Stephanie Brown demanded more food.
That is to say, her body did, stomach growling regardless of how much she managed to funnel down to it, ravenous to the point of starving. By rights, the slight frame of the small blonde should already be fit to burst, the young women sat at her breakfast table in her nightshirt and bear slippers, cutlery clutched in her paws as though her life depended on it, and plates emptying faster than her Uncle could fill them. It was with crippling hunger pangs that Stephanie had awoken, peepers snapping open as the furnace that was her gut demanded that fuel be immediately added to the fire, an imperative she felt compelled to act upon immediately.
It was the morning after the night before, and everything had changed. Her limbs continued to shiver, buzzing with adrenaline, excitement warring with trepidation, revelation battling against disbelief. It would feel like a dream if she couldn’t remember the entire encounter with stark clarity, a night of long imagined vigilantism crashing into reality, and now there was no going back.
Was there?
She belched, loud and open mouthed, the horrifically rude noise surely coming from someone else. Gripped immediately by mortifying embarrassment, the wide eyed teenager covered the offending orifice with both of her hands, momentarily startled by her own bodily functions.
Even her Uncle was surprised; Ted Grant watching on with arms folded, “making me feel inadequate.”
“That wasn’t me,” she protested, hands still covering her mouth.
“Sure as hell wasn’t me,” her Uncle wasn’t letting her off that easy, his Niece not exactly always the most feminine of young ladies. Of course, given her available role models, Grant wasn’t much surprised. He set a full glass of orange juice down before her, and not a moment later she eyed it up as though it was last fluid on the face of the earth.
Gripped by a surge of thirst that was overwhelming, Stephanie forgot her mortification and grabbed the glass with both hands, bringing it to her lips and gulping it back.
Ted watched on as the young women tipped the glass and her neck further and further backwards, observing with an ever growing sense of concern. “Breath,” he reminded the teenager, although such a notion should be common sense, “breath!”
She did, finally, but only once the glass was completely empty, exhaling deeply in relief as she all but slammed it back down onto the table. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Brown sighed in satisfaction, a smile finding its way to her lips as she slumped in her chair and giggled just a little. She felt giddy with so many competing emotions, and didn’t know if the feeling would ever end.
“That’s enough for now,” her Uncle made his ultimatum.
“What!?!” his Niece immediately protested the ruling, “but, hungry, I’m still hungry...”
“You’ve had enough,” Ted insisted, taking the empty plates from the table to exemplify his point, “you need time to digest. Anymore, and you’ll throw up. You want that?”
Stephanie opened her mouth again to form a rebuttal, but found the words lacking, and so instead opted to lean back in her chair, folding her arms in an unconscious reflection of her Uncle and unleash a small huff of dissatisfaction.
“So,” Grant ignored the exhale of protest, his expression turning sombre as he looked his Niece over. Her right eye was showing signs of swelling, and her knuckles were betraying points of impact. His suspicions had played out, and now he had to act on them.
Stephanie’s huffy lip mellowed as her brow began to arch, perplexed, “...So?”`
Ted exhaled deeply, rubbing the subtle of his chin roughly before continuing, arms folding tightly as he encroached onto a topic he had no desire to tackle, and yet would have to sooner rather than later. “So, how do you feel?”
Brown didn’t answer immediately, in no small part because she didn’t know how to, the answer to the rather innocuous question was, in truth, frustratingly illusive, especially to her. “I don’t know,” she admitted, opening up her posture as she leant forwards, “confused, mostly. Awake. I feel very, very awake.
Grant nodded, a subtle motion, one that revealed nothing, before adding, “And is that it? Last night, is that all of it? Are you done?”
Stephanie bit her bottom lip, feeling terribly sheepish, reminded of the time that her Uncle had caught her building a pyramid of chairs to reach the top shelf and the cookie jar within.
“No,” she tested the waters, suddenly terrified to discover his reply, and yet knowing it was the truth, “no, I’m not done. I won’t be done for a long time.”
Ted nodded again, the motion almost imperceptible, “sounds ‘bout right.”
The suddenness of his movements that followed snapped the tension out of the room almost as though it hadn’t been there, Grant rotating from pensive to aloof with such assured swiftness that the previous exchange may well have not transpired at all. “Get yourself dressed, Steph,” he announced, grabbing his weather beaten jacket from the door before slinging it about his shoulders, “you’re running the Gym tonight.”
“I’m running the Gym tonight?” Steph repeated back, initially dumbfounded. “I’m running the Gym tonight!?!” she followed up with more immediate excitement, standing up from the table as though her Uncle had just handed her the keys to a Porsche.
“That’s what I said,” he confirmed, already heading for the door, “I got things to do.”
“You do?” Brown queried, the blonde perplexed and intensely curious, her Uncle never had things to do. “What things?”
“This and that,” Grant refused to commit, something about this entire exchange feeling oddly familiar to his Niece, “Guy stuff.”
“Guy stuff?”
“Nothin’ but.”
**********
It was good to me the king, Stephanie decided; her feet up on her Uncle’s desk as she made herself at home in his office. She had always been welcome there, of course, once upon a time playing with her toys in the corner, demanding his attention or being fussed over by the various patrons, but today was different. Today, she got to sit in the chair.
The chair.
That made all the difference.
It didn’t take her long to decide that her slight frame was possibly too small for the musty, old furniture, but she didn’t care, leaning back and indulging in the occasional swivel. She was smirking, like a cat who had caught a canary, a newspaper in hand as she read the headline dozens of times over, never getting tired of the declaration.
‘THE BATGIRL RISES!’
