Stephanie Brown (eggplantknight) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-03-20 00:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | danny lubbe, stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Danny and Stephanie
What: Telling him what happened
When: A few hours after this
Where: Their house
Rating: Lowish
Status: Complete
Stephanie had come home later than she had estimated when she told Danny about going out to fight. She’d been done for a while now but had decided just to drive her bike around to clear her head. It hadn’t helped so when she reached their neighborhood Steph drove around back and parked the motorcycle on the edge of the patio. She would have to wash it down in the morning, it was covered in the black blood of those things where it had come off her, but first she had to get it off herself. She half stripped down before going in, putting her gear in a neat pile on the mulch so they wouldn’t stain the brick or wood near the door, before tending to her clothes. The jeans couldn’t be saved so they were thrown into a trash bin as soon as she got them off. The leather jacket seemed to get the worst of it, though that had more to do with the fact that it had half melted onto her stab vest after she got hit by that fireball. She had pulled as much of it off the vest as she was able before it too found its way into the trash. Once she was down to her eggplant boyshorts and by now probably smelly tee shirt she headed inside and made a beeline for the bathroom, not even calling out to her fiance who she could hear in the family room.
She’d spent ages in there. Draining and refilling the tub at least three times. The good news was that she had gotten all that nasty black blood off her and had only come away with a few bruises, the bad news was that she still didn’t know how she could face Danny. She’d gone back and forth a few times on telling him, vacillating between ‘it’s such a small thing and knowing will just upset him’ and ‘lying, even by omission, was not the way to start off their life together’. But eventually she decided to tell him, though seemed to get stuck when she knew it was time to go do it. She couldn’t move, even after the water had gone cold a third time, she just sat there knowing she needed to go tell him now before it started to seem like she was trying to hide it. She actually felt more than a little silly, that she was so afraid about how Danny would take it she was making herself more than a little sick over it.
Thankfully she heard his feet on the hardwood outside the door and she called out to him before she could stop herself. “Danny?”
She’d been in there a really long time. Like longer than usual. He’d wanted to knock or like go sit in the bathroom with her and let her vent, but a firmly closed door kinda told him he wasn’t welcome or she needed to deal with things alone first. So he did what he could do to be helpful. He went out back and first hosed off her gear as best he could before he put on big, thick rubber gloves and set about hand washing things in the stationary tub he’d put in outside. He’d seen the damage to her work clothes the last time she’d fought gross things. It was an addition that only made sense when living with a superhero.
Out in their weird studio apartment pseudo-garage whatever thing that Danny still hadn’t decided what he might want to do with it, he’d strung up a clothesline specifically for Spoiler’s uniform (and perhaps Batgirl and Robin if Stephie ended up with those too) and a few racks for things that couldn’t be hung. Better safe than sorry, right?
When he finished hosing off the brickwork again, padding still barefoot through the house, gloves left on the tub to drip dry, he heard her moving around again. “Yeah?” he asked quietly from outside the door. “You okay with seeing me now?” He wasn’t in anything special, just a tank top and a pair of perpetually ill-fitting shorts (and his beanie of course,) but he figured she’d be okay with just Danny and not Danny trying to be sexy to distract from painful battles. If anyone was going to be okay with just Danny, it’d probably be Steph.
“Yeah.” She first said too soft for him to hear then said it again so she was sure he heard her. The water suddenly felt a lot colder against her skin, she was more prune than twenty-something superhero by this point for sure, a clear sign she should have gotten out but she hadn’t yet. Naked and vulnerable seemed to make a lot of sense to her at the moment. “Uh, would you come in for a minute?”
It was very obviously not Steph’s amusing attempt at being sultry and asking him to share her bath, no this was ashamed, quiet-voiced Steph who probably wouldn’t be able to meet his eyes when he came in. “Maybe bring my bathrobe with you?” she asked after she glanced about and noticed she had nothing to slip into when she would get out. Being in that cold water would require bundling up as soon as she got out. “I think I left it in the bedroom.”
