Who: Eddie, Stephanie (Part 1) When: Five years in the future, but then Tuesday, the morning after the blow out with the sirens and bats Where: Earth-3 -> Eddie's Apartment What: Eddie and Steph were zapped somewhere else for five years and stumbled back a minute later Warnings: Swearing, violence, cute
It had been five years.
Five years of fighting on Earth-3, a dark shadow world of their home. Everything they knew was wrong. Every direction pointed the opposite way. Batman didn’t exist and in his place was what Stephanie and Eddie considered an imposter, an Owlman who didn’t just kill his enemies, he showed their bloody bodies off like trophies. Five years of being stuck on a planet where every rogue was good or at least wanted to hurt Owlman as much as Eddie did. The fighting didn’t break out into a war until a year or two in and then they had to give up everything to live underground and attack like terrorists. Five years of watching people die, hope being squashed and no light at the end of the tunnel.
Five years and now the war was about to be lost.
The Riddler pressed his body up against a broken, dirty brick wall. He was dressed in a green coat with the collar zipped up as a cowl to hide the bottom of his face with black pants lightly armored and black boots meant for running. Under the coat was a bullet proof shirt, vest and such a grand array of gizmos and gadgets galore that he had collected over the years. His dark hair curled forward above his purple glasses, a white streak just under his right ear that showed how much the war had aged him. In his hand was a cane much like the one he had in Arkham City. Blocky, useful and stained with the blood of anyone dumb enough to get in swinging distance.
“Riddle me this.” He murmured, peeking his head out from the alley he and Spoiler were hiding in to see a complete wreckage of their once glorious Underground Justice League. Rogue bodies torn and destroyed in a fiery battlefield in the middle of Gotham. And, standing at the top of it was Owlman. “Who do you think he’s going to execute today?” Humor barely in his voice, dry and crackling like a man who had seen too many of his friends shot in the head. His fingers reached to intertwine with Spoiler’s, a nervous habit before they did something really stupid.
“I got my money on-” Riddler’s prediction was cut short as he pulled tiny binoculars up to watch. Owlman was shouting orders, telling his dying foes to look up as one of their leaders was killed. Then, Jokester stumbled forward. Hands tied behind his back, a red hood over his head and dressed in the dirty suit he was captured in. Jokester, who in this world was the leader against evil. The true force behind taking Owlman down. “There’s no fucking way!” Riddler exclaimed, handing the binoculars over to Spoiler before crossing his arms and trying to think.
In less time than they had to respond, the glimmering red hood was lifted off the clown’s head, revealing that it was their once untouchable leader. Owlman unceremoniously took out one of his pistols, pointed it at Jokester’s head and blew his brains out.
“That’s it.” Riddler said, hearing the gun blast faintly echo. “Remember that fun talk we had about surrender versus fighting? Well, it’s time we make good on it.” He lifted up his cane, pressed a button and watched it spark with electricity.
Pressed up against the crumbling, filthy wall next to the Riddler was a blonde former bat who went by a different name these days. Bats weren’t liked in this Gotham, see. Flying mammals harkened to ruthless supervillains who wanted to tear the entire planet apart through corruption, greed, and murder. So, Stephanie left Batgirl in their old home, taking up the reigns of her first moniker, Spoiler, instead. And Spoiler, like the Riddler, was armed to the teeth. Utility belts strapped around her thigh, hips, torso filled with different non-lethal gadgets used to clear goon paths. Strapped on her back was her collapsable bo-staff and a quiver full of different sort of arrows, and the bow was actually tucked under her arm. Most notable, of course, was the glock in the holster around her thigh, used mostly to paralyze and not for the kill.
Black, tight kevlar suit with flashes of purple, a purple hood to cover her blonde hair, and a black cowl to cover her mouth (and, of course, a pair of over the knee boots specially requested by her riddled man), Spoiler looked like what she might have at sixteen if she’d had access to good supplies. But, she was so far from the sixteen year old in eggplant it was almost laughable. Five years hadn’t just changed Eddie. At twenty-six, Stephanie was grown, far older than she had ever dreamed of being, and not just in age. No, war changed a girl, didn’t it? War brought a heaviness and a hatred only learned in combat. A ruthlessness only taught when the lives of you and the man you love were on the line.