Batgirl, not exactly what she had been expecting, Gotham Girl perhaps, or maybe Spoiler, but she was hardly going to start complaining. Why not shoot big? And besides, the other one hadn’t been seen for a while...
“Making yourself comfortable, kitten?” `Dinah Lance queried as she stepped into the office, her smile effortlessly disarming as she never felt the need to knock. While she wasn’t a ‘regular’ of the Wildcats, the leggy blonde dropped by often enough to be considered a fixture, a face Stephanie had known since she had been a girl.
Brown, feeling incredibly smug at the moment, returned a self satisfied smirk, putting the paper aside before leaning back, hands behind her head. “There are perks I could get used to.”
“Well, don’t,” Dinah swatted the teenagers sneakers, knocking the young women’s feet off the desk, answered with a surprised huff of disgruntlement from the girl. Lance arched her brow at the shorter blonde as she took a seat on the table’s edge, daring her to voice her displeasure. When Stephanie opted not to, a quirk of amusement returned to Dinah’s lips, fondly ruffling the teen’s hair, “Ted will be taking that chair with him to the grave.”
Brown retaliated to her ruffling by batting at the taller blondes hands, doing her best to bring her hair back under control afterwards. Before she could work up fresh reserves of nerve to form a fresh rebuttal, Dinah cut her off at the pass, revealing the purpose behind her intrusion, pulling a towel from off her shoulders to wipe the sweat from her brow as she did so.
“Ricky has a match tonight.”
“Tonight?” Stephanie paused, genuinely surprised as she looked up.
Dinah nodded.
“He didn’t say anything.”
Dinah shrugged.
“Well, that won’t do,” Stephanie stood up, traditions needed to be observed, “that won’t do at all.”
Pushing through the door, the young women entered the Gym proper, ‘Wildcats’ as alive now as it always was at midday, a bustling mass of humanity working out and filling the air with effort. It was like stepping into another world, one she was intensely familiar with, and one that was intensely familiar with her, scarcely a patron who didn’t nod, smile or welcome their mascot as she walked amongst them. The Kitten of Wildcats was on the move.
She navigated the mass of humanity like a pro, arriving at her destination and standing with hands on hips, the smallest young women in the building clearing her throat. “Ricky Lewis.”
The young man, throwing several right crosses into a punching bag froze as though as he had been caught red handed. He stopped and cleared his own throat, scratching the back of his head before looking up. “Hi Steph, you’re looking good.”
“I’m looking great,” she corrected, trying her best to also be scolding, “and you, sir, have forgotten to mention something. You have a fight tonight.”
“I do,” he admitted, although he didn’t look entirely confident, “with Brock Henry.”
“Your first, yes?” Brown would not relent, the teenager searching for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Lewis nodded again, “he’s undefeated.”
“He’s a bum,” Stephanie waved off his concerns as though he shouldn’t have any. “And you’re Wildcats, so come here, you know the drill,” she stated, opening her arms wide and standing on tip toes.
Ricky took the hint, leaning in and the two embraced, “I thought you would be busy, being in charge and all, didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I am busy, but I have priorities,” she smiled, fulfilling her favourite, Wildcats tradition, one that had become a staple since she had been eight years old. “A hug from Stephanie Brown,”` she began the decade old mantra.
“And you can’t go down,” `Ricky finished, feeling more confident already.
“Damn straight,” the young blonde stepped back, the good luck charm of her Uncle’s patrons.
“Am I missing something,” someone spoke up, specifically from the opposite side of the punching bag, someone who, much to Brown’s surprise, she didn’t recognise. She stepped back, subconsciously giving him the once over, and then twice (just for good measure), the raven haired stranger standing a good foot taller and rocking the designer stubble.
Stephanie opened her mouth to speak and, when nothing immediately came out, composed herself tried again. “Tradition,” she explained, waving her hand vaguely, “good luck, you know, for stuff.”
“And it works?” the young man in question appeared more bemused than anything, “Grant didn’t strike me as the superstitious type.”
“Of course it works!” Brown huffed, hands moving to hips and feeling a little flustered. More people needed to start wearing shirts around here. “All of the time.”
The stranger didn’t feel the need to discredit her assertion, although he seemed far from convinced, “Can anyone get one?”
“That depends,” Stephanie fidgeted, resisting the urge to fold her arms, “you would be?”
“Gage, Nicholas Gage, I just transferred.”
St, Nick, her Uncles voice rattled around in her head from the day before, Brown filling in a few blanks all by herself. “And, do you have a fight tonight?”
“Well,” he turned the question over, “no.”
“Then, sorry, but no,” Stephanie smirked, feeling better about reasserting her composure, “no good fortune for you.”
**********
Stephanie had never been entirely comfortable with silence and, with dusk rolling in, the Wildcat’s had emptied for the evening. Everyone had wished her well, passing by with a fond embrace or humble wave, every patron departing in their own good time and, with each one becoming absent, a little bit of life abandoned her home, the decades old building filling with the echo of memories.
It was then, as she stood alone with broom in hand, that she became acutely aware that her Uncle wasn’t there to wish her good night. Instinctively she looked over to his office, still half expecting to see him emerge at any moment and start running his reluctant Niece through her paces. As much as she would protest, she found herself wishing that it would happen.
Setting the broom aside, she paced over to the nearest bench, the small blonde opening up her own gym bag to retrieve her tape, pulling free a strip and beginning to wrap it about her hand. It was a compulsion, a need to fulfil routine, one that made her feel a little more secure.
Once complete, she paused, looking at the digits of her right hand as it was once again shaking, just as it had been the night before. She could still feel it, the intensity of emotion, the war of contradicting sensations roiling around inside her, the beating of her heart like a persistent drum.
