.
No self respecting villain would be caught dead making plans in the sewers. Sure, there was Killer Croc, or the Court of Owls, but neither of those options deemed the title of ‘self respecting’ in Steph’s book. Her boot sinks down in something especially slimy as she trudges on, and she can’t help but grimace. Gross . She doesn’t even want to think about what that was. She might just have to torch her entire suit when they get out of here.
Instead of thinking about the smells, or the sloshing noise their footsteps make, Steph decides to put her efforts into attempting to read Bruce’s mind. His face is stoic as ever, but Steph just knows there have to be some wild thoughts going on in there. She tries to picture Bruce’s internal monologuing.
“Hm. Darkness. I am the Night. This sewer reminds me of my super cool cave, and it smells just like the boy’s locker room. Perfect. My natural habitat. I should move into the sewers. I could be even closer to Gotham, to the crimes. It would be so awesome. Robin would love-”
Her beautiful thoughts are disrupted when she crashes right into Tall Dark and Broody’s cape. She staggers and almost loses her balance, but her arm is caught by Bruce, who fixes her with a glare so sharp she almost thinks
he
might have been the mind reader. “Um, sorry,” She gives him a sheepish smile, not that it’s visible under the mask of her Spoiler suit.
Bruce grunts and goes over to the wall. It looks like just some random graffiti to Steph, but obviously Bruce was seeing something more in it as he studies it closely. Steph sighs heavily, crossing her arms as she waits. She didn’t know why she had to be the one Bruce dragged into the sewers. He doesn’t even like her.
…Maybe that was part of the point.
Steph waits for what seems like forever before Bruce finally turns towards her. “I think it’s some sort of enchantment. It looks magical.”
“Or some artist just thought it looked cool,” Steph rolls her eyes. Not everything with weird symbols on it in the sewers was magical.
“Still. I might call Constantine and have him take a look at it,” Bruce sighs heavily, a hand brushing against the wall carefully.
“It’s just some spray paint, Batman,” Steph pokes it as if to prove a point. As soon as he hand touches the paint, though, she finds that she can’t move. She widens her eyes as the symbols on the wall start glowing . Bruce pauses and takes her wrist, trying to pull her hand away.
The world goes black for a moment. Steph blinks a few times, and then pauses. She felt… Taller. And she’s staring at the purple glove of her Spoiler suit that she’s grasping onto with… Bruce’s… Glove.
Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
Steph lets go of her own arm, the hand going up to feel her face. No, Bruce’s face. She grasps the pointed ears at the top of the cowl, eyes widening in absolute horror. This couldn’t be happening.
Stephanie could picture absolutely nothing, not even death, being worse than what is happening to her right now. There were so many people in the world she could have swapped bodies with, and yet, she was stuck in Bruce. She would take Tim over this.
“Oh my god-” Steph says, and then freezes, because oh god. Her voice . It was terrible. Did Bruce just have a chronic sore throat?
“I told you it was magic,” Bruce narrows his eyes at her. Was Steph normally this intimidating when she glares at people, or is it just Bruce’s… Brucishness making her look scarier than usual? She can’t tell, but consider her intimidated. She bites her lip sheepishly.
“How was I supposed to know that touching it would do this?” Steph says after a moment of nothing but deep glares from Bruce.
“I told you it was magic,” Bruce simply repeats, and Steph knows it’s probably in his giant spreadsheet of rules somewhere that magical objects were not to be touched. But Steph was a rebel, and hadn’t actually read said spreadsheet. It was long and boring and usually full of improbable contingencies because of Bruce’s raging paranoia. Even after the events that her failure to read said spreadsheet have now caused, she has absolutely no regrets.
Steph sighs heavily and shakes her head. “Okay, okay. Whatever. It’s done now, so how about we just go to the Cave, fix this, and then pretend it never happened. Deal?”
Bruce grunts and starts walking back to the car, going a bit slower than he normally would be. Steph follows behind with a frown that she supposes looks extra Bruce-like now that she has his face.
They get up right as rain is starting to pour, and Steph pointlessly tries to adjust the cowl over her face a bit more. Her nose scrunches up when that doesn’t work. She much prefers the hood that’s-
“Hey!” Steph huffs when she sees Bruce doesn’t have said hood on very well, letting the curls that Steph had spent her whole morning working on get wet. He was going to ruin everything .
“What?” Bruce turns to scowl over at her.
“You’re getting my hair wet! I worked hard on that,” Steph frowns at him. Bruce simply grunts, making no effort to cover the hair more. Rude.
With a heavy sigh, Steph climbs into the Batmobile’s passenger seat, which she’s sure is completely unfair. She’s technically Batman. She should be allowed to drive the Batmobile. But no.
Steph watches as the car begins driving off, heading towards the Batcave. Hopefully, they’d be able to figure everything out. And preferably, it would be soon. She stares down at her hands - Bruce’s hands, technically - flexing them as she waits. This was going to be a horribly long night, she could already feel it.