Spoiler tangled her fingers with his readily, easily, desperately. It turned into a funny little habit that became a need at this point -- any second of affection could be the last, after all. She tugged, gloved fingers against gloved fingers before relinquishing to take a hold of the binoculars. “What?” she asked worried, eyebrows high and snatching the binoculars away quicker to look. There was their leader, Jokester, and-- oh god. Spoiler suppressed a shriek of horror, biting down on her lip hard enough to nearly draw blood. “No,” she said softly, hand holding the binoculars falling in slow motion. “No, no no.” It wasn’t a shock, per se, that Owlman would take him out. More like she was seeing the last bit of hope for winning this war and security get snuffed out right in front of her.
Shoving the binoculars back into his hands, she reached back to take an arrow as if she were going to mount it onto the bow and shoot Owlman right through the eye. They were nowhere near close, of course, and it would be a pipe dream at this point to think that they had a chance. They had already lost so many of their people during the last couple of years. She and Eddie were simply next on the chopping block. And, maybe she should have been a little more upset about that, but war had a way of numbing the senses in the same way her toes and fingers tingled as she stood there. Defeat, maybe acceptance, but she sure as fuck wasn’t going down without a fight.
“I love you,” she said without prompting, and then she dropped the arrow onto the floor to catch his cowled chin with her gloved fingers to catch dark browns in heavy blues. “I fucking love you, Edward Nashton,” she testified, emphasizing each syllable and lingering on every word as if wanting his name to be the last things she uttered.
Eddie smiled when she reached for an arrow and he thought it was a perfect symbol for their whole outlook fighting this war. They’d never hit the target, but they wanted to take the shot anyway. So, here was the finale, one he knew could happen every time he stepped onto the battlefield. This was it and even if they managed to get out with their lives, it wouldn’t last long. And, Eddie was sure that they both were so fed-fucking-up with this world that they were willing to fight until they couldn’t anymore.
He didn’t think about the loss he was about to endure, the possibility of joining the pile of corpses in front of him or watching Stephanie go down first. He just tried to think of all the stuff he loved. The few good times strung together with other people and how happy Stephanie made him all the time. Even in the middle of a fucking war zone. “I love you, too.” Eddie said it a little like a vow, solemn and easy as breathing air. He reached to pull down her cowl, let her unzip his and pressed a long kiss against her lips. “I love you, Stephanie Brown.” He whispered, staring up at her with those dark eyes that echoed back every confession of love he could ever give her.
His throat seized up and he breathed slowly, letting his tactical mind take over again. “Back to back until we can get up to Owlman. We take him down first. If you get the chance, you take the sonofabitch down.” Eddie zipped his cowl back up and stepped out into the chaos. Right at the edge of the alley was a crumbling war zone. Resistors who had aligned themselves with them were being slaughtered by loyal goons that came in the form of paid off cops and mobsters who loved Owlman’s money more than anything else in the world. Eddie inhaled again, trying to get a scent of a Gotham he once knew and then touched his wrist.
Ping, ping!
Cars, windows, bus stops and stop lights all began to warp and shatter, creating a sudden burst of chaos that was calculated by the riddled man. Steel thwacked goons in the face, power lines wrapped up crooked cops and cars barrelled down from the sky. He smiled a little, enjoying the craziness of it all and then smashed his electrified cane in the nearest goon’s face. Then another. Then he pulled out his pistol and shot a man for looking at him funny. If he was going down today, he was taking as many of these idiots as he could with him.
But, they were overwhelmed. Someone yelled Riddler and Spoiler! and Eddie could swear he heard Owlman’s metal wings from the distance swoop towards them.
Stephanie tried her hardest not to think about what was just going to happen. How the last vestiges of hope were crumbling in front of her, how she’d probably end up watching the love of her life die in front of her eyes. She took that kiss for everything it was, a last declaration of a love that was unrivaled in both of their lives and probably the lives of any of these pathetic fuckers about to kill them. Lingering, pushing herself up against him, pouring every bit of affection and love and heartache into what would probably be their last embrace. She stole a quick, gentle touch of the side of his face before they both readjusted their cowls.
“If we’re going down, I’m taking that motherfucker with us,” she vowed in a voice of a woman who had had enough, tucking her bow under her arm again and pulling the gun from her thigh holster. “I swear to god I am.” A deep steadying breath, a last second to savor the life she had and every single moment that Eddie made her feel something real. She watched as Eddie stepped forward, heart jumping in her throat for just a second before nodding to herself and diving into the chaos as well.
