Chapter Text
With purple wrapped around her shoulders and flowing down to her ankles, her hair bundled up tightly, close to her head, and hidden behind a sports mask and thick hood, Stephanie stood on the edge of her window, twelve years old, shaking from the windchill, and the anticipation of what she was about to do.
If she strained her ears, she almost thought she could hear them – Batman, and maybe Robin. Maybe even Batgirl, even though no one was sure if she existed. Whispering in the dead of night as they flew overhead, keeping people safe.
She thought of her supplies – strapped to her thigh, in her backpack hidden under her cape, several cans of spray paint. One can had cost half her allowance, so she may have, uh, borrowed the rest of them from the art store. Under her chin, a whistle, just in case she needed to grab attention. Her boots were too big for her but were tipped with steel caps on the toes. Perfect for kicking ass and taking names – perhaps literally.
Steph inhaled the industrial smog that hung over Gotham like a funeral veil, leant out into the wind, letting it catch her billowing cape, allowing herself to feel something like majestic and wondrous, ready to leap out into the great, dark unknown-
The door to the apartment banged.
Shit.
Her dad – he was home early . She dove off the windowsill and stripped herself down to her underwear, kicking her costume under her bed and barely managing to pull her thin comforter over herself before the door to her room cracked open, a thin wedge of warm yellow light pooling inside, blocked only by a large, hulking figure in the doorway.
“Stephie? You asleep?” a low, harsh voice whispered, in a pantomime of kindness. Steph made no noise, keeping herself as still as possible. She couldn’t smell alcohol, just cigarettes. That was good, he was always meaner if he smelt of booze.
“Freezing in here,” he muttered, stepping into her room, and sending her pounding heart into her throat. Please don’t notice the costume, please don’t notice the costume –
He shut her window, latching it, before leaning over to press a kiss stinking of smoke and metal into her hair. “Sleep well, my girl.” He said softly. Steph wondered if he could hear how hard she was straining to keep herself statue-still. He could probably hear her heart, pounding so hard against her ribs it felt like it was trying to escape.
Arthur Brown left her room, and Steph silently exhaled. That, now that , had been far too close . She dreaded to think of what he would’ve done if he’d noticed the costume bundled up under her bed, or worse , if she hadn’t been fast enough to get out of it, or out of the window. Her heart hurt, crawling up her throat.
She’d have to burn the costume or unpick the threads and sew it into something else. Maybe an extra blanket, because she was shivering under this one, and it was only September.
Who was she kidding? She may have been good at beating those boys in fights on the floor below, but those were boys who were only a few years older than her. Her father was a real bad guy. She couldn’t take him in a fight. She couldn’t even admit to being awake around him.
Curling up tighter around herself, she mourned her one attempt at really, really spoiling his plans. She was giving up, after a lifetime of hoping, because realistically, in what world would Stephanie Brown be a superhero?
Five years later, Stephanie Brown was the opposite of a superhero.
Stephanie scooched a little further into the air duct, flicking the magnet she had along the metal. Earlier that day, Dean - her boyfriend, and her dad’s favourite employee - had snuck in as a maintenance man, and glued an incredibly powerful magnet to the other side of the vent. She had the other magnet, and since there wasn’t a handy air vent right on top of the storage facility, she had to get creative with plotting out where exactly she was.
She flicked the magnet again, sending it skidding across metal, until it came to a sudden stop just four feet in front of her. She grinned to herself under her mask. Bingo.
Three hundred million dollars’ worth of diamonds, eight feet and a thin sheet of metal between them and Stephanie. Casual Tuesday night, if you asked her.
She slipped her favourite screwdriver out of her left forearm pocket. Her entire jumpsuit was covered in internal pockets, precisely for this sort of mission. She flipped onto her back, and began slowly unscrewing one of the ducts. She had sixteen screws to do, total, but there was also the issue of the sealant - Dean had confirmed, it wasn’t duct tape like they’d all hoped.
No problem, though. She had a packet of vinegar, a bottle of WD-40, and a tiny bottle of vodka in her belt. She’d learnt how to dissolve silicone sealant when she was fourteen, as a Christmas present.