She turned and, with a practiced swing, threw a terrific right cross into the closest punching bag with a satisfying thump. Chain’s rattled and canvas buckled with an intensely satisfying crump. Stephanie threw a left, and then another right, setting her stance in the image of her Uncle as she unleashed over a decade’s worth of trepidation. Her world narrowed to a narrow point as she fell into the routine and her hands had stopped shaking, the darkness of the world outside no longer closing in.
**********
When, later that night, Stephanie opened her eyes, it was as if she had only just closed them, the young women gazing out across her room with blurry vision. She blinked, still half asleep, her cheek pressed deep against her pillow as she had fallen into a deep slumber atop her covers, the teenager so exhausted that she had done little more than change into her nightshirt before collapsing into a welcome slumber.
She mumbled in disgruntlement, still blinking, her muddled thoughts weighed down further with confusion, the Narrows outside her window still wrapped in darkness. Without a considerable degree of grace she reached out for her nightstand, fumbling with her phone to see if someone had texted her, her eyes still trying to focus on the dim screen before she came to realise what had actually come to wake her.
The crash came again from the floor below, the sharp crack of breaking glass and the forcing of a door lock, Stephanie now awake in an instant. Clarity was immediate, blue eyes open wide as she sat bolt upright. She swallowed, the teenager struggling to control her breathing, alone on the top floor of the Wildcats as her home was being invaded. Her throat felt raw, painfully dry as the commotion downstairs continued to escalate, a door forced off its hinges as the blonde listened.
She swallowed again, ignoring the pain as she sprang up off her bed, ducking down for just a moment to seize a baseball bat she kept hidden beneath it. With her heart hammering with adrenaline, she clutched it tightly in both hands as she made her way slowly to the stairs, cringing with every creek as she made her slow descent.
Her grip tightened as she reached the bottom and then, with her blue eyes refusing to blink, she inhaled a deep breath and all but flung her petite stature around the corner with a war worthy shout!
“NIC!?!” the young women cried out in alarm as she just barely pulled herself short of swinging for the fences, her weaponised bat poised to all but remove the man’s head from his shoulders. He pulled back, Nicholas as surprised to see Stephanie as she was to see him, although he was in little condition to protect himself.
As Stephanie struggled to comprehend why he had broken in, words of confusion forming but unable to find their way past her lips, a far more pressing concern dawned quickly. The stubble jawed stranger was barely standing, his own eyes glassy and almost vacant, right hand clutching his left shoulder as blood pooled freely between his fingers.
“Oh Sh*t!” Brown proclaimed, all thoughts of her own wellbeing abandoned as she dropped her bat and immediately shoved her head beneath his good shoulder. She supported his weight as best she could, given their size differential and almost dragged him across the Gym as she stumbled. He tried talking and yet, right now, Stephanie wasn’t listening, not that any of his pain induced grunts were making any sense regardless. She shuffled him into her Uncles office and, as gently as she was could, almost flipped him onto the desk.
Nicolas hissed between clenched teeth as he landed with a thump, Brown apologising with a grimace as she tried to get a better look at his injury, pawing at his shoulder. She recoiled, a sudden surge running throughout the young women as she instinctively stepped back, the pools of crimson triggering a deep well of panic from within the young women that surged right up to the surface.
She blinked, Stephanie struggling for composure as her hands were shaking, swallowing for a third time as she stepped back forwards, a fresh revelation dawning as the trench coat of the man she had met today fell open and revealed a firearm nestled within a holster and a badge clamped onto his belt.
Brown cursed herself for her ignorance, Gage, Nicholas Gage, ‘Detective’ Nicholas Gage, and someone had shot him, someone who was surely near, and in the Narrows, no-one was coming to save them.
Her heart stopped.
They were not alone, Stephanie unable to exhale her last breadth as she stood rigid, her ears filled with the beating of own heart and the nearby crack of a breaking door. With the crunching of shattered glass beneath booted feat, she knew they were not alone, trespassers entering her Uncle’s Gym and passing short grunts between them. Brown turned about slowly, edging towards the door that lead into the office, the panel of wood the only obstruction between the invaders and their prize.
It wasn’t even locked.
Unwilling to make even a single noise, she peeked out through the crack in the doorframe, watching as shadows passed and drew ever closer. She felt straggled, Stephanie’s vision blurring, trapped as her vision of the world was narrowed down to a single strip. There was a memory, one that threatened to overlap with the here and now, moments that belonged to the frightened infant that she had been, and had long since lost their clarity.
Memories that had twisted into wire, wrapped about her soul and suffocated her courage.
The dam was close to bursting, the memories overlapping, Stephanie in the here and now as well as the long ago, her Father, the Detective, the phantoms outside her door then and now. The fear, the fear that grew and grew until it was overwhelming.
The fear that she could not outrun, and had never been able to face.
Until she had.
Until last night.
Until she had found a name.
Her hands were shaking, covered in crimson, Brown stepping back as one of the figures had drawn closer, her life narrowing down to a moment of stark clarity. A single choice, the most fundamental in the human race, one from which there was no escape.
Fight or Flight.
Stephanie Brown exhaled.
Batgirl kicked the door down.
It almost flew off the hinges, swinging open and smashing into the unwitting features of the first trespasser, splitting his nose open in a welter of blood and cracking against his forehead. His gun went off, a reflex action triggered by a wildly swinging plank of wood obliterating his features, the bullet harmlessly penetrating the floorboards with a crack of timber.
Shock, pandemonium, both of these was to follow the sudden outburst of violence as the first would be murderer went down. Batgirl followed quickly on its heels, launching out of her Uncle’s office at a sprint with not even a moment’s hesitation, surprise her most potent ally against multiple assailants.
