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Rooftops suck.
Batman and Robin make it look so easy. Maybe it’s the extra padding. With her budget, the only thing Stephanie can use as padding is crafts foam, so the rough cement still digs into her knees when she tries to get into a comfortable position for a stake out. It isn’t even made any better by the fact that Batgirl doesn’t have any armor either (probably padding, though), considering the fact that she doesn’t need armor because she’s just that good.
Stephanie is not that good. She isn’t even good. She’s just… well, a high schooler in spandex and bandana. She probably looks more like a terrorist than a superhero.
She winces. Ouch.
No need to burn Stephanie Brown, folks. She does that enough for herself.
It takes her a moment to notice that a man has finally exited from the door on the other end of the alley between the roof she and Batgirl are perched on and the one across. A cigarette dangles between his fingers and semi-automatic is slung over his shoulder. He’s nudging a rock under the door and that's their chance, their opening, because all doors have been locked and both Stephanie and Oracle (working together, she might add) had only just managed to barely convince Batgirl not to break in for fear of setting off the alarms Oracle didn't have direct access to.
She turns to tell her observations to Batgirl, despite the fact that she’s sure Batgirl knew that the muscle was opening the door before the door opened, only to find that there isn’t anyone there.
At least she didn’t break her jaw this time, Stephanie thinks. She’s not bitter (okay, maybe just a little).
Stephanie crawls a little closer to the ledge of the roof and peers cautiously over into the alley, only to see the criminal knocked out, cigarette still in his lips, and Batgirl still nowhere to be found.
“This sucks,” she says, tapping into her comm.
“You’re the one who insists on patrolling with her,” Oracle responds unsympathetically, instantly knowing what Stephanie is referring to because, well, her name is literally Oracle.
“But like, can’t you just...ask her not to abandon me sometimes? Just sometimes. Like, once every two weeks,” Stephanie pleads as she jumps off the rooftop (that will never stop being awesome, she feels like one of those cool parkour guys on Vine) and pushes past the still-open door.
“You could learn a lot from her,” Oracle says distantly, distracted by something else no doubt. She's probably simultaneously hacking into the Pentagon and playing Tetris or whatever it is that computer nerds do these days.
“Like what? Lack of sportsmanship?” Stephanie retorts.
“Maybe if you stopped complaining, you could catch up to her.”
“Okay, okay,” Stephanie says and opens the heavy metal door.
The thing is, Stephanie complains about Batgirl, but she doesn’t truly mean anything by it. She really does want to learn from her, a desire so strong it's at the forefront of her mind every time she so much as looks at her, let alone sees her in action. She isn't dumb enough to think that she doesn't need training (or need a lot of it. Like, tons of it. Like the whole motherload of it). She even asked Batman, but he only sort of looked at her weird and gave her another CD on one of the million forms of yoga or something like that to practice.
It’s not that Batgirl doesn’t want to train her , it’s that Batgirl doesn’t want to interact with people in general. That’s what Stephanie likes to believe, in any case (she likes her excuses and she’s going to stick with them). Batgirl probably doesn’t even know the definition of social interaction. In fact, the only time Batgirl talks is when Stephanie asks to train with her, and that’s just to say ‘No’ and then continue kicking the asses of either holograms or criminals, depending on the time of day.
Robin says it’s because Batgirl doesn’t understand the point of socialising. According to him, she was raised in isolation, and never even knew how to speak or understand English until recently. Personally, Stephanie has a hard time believing that Batgirl can speak English now considering her utter lack of indication of it. When she asked Robin what language she spoke before, though, he kind of scratched his neck, made some half-hearted attempts at explaining, and then just gave up and said, “She didn’t speak anything?”
A genius, that one.
She’s certainly...fascinating, though. Stephanie has a hard time not being drawn to her. She’s different from the others, from Robin or Batman or Oracle who all operate on a plane of secrecy, relying on deception and illusion to make up their entire lives. Batgirl, on the other hand… Batgirl is bold. She doesn’t bother with pretense or illusion, she strikes hard and fast and lunges for what she wants, when she wants it. Stephanie knows it has more to do with the fact that Batgirl doesn’t truly understand the concept of secrecy and deception, of preparation or caution, and doesn’t have any regard for safety whatsoever than anything truly intentional on her part, but it’s...nice. And awesome to watch, Stephanie thinks as she steps over the third man sprawled in the darkened hallway.
