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"I'm not running I'm pulling myself toward distance."
— Susie Anderson,
after Amala Groom, The Union, 2019.
Steph leaned forward in her stool, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the condensation that was dripping down her beer. Her grin was a little too loose and free for her to have normally been comfortable with, a smile that felt unnatural on her face for any moment where she was Stephanie Brown, but for now she’d allow it.
“I get off in half an hour,” the bartender offered.
Steph didn’t normally care for one-night stands, but many things had happened since that she didn’t care for. And the bartender was cute, with her hair cut bluntly to just below her chin, and dimples that Steph had been trying to make permanent all night.
“Perfect,” she responded.
Her name was Amanda, and she’d grown up in this town. It was the first time that Steph learnt of where she was, and she sought to promptly forget that. Locations would do no good, not when her mind only seemed intent on figuring out just how far she was from Gotham.
Amanda’s face was open, honest. Her surprise showed when Steph took off the ratty T-shirt she’d been wearing. She’d have to find a decent laundromat soon.
“You work out?” she asked, fingers tracing down Steph’s shoulders.
“Parkour, if you can believe it,” Steph said, her own hand marking a trail up Amanda’s back.
She paused at her bra, giving Amanda a questioning look. Amanda nodded, her smile bringing out those dimples that kept stealing Steph’s attention. This time, though, Steph could do something about it. She leaned in and kissed the side of Amanda’s mouth, her hand working to undo the bra.
“I can believe it,” Amanda said a little breathlessly when they broke apart.
They were both still upright, Steph sitting with her knees folded beneath her. She’d pulled Amanda down to her level when they’d entered the motel room, glad that she hadn’t gone for the cheapest option for once.
The bedspread had giant flowers printed on it, in shades of bright green that reminded Steph of Poison Ivy, but right now, with Amanda’s black hair spread over it as Steph straddled her, the memory came and went.
A hand came up to cradle Steph’s cheek, and she leaned in to the kiss, deepening it. It’d been a long time since she’d decided to try a hook-up, and the first time it’d been a girl. Amanda wasn’t soft, like she’d heard heard so many people say when describing sex with a girl. She had muscles that rivalled Steph’s, and that made her pause for a moment.
“You aren’t so bad yourself,” she murmured.
Amanda looked up at her, eyes hooded, and in a single instant, all signs of desire vanished. She snapped her arms to the sides, knocking Steph off balance. It was only because of her training that she didn’t fall face first into the other girl.
Steph used the fall as momentum, kicking her legs up and off the bed into a forward roll. She was crouching on the other side of the bed in an instant, hands braced and ready on the bed in front of her.
Inwardly, Steph cursed the situation she’d stumbled in on. And she’d been so ready for a fun night, too – she hadn’t been kidding about Amanda being cute. This? This was everything she’d ran away from, however temporarily.
“Who even are you?” Steph asked as she dodged a punch. “I literally just rolled into town!”
Amanda gave an unimpressed snort. “I’ve been trailing you through four towns,” she told Steph. “The fact that you haven’t caught on should really tell you something.”
Steph shrugged, giving Amanda her best Cass smirk. “Hey, I never said I was good enough to stay alive in this game,” she said. All she got in return was a confused blink. “So you’ve been following me ever since Gotham?”
Amanda ducked below the sweeping kick Steph threw her way, sending a jab towards Steph’s kneecap. Steph didn’t have enough time to transform the movement into something deliberate; she fell, trying her best to roll out from Amanda’s reach when she landed.
Bruce hadn’t had to teach her to take a punch, but he had taught her better ways of falling. She didn’t wince from the jarring impact of her knee on the wooden floorboards of the motel. But more importantly, he hadn’t had to teach Steph how to get back up.
Steph wished she’d brought more weapons along on this harebrained trip. She wished she’d brought along her costume, but this hadn’t been about Spoiler. Now it was coming to bite her, and not in the way she’d wanted it to.
“Yes,” Amanda said, readying her stance. She fought more honourably than the usual street thug from Gotham; Steph yet again found her curiosity piquing yet again.