With a rapid pitter patter of bare feet, she had crossed halfway across the room before the others had scarcely turned about to face the outpouring of commotion. She leapt, her right foot finding purchase on the apron of the Gym’s centrepiece ring, Stephanie spring boarding her petite frame from off her Uncle’s pride and joy and, in mid flight, unleashed a terrific right cross. She connected square and true with the second trespassers jaw, sending his head spinning into a wicked swivel that sent him careening to the floor.
She spun with the momentum, coming to a landing on the floor with a neat tuck and roll as the others who had broken in still struggled to pin point the exact origin on the commotion. The third trespasser wouldn’t have the luxury of regaining his bearings, not as Batgirl popped up to kneels and, swinging her right arm again, swung a ball busting uppercut directly into the man’s exposed testicals. Men half the world away grimaced in understanding as an outpouring of pain escaped his lungs and he collapsed beneath the weight of his own misery.
Another gunshot rang out, this one was wild, but it served as all the warning that Stephanie would need, the young women feeling the walls closing in on her with each passing second. Everything was chaos, men shouting and Batgirl scarcely even aware of her own surroundings, moving from one figure to the next without even the luxury of being able to count how many assailants there even were.
She was still moving, never stopping, Brown springing back up to her feet and grasping a broomstick on the way past. Nimbly she spun about bringing her improvised weapon up and over, slamming it into the floor with a splintering of wood, violently snapping off the head and turning the unwieldy broom into a pole. Batgirl spun again, whipping about with her new staff braced beneath one shoulder, the tip of her weapon whistling through the air before it connected with the cheek of the fourth trespasser, a follow up spin and sharp jab to the man’s forehead sending him pirouetting to the deck with a tumbling of pained limbs.
And then it was over, Stephanie coming to a stop with such severity that it was almost audible. She was done, Batgirl’s luck running out as she stared directly down the barrel of a gun, held mere inches from the young girl’s features and unwavering. The fifth trespasser had her dead to rights, and only then did she realise just how badly she had been outnumbered, another two, three... four coming into view, each as unhappy as the last.
The moment stretched, and the teenager aware that it was to be her last, shot in her own home and wearing little more than her nightshirt.
Her hands had stopped shaking...
When the lights went out, Brown’s initial thought was that she had her eyes shut. After blinking, she realised that it was quite the opposite; Wildcat’s plunged suddenly into an all encompassing darkness. Panic spread like an infection, and just like that, there was another presence amongst them.
Stephanie stumbled backwards, just as blind as the trespassers around her, stopping only when her back collided with the ring at the centre of the gym. Curses rang out alongside shouts of fears, gunfire being emptied blindly in all directions to no avail, pain now voiced by those who would inflict it as bones were broken by a phantom who spirited across the room. Batgirl felt more than saw that figured as it moved throughout the darkness, an unrelenting force that knew only unwavering purpose.
The teenager went for cover, searching for her own bearings, before her blue eyes finally adapted to the darkness, watching as the first trespasser was vertical once more. With all the commotion, he almost went unnoticed, scowling as one hand clutched his shattered nose and the other held a gun, the man far too close to her Uncle’s office for her liking.
Batgirl didn’t debate her next course of action, finding her feet with a swift dash, leaping into the air with a fresh cry before he could register her presence. Now airborne, with athletic stems tucked in tight against her own torso, the young women slammed her knees and the entirety of her hurled bodyweight into his unsuspecting shoulders. He was knocked clean off his feet and sent crashing to the ground, a pained grunt following his landing and Stephanie followed through, connecting with a fierce forearm across his already broken nose just to get her point across.
He went down with a slow groan, finally unmoving, and the blondes heavy breathing was met with only silence.
No-one else was moving, the violence ending as quickly as it had started, the young women acutely aware that she was being watched. She turned slowly from her perch, blinking in an effort to see more clearly in the pervading darkness, resisting the urge to swallow.
He was there, the embodiment of Gotham, as quiet as the grave and a physical absence of light, the man who never came into the Narrows, the cities discarded district.
Batman.
Stephanie opened her mouth to speak, and yet nothing came out, the teenager finding herself beneath his unrelenting and penetrating gaze, until finally he spoke.
“The Detective?”
Brown nodded in the direction of her Uncle’s office, Nicolas Gage still inside.
The Batman moved past, his observation done.
“The Gotham PD will arrive momentarily,” he informed, “make a statement, testify when the time comes.” He paused at the threshold, turning his head slightly to give the young women one last regard, “In future, for your own safety, don’t get involved.”
**********
Stephanie hadn’t slept, regardless of how long she had her eyes shut.
Hours had passed, it felt like years, the Doctors, the Police, the questions, the endless stream of them and her Uncle pacing as if he was a caged animal, a big cat circling his endangered young. She was back in his apartment, where she had lived for most of her childhood; his spare room now her room again while the Gym was temporarily shut down. He was still pacing now, she could hear him in the next room, in a heated exchange with people she didn’t know, the young women only picking out one word in five.
She didn’t care, lying on her side as the first light of dawn crept slowly through the window, the cramp confines of the Narrows outside slowly coming back to life. Stephanie had her own thoughts to deal with.
The young women sat up, opening her eyes as Bunny Big Ears, the oversized, stuffed bear watched on silently from the dresser, opening her eyes as she perched her chin upon her knees. Three words, from the entire evening, three words were all that rattled about her head.
Don’t get involved.
She pondered them, turning each one over to look at them from every angle.
Don’t get involved.
Stephanie sat up straight, looking at her hands as they were held out before her, staring at her fingers as though they belonged to someone else.
They weren’t shaking.
Don’t get involved.
