Who: Damian and Stephanie When: Recently Where: Bludhaven What: Damian tells Steph he's moving even though she already knows Warning: snark. crossed arms.
Damian was eager to start his new life in Bludhaven and had taken it upon himself to begin patrolling and getting to know the city before actually moving there. Leaving the Robin costume back in the cave, he decided to take up the Talon name permanently. Away from Gotham, he didn’t have to worry about the batfamily frowning on it and frankly? He didn’t really care. Talon was his. He fought for it in a way that belonged in this world, not the one he came from. So, dressed in black and gold, Talon swooped down ontop of a catwalk next to some scummy punk bar. Teenagers and young adults filed in and out of an alleyway smelling of cheap beer and piss, loudly talking over the music blaring from inside the bar. And, Damian understood that this was the kind of thing someone his age should be doing, but he was tired of doing what he was supposed to.
About to move on in his patrol, Talon heard a bottle crash and then one of the teenagers below shoved another out into the street. The sound of a car’s horn blared and for a second everyone seemed to cringe like they expected the sound of metal wrapping around the poor guy’s body. But, then the guy was magically on the sidewalk again with a wooshing noise and the guy he was about to have a brawl with seemed so shocked and relieved that they seemed to forget about fighting altogether. Which, if you asked Talon, was too bad. He was in the mood to knock in some heads. Back on his perch, he watched the bar for another second, catching a glimpse of a familiar silhouette. No blonde hair, no frumpy jacket, but he knew it was Stephanie. Live with a girl long enough and it was easy to spot their bad posture a mile away.
He reached for his ear to comm her, but if she was in some getup she was probably investigating something. So, he texted her a quick top of the roof on your six. Oblivious, of course, that he didn’t even tell Stephanie that he’d be in town. Or that he was moving there. Or that the whole batfamily knew before she did.
Stephanie had been in Bludhaven a few days at this point, though in Bludhaven, Stephanie Brown didn’t exist. Harper Row was the street rat goth girl who crawled out of the woodworks and into the scene. Harper was the one who lived in the shitty apartment on Woolrich. Harper was the one with choppy pink hair, a nose ring, and tattered black and gray clothing who hung in the backs of bars and sipped on warm beer to try to catch any hint of something going down. Per Eddie’s advice, she tried her best to not to get noticed and hold her tongue. No snide, snappy remarks, and no bright grins. Just perpetual grumpiness and deadpanning until she thought her face might stay stuck in that goddamn frown. She had an idea on how to act, how to dress, how to slump in a corner, but that was mostly from movies and shows she’d seen. Thanks, South Park goths, for your inspiration. Regardless, Eddie had been right; Steph was a bit too bubblegum hopeful to ever wallow in darkness and woe like the rest of these people.
Still, she tried her best to do her recon, which was what had her at that bar that night. Some of the guys from her building with ties to the docks where she and Eddie suspected her father was had invited her, and she was trying her best to eavesdrop on a conversation between a group of people who had just been working near there. She slumped against a wall, the moody music blasting through the speakers and making it hard to hear exactly what they were saying. She’d begun to lean forward, bottle of beer pressed against her lips, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She sighed sharply, rolling her eyes and hoping it wasn’t one of her friends from school checking in on her again. Black nailed fingertips slid across the screen to open up the message, and when she read who it was from, she visibly balked. Oh, for Christ’s sake. She hadn’t forgotten about the bubbling anger she felt towards the baby bird, but she had been distracted enough by her recon to forget how betrayed she felt by the person she considered her best friend in this Gotham. After all they’d been through, he couldn’t tell her that he was leaving Gotham for the godawful streets of Bludhaven. She had to find out through Jason Todd? Screw that.