“You aren’t gonna tell me why?”
She delivered a kick that actually landed this time, forcing Amanda back a few steps as she tried to recover from what was undoubtedly bruised ribs. The only good thing about Steph’s hook-up turning into an enemy: they were both just as undressed, no armour giving either of them an advantage. Hell, at least Steph had a bra on. She’d never been more relieved at going slow.
“My employer wishes to see your head on a platter,” Amanda said. “He contacted me, because he knows only death will stop me from fulfilling a contract once it’s been signed.”
Steph blew out a frustrated breath. “Did you also seal the envelope with your own blood,” she said flatly.
Steph didn’t want to wait around to listen to more. She threw a punch, an uppercut aimed at Amanda’s angular jaw. That was when it all went sideways. Time seemed to slow for Amanda. She dodged Steph’s hit easily, her body swaying to the side with an ease that reminded Steph of Cass. Then, before Steph had any idea of what Amanda intended, she grabbed Steph’s forearm and pulled.
Steph came careening forward, centre of balance already having shifted when she’d delivered the punch. Amanda had a fist waiting for her, and it landed directly in Steph’s gut. Steph felt a rib or two give way beneath the sheer force of the blow.
The smell of blood came up before Steph could brace herself, and she knew it wasn’t her own, knew it wasn’t from the present, but still she gagged slightly and felt the room spin as the past threatened to send her into a pleading mess.
She wouldn’t plead for anyone. She’d promised herself that, those days of working beside Leslie. But it’d seemed easier then. She’d felt strong, with each person she helped and with each day that her body healed more and more. It’d been entirely removed from her life in Gotham, and Leslie had made sure to avoid any signs of trouble. She didn’t know if what she’d felt had been safety, but it’d been… quiet. In her head, at least. Sometimes.
Another punch to her face drew Steph back out of her mind, and she found herself breathing hard and fast. She had to stay here, stay present. This shit hadn’t happened to her when she’d gone back to Gotham, she thought to herself in irritation.
Whatever the case, Steph needed to find a way back to her feet, because otherwise, she was screwed (and definitely not in the way she’d planned to be).
Steph had needed to get out of Gotham. She couldn’t understand it, at first – the entire time she had been with Leslie, there’d been vague fantasies playing through her mind. Reuniting with Cass, seeing Barbara again… trying to give Tim an explanation. The worst had been the what-ifs of facing Bruce, after her fever dreams of him at her bedside.
She hadn’t forgotten how Gotham could be. She couldn’t, not after how she’d died. But after a few months of helping Leslie, something in her had burned for a rooftop and a skyline crammed with skyscrapers and smoke. Steph had gotten too used to the thrill of an adrenaline rush, the way her body felt after a good fight, the rush of air through her hood as she swung.
And if the other side of the coin to her nightmares had been dark eyes and a knowing smirk, then Steph was the only one who had to know about it.
Amanda walked towards Steph, a confident grace about her that Steph knew she’d been hiding the entire time Steph had been flirting with her at the bar. Amanda had clearly been toying with her, wearing her down like prey.
Steph scrambled to get up, managing to sit upright and her knees up around her before a sweep of Amanda’s leg took out Steph’s, and they fell flat against the floor. Steph’s breathing came in short gasps, but she kicked out anyway, as hard as she could. She didn’t need to knock her opponent over; all she had to do was get in enough of a hit to claw her way to her feet.
She was so incredibly out of practise. Tim probably did push-ups every day before breakfast. Cass trained every night until she dropped. Barbara would’ve been able to hand Amanda’s ass to her without breaking a sweat. Steph didn’t even want to think about what Bruce’s daily warm-ups might be like – sit-reps with the Batmobile? Weightlifting the entire Manor?
Steph braced herself against the wall as she stood, her ribs protesting. She’d been beaten up plenty of times before, had won fights even with blood pouring out of her and bones not where they should’ve been. There was no reason for her to not come out of this fight in one piece.
But beneath her skin lived the very real fear that perhaps this time would happen like last time, because she hadn’t come out of every fight in one piece. She hadn’t survived all her battles.