...
“No.”
That is to say, her body did, stomach growling regardless of how much she managed to funnel down to it, ravenous to the point of starving. By rights, the slight frame of the small blonde should already be fit to burst, the young women sat at her breakfast table in her nightshirt and bear slippers, cutlery clutched in her paws as though her life depended on it, and plates emptying faster than her Uncle could fill them. It was with crippling hunger pangs that Stephanie had awoken, peepers snapping open as the furnace that was her gut demanded that fuel be immediately added to the fire, an imperative she felt compelled to act upon immediately.
It was the morning after the night before, and everything had changed. Her limbs continued to shiver, buzzing with adrenaline, excitement warring with trepidation, revelation battling against disbelief. It would feel like a dream if she couldn’t remember the entire encounter with stark clarity, a night of long imagined vigilantism crashing into reality, and now there was no going back.
Was there?
She belched, loud and open mouthed, the horrifically rude noise surely coming from someone else. Gripped immediately by mortifying embarrassment, the wide eyed teenager covered the offending orifice with both of her hands, momentarily startled by her own bodily functions.
Even her Uncle was surprised; Ted Grant watching on with arms folded, “making me feel inadequate.”
“That wasn’t me,” she protested, hands still covering her mouth.
“Sure as hell wasn’t me,” her Uncle wasn’t letting her off that easy, his Niece not exactly always the most feminine of young ladies. Of course, given her available role models, Grant wasn’t much surprised. He set a full glass of orange juice down before her, and not a moment later she eyed it up as though it was last fluid on the face of the earth.
Gripped by a surge of thirst that was overwhelming, Stephanie forgot her mortification and grabbed the glass with both hands, bringing it to her lips and gulping it back.
Ted watched on as the young women tipped the glass and her neck further and further backwards, observing with an ever growing sense of concern. “Breath,” he reminded the teenager, although such a notion should be common sense, “breath!”
She did, finally, but only once the glass was completely empty, exhaling deeply in relief as she all but slammed it back down onto the table. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Brown sighed in satisfaction, a smile finding its way to her lips as she slumped in her chair and giggled just a little. She felt giddy with so many competing emotions, and didn’t know if the feeling would ever end.
“That’s enough for now,” her Uncle made his ultimatum.
“What!?!” his Niece immediately protested the ruling, “but, hungry, I’m still hungry...”
“You’ve had enough,” Ted insisted, taking the empty plates from the table to exemplify his point, “you need time to digest. Anymore, and you’ll throw up. You want that?”
Stephanie opened her mouth again to form a rebuttal, but found the words lacking, and so instead opted to lean back in her chair, folding her arms in an unconscious reflection of her Uncle and unleash a small huff of dissatisfaction.
“So,” Grant ignored the exhale of protest, his expression turning sombre as he looked his Niece over. Her right eye was showing signs of swelling, and her knuckles were betraying points of impact. His suspicions had played out, and now he had to act on them.
Stephanie’s huffy lip mellowed as her brow began to arch, perplexed, “...So?”`
Ted exhaled deeply, rubbing the subtle of his chin roughly before continuing, arms folding tightly as he encroached onto a topic he had no desire to tackle, and yet would have to sooner rather than later. “So, how do you feel?”
Brown didn’t answer immediately, in no small part because she didn’t know how to, the answer to the rather innocuous question was, in truth, frustratingly illusive, especially to her. “I don’t know,” she admitted, opening up her posture as she leant forwards, “confused, mostly. Awake. I feel very, very awake.
Grant nodded, a subtle motion, one that revealed nothing, before adding, “And is that it? Last night, is that all of it? Are you done?”
Stephanie bit her bottom lip, feeling terribly sheepish, reminded of the time that her Uncle had caught her building a pyramid of chairs to reach the top shelf and the cookie jar within.
“No,” she tested the waters, suddenly terrified to discover his reply, and yet knowing it was the truth, “no, I’m not done. I won’t be done for a long time.”
Ted nodded again, the motion almost imperceptible, “sounds ‘bout right.”
The suddenness of his movements that followed snapped the tension out of the room almost as though it hadn’t been there, Grant rotating from pensive to aloof with such assured swiftness that the previous exchange may well have not transpired at all. “Get yourself dressed, Steph,” he announced, grabbing his weather beaten jacket from the door before slinging it about his shoulders, “you’re running the Gym tonight.”
“I’m running the Gym tonight?” Steph repeated back, initially dumbfounded. “I’m running the Gym tonight!?!” she followed up with more immediate excitement, standing up from the table as though her Uncle had just handed her the keys to a Porsche.
“That’s what I said,” he confirmed, already heading for the door, “I got things to do.”
“You do?” Brown queried, the blonde perplexed and intensely curious, her Uncle never had things to do. “What things?”
“This and that,” Grant refused to commit, something about this entire exchange feeling oddly familiar to his Niece, “Guy stuff.”
“Guy stuff?”
“Nothin’ but.”
**********
It was good to me the king, Stephanie decided; her feet up on her Uncle’s desk as she made herself at home in his office. She had always been welcome there, of course, once upon a time playing with her toys in the corner, demanding his attention or being fussed over by the various patrons, but today was different. Today, she got to sit in the chair.
The chair.
That made all the difference.
It didn’t take her long to decide that her slight frame was possibly too small for the musty, old furniture, but she didn’t care, leaning back and indulging in the occasional swivel. She was smirking, like a cat who had caught a canary, a newspaper in hand as she read the headline dozens of times over, never getting tired of the declaration.
‘THE BATGIRL RISES!’
Batgirl, not exactly what she had been expecting, Gotham Girl perhaps, or maybe Spoiler, but she was hardly going to start complaining. Why not shoot big? And besides, the other one hadn’t been seen for a while...