“Couldn’t leave any for me?” Stephanie says as she enters the room at the very end of the hall, the only one with the door left ajar. Batgirl is staring down at a man in a suit slumped against the wall, a pistol lying a few inches from his fingers, unused bullets littered everywhere from where he must have been trying to load it.
She tries not to be, but she’s bummed out. He didn't even have a loaded gun! She could have totally taken him. Batgirl can just stick to the people who have their guns ready.
Batgirl doesn’t even turn to look at her, just points to the wall behind her where…
Oh. Where the plaster is flaking around the newly created bullet holes. Apparently, someone had their gun loaded. Stephanie eyes the other man she didn’t see at first, knocked out right beside her. Then she notices where Batgirl is standing.
“You...did you dodge the bullets?”
Batgirl doesn’t answer, just walks over to a rickety wooden desk pushed up against the far wall. She grabs a piece of paper off of the surface and doesn’t even glance at it.
“Okay, seriously, are you human?”
Batgirl still doesn’t answer as she marches right up to her and thrusts the paper in her face.
A vigilante who can dodge bullets but can’t read. Stephanie just stares at her. Batgirl points aggressively at the paper.
“Train me,” Stephanie begs.
“No,” Batgirl says, tilts her head at the paper, then decides that getting Stephanie to read it is a lost cause and snatches it out of her hands, probably to go throw at Oracle.
“You can’t hold out on me forever!” Stephanie yells after her.
She'll wear her down eventually.
Stephanie is at the Clocktower almost everyday after school, and she never has to fear being alone because Batgirl is always there, too. She isn’t really sure where Batgirl lives, but at this point she thinks it’s probably with Oracle, considering how much time they spend with each other.
“Doesn’t she go to school?” Stephanie asks Oracle, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the holoroom while hopping onto the redheaded woman’s computer desk. Oracle shoots her a dirty look and Stephanie instantly hops back off.
“She’s complicated,” Oracle says and leaves it at that.
“How complicated?”
“Maybe you should ask her yourself.”
“She never answers me!” Stephanie exclaims in despair, throwing herself over the couch at the other end of the room. It’s specifically Stephanie’s couch by now. Oracle never gets up from her chair and Batgirl never sits down so it’s always free for Stephanie to plant her ass on and never move again. “All I’m asking for is a little chitchat, y’know? Some friendly bonding time. But she doesn’t want friends, apparently.”
“Not out loud,” Oracle mumbles, obviously more focused on whatever she’s doing on her computer screen. Maybe she didn’t intend for Stephanie to hear it, but she did and there’s no backing out now.
“What do you mean?” she asks. When Oracle sighs and tries to dismiss her, Stephanie bounces back up and races over to lean heavily against the back of her chair. “Come on, you’ve gotta help me out here. Batgirl is amazing! I need to be able to fight like that and Batman is always busy and all he does is give me CD’s and Batgirl doesn’t even do anything all day but train in the holoroom and it would be so easy if she could just train with me instead of fake replicas of you from a million years ago.”
There’s that dirty look again. “Look, Stephanie, Batgirl is… She’s had a hard time of things. She wasn’t raised like the rest of us. She doesn’t answer you, or talk to you, because she doesn’t feel the need to. She does everything out of necessity. Talking doesn’t fit her definition of necessary. It’s like...wasted energy.” Oracle leans back and bites her lip, something she does when she’s trying to put her words together carefully.
"But it's sure as hell necessary to make friends."
Oracle continues as if she hadn't spoken. “It’s also harder for her. Talking has never been an option for her before, so using it now is like… It’s like you, speaking English all your life. And say, you’ve been reading and memorising Japanese words your whole life too, you know what everything means but you’ve never spoken it out loud and you’ve never heard anyone speak it in full sentences, consistently. You know the words but not how to put them together. Then suddenly you get thrown in Japan without anyone you know and everyone is speaking Japanese and you know what they’re saying, but you’re struggling to respond because you’ve never practiced how to fit what you want to say together.”