“Okay,” Danny said softly before walking over to their bedroom to get her big fluffy bathrobe. When he got back, he knocked before he opened the door anyway. It was polite. Sure, they’d seen every inch of each other, but that didn’t mean he had any right to impose on her privacy when she was clearly feeling vulnerable and weak. Not doing anything she didn’t want him to do to her had been the best starting point ever for their relationship and he saw no reason to change that behavior. Door opened, he kept his eyes averted as he held the robe open so she could get into it without him seeing anything.
“I took care of your gear,” he said, hoping that the gesture might help improve her mood or maybe take some kind of weight off her shoulders when it came to dealing with things she maybe couldn’t just yet. “It’s gonna stink like old spice for a while though. I didn’t want to somehow screw up the fibres with the detergent we have so um...I just used the other bottle of shampoo I had in the pantry.” The whole bottle. “I’ll pick up some super gentle stuff at the store tomorrow that we can keep just for Spoiler. We’re out of scrubby toothbrushes too.” There were nooks and crannies on those belt pouches and Danny was pretty sure that whatever she fought had blood that was absolutely corrosive to anything trying to clean it. All that conversation filler was his way of trying to give her a very concerned ‘I love you’ without actually saying it. He needed to hear that she was okay, but would understand if that wasn’t something she could say simply because it wasn’t true.
Danny was perfect. Steph found herself saying or just thinking it a lot and it was true, at least to her. She was generally pretty happy to revel in it and enjoy being with him, but now it was just a reminder of how awful she was. She pulled the plug on the tub then got out and slipped into the robe, saying a soft ‘thank you’ as she did, tying it around her. She would probably have to take a blow dryer to her half-dry hair before bed, right now she simply didn’t have the energy or so she told herself as she pulled her hair from under the robe and moved to sit on the edge of the tub.
Looking at him made her chest hurt so instead she looked to the floor, following the pattern with her eyes. “Right, good idea.” she nodded to herself. Of course Danny would be thoughtful like that, he was perfect. “Uh, there’s something I need to tell you and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get through it if you say anything before I’m finished, okay?”
“Okay,” Danny said, leaning against the door frame to give her as much space as she needed to say whatever she had to say. It was pretty obviously a bad thing. What kind of bad thing it was was still up in the air, but he was pretty sure this was the breakup speech or someone’s dead and Steph was blaming herself talk.
Deep breath, Steph. She did take that deep breath and managed to look at him. Well, look at his feet really but they were still firmly attached to him. “So I was kicking ass, you know, like I do. But then this thing, one of the things I was fighting but it was different because it had like magic or something, shoots a fireball at me which was a shock. I don’t know how I survived the first one, it melted part of my jacket and probably my stab vest and I didn’t think I could take another so I dove for cover behind a shield before it could hit me again. Probably could have melted the shield away if Damian hadn’t taken his sword to it, but he kills the thing and then comes over to check on me. And, you know, I thought I was dead for a minute or that I was gonna die, it totally wasn’t the best situation for maintaining that batfamily confidence, you know?”
She made it up to his knee before her eyes refused to go further, she saw that as a good sign. “Anyway, he comes over to make sure I’m still alive, and… And he kissed me.” She wasn’t going to cry, no matter how shaky her voice got, she swore. “And for like a split second I might have kissed him back, I’m not sure. But I pretty much instantly realized that he wasn’t you and I stopped it. And I… I- Oh god, Danny, I feel lower than shit.” She lost the ground she had gained, bowing her head as her eyes closed and tears threatened to fall as she brought a hand up to her face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I’m sorry.”
Danny felt everything go cold for a minute, was almost sure that the world really had just fallen out from under him and just as quickly reshape itself. Steph was one of the few bright spots in Danny’s life, one Damian seemed to be constantly trying to take from him no matter how much either of them told him to cut it the fuck out. He didn’t really bother with keeping an actual shit list. Everyone being on it until they were off had worked well enough for him up until now. Damian Wayne, however, just got moved to the very top of it. In big letters. Fuckin’ Impact, all bold and bad meme. Danny Lubbe wanted nothing more than to tear that fucker’s throat out.