“Making yourself comfortable, kitten?” `Dinah Lance queried as she stepped into the office, her smile effortlessly disarming as she never felt the need to knock. While she wasn’t a ‘regular’ of the Wildcats, the leggy blonde dropped by often enough to be considered a fixture, a face Stephanie had known since she had been a girl.
Brown, feeling incredibly smug at the moment, returned a self satisfied smirk, putting the paper aside before leaning back, hands behind her head. “There are perks I could get used to.”
“Well, don’t,” Dinah swatted the teenagers sneakers, knocking the young women’s feet off the desk, answered with a surprised huff of disgruntlement from the girl. Lance arched her brow at the shorter blonde as she took a seat on the table’s edge, daring her to voice her displeasure. When Stephanie opted not to, a quirk of amusement returned to Dinah’s lips, fondly ruffling the teen’s hair, “Ted will be taking that chair with him to the grave.”
Brown retaliated to her ruffling by batting at the taller blondes hands, doing her best to bring her hair back under control afterwards. Before she could work up fresh reserves of nerve to form a fresh rebuttal, Dinah cut her off at the pass, revealing the purpose behind her intrusion, pulling a towel from off her shoulders to wipe the sweat from her brow as she did so.
“Ricky has a match tonight.”
“Tonight?” Stephanie paused, genuinely surprised as she looked up.
Dinah nodded.
“He didn’t say anything.”
Dinah shrugged.
“Well, that won’t do,” Stephanie stood up, traditions needed to be observed, “that won’t do at all.”
Pushing through the door, the young women entered the Gym proper, ‘Wildcats’ as alive now as it always was at midday, a bustling mass of humanity working out and filling the air with effort. It was like stepping into another world, one she was intensely familiar with, and one that was intensely familiar with her, scarcely a patron who didn’t nod, smile or welcome their mascot as she walked amongst them. The Kitten of Wildcats was on the move.
She navigated the mass of humanity like a pro, arriving at her destination and standing with hands on hips, the smallest young women in the building clearing her throat. “Ricky Lewis.”
The young man, throwing several right crosses into a punching bag froze as though as he had been caught red handed. He stopped and cleared his own throat, scratching the back of his head before looking up. “Hi Steph, you’re looking good.”
“I’m looking great,” she corrected, trying her best to also be scolding, “and you, sir, have forgotten to mention something. You have a fight tonight.”
“I do,” he admitted, although he didn’t look entirely confident, “with Brock Henry.”
“Your first, yes?” Brown would not relent, the teenager searching for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Lewis nodded again, “he’s undefeated.”
“He’s a bum,” Stephanie waved off his concerns as though he shouldn’t have any. “And you’re Wildcats, so come here, you know the drill,” she stated, opening her arms wide and standing on tip toes.
Ricky took the hint, leaning in and the two embraced, “I thought you would be busy, being in charge and all, didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I am busy, but I have priorities,” she smiled, fulfilling her favourite, Wildcats tradition, one that had become a staple since she had been eight years old. “A hug from Stephanie Brown,”` she began the decade old mantra.
“And you can’t go down,” `Ricky finished, feeling more confident already.
“Damn straight,” the young blonde stepped back, the good luck charm of her Uncle’s patrons.
“Am I missing something,” someone spoke up, specifically from the opposite side of the punching bag, someone who, much to Brown’s surprise, she didn’t recognise. She stepped back, subconsciously giving him the once over, and then twice (just for good measure), the raven haired stranger standing a good foot taller and rocking the designer stubble.
Stephanie opened her mouth to speak and, when nothing immediately came out, composed herself tried again. “Tradition,” she explained, waving her hand vaguely, “good luck, you know, for stuff.”
“And it works?” the young man in question appeared more bemused than anything, “Grant didn’t strike me as the superstitious type.”
“Of course it works!” Brown huffed, hands moving to hips and feeling a little flustered. More people needed to start wearing shirts around here. “All of the time.”
The stranger didn’t feel the need to discredit her assertion, although he seemed far from convinced, “Can anyone get one?”
“That depends,” Stephanie fidgeted, resisting the urge to fold her arms, “you would be?”
“Gage, Nicholas Gage, I just transferred.”
St, Nick, her Uncles voice rattled around in her head from the day before, Brown filling in a few blanks all by herself. “And, do you have a fight tonight?”
“Well,” he turned the question over, “no.”
“Then, sorry, but no,” Stephanie smirked, feeling better about reasserting her composure, “no good fortune for you.”
**********
Stephanie had never been entirely comfortable with silence and, with dusk rolling in, the Wildcat’s had emptied for the evening. Everyone had wished her well, passing by with a fond embrace or humble wave, every patron departing in their own good time and, with each one becoming absent, a little bit of life abandoned her home, the decades old building filling with the echo of memories.
It was then, as she stood alone with broom in hand, that she became acutely aware that her Uncle wasn’t there to wish her good night. Instinctively she looked over to his office, still half expecting to see him emerge at any moment and start running his reluctant Niece through her paces. As much as she would protest, she found herself wishing that it would happen.
Setting the broom aside, she paced over to the nearest bench, the small blonde opening up her own gym bag to retrieve her tape, pulling free a strip and beginning to wrap it about her hand. It was a compulsion, a need to fulfil routine, one that made her feel a little more secure.
Once complete, she paused, looking at the digits of her right hand as it was once again shaking, just as it had been the night before. She could still feel it, the intensity of emotion, the war of contradicting sensations roiling around inside her, the beating of her heart like a persistent drum.