There’s a stretching silence, and Oracle finally punctuates it with, “Do you get it now?”
“Not really. I only know English,” Stephanie shrugs, letting go of Oracle’s chair in order to plop down onto her back. She immediately regrets it. The cold from the hard ground seeps in through her spandex. She shouldn’t be surprised, considering the rest of the clocktower below them is abandoned.
“Exactly. You only know English. Batgirl’s only ever known a different language, but now you’re expecting her to use one she might not be comfortable with more than she wants to. Try speaking her language and maybe she’ll respond more.”
“That’s great and all, except no one will tell me the language she speaks,” Stephanie hints, lolling her head to give Oracle a ‘duh’ look. “I mean, Rob tried to explain, but he’s bad at that.”
“She doesn’t really speak one,” Oracle says.
“He said that too. Are all vigilantes bad at this?”
“Yes, actually. Also, I’m technically not a vigilante anymore, but that’s not the point. The point is, she wasn’t just raised in isolation -- she was raised as an experiment. An experiment in if it would be possible to replace knowledge of the spoken language in the language center of our brains with the knowledge of body language. She doesn’t read words, she reads body movement. When she first came to us, she couldn’t even understand us. Why do you think the only thing she does is fight and train?” Oracle says, spinning her chair around to face her properly. “What else would you do if you couldn’t communicate?”
“‘Just speak her language’,” Stephanie parrots in a high-pitched voice, staring intensely at the door to the holoroom. Oracle is off doing something with Nightwing (Stephanie gets this image of both of them chilling at a coffee shop, except she’s never seen Nightwing out of his costume so it’s a really funky image with tons of kevlar and a fainting waitress). “What am I supposed to do, charades?”
She takes a deep breath and opens the door. Batgirl seems to have just finished a simulation because she’s sitting cross legged on the floor with a water bottle dangling from her hands, her head bowed and face blank.
See, that right there is the thing that probably fascinates Stephanie the most about Batgirl. Out of all of the vigilantes Stephanie has met, Batgirl seems the most real and relatable out of all of them, despite being, frankly, the weirdest and most detached, and it’s all because of her face.
She shows it. Her costume covers her whole body, yet she has no problem with taking off her cowl and walking around civilians with the Batgirl emblem on her chest like a target. Like she doesn’t get why masks are even a thing. And it’s weird, every time Stephanie sees it off. She’s nonverbal, yet more expressive than anyone Stephanie knows, and still like a statue but easier to read with her face exposed than any of the other vigilantes, and on purpose. Oracle’s words come back to Stephanie like a record on repeat.
“Hey,” Stephanie calls out. Batgirl looks up, head cocked curiously. “So, uh…”
Stephanie squints at her a bit, wondering how she’s supposed to take what Oracle said and put it into practice. Definitely easier said than done. She walks up to Batgirl and Batgirl rises to her feet to match her because she’s apparently not a fan of having to look up.
Not really knowing what else to do, Stephanie tackles her. Just the last foot of space, head bowed like a bull, charging with her arms forward to grab at Batgirl and shove her to the ground.
Batgirl sidesteps and Stephanie crumbles pathetically to the ground. Instantly, Stephanie feels a knee between her shoulder blades as her arm gets twisted behind her. “Holy shit, ow, ow, I give, I give!”
Batgirl releases her hold and takes a large step away from her. When Stephanie finally gets up, rubbing her shoulder, her face is blank.
Stephanie lurches to the left, then before she can see Batgirl step to the right, she plants her left foot and throws all of her weight to her right. She doesn’t even bother trying to catch herself because it’ll be impossible, but to her overwhelming satisfaction she feels her shoulder make contact with Batgirl’s chest as she barrels into her. They both collapse onto the ground. Stephanie's wheezing and although she can’t tell what Batgirl's going to do, she knows it involves something like rolling over and trapping Stephanie in a painful wrestling move, so she turns herself into an octopus and holds on for dear life.