She considered ignoring the message and continuing to nurse her warm beer as she gathered information, but she couldn’t resist the urge to yell at him. I’ll be there in 15 was the response he received, and she spent ten minutes making small talk with some hulking goon who had heard about some new activity going down in the city. Oh, for real, she mumbled with apathy, eating up every little detail he uttered. After promising to swing by some warehouse party the next evening, she skulked out of the bar and, after making sure no one was looking, scaled the fire escapes of the building across from the bar. Long black skirt and heavy combat boots made it harder, and she pulled herself over with a heavy, heavy thump to crouch down with arms bracing her against the roof. “Talon,” she said curtly when she spotted him in the gold and black. Crap, maybe she should have changed into her kevlar for this clandestine meeting. But, Batgirl wasn’t angry with Talon; Stephanie Brown was furious at Damian Wayne.
Talon watched her reaction to the message through binoculars, seeing the look of surprise and then anger. That was unexpected. He considered the possibility that she already heard he was leaving, but if she was mad he was leaving that was just too bad. Everyone else could accept it, why couldn’t she? And, yes, the little bird was completely unaware that the real anger was directed toward his failure to tell her. He didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what other people were feeling. Damian barely understood people even when he did. He snapped the binoculars back on his belt and scanned through his tablet, planning out the next neighborhood he’d hit after talking to Stephanie.
When she thunked her huge boots on the rooftop he turned to raise an eyebrow at her. “What’s with the getup?” He asked, lowering the handheld tablet to look over whatever it was that she thought she was wearing. “You look ridiculous.”
She stood up from her crouch, a little hesitant to be so out in the open in a town where they didn’t really have any back-up and mentally facepalming that she didn’t change into her Batgirl get-up. Good work, Stephanie Brown. Exposing yourself in Bludhaven, too. It seemed that all of Gotham knew the identity of the young woman under the cowl, but that didn’t mean that was okay, and that definitely didn’t mean she should blab her extracurricular activities in a new town. But, at least she didn’t look like Stephanie Brown. Nose pierced, pink and blonde hair, tight black clothes and a leather jacket to top it off. Nothing like the hoodie-and-sneaker donning college student everyone knew. Still, that blue-eyed glare was nothing but familiar, especially to someone like the baby bird.
“Urban camouflage, baby bird. I’m trying to get intel.” She, of course, left out the part where her boyfriend asked her to dress up in this darkened princess getup. Damian would never let her live that down. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried her best to control the bubbling rage waiting to unleash a thrashing on him. “Trying to break into the scene, obviously.”
Whatever rage was boiling under Stephanie’s skin went completely unnoticed. Damian was too wrapped up in his own stuff to tell the difference between moodiness and actual anger. “Well, you look stupid.” Damian said after a moment, giving her another once over before peering across the skyline. “I’m trying to get a feel for the city before Grayson and I-” The little bird paused and glanced back at Stephanie. His back stiffened a little and he realized that this wasn’t where he wanted to have this conversation. But, he told her to come up and meet him, so now it was his responsibility to do so. He reached to take off his mask and rubbed his eyes roughly with the palm of his hand like he was trying to get rid of some frustration built up there.
“I’m moving here with Grayson. Permanently, most likely.” Damian said, shoulders back and chin up with that perfect posture his mother taught him. “Things in Gotham have been getting too hard for me. No one respects anything I say and all my efforts to keep the family together were wasted.” It sounded like there was an echo of hurt in his voice, but he had been over this so many times in his head that it was starting to make him feel numb.
“Well, thanks for your input. And, gosh, here I was thinking of making it a permanent change,” she snapped as he looked away from her, arms wrapping tighter around her. She thought Damian could read her better, especially after all these months of living together and working together and being a team. He was really the only other person in Gotham aside from Eddie that she could rely on, that she thought she could trust. And, one of two people who trusted her, too. But, clearly that wasn’t the case, and she felt a strange fissure rock between the two of them. Maybe it wasn’t something he realized, but she felt it. She watched him try to rub away some of that tension, and she felt a twinge of guilt, but not enough to soften her expression. Not yet.