She turned and, with a practiced swing, threw a terrific right cross into the closest punching bag with a satisfying thump. Chain’s rattled and canvas buckled with an intensely satisfying crump. Stephanie threw a left, and then another right, setting her stance in the image of her Uncle as she unleashed over a decade’s worth of trepidation. Her world narrowed to a narrow point as she fell into the routine and her hands had stopped shaking, the darkness of the world outside no longer closing in.
**********
When, later that night, Stephanie opened her eyes, it was as if she had only just closed them, the young women gazing out across her room with blurry vision. She blinked, still half asleep, her cheek pressed deep against her pillow as she had fallen into a deep slumber atop her covers, the teenager so exhausted that she had done little more than change into her nightshirt before collapsing into a welcome slumber.
She mumbled in disgruntlement, still blinking, her muddled thoughts weighed down further with confusion, the Narrows outside her window still wrapped in darkness. Without a considerable degree of grace she reached out for her nightstand, fumbling with her phone to see if someone had texted her, her eyes still trying to focus on the dim screen before she came to realise what had actually come to wake her.
The crash came again from the floor below, the sharp crack of breaking glass and the forcing of a door lock, Stephanie now awake in an instant. Clarity was immediate, blue eyes open wide as she sat bolt upright. She swallowed, the teenager struggling to control her breathing, alone on the top floor of the Wildcats as her home was being invaded. Her throat felt raw, painfully dry as the commotion downstairs continued to escalate, a door forced off its hinges as the blonde listened.
She swallowed again, ignoring the pain as she sprang up off her bed, ducking down for just a moment to seize a baseball bat she kept hidden beneath it. With her heart hammering with adrenaline, she clutched it tightly in both hands as she made her way slowly to the stairs, cringing with every creek as she made her slow descent.
Her grip tightened as she reached the bottom and then, with her blue eyes refusing to blink, she inhaled a deep breath and all but flung her petite stature around the corner with a war worthy shout!
“NIC!?!” the young women cried out in alarm as she just barely pulled herself short of swinging for the fences, her weaponised bat poised to all but remove the man’s head from his shoulders. He pulled back, Nicholas as surprised to see Stephanie as she was to see him, although he was in little condition to protect himself.
As Stephanie struggled to comprehend why he had broken in, words of confusion forming but unable to find their way past her lips, a far more pressing concern dawned quickly. The stubble jawed stranger was barely standing, his own eyes glassy and almost vacant, right hand clutching his left shoulder as blood pooled freely between his fingers.
“Oh Sh*t!” Brown proclaimed, all thoughts of her own wellbeing abandoned as she dropped her bat and immediately shoved her head beneath his good shoulder. She supported his weight as best she could, given their size differential and almost dragged him across the Gym as she stumbled. He tried talking and yet, right now, Stephanie wasn’t listening, not that any of his pain induced grunts were making any sense regardless. She shuffled him into her Uncles office and, as gently as she was could, almost flipped him onto the desk.
Nicolas hissed between clenched teeth as he landed with a thump, Brown apologising with a grimace as she tried to get a better look at his injury, pawing at his shoulder. She recoiled, a sudden surge running throughout the young women as she instinctively stepped back, the pools of crimson triggering a deep well of panic from within the young women that surged right up to the surface.
She blinked, Stephanie struggling for composure as her hands were shaking, swallowing for a third time as she stepped back forwards, a fresh revelation dawning as the trench coat of the man she had met today fell open and revealed a firearm nestled within a holster and a badge clamped onto his belt.
Brown cursed herself for her ignorance, Gage, Nicholas Gage, ‘Detective’ Nicholas Gage, and someone had shot him, someone who was surely near, and in the Narrows, no-one was coming to save them.
Her heart stopped.
They were not alone, Stephanie unable to exhale her last breadth as she stood rigid, her ears filled with the beating of own heart and the nearby crack of a breaking door. With the crunching of shattered glass beneath booted feat, she knew they were not alone, trespassers entering her Uncle’s Gym and passing short grunts between them. Brown turned about slowly, edging towards the door that lead into the office, the panel of wood the only obstruction between the invaders and their prize.
It wasn’t even locked.
Unwilling to make even a single noise, she peeked out through the crack in the doorframe, watching as shadows passed and drew ever closer. She felt straggled, Stephanie’s vision blurring, trapped as her vision of the world was narrowed down to a single strip. There was a memory, one that threatened to overlap with the here and now, moments that belonged to the frightened infant that she had been, and had long since lost their clarity.
Memories that had twisted into wire, wrapped about her soul and suffocated her courage.
The dam was close to bursting, the memories overlapping, Stephanie in the here and now as well as the long ago, her Father, the Detective, the phantoms outside her door then and now. The fear, the fear that grew and grew until it was overwhelming.
The fear that she could not outrun, and had never been able to face.
Until she had.
Until last night.
Until she had found a name.
Her hands were shaking, covered in crimson, Brown stepping back as one of the figures had drawn closer, her life narrowing down to a moment of stark clarity. A single choice, the most fundamental in the human race, one from which there was no escape.
Fight or Flight.
Stephanie Brown exhaled.
Batgirl kicked the door down.
It almost flew off the hinges, swinging open and smashing into the unwitting features of the first trespasser, splitting his nose open in a welter of blood and cracking against his forehead. His gun went off, a reflex action triggered by a wildly swinging plank of wood obliterating his features, the bullet harmlessly penetrating the floorboards with a crack of timber.
Shock, pandemonium, both of these was to follow the sudden outburst of violence as the first would be murderer went down. Batgirl followed quickly on its heels, launching out of her Uncle’s office at a sprint with not even a moment’s hesitation, surprise her most potent ally against multiple assailants.