She began by shooting at the mob’s feet to try to scatter them, but when that didn’t work, she started aiming for legs, shoulders, arms. Something to maim, but not kill. Even with all her hardening over the last years, Stephanie still hesitated taking a life unless it called for it, or someone had almost taken Eddie from her. But, none of that mattered now, did it? Some stupid Bat morality wouldn’t help her when she was six feet under in a world that was barely hers. Keeping away from guns wouldn’t have kept her alive as long as it had. Did it matter if she actually took some of these people down with her?
As the crowd closed in on them in the chaos, greedy eyes ready to take down two of the most notorious freedom fighters on the planet, she wondered for a second what they would be doing in the old Gotham. Something like taking down Crane again or helping the Bat and the Cat realize how important they were to one another. Something painfully simple and something she wanted so desperately in that moment that she almost burst into tears. Another, fleeting thought wondered if there was a Muerte on this planet, too. If she and Eddie would be ushered on into an afterlife.
That shout awoke her from her musings and unconscious shooting into the crowd, and Stephanie looked up to find the voice and that swoop of metal wings. Without hesitation, in one clean and impressive move, she reached to press steal a kiss from Eddie through cowls, then grabbed an arrow, mounting the bow and pointing the arrow -- a metal one with an explosive tip at the end -- up to the source of the voice. Owlman was closing in quickly, and Stephanie had mere seconds before none of this balliness mattered.
She aimed for his jugular. She closed her eyes. And, with a steadying breath, she released the arrow up into the air.
Suddenly, she didn’t hear the roar of a mob in her ears ready to tear both Riddler and Spoiler into pieces. She didn’t hear an explosion either. Nothing but unnerving quiet, and wasn’t that the scariest thing of all? She didn’t dare open her eyes or lower her bow for fear that this was the end of it all. Let her linger for a moment in the land of the living before accepting her fate.
“You got this.” Riddler said confidently as Spoiler reached for the arrow, eyes up at the giant metal bird blocking out the sun above them. He didn’t close his eyes, Eddie always said he wanted to see death with his eyes open and gee wasn’t this a nice chance? But, the dark shadow above them turned into the shape of a bat, slowly blocking out all light and plunging him into darkness. The battle around them quieted as if a conductor tapped his podium and the symphony below stilled.
And, the funny thing was? Eddie was sure he heard the wings of a thousand bats rush past his ears.
Warmth returned first, a familiar scent of minute old waffles and the scratch of dog paws across wood floors. Eddie instinctively reached for Stephanie and opened his eyes, jaw dropping at the sight of his newly remodeled apartment. In their Gotham. Exactly how he left it five years ago. His heart pounded so hard he thought it was going to break through his rib cage and he slowly took off his violet shades, gun still ready to shoot anyone who threatened him in this harmless looking living room.
“Machina, check for uh- check for things.” Eddie sputtered out to a warm piiing. “Things! MInd control waves, simulators, weird energy readings. Check for all the things.” He couldn’t bare to look at Stephanie at first, sure as hell this was a trick and if he turned to look at her face he’d see a dead corpse staring right back at him.
When the quiet insisted on pervading, when the crowd didn’t roar back to life and she didn’t hear the distinct boom of her arrow hitting the target, Stephanie knew it was over. It was over, it was over, and suddenly peace. Peace was nice, wasn’t it? She barely knew what the word meant after so many years of combat and fighting for her life. Peace meant the rare stolen moments she and Eddie took, or the one day a year they had to celebrate another year of their relationship surviving, of them surviving. But, this peace didn’t mean any of that at all, but at least it meant an end to it.
When she felt Eddie touch her, the bow slowly lowered, and she relaxed from her stance, but she didn’t open her eyes yet. No, give her one more moment of denial, of living, of being before she had to accept their fate. She took a few deep breaths -- well, that could just be a condition of the illusion -- before cracking one eye open. What she saw though, was simply a cruel joke. Her eyes snapped open, and she could smell the waffles Eddie was making the morning they had been zapped onto Earth-3. Her stomach churned -- another illusion -- and her bow clattered to the floor. A groan escaping her lips, face contorting into something pained.