“I know you are.” That usual deadpan crossed her face, and she tried her damnedest to keep her voice even, though there was that sneaky shake there. “You want to know how I know you’re ditching Gotham and moving here to this hellhole? Jason Todd told me. Jason!” Her arms flapped up, chains and excess jewelry jingling, and she looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. Incredulous that he couldn’t think of that. She didn’t acknowledge his reason why. She didn’t want the reason why he was moving; she wanted the why of his reasoning for not telling her at all. “Why am I the last one to know?” And, there was anger and hurt and jealousy all bundled up in that one simple question.
Damian’s face went from exhausted to surprised, even if the Wayne version of the expression simply involved barely lifted eyebrows and a wrinkled forehead. “I didn’t tell Jason!” He snapped back, that cool Talon exterior falling way to regular Damian anger. “I only told Helena, Bruce and Selina. I was going to tell you, obviously, because if all my stuff just vanished while you were away you’d have some kind of girl panic about it!” It didn’t occur to him that he just named off the only other important people in his life. Or that all three of them were pretty terrible with secrets. His face turned a little red and now he was flapping his arms, too. A telltale bat family sign of being upset, flustered and hurt all at once.
He paused, still sort of flapping his wings at her before they fell at his sides sadly. He hunched forward and turned away from her. “I had the hardest time trying to figure out how tell you, that’s why.” Damian murmured under his breath, crossing his arms defensively. “I don’t know why you can’t just move here with me and Grayson. I’d be willing to forgive whatever you did to your hair. I hope you’re planning on tucking that away in the cowl, by the way. It was bad before, but now everyone will know who you are.”
Steph placed her hands on her hips. “Well, he found out! Jason must have asked Bruce while he and I were talking about Kara and about you, and Bruce told him. So he asked me, and that’s how I found out.” She huffed and kicked a chunk of concrete near her heavy boot as far as she could across the roof. “You know everyone in Gotham can’t keep their mouths shut ever. Why would you think they wouldn’t go blabbing?” She almost even asked why Selina knew before her when the baby bird and the cat were at each other’s throats. That stung, too. “No shit I’d panic about it. That’s the only reason you would tell me? Great, thanks. I thought you and me were better than that, but I guess not.”
But, her arms fell from her hips and hung at her sides when he continued, and she tilted her head to the side. Well. That nearly shut her up. Nearly. “Damian,” she said softly after a moment’s pause. She rolled her eyes at his insults and took a step forward. Soft and lacking the aggression from when she first landed. There was another moment where she considered his question, really considered it, before sighing. “You know I can’t come here. Permanently.”
“I’ve had to deal with a lot this month. The last thing I want is to have to explain myself again to someone in my family!” Damian was shouting, his young voice going hoarse as the word family bookended his sentence so bitterly it almost sounded sarcastic. Truthfully this could all be chalked up to Damian’s less than enthusiastic approach to being social and a very good little bird brother, but his patience had run out. Stephanie was lucky he was going to tell her at all.
His flapping stopped and he slumped forward, eyes down at his boots. Damian considered just leaving the conversation now before it turned into something he couldn’t handle like he did with Bruce and Helena, but Stephanie deserved better than that. “Why not? I’m here and you could get just as much done as Batgirl. Batman can handle Gotham on his own. He doesn’t need either of us. And, living out here wouldn’t be so bad.” Damian sounded ten again. Like a kid trying to convince his sister to go to summer camp with him because he was scared, even if he wouldn’t admit to it.
"I am not saying that you’re wrong. I know you’re going through a lot! And I know, objectively, you need the space. I’m just saying that I deserve more than this!” Stephanie harrumphed, crossing her arms again and trying her hardest not to grit her teeth or yell or flap her arms more. She didn’t want to sound selfish, and all of her sadness and frustration more stemmed from a big sister finding out something about a little brother that he should have told her. Not some friends on the playground. The irritation licked at her, that unique sort of frustration only Damian Wayne could sear underneath her skin. Steph never grew up with siblings and barely had the semblance of a family, and having someone like a little brother was new, but she still understood what the relationship was supposed to entail.