“Give up, blondie,” Amanda said.
Steph snorted, hands coming up into a battle stance. “That the best you got?” she said, baring her teeth in a grin.
She didn’t give Amanda a chance to strike first. Steph attacked with everything she knew, every move she had the strength to pull off, and some she probably didn’t. Her breath came out of her in short gasps, but Batman had taught her better than that. Cassandra had taught her better than that.
It didn’t matter. Amanda had far more stamina than Steph did at that moment, and it seemed like no matter how fast Steph’s limbs moved, Amanda was always one step ahead of her, always anticipating where Steph was going to strike next.
Steph’s nose was bleeding, but she didn’t think it was broken entirely. She breathed through her mouth and fought the urge to gag when blood touched her tongue.
That was when the door to her room flew open, and a shadow stood where it’d been.
Steph gaped. “Cass?”
Barbara had been the one to give her the funds she needed for this trip. Barbara was the only one who knew before she left, and the only one who she still kept in touch with. After the mess with the Birds of Prey and with Bruce, it’d been strange, being taken back into the fold. It seemed like death worked wonders as a membership card to all the places Steph had wanted entry to.
She didn’t know why it fell flat, why Steph couldn’t give it her all the way she’d been able to before. Leslie would probably have an answer, but Steph had never gone to the woman with her issues. She hadn’t wanted to, not when Leslie had seemed so happy at Steph being away from her life in Gotham.
Steph updated Barbara on her location by sending her the vaguest of selfies on the road. Barbara never complained, except once when Steph had sent her a photo of herself at the foot of a bar. After that, Steph stuck to pictures of herself in front of natural landmarks.
For all that Barbara was a mother figure to Cass, she’d never crossed that line into such familiarity with Steph. Steph didn’t know if she wanted her to – she already had a mother, one who thought she’d gone back to wherever Leslie was now, who’d been relieved that Steph was out of Gotham.
That much, at least, was true.
Cass stood in jeans and a leather jacket, a domino mask over her face. Her hands were curled into fists by her side, and she wore fingerless gloves. The shoulders of her jacket were wet with rain, the water dripping down, and the strands of her hair that had escaped the short ponytail at the nape of her neck was sticking to her face. Steph would’ve recognised her anywhere.
She instantly regretted speaking Cass’ name aloud. She had no idea what the other girl had come here as. Or how she’d gotten caught up in what seemed to be Cass and Amanda’s mess.
But Amanda had seemed so sure that Steph was her target.
“Move,” Cass said, eyes on Amanda. But Steph knew those words were meant for her.
She dropped and rolled, aiming for the far wall. She knew it was dumb, the one thing that people said not to do when evacuating, but her backpack was the one thing she’d been carrying with her this whole time.
Her fingers wrapped around the straps, and she yanked it towards her, relieved beyond measure that she’d felt too keyed up that night to bother unpacking before heading out. Then Steph spared a glance towards the fight that was occurring on the other side of the room.
Watching Cass fight had always taken Steph’s breath away. The first few times – back when she’d still been lying to herself – she’d attributed it to jealousy. And why shouldn’t she be? Even people with no aspirations to be a fighter would be jealous watching Cass fight. Her movements were liquid, smooth and soft with a razor edge. Steph could never drag her eyes away from it as fast as she probably should.
And then Cass’ eyes flashed towards her, and she knew she was standing there gawking. Steph had been through too many embarrassing situations to flush – not that it would show very well on her deep brown skin – but it was a near thing. Move, Cass’ face told her, so Steph moved.
She dodged past Amanda, but not before delivering a blow to backs of the other girl’s legs. Steph didn’t know whether Cass was planning on fighting or running. She hoped her friend had more of an idea about what the everloving fuck Steph had been yanked into, because at this point she just wanted answers.
There was a motorbike waiting outside, but not one that Steph recognised. It was fine, though – she’d gotten used to Cass’ constantly changing vehicles, never sticking to anything the way Tim stuck to his Redbird. She swung her legs over it, starting the engine.
“Come on!” she yelled, wincing when someone opened a window to shout back at her.