“This is fucked up. This is just--” Why did the afterlife stick them in the home they so longed for over five years. “We’re dead,” she said, hollow-voiced like a woman who accepted her fate long ago. “I get it, but this is just fucking cruel.” She didn’t dare look at Eddie either, scared he was just another part of the illusion created because this wasn’t real. They couldn’t be standing there in their apartment just like they had left it.
Stephanie yanked the purple hood off of her head and pulled the cowl down as far as she could, feeling stifled suddenly in her afterlife. Down her neck stood a deep, pink scar that traveled up her jaw and landed somewhere behind her ear. She snatched off a glove to run her finger against it. “Fucking hell, I could have at least gotten rid of all of these.” Steph sounded jaded and angry, not mystified by the fact that they were standing in the middle of an apartment in Old Gotham that they couldn’t be.
Everything went into straight mental overdrive for the Riddler.
Eddie snuck a look back at Stephanie as she pulled the cowl off. No skeleton head. Ranting about the afterlife. Good that was definitely her. Machina pinged and pinged to get his attention. Eddie understood every word, of course, but he knew it’d be better if they could both get the computer’s opinion. “One sec, Mac.” Eddie rushed out of the room up the stairs to his computer lair. “Oh jesus christ what was my password, come on genius.” Eddie berated himself as he tried to punch in a couple numbers, finger waving in the air as he was trying to drum up the code out of nothing. “Ah-hah!” Eddie said suddenly, pulling the number out of his ass and punched it in. The computer room door clicked open and Eddie slipped inside.
After minutes of the sound of things being thrown around, Eddie finally returned with what looked like an old Apple monitor in his hands. Not at all unlike the one Stephanie completely destroyed years and years ago. “Okay, I know I haven’t tested this yet, but you’ll see why an Apple computer is so clever. Machina? Mac? Get it?” He took off Machina from his wrist and attached her to the back of the computer, walking down the stairs and setting her on his counter before sitting on the stool next to it.
The green screen suddenly popped awake and a beautiful, motherly face appeared in all its 8-bit glory. She looked kind and (maybe even more unsettling) she looked a lot like how Eddie’s mom would have. “I’m detecting zero signs of foul play, sweetie.” Machina’s voice said clearly as if she was in the room with them with all the sweetness of a mother. “No dream machines, no psychic energy. Nothing seems amiss, I mean except for the fact you’re letting your waffles cool.”
“Don’t you think this is more important than waffles? We were just on a different planet! Remember how many times we tried to boom tube back here?”
“Nothing is more important than waffles, sweetie pie.” Machina replied warmly and Eddie buried his head in his hands, giving out a frustrated yell into them.
While Eddie scrambled upstairs, Stephanie stood still, arrested to the spot for a moment before taking catalogue of what was still the same. That marred skin on her neck and jaw. Check. All of her weapons. Check. Eddie still a mildly neurotic mess? Check. Resigned, she unclicked the quiver from her holster and let it drop to the floor next to her bow. No need to be armed like soldiers when you were already dead, right? For a second, she looked around, and she felt a sudden warmth of home fill her body (if she was dead, how could she feel warm?), and she almost went around exploring before Eddie came back downstairs from his server room.
Indulging him, she shuffled over to where he sat, leaning her body onto his back carefully like she was scared he would turn into ash if she put too much pressure. Stephanie had never heard Mac aside from pings, and the pixelated face and warm voice earned a moment of pure interesting, devoid of the jaded stiffness that suddenly fell upon the blonde former bat. She almost felt soothed, having a mother-figure ease them into whatever this next eternity would be. Mac would make it easy on them to explore and exist in this purgatory afterlife they’d wound up in.
The insistence in the warm voice, however, earned a harsh, bubbled laugh. “This is a joke,” she said, waving to the screen and pointedly looking at Eddie as if she was the one who had it all figured out for once. “But, she’s got a point. Why waste good waffles? We have an eternity now to eat all the good waffles we want. And I figure you don’t get fat when you’re dead. That would just be unfuckingfair.” The faint jingle of dog tags caught her ear, and she jerked at the sound for a second before looking back at him with a shrug. Blue eyes defeated and angry and jaded.