Still, she couldn’t exactly be angry when he looked like that. Heartbroken and lost and asking her to come along with him. It reminded her of the ten year old baby bird in those quick, quiet moments where hurt and heartache actually shone through. She worried her lip, and her fingers twisted into the rough fabric of her black sweater. Suddenly, she kind of wished she could be in a million different places at once. A Stephanie for Eddie, a Stephanie for school, a Stephanie for Batgirl, and one to keep Damian company, too. “Have you been around this city?” she teased hollowly, barely a vestige of that normal sarcasm that bubbled through her words. “It’s a hellhole.” Tilting her head to the side, she still briefly considered his offer again. Gotham was draining on the best of days, and maybe going somewhere else for a little would reawaken a passion for her hometown. But, she had Eddie in Gotham, and she couldn’t think of what would happen if she left. “I don’t know, Damian,” she said in the end, tugging on that fabric to distract herself. “I--it’s my home. I have school there, I have--I have Eddie. I can’t just up and leave permanently.”
Damian didn’t know what he was expecting when he asked her, but he knew she wasn’t going to leave Gotham. Maybe if she didn’t have her boyfriend or school it would have been different, but he understood what it meant to hold onto someone that he could trust and rely on. So he just nodded and tried to fight back a sudden wave of loneliness that had been building with every conversation he had with his family. “I understand.” He said after a moment, pulling himself together, showing strength when there wasn’t any. “You should at least come visit.” Damian added after a moment, tone serious and very bat-like as if it were his default setting for dealing with emotional situations. “It’s not that far.”
Since Damian wasn’t experienced at showing affection or comforting other people, he simply stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, leaning into a hug that she didn’t ask for without a warning. Helena had made him more comfortable with people, especially those he cared about and he understood what a hug could do to make people understand what he wanted to say without actually having to say it.
Stephanie could sense that sharp loneliness, that sting of losing everything and everyone or simply drifting away like everyone in the Batfamily seemed to be doing these days. Her big blue eyes conveyed how much she understood him in a way she couldn’t push through that tiny lump in her throat. Oh, did she feel guilty in that moment and wanted nothing more than to keep the baby bird as happy as she could, but they both understood that Stephanie could never stay in a place like this. She wasn’t cut out for this particular type of hellhole. And, when she was about to respond to his insistence on visiting, she felt his stiff arms wrap around her shoulders for a hug. She smiled and slinked her arms around his midsection with a comfort of a girl used to hugging it out, even if that was a bit of a surprise.
“Is that your invitation to let me sleep on your couch?” she asked, cheek resting on his chest and small, hesitant smile sneaking up her face. “Because Bludhaven isn’t the tropical vacay I was planning on, but maybe I could squeeze you in.” That usual sisterly teasing had something else hidden underneath, something more affectionate and reassuring. Something that said, I’ll be there for you no matter what. Because she would. Anger or sadness or whatever else aside.
Damian might have laughed. A dry, barely there chuckle that sounded more like a cough than anything else. “You’re too fat for our couch.” He said after a minute, giving her a smug look that was so devoid of humor that it was kind of ridiculous paired with the quips that came out of his mouth. But, he didn’t have to force himself to show anything else with someone like Stephanie. She knew the simple fact that he was joking meant he was on her side and he understood what this conversation meant.
“But, I suppose we can make room somehow. And, I was thinking, you should keep Bandit.” Damian stepped towards the edge of the roof and put his mask back on to become Talon “She likes you better anyway.” He managed a boyish smile that wasn’t grim or reluctant. As Talon, he looked more than a sulking baby bird and there was a confidence there that never seemed present while he was Robin through this door. “Whatever you’re doing out here. If you need help, you can tell me.” And, with that the pop hiss of a grappling hook sounded and he was gone.