But Steph was apologising. She was apologising for something that wasn’t even her fault, for someone else acting on her. “Stop,” he said, forcing the sudden ice out of his veins to go tend to the woman he loved. He knelt down in front of her and reached to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Please, stop.” His voice was calm and patient, worried but not angry, not with her. “He did this to you. You didn’t go seeking out trying to get his tongue in your mouth or anything else. He kissed you without your consent knowing that you’re in a serious relationship and not interested in anyone else. This isn’t your fault. Okay? This is…” He paused, trying to come up with the right words to fit, ones that his teachers probably didn’t even realize he knew. “Symptomatic of the kinds of selfish, entitled misogynistic bullshit that Damian carries around with him to add to his ever growing list of reasons why his victim complex is totally valid.”
Danny wasn’t gonna make Steph look him in the eyes if she didn’t want to, but he wasn’t going to pull punches when it came to his opinion of that little fuck either. “Having a reason for his behaviour sure as hell doesn’t excuse it and nobody’s trying to, but this isn’t your fault. I’m not mad at you, but...we should probably talk about how comfortable you are being around him at all going forward.” Not how comfortable Danny was. He trusted Steph. His comfort didn’t matter and he wasn’t going to forbid her from working with that little fuckstain if she wanted to.
Steph wrapped her arms around him when he knelt in front of her, resting her head on his shoulder. “No. He’s not got any of those things and it’s not like he held me down or did anything even remotely rapey. He’s my friend, and… And signals got crossed or whatever. Maybe it was just… He didn’t plan it, it just happened and he was sorry for it after. It was just a mistake, one that’s not going to happen again. He’s just a kid, Danny, he didn’t mean…”
But he very possibly did mean something by it. Steph never considered herself the great detective but the signs that Damian had feelings for her were there and mostly obvious. She ignored them as much as she could for the sake of their friendship and how he had been helping her through some of the stuff she saw in her dreams. She couldn’t really ignore it now though.
“Please,” she picked her head up and leaned back a little to meet his eyes. “Don’t go doing something stupid, Danny. It’s not worth it. I don’t know how comfortable I’m gonna be when it comes to him but I know I don’t want you going over there and trying to start something.”
“He wasn’t sorry he kissed you. He was sorry you didn’t throw yourself at him like he’s been trying to get you to do for months.” Danny wanted to be empathic. He really did, but when it came to Damian’s behaviour, he just couldn’t. There was no ‘he’s just a kid’ not when he was only months younger than Danny himself. Damian knew what he was doing. He was an asshole and a whole list of names that Danny couldn’t bring himself to say out loud for fear of not being able to stop, but he wasn’t stupid. Dumb, yes. An idiot, also yes. Stupid. No fucking way.
“I’m not going to start shit with him in person,” Danny promised. “He’s a trained killer and I’m...what, a trained lover? That kid hates me. There’s no way I’d be able to walk in there and walk out with all my bones unbroken. I mean I’d like to punch him in the face and be the big bad intimidating almost husband but I know you’re way more capable of defending yourself than I am at defending anyone including me.” Danny’s battle tactic was more along the lines of scream and flail wildly to overwhelm his opponent and probably end up punching himself in the face intentionally or not.
She was at least relieved that Danny didn’t go into some kind of jealous rage and make plans to meet Damian in the square at noon for some kind of duel. Not that Danny struck her as the type to get into fights, mostly because she knew that he knew how skinny and breakable he was. But it was good to know that some sort of testosterone-fueled madness brought on by a sense of ‘you touch my woman, you die’ wasn’t in coming. She loved him too much to let him get that crazed over a kiss.
“I can’t- You weren’t there.” maybe she could believe it but she really didn’t want to. To her Damian had been genuine in his apologies, the little heart broken look on his face had seemed sincere to her. Maybe Danny was right, or maybe Danny was upset and grasping for whatever he could, Steph wasn’t sure yet. “What do you mean, in person?”