A lot of her presents, ever since she was thirteen and had tearfully confessed to her dad over a prison phone that she would do anything to keep him out of Blackgate Prison. And he had ideas of what ‘anything’ could mean.
That same night, she’d met a seventeen year old Dean, and committed her first burglary. True to his word, her dad had been out of prison since. Turns out, the only thing his small supervillain team was missing was a girl thin enough to slide through windows.
She carefully collected the four screws that had dropped from the duct and onto her chest. She slid forwards, pushing herself with her feet, and quickly began unscrewing the other side. She just needed one section of it out, she was small enough to fit through tighter spaces as it was.
All the top screws were out, finally. Only took her forty eight seconds - embarrassing. Her dad wanted her to do it in twenty.
She took out the vinegar packet, and the bottle of vodka. It was only about the length of her hand, and even then, it was pretty slim. Maybe only a shot and a half’s worth.
Biting down on the cap, she twisted the bottle until it unscrewed. She ripped open the vinegar packet with her teeth, poured it in, and fumbled for the WD-40. It was still kind of insane to her that she bought all the supplies she needed for this mission at her local hardware store - granted, Dean was twenty-one, so he got the alcohol, but everything else was her.
Finally, she grabbed the WD-40, and sprayed a healthy amount into the bottle, screwed the cap back on, and shook it. Ideally, this would take several hours to soften up the silicone sealant, but Steph had a pocket knife and some serious audacity. Where she could see the off-white outline of the sealant, she pushed her mask back up her nose, squinted, and undid the bottle. She drizzled some on her glove, and squeezed it out onto the sealant above her. God, that smelt awful .
She scooched backwards, and turned onto her front, pouring the remaining liquid onto the joints of the bottom half of the duct. She kept quiet, and the first thing she heard after a few agonising seconds was a drop of liquid on the metal floor. Perfect .
She pulled her penknife out, flicked open the longer of the two knives, and quickly sliced through the sealant. Okay, half the screws and all the sealant, done. Now to completely detach the duct without it falling to the ground and bringing Stephanie with it.
She pocketed the first eight screws, and shifted her weight onto her hips. She double-checked her weight wasn’t on the actual duct, and reached her arms out. Unscrewing things from a distance was one of the worst parts about breaking and entering supposedly high security storage facilities, in her humble opinion.
Okay, twelve out, four more to go. And this was the tricky part.
She kept one hand on the ‘lid’ of the duct, and slowly unscrewed the four remaining. As soon as she did, she felt the duct’s weight shift, and press on to her hand. Okay, now or never.
She put her other hand through the small gap she’d created, and pushed up. The duct wobbled, and the side pieces fell inwards - Steph quickly shoved her hand in between to make sure they didn’t make a loud noise.
Now, with her four sheets of metal that used to be a duct, Steph stacked them as neatly as she could on her stomach, and put them inside the remaining duct. Now, this was the easy part.
As quickly as she dared, she leant forward, slowly pushing herself out and folding herself in half until only her hips were still in the duct. Just as Dean had promised, there was a light fixture that’d work as a gymnastics bar, for just a second.
She reached out, and grabbed it, holding her breath as the rest of her body followed. As she came out of the air duct, she let go of the light, and used her momentum to somersault in the air. She landed, albeit shakily, on her feet.
“Take that , Gotham U.” she muttered. ‘Not eligible for a gymnastics scholarship’ her ass.
The diamonds themselves weren’t even in a safe - just out in the open, on a red velvet chaise lounge, held together in a delicate silk drawstring bag. It was easy. Too easy.
“Rich people are idiots,” she murmured to reassure herself, reaching up to her forearm, and undoing the zip.
Slowly, she transferred every single diamond into a pocket, one at a time. They needed to be evenly spaced out, or she’d look odd, and bulky. Plus, a very expensive DIY bulletproof vest was never a bad idea.
Soon, she was quickly, literally , covered head to toe in diamonds. There was one rattling around in her shoe, and she’d knotted one in her hair. Just in case.