Cass didn’t like running from fights, but Steph needed to regroup. She needed facts. And sue her, but the only way to stop Amanda was permanently, and neither of them were willing to do that. If they were in Gotham, they could hand her in to the police. They could get her committed to Blackgate, where even with all her skills, she’d have a hard time escaping.
But here, in the middle of a small town that Steph didn’t remember the name of, their only choices were fighting or running.
Cass leapt onto the back of the bike, and Steph drove, sending themselves shooting forward. She felt Cass shift at her back, and out of the corner of her eye, spotted something silver and sharp flying back towards Steph’s room. There’s a tiny little spark, and then all the lights in the motel go out.
Steph had been avoiding Cass for about a month when she’d decided to leave. It was a temporary solution, and she’d known that even as she’d grabbed essential things like deodorant and the CD she’d burned with all her favourite albums five years ago. It wasn’t like it had been about Cass. She’d just been another one of the casualties.
She hadn’t even known she was into girls, until Cass.
No, that wasn’t strictly true; to believe that would be romanticising it. She hadn’t realised that her type was stupidly brave and heroic with an attitude to match until she’d met Cassie Sandsmark, so really, it was Cassie who’d been the shift. But for some reason, it seemed that all her firsts had been with Cass, though that would be romanticising, as well.
Steph’s mind kept trying to pinpoint the ways in which Cass was different, trying to put it down in quantitative forms, but that was no use. There were no numbers, no use in listing firsts, when it came to Cass, because Cass was entirely her own being and there was nothing that Steph could cohesively say that would do it justice.
When they were far enough away and deep within the woods, parked at a remote truck rest stop, Steph finally asked, “What’re you doing here?”
It was less a question than a statement, a demand, a need to know whether she’d been followed ever since she’d left Gotham. Had Cass been keeping tabs on her this whole time? Barbara had promised not to tell anyone, but Tim was a relentless force when it came to finding out information, though Steph couldn’t quite recall if he’d ever managed to get the better of Babs.
“I was following her,” Cass said, her voice blank.
This wasn’t the reunion Steph had imagined for them, during late nights when her brain refused to sleep and she found herself craving Spoiler’s gloves, the feel of the reinforced fabric over her knuckles, when she couldn’t quite forget the sensation of blood running down her skin in rivets and the way it’d reflected the light when it’d been pooled beneath her. But they’d all been too unrealistic, all fruits of templates from Hallmark movies that didn’t suit either her or Cass.
“You know her?” Steph asked instead. This, they could do, and do well. Never mind that their friendship had always been built on all the ways she could teach Cass to join in with humanity, rather than just save them. Never mind that most of their conversations had occurred during late night stake outs and their games had been rooftop tag. Cass could’ve easily been her a sister, if she’d let her. Maybe then there wouldn’t be this chasm between the two of them.
Cass nodded. “Hired merc,” she said, and Steph resisted the urge to knock her head against a nearby tree. “The owner of that mining company you took down was mad.”
“But that was months ago,” Steph protested. “How’d she even find me?”
It wouldn’t have been hard to find her, and she knew that even as the words left her mouth. She’d been counting on a few things: Barbara’s silence, her mother’s reluctance to partake in any aspect of Steph’s night life, and the Bats having better things to do than to probe deeper than what Babs told them if they happened to ask. Really, what she’d been counting on was that no one would miss her.
Cass shrugged, a small little raise of her shoulders. Even her most teenage of movements were done impeccably and deliberately, nothing slouching. “Probably the same way I did.”
“Which was?” That wasn’t what Steph wanted to ask. When was a better question – when did you find me, when did you start looking, when did you decide to make the drive.
“Your car’s loud,” Cass told Steph, with that small knowing smile that, depending on Steph’s current mood, either made her want to punch her or kiss her. “Gotham plates. Not many people travelling this time of year.”
Steph hadn’t been kidding about not bothering to cover her tracks much. But then again, she hadn’t expected assassins to be coming after her.
“You think she’s gone by now?” she asked, pacing a little.