“I mean not in person, but someone needs to tell him to knock it the fuck off. He might’ve stopped subtly insulting me to your face, but I’m sure he’s still doing it. He’s sent you two bouquets now, one of which was romantic enough in nature that you thought it was from me at first and then...this? I’m tired of having to have my guard up about this kid wondering what weird stunt he’s going to pull next to either try to get you to I don’t know hate me or realize the error of your ways and go running into his arms. This is some serious Tim Drake level creep, Stephie and I’m not okay with it. I’m not comfortable with him anywhere near anyone I care about. I’m not saying he’s some kind of super rapey monster. I’m saying that...that he makes me severely uncomfortable.”
Danny sighed heavily. “I trust you. Completely. Totally. Utterly. One hundred billion percent. I trust you to tell me if he tries something like that again and I trust you to be able to put him in his smug little rich boy league of assassins place if he does. I just...hope you can maybe one day see him for the kind of misogynistic douchebag who complains about being friendzoned like having friends is a bad thing or respecting someone else’s choices is something to be ashamed of guy he is.”
Tim Drake level creep. Rich boy. If Steph wasn’t so wrapped up in what he was saying instead of what words he used she might have questioned both of those. As it was she was trying to find her way through her feelings and what he was saying and what Damian would likely say the next time they talked. It was just a mess.
“Alright, Danny.” she slipped her arms from around him, her hands falling to her lap where she fiddled with one of the ends of the tie to her robe. She glanced down at it then finally back up at him. “I… May not see him like that but if he makes you uncomfortable I’m not going to let him hang around long enough to prove to me that you’re right. I’ll talk to him, get this sorted out, if it ends up that I have to cut him out of my life then I guess that’s just what needs to be done.”
Danny nodded and offered softly, “it’s not my job to tell you who you can and can’t be friends with. That’s...that’s not how relationships of any kind are supposed to work. If you wanna stay friends with him, I’m not gonna hold it against you.” He met her gaze, reached forward to maybe offer some support by holding her hand. “I love you. Always will, Stephie Sparkles.”
“Stephie Sparkles Lubbe.” she turned her hand, interlacing their fingers. “I love you too, more than anything. I just wish this didn’t have to happen, that we could all just get along and get down to just being happy.” She knew Danny wasn’t trying to dictate who she kept in her life, she wouldn’t have let him anyway if he had. She had been in too many relationships, and really all the relationships she’d had were bad save what she had with danny, for her to not recognize what controlling behavior that was. “As for everything else, I have Cass to talk about dreams with, and Kate always seems like she could use a hand when it comes to patrolling. But maybe I ought to take a break for a while, maybe just focus on us. Spring break will be here soon, I want to spend as much time as I can with you before finals season gets started because you won’t see much of me.”
“I like the sound of that,” Danny said, smiling fondly as he swayed their hands some together. “We could finish decorating and getting things set up and maybe...I dunno, figure out a date?” He leaned forward to press his forehead against hers. “I like waking up with you Sparkle Lubbeast.”
“Sure.” She turned her head, tentatively pressing a kiss to his lips. As silly as it was she worried about it. She knew Danny wouldn’t see her as ‘tainted’, she didn’t even see herself that way, but there was still that stupid voice in the back of her head. That same one that had caused her to scrub her lips and face harder than usual when she got into the tub. “Good,” she said after the kiss ended, staying close to him. “Because I am so tired. I broke a thing’s neck with my thighs and a few heavy things fell on me. I could kinda use some sleep with my Lubbeast.”
“We can always go try to evolve into the higher state Cuddle Lubbeast,” Danny said, stealing another kiss because it seemed to be okay now. “Am I allowed to carry my mighty warrior to her well earned rest?”
His little stolen kiss meant the world to her and she visibly relaxed, the ‘sparkle’ as Danny called it, starting to come back. “It’s not a question of if you’re allowed, babe. It’s a question of if you can lift me.” Hopefully it was just a joke. They were both stronger than they looked and she could easily lift him, but of the two of them it was pretty obvious who weighed more. She wrapped her arms around his neck and turned herself so he could more easily pick her up, which he seemed to manage with surprisingly little trouble. There was something strangely comforting in letting him carry her and she found herself resting her head on his shoulder. “Okay, let’s go to bed. If you need to put me down in the few steps to the bedroom, don’t worry. I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”