“I could tell you the temperature outside. Or what’s on tv today.” Machina babbled on, about baseball, tv, bats, birds. Apparently more than happy to have a voice and (according to her) be back home. Eddie reached to tap the screen with one hand and she slowly stopped talking, pixelated eyes simply watching the two humans have their own versions of a nervous breakdown. “Nuh-uh, Stephanie Brown.” He turned to her, all serious and commanding like he couldn’t get the battlefield out of his voice. “You’re not going to crazy town. This can’t be heaven or whatever. I’m the religious one.” He pointed a thumb back at himself. “I’d know if this is the afterlife and it-”
Eddie’s rant stopped when he heard the jingle of dog tags and then a bounce of a tennis ball across the floor. She could see his heart drop, eyes going wide like someone had just stabbed him in the stomach and he slowly turned to see his dog, Matilda sitting with perfect manners under him, her paw on the ball she wanted him to throw for her. “Hey, girl.” Eddie’s voice cracked and he flopped off the barstool, lowering to his knees next to the now confused copper-haired dog.
“Oh my god, I didn’t think I’d get to see you again.” Eddie wrapped his arms around the dog, burying his face into her fur and trying to not cry with every fibre of his being. When he pulled back, his nose was red and eyes watery. “Matilda, is it really you? We have a no lying policy, remember?” He grabbed the dog gently and dark puppy dog eyes stared into dark puppy dog eyes. Matilda wiggled her body and then barked happily, which made Eddie slowly look up to Stephanie.
“Remember what happened to Selina.” A seriousness in his voice, tight and hopeful. “She came back. You can’t rule it out.”
Stephanie looked at him with outrage and began talking to him, drowning out the pixelated face that looked so calm in the face of both their nervous breakdowns. Not that Steph would even consider it being a nervous breakdown. “I am not in crazy town, Eddie! One minute we’re in the middle of a bloodbath and I shoot a fucking arrow at Owlman and then next it’s this.” Her hand waved at the room at large, and she looked away from him up to the ceiling. “Just because you’re the religious one doesn’t mean you have a monopoly on all--.” But, her rant cut short, too, when she heard him stop, and she looked back down at the tableau reunion happening on the floor below her.
“What,” she said softly, as Matilda waited patiently for Eddie to throw the tennis ball. Steph watched the scene unfold with mouth agape, unabashed staring in the face of something she barely remembered existed lately aside from the three little pawprint tattoos on her foot. One for each of their animals on the “farm.” No, Stephanie hadn’t allowed herself to think of anything that good in weeks as the resistance was quickly collapsing. But here was that loving copper dog, wagging her body in excitement and blissfully unaware of everything her dad had just gone through.
“It can’t--.” Stephanie was insistent, even as Eddie looked up at her with watery eyes and a red nose. Her own eyes began to water, and she really let it sink in. “We’re home?” she asked whisper quiet, slowly falling to her knees. “We’re home?” she repeated, a little louder and a crack in her voice that betrayed the tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. She covered her mouth to stifle a sob as she stared at Eddie. Still not completely willing to believe something so good and wonderful was happening. Shaking her head as if he was still wrong, so very wrong.
Eddie couldn’t find his voice when Stephanie began to break down. The way she said home took the air right out of his lungs and he pressed his lips together, staring right back up at her. “I don’t know.” He whispered, a flimsy smile betraying his wariness of something good after so many years of bad. “I hope so. I hope.” He repeated gently, reaching for her desperately and pulling her into a messy hug as they knelt on the floor. His mind ticked and tocked with all the other possibilities. A dream, a mind control, a moment of peace before death, heaven, anything. But, none of them shined as brightly as home.
He leaned back and pressed his forehead against hers, dark eyes lost in her blues as he tried to take everything in. “I thought I was going to lose you. Lose us.” Eddie told her and took her hands with his. “So even if this is all a fucking mind game, I’m so goddamned glad you’re here with me.” He pulled one of her hands to rest on his chest over his heart, over that shared tattoo they had and whispered an I love you that seemed as broken and tired as he was. Eddie kissed the top of her hand, rubbing his fingers across it carefully and then got to his feet.