With a rapid pitter patter of bare feet, she had crossed halfway across the room before the others had scarcely turned about to face the outpouring of commotion. She leapt, her right foot finding purchase on the apron of the Gym’s centrepiece ring, Stephanie spring boarding her petite frame from off her Uncle’s pride and joy and, in mid flight, unleashed a terrific right cross. She connected square and true with the second trespassers jaw, sending his head spinning into a wicked swivel that sent him careening to the floor.
She spun with the momentum, coming to a landing on the floor with a neat tuck and roll as the others who had broken in still struggled to pin point the exact origin on the commotion. The third trespasser wouldn’t have the luxury of regaining his bearings, not as Batgirl popped up to kneels and, swinging her right arm again, swung a ball busting uppercut directly into the man’s exposed testicals. Men half the world away grimaced in understanding as an outpouring of pain escaped his lungs and he collapsed beneath the weight of his own misery.
Another gunshot rang out, this one was wild, but it served as all the warning that Stephanie would need, the young women feeling the walls closing in on her with each passing second. Everything was chaos, men shouting and Batgirl scarcely even aware of her own surroundings, moving from one figure to the next without even the luxury of being able to count how many assailants there even were.
She was still moving, never stopping, Brown springing back up to her feet and grasping a broomstick on the way past. Nimbly she spun about bringing her improvised weapon up and over, slamming it into the floor with a splintering of wood, violently snapping off the head and turning the unwieldy broom into a pole. Batgirl spun again, whipping about with her new staff braced beneath one shoulder, the tip of her weapon whistling through the air before it connected with the cheek of the fourth trespasser, a follow up spin and sharp jab to the man’s forehead sending him pirouetting to the deck with a tumbling of pained limbs.
And then it was over, Stephanie coming to a stop with such severity that it was almost audible. She was done, Batgirl’s luck running out as she stared directly down the barrel of a gun, held mere inches from the young girl’s features and unwavering. The fifth trespasser had her dead to rights, and only then did she realise just how badly she had been outnumbered, another two, three... four coming into view, each as unhappy as the last.
The moment stretched, and the teenager aware that it was to be her last, shot in her own home and wearing little more than her nightshirt.
Her hands had stopped shaking...
When the lights went out, Brown’s initial thought was that she had her eyes shut. After blinking, she realised that it was quite the opposite; Wildcat’s plunged suddenly into an all encompassing darkness. Panic spread like an infection, and just like that, there was another presence amongst them.
Stephanie stumbled backwards, just as blind as the trespassers around her, stopping only when her back collided with the ring at the centre of the gym. Curses rang out alongside shouts of fears, gunfire being emptied blindly in all directions to no avail, pain now voiced by those who would inflict it as bones were broken by a phantom who spirited across the room. Batgirl felt more than saw that figured as it moved throughout the darkness, an unrelenting force that knew only unwavering purpose.
The teenager went for cover, searching for her own bearings, before her blue eyes finally adapted to the darkness, watching as the first trespasser was vertical once more. With all the commotion, he almost went unnoticed, scowling as one hand clutched his shattered nose and the other held a gun, the man far too close to her Uncle’s office for her liking.
Batgirl didn’t debate her next course of action, finding her feet with a swift dash, leaping into the air with a fresh cry before he could register her presence. Now airborne, with athletic stems tucked in tight against her own torso, the young women slammed her knees and the entirety of her hurled bodyweight into his unsuspecting shoulders. He was knocked clean off his feet and sent crashing to the ground, a pained grunt following his landing and Stephanie followed through, connecting with a fierce forearm across his already broken nose just to get her point across.
He went down with a slow groan, finally unmoving, and the blondes heavy breathing was met with only silence.
No-one else was moving, the violence ending as quickly as it had started, the young women acutely aware that she was being watched. She turned slowly from her perch, blinking in an effort to see more clearly in the pervading darkness, resisting the urge to swallow.
He was there, the embodiment of Gotham, as quiet as the grave and a physical absence of light, the man who never came into the Narrows, the cities discarded district.
Batman.
Stephanie opened her mouth to speak, and yet nothing came out, the teenager finding herself beneath his unrelenting and penetrating gaze, until finally he spoke.
“The Detective?”
Brown nodded in the direction of her Uncle’s office, Nicolas Gage still inside.
The Batman moved past, his observation done.
“The Gotham PD will arrive momentarily,” he informed, “make a statement, testify when the time comes.” He paused at the threshold, turning his head slightly to give the young women one last regard, “In future, for your own safety, don’t get involved.”
**********
Stephanie hadn’t slept, regardless of how long she had her eyes shut.
Hours had passed, it felt like years, the Doctors, the Police, the questions, the endless stream of them and her Uncle pacing as if he was a caged animal, a big cat circling his endangered young. She was back in his apartment, where she had lived for most of her childhood; his spare room now her room again while the Gym was temporarily shut down. He was still pacing now, she could hear him in the next room, in a heated exchange with people she didn’t know, the young women only picking out one word in five.
She didn’t care, lying on her side as the first light of dawn crept slowly through the window, the cramp confines of the Narrows outside slowly coming back to life. Stephanie had her own thoughts to deal with.
The young women sat up, opening her eyes as Bunny Big Ears, the oversized, stuffed bear watched on silently from the dresser, opening her eyes as she perched her chin upon her knees. Three words, from the entire evening, three words were all that rattled about her head.
Don’t get involved.
She pondered them, turning each one over to look at them from every angle.
Don’t get involved.
Stephanie sat up straight, looking at her hands as they were held out before her, staring at her fingers as though they belonged to someone else.
They weren’t shaking.
Don’t get involved.
...
“No.”