Batgirl shifts like she’s about to try getting away, but doesn’t move further than that. When Stephanie braves looking up, Batgirl is staring down at her in bewilderment. Her hair is sprawled out around her in a halo, the strands so thick that they haven’t tangled at all from her tackle and what was probably hours of training judging by the sweat glistening over her face. A corner of Stephanie’s mind comments that her hair looks a lot healthier after getting cut.
“Hi,” Stephanie grins.
“Why…,” Batgirl trails off.
“I’m talking to you,” Stephanie says vaguely. When Batgirl just stares, she asks, “Are you ticklish?”
“Tick…lish...?”
Stephanie takes that as a yes and begins crawling her fingers under her exposed neck. Batgirl’s eyes widen as she instantly tries to dug her head to crush Stephanie’s fingers, but Stephanie counters that by relentlessly shoving her other fingers under her armpit. She distantly thinks that Batgirl’s armpits probably smell nasty, but it’s worth it for the expression on Batgirl’s face. It takes two seconds for her to start laughing, quietly (like everything about her) but obvious.
Stephanie can’t tickle her for much longer than that, though, because one hard kick from Batgirl sends Steph flying off of her. Batgirl shoots up, gasping. She turns to Stephanie, large brown eyes displayed like saucers. She takes one good look up and down Stephanie’s body before coming to an idea, mouth morphing into a large grin as she suddenly pounces on Stephanie from where she was trying to get up.
“Oof!” Batgirl’s fingers clumsily try tickling her under her chin and then under her armpits. She doesn’t try for her sides, and Stephanie suddenly realises that’s because she doesn’t know about that spot. She feels smug about having knowledge of the human body that Little Miss Childhood Experiment doesn’t. Batgirl can’t hold down both of her arms and tickle her at the same time, so Stephanie manages to go for her sides while simultaneously trying to wriggle away from the assault.
Batgirl squeaks and promptly glues her elbows to her sides to fend off Stephanie’s attack, sitting back on Stephanie’s hips so that she doesn’t have to use her arms to support herself. Stephanie takes the opportunity and wraps her arms around Batgirl’s waist, arms included, and tips them both over to the side.
It’s only a minute later when Stephanie finally starts shouting, “Stop! Stop! I surrender! White flag! White flag!” amidst her squeals because she’s on her back again, never with the upper hand, with Batgirl on her hips except this time she’s managed to wrap Stephanie up in her own cape and shove her partial face mask over her eyes so she’s like a gigantic burrito and Batgirl is relentless in everything, especially this.
When Batgirl stops, she pulls the mask off, and Stephanie makes sure to huff dramatically at her. She’s smiling ear to ear.
“I win.”
“Yeah, yeah, I never stood a chance,” especially not after Stephanie showed her the effect of tickling beneath the feet. The moment Batgirl got Stephanie’s shoes off, things went downhill real fast. She plops her head back down and tries to get her breath to even out. Batgirl, the jerk, is already composed. Stephanie doesn’t imagine that she gets winded very easily. Batgirl’s body rocks like a boat with the rise and fall of Stephanie’s stomach, but she doesn’t bother getting off. Stephanie doesn’t mind it as much as she should have. Although Batgirl is surprisingly heavy for such a small body, compact at every square inch, her weight is distributed well enough and the placement of her body is low enough that Stephanie doesn’t feel like she’s being crushed.
“You’re...okay?” Batgirl doesn’t sound genuinely concerned, more smug than anything, although her earlier grin has been replaced by a smaller, softer smile.
“I’m good,” Stephanie responds, but doesn’t move to get up. Instead they just stay there, breathing.
Then, without warning, Batgirl lowers herself so that she’s draped over Stephanie’s body in the same way that Stephanie had done earlier, wrapping her arms around Stephanie’s middle in an imitation of Stephanie’s octopus. “I can hug you?”
“Well, this is more like cuddling, but I’m cool with that.” With Batgirl laid out like this, Stephanie’s hands brush against her thighs, and she’s reminded of the fact that Batgirl has thighs of steel. People can preach what they want about Superman, but Stephanie has experienced first hand in various locks and holds how unforgiving that muscle is. She had even told Robin about it once, expecting Robin to be upset with how blatantly Stephanie had compared Batgirl’s thighs and muscle mass to his, but he had just laughed and agreed, saying that he wouldn’t ever get to her level. She had made up for it by saying that Robin’s butt was nice anyway, but now that she’s thinking about it there’s probably still no competition.