First he took the green jacket off, then all the gizmos and gadgets, then his bulletproof armor. All that was left was his white t-shirt that said Burger Joint across the front in old 70’s font. His arms had grown muscular over the years while at war and were covered in tattoos that reached all the way up under his shirt and down his back. In fact, Eddie had practically covered himself in ink over the past five years. Some of them to commemorate a past life, some of them to mourn the lost, some to remind everyone what he loved. He didn’t look like the scrawny, soft man that prefered suits and rarely got into a fight if he could help it. Being a rogue in this Gotham was a luxury. Being a war hero on Earth-3 forced him to toughen up.
Eddie paced and then moved behind the counter, picking up a waffle and taking a big, hungry bite. “Here’s the thing. I don’t hear Atwood. I don’t hear anyone. If this was our home, wouldn’t we hear a voice in our head?” He took another thoughtful bite and then stared at the waffle. “Damn, I made good breakfast.”
Stephanie squeaked when he pulled her into that hug, a hug she desperately needed as her brain started to crack juuuuusttt a little. Shivering body, reality crashing down sort of crack. A sob bubbled out of her chest, but she couldn’t put her finger on if it was happy, or sad, or scared. Probably a combination of the three. She refused to accept that they were home; how could they be? After years and years of fighting for a world that wasn’t really theirs, why were they home now? It this was some kind of fucked up way for the universe to teach them a lesson, she didn’t get it. But, Eddie was there, and she clung to him so tightly it might have hurt the man five years ago. Now, it seemed that all they did was cling to each other as the last vestiges of hope and reality they had.
Fingers dug mercilessly into him as she wrapped her arms around him and looked into his puppy dog browns. They grounded her in a way that only Eddie’s gaze could, brought her back down to Earth or whatever this was. Actually, it brought her back down to him every single time. After all was said and done, after everything she lost over the last five years, he was her world now, and she wasn’t ashamed of that. And didn’t it just prove everyone else right that he was? Catching his wary gaze, she spied that same cloying sort of love reflected in his eyes. The shaking calmed, and she took a long, deep inhale to steady herself. An I love you, too croaked out as she closed her eyes. Comforted that even if this was some sort of trick or mind game or purgatory that he could still touch her and drag her back to him like before.
As he slowly rose, she sunk down to sit on the back of her heels and look at Matilda. She didn’t seem real, but Stephanie tentatively reached out to rub her copper fur. It still felt so soft under her fingers, and a cautious smile curled up her lips. “Hi, beautiful,” she said softly, as if keeping a secret from her human daddy and the computer face that blinked in curiosity. Matilda seemed a little nervous at first, not really recognizing a grown up Stephanie when the young, bubbly girl only minutes before. But, a couple of wary sniffs of her kevlar, of her fingers, and the dog seemed placated, wiggling her body and stretching up to lick the blonde’s face. “Hi, gorgeous. Oh hi, baby girl.” She smoothed her hands over the dog’s fur as she looked up to watch Eddie strip Earth-3 off his body.
One kiss pressed to the top of a doggy head, she slowly rocked to her feet, too, and around the corner of the hallway towards their bedroom, she could see a tentative kitty head pop out from behind. “Babies,” she said with a happiness that seemed so simple and unadulterated. She strode over to scoop up Bandit first, who wriggled for a second before settling into her mother’s arms as if she sensed something was wrong. “Did you protect the girls while we were gone?” Maybe she was indulging the fantasy a little bit, but who could blame her? If this was some sort of transitory moment or a fucked way to mess with their heads, Stephanie didn’t care for two seconds. She could pretend.
After another bout of wiggling, Steph let Bandit go, dropping her onto the floor. The cat trotted over to where Eddie stood in the kitchen and rubbed against his leg in affection. Before she followed suit, the blonde scooped up the other cat, Isis, who poked her big head out from under a table in the hallway. “You’re fatter than I remember, girl,” she teased the cat as she lobbed around in Stephanie’s arms. “Yeah, you did. So what happened?” She grinned, easily able to flirt and tease her riddled man no matter what the circumstance. They could banter in the middle of a fucking combat zone when they wanted. Just more shining examples of how much she and Eddie might have changed, but how much they stayed the same too.
Rolling her lips in thought, she closed her eyes when she leaned onto the counter, cat still in her arms. “No, I don’t here Addy either.” A glance around the room as if that would hold any sort of explanation until her gaze fell onto two pieces of tech on a table nearby that made the hair on the back of her neck stick up. “What are those?” She nodded towards them, somehow knowing the answer before he even responded.