She kicked at the gravel beneath her feet, the chips of stone scattering. The sound was louder this time of night, the sky hidden by clouds. The sound of crickets was coming from the bushes right behind the public toilets, and Steph was glad it was filling in the silence between the two of them.
“Probably not,” Cass said.
“What’d you even throw, back then?”
“EMP. Her ride’s electric.”
Steph felt a genuine smile spread across her face for the first time since she’d left.
Where are you? Tim had texted, about a month into Steph’s trip. She hadn’t responded. But in her defence, he’d sent it right as she’d spotted an easy mark across the pool table, and she wasn’t about to let her chance at hustling the sleazy man go just because Tim had messaged her, after a month of no contact with anyone from Gotham.
Her mother thought she didn’t have reception. Steph wondered whether that was just an excuse she made, because it’d been easier to have a dead daughter than a living one, but then she remembered her mother coming back from shifts late at night, dark circles under her eyes, but still stopping by Steph’s sleeping form and pressing a tired kiss to her forehead, and guilt – at what, she wasn’t too sure of – pushed away that stream of thought entirely.
In the end, she’d gone back to the parking lot she’d been sleeping in that night a hundred dollars richer than she’d been a few hours ago, but with a bruised wrist and sore knuckles. She hadn’t texted Tim back, and she’d ignored the part of her that felt bad for not replying.
It wasn’t Tim’s fault that she’d been itchy in her own skin ever since she’d returned. Things hadn’t been right between them before, and despite Steph (and quite possibly Tim as well) entertaining the notion that perhaps they would be, just because Steph had magically returned from the dead, they hadn’t been fixed after she’d come back. If anything, it was worse now, because Tim would sometimes look at her with such grief, and she’d remember all over again that in his head, she was lumped into that big pile of everything he’d lost. She wondered if she’d ever be taken off of it.
She wondered, too, looking at Tim, whether she’d been so relentless in her pursuit of him because it was Tim, or because he was a vigilante, a crime fighter who was everything she’d wanted to be ever since she’d found out the truth about her father. She loved Tim, but that had changed from a romantic flame into something that Steph might consider brotherly, if she had any experience of what a sibling love might possibly feel like, something strong and steady that came with the ability to see him with Cassie and Kon and not feel a hint of the jealousy that there’d been before.
Steph changed her SIM and only gave Barbara the number after Tim tried to call her in the middle of another hook-up. She didn’t delude herself into thinking that he’d lost track of her after that – this was Tim, after all. She’d seen him pull off all sorts of things. It was more likely he’d decided to leave it.
Steph had wanted space so badly that when she finally got it, and the whole open sky full of stars that came with it, she wasn’t sure what she’d actually been after. Certainly not being alone beneath them.
It’d taken about an hour worth of arguing – and with Cass, that was really saying something – before Cass gave in with a frustrated growl and stalked off towards her bike to go get Steph’s car. Steph stood there in shock for a solid minute, stunned at the fact that she’d won an argument, slightly guilty about the words she’d used to do so, before Cass was giving her a look that would freeze oceans. It sent Steph running forward and hopping onto the back of the bike.
Unsure of where to place her hands, she gripped hard with her knees and ankles, and held tight to the little bar at the back of the seat. Cass didn’t comment, and Steph didn’t say what she normally would’ve about how tense Cass’ back was.
Cass had been moving fine, Steph noted distantly, watching the landscape pass by in a way she hadn’t been able to enjoy on the way there. But then again, Cass never gave off tells about her injuries when she was in the middle of a fight. Not unless she was seconds away from passing out – and even then, Steph had more than once been surprised by Cass crumbling to the ground.
They parked the bike behind a few trees, watching from a distance. There weren’t as many people milling around outside as there might’ve been had Cass set off the EMP in the middle of the day, or earlier in the evening. Most of the motel’s other customers were probably asleep.
“This thing shot out cellphones too, right?” Steph murmured, leaning in close to Cass’ ear.
Cass went still at the movement, and Steph leaned back. She hated to make Cass uncomfortable, hated to do anything that resulted in the other girl avoiding her.