Dragging that hideous couch out into the middle of the room, she shook herself loose, climbed on top of it, and pushed off of it, leaping for the air duct. It made a loud, metal clanging noise when she grabbed it, but by the time the security guards had figured out which storage room it was, and came running in, Steph had screwed everything back into place, and was already crawling back up to the ceiling, where she had come in in the first place.
“Hey, drummer.” Dean said, as Steph wheezed her way out through the air conditioning vent. She was not built to climb up a vertical shaft with only her shoulders and feet for that long, especially not covered in diamonds. “You get the goods?”
“Yeah, and they’re fuckin’ heavy.” she muttered, rolling onto her back. “Give me a sec, I gotta catch my breath.”
“ Shh ,” Dean snapped. “Someone will hear you. And we gotta go now .”
“Okay, okay,” Steph groaned, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “I’m comin’ already.”
Dean opened his mouth to say something, but then paused. Before Steph could even ask what was wrong, he kicked her in the ribs, and fled down the fire escape. Steph choked and coughed, and looked up - to see Batgirl standing over her.
Ah. Right. No honour amongst thieves, as the saying went.
But clearly, no wisdom either. She still had the fucking diamonds on her!
Steph leapt to her feet, still breathing raggedly. Batgirl wasn’t even doing… well, anything. She was just staring, head tilted slightly in interest, or confusion. Steph was hoping for the second.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Steph began, her voice thin.
Batgirl was silent for a moment, before - “It looks like you removed the air conditioning, climbed inside, climbed back out, and got kicked in the ribs by some guy.”
Steph paused. “Okay, it’s close to what it looks like.”
She swore Batgirl smiled under that all black mask. “And what is that?”
Now, before you judge her, Steph knew what she was about to do was stupid, and dumb, and every other word for generally unintelligent she could think of.
That was it, no justification.
Steph ran for it. She sprinted towards Batgirl, and then feinted right, dodging under an outstretched arm.
“Nope,” Batgirl said quietly, sweeping her foot out and under Steph’s ankle, sending her crashing to the ground. Steph felt the concrete roof scrape off half the skin on her chin, even through her thick mask.
She flipped onto her back, just as Batgirl was approaching, and jumped back to her feet. “What the hell! ”
“Don’t run , that just makes you look like a criminal.” Batgirl explained slowly, like Steph was a child. Steph grumbled, and dodged left as Batgirl made a move to grab her wrist, instead accidentally grabbing her hip.
Steph kicked her in the chest - or, at least, tried to, as Batgirl simply dodged backwards. “Hey, buy me dinner before you grab my waist!” she called, using the momentum from drawing her leg back to aim a punch at Batgirl’s face.
Batgirl grabbed her fist with one hand, and her wrist with the other. And then, all of a sudden, Steph was being flipped, and was pressed into the concrete roof with Batgirl’s knees on her hips.
“Can’t buy you dinner if you’re in jail.” Batgirl said simply. Steph opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly felt a hard lump against the back of her neck. The diamond in her hair - but she’d tied it up, and it was hidden under her hood -
She realised with a sinking stomach her hair had once again come loose, and was fanning out around her in golden curls. Dean had warned her that her hairties were bad, but seriously, breaking in the middle of a fight with Batgirl?
She needed to get out of here, and fast.
She slowed her breathing, and let herself go totally limp, imagining those nights where she ignored her dad pounding at her door, her mom screaming, disconnecting from her body and telling it to relax . Her head even lolled to the side. Nice touch.
Batgirl seemed startled, loosening her hold for just a second - and that was all Steph needed. She reared up and headbutted Batgirl as hard as she could. Batgirl leant back in surprise, and Steph was gone, racing down the fire escape.
“You still owe me dinner!” she yelled, before she dropped down into Gotham’s murky streets, and disappeared.
Her heart pounded in her chest. That was terrifying. That was amazing. Holy shit, she fought Batgirl! And she didn’t win, but she got away!
If her dad wasn’t proud of her after this, there was nothing Steph could do that’d work. That was for sure.