Poor guy.
“That was fun,” Batgirl says, and Stephanie is about to agree when she realises that this is the most she's spoken to her without prompting. Excited, Stephanie reaches around and decides to hug her back, squeezing.
“Are we friends now?” she asks.
Batgirl wiggles until Stephanie is forced to loosen her grip in order for her to raise her head and look at her, head tilted. “Yes.” When Stephanie just smiles at her, she adds, “Is this how...you make friends?”
“You don’t always have to tickle someone to be their friend. I mean, you’re friends with Oracle and I don’t think you guys have been in a tickle fight. It would probably be unfair, considering the fact that she can’t move half her body.”
“Oracle is my friend?”
“Well, yeah. You two live together and you haven’t attacked each other yet. I’d say you’re friends.”
“No.”
Stephanie frowns. “No, you’re not friends?”
“No, I don’t live here.”
“Oh,” Stephanie says, and is reminded of how much she doesn’t know about Batgirl. Speaking of which… “This is kind of off-topic, but what’s your name?”
She looks confused. “Batgirl.”
“I mean your real name. Like, I’m Stephanie Brown, AKA Steph, and you’re….?”
“‘Steph’?” Batgirl echoes. “But...Spoiler?”
“My name isn’t actually Spoiler,” Stephanie says, rolling her eyes, but when Batgirl doesn’t respond she looks back down only to see her staring at a spot over her shoulder, face blank. “You knew that, right?”
“But...that’s your name.”
“That’s my hero name. Like your hero name is Batgirl, and Batman’s hero name is Batman, and Robin’s hero name is Robin.”
“But Batman is Batman, and Robin is Robin, and you’re Spoiler,” Batgirl insists.
Stephanie stares at her for a little longer, not sure what to make of the conversation. Does she truly believe Batman’s name is actually Batman? “Well, yeah, but I’m not always Spoiler. Just like Batman isn’t always Batman, and you’re not always Batgirl.”
“I am.”
“Huh?”
“Always Batgirl,” she says, flatly.
“But…,” Stephanie starts, taking her arms completely off of her in order to raise them towards her face, although she isn’t entirely sure why. “What do you do during the day?”
“Train,” she says, still in that flat tone.
“You’re never someone else?”
“Why be someone else?”
“Because…,” because, because.
Stephanie truly takes in her face this time.
Narrow eyes set in a round, smooth face and below thin, dark eyebrows. There’s a bruise blossoming over her jaw, but the rest of her skin is soft and tinted by a pale yellow tone, like she doesn’t get out in the sun much despite inherently having what should probably be tan skin, and now that Stephanie thinks about it… she probably doesn’t. Everything about her looks soft, from her pale pink bowed lips to the gentle crest that is the bridge of her nose, yet nothing really is. Soft isn’t an adjective that pops into mind when someone considers the enigma that makes up Batgirl.
Stephanie takes in all of this and remembers that Batgirl is the only vigilante she’s seen the face of, because her face is Batgirl.
“Because you can,” Stephanie settles on. “Why do you need a reason? The best things in life don’t.”
Batgirl doesn’t say anything, but she does look over Stephanie’s face like she’s the mystery. Then, she dips her head and plants her lips on Stephanie’s cheek. Stephanie freezes. Batgirl rolls off and gets to her feet, holding out a hand to help Stephanie up. She takes the hand and tries not to think about how much she really just wants to use that hand to tug Batgirl back onto the floor with her. “Why did you kiss me?”
“No reason,” Batgirl says.
Stephanie looks at her intently. “Is that implying that the best thing--”
“Train?” Batgirl interrupts.
Stephanie opens her mouth, ready to berate Batgirl for interrupting her, when what she said catches up. “Wait, really?” Stephanie says.
Batgirl nods and falls into a fighting stance. “I will hurt you,” she warns.
“Yup,” agrees Stephanie. “No pain no gain though, right?” She lunges and decides that she can set aside the rest of the puzzle for later, because maybe, just maybe, she might be starting to understand Batgirl a little more.