Cass nodded. “Yes,” she said, and if Steph had been even another centimetre farther away, she wouldn’t have caught the words.
Steph shifted in her seat, uncomfortable now that they weren’t moving. That was when she realised she was still only in the sports bra she’d been wearing when they’d run out. She swung her backpack around as quietly as she could and unzipped it bit by bit.
She’d thought she was being pretty quiet when she felt Cass’ stare, and looking up, she caught a frown.
What?, she signed. Your glare’s louder than me. She hoped she got the message across; her signing was rusty.
Cass’ expression didn’t change. What’re you doing?
Instead of signing, Steph gestured to her torso. Cass shot her eyes heavenward – which Steph thought was a touch dramatic – and shrugged out of her leather jacket. She handed it to Steph without a word, and when Steph took it from her with a blink, Cass turned back around to observe the motel.
Steph looked down at the jacket in her hands. They weren’t too different in size – Cass was tall enough to make up for any extra shoulder width Steph had, and the well-worn leather was accommodating. The jacket was soft, clearly beloved, though she had never seen Cass in it before.
Steph put it on before her thoughts could linger on it anymore. It was warm from Cass’ body heat; Steph hadn’t realised how cold she was until now. She stuffed her hands in the pockets. Her body was broader than Cass’ slight but long form; she didn’t want to risk ruining the zipper by attempting to do it up, but she had goosebumps.
“Thanks,” she whispered, tone as low as she could make it.
If Cass heard her, she didn’t let on. Instead, she said, “She’s gone. I’ll get your car. Go to this address and wait for me there.”
A slip of paper slid into Steph’s hand before she could protest.
It’d been a mistake. It’d been the best night of Steph’s life, right up to that point, but a mistake nonetheless, and it was entirely her own doing.
A long patrol. A few too many iced coffees. A rooftop lit by the neon lights of a vacancy sign.
Steph had stopped herself so many times; she didn’t know why she’d followed through with it this once. Leaning in implied something slow, something hesitant, something that left time for either party to lean back. Steph had had her arm around Cass’ shoulder – she’d been pointing something out to her. There’d been a split second to make a decision when Cass had turned back around to face Steph, and in that second, Steph had gone for it.
Cass hadn’t flinched back. She hadn’t turned away. She’d just gone entirely still, a solid stone pillar in Steph’s arms, and that was when Steph’s gut had dropped all ten stories down to the harsh concrete below.
Race you to the nearest open ice cream parlour, she’d shouted, pulling away and jumping off the roof.
She hadn’t turned around to look back, but it had been the first time she’d beaten Cass in one of their races. And when they’d gotten there, neither had spoken of it. Steph had understood.
“You took your fucking time,” was the first thing out of Steph’s mouth, and she didn’t regret it – Cass had taken an hour to get to what was a twenty-minute drive away.
“Combed your room,” Cass replied, sliding out from the car.
She handed Steph her bag of toiletries, the one thing she’d actually unpacked. Steph had forgotten all about it; she took it from Cass, begrudgingly grateful, and stuffed it into her backpack.
“You should’ve called me or something,” she muttered as they headed into the cabin. “I thought she’d gotten you.”
Cass gave Steph an offended look, and for the first time since she’d walked into Steph’s life all over again, Steph felt like they were back on even footing. She gave a little huff of laughter in return at her friend’s expression; a few months and a resurrection ago, she would’ve shoved her lightly.
Only one lightbulb was still operational inside the cabin. It dangled from the centre of the combined kitchen, living room, and dining area, spiderwebs covering the thin wire that held it up. Steph wrinkled her nose at the musty, wet smell coming from it.
“What even is this place?” she grumbled. “We could’ve just checked in at the next closest motel.”
“Too obvious,” Cass said. “She knows that’s what you’d do. She would’ve been there waiting.”
Steph might’ve once felt insulted that she was apparently so predictable, but she didn’t say anything now. It wasn’t as though she’d been trying very hard to cover her movements. This wasn’t an op; she was just road-tripping through the country until she grew tired of it, or found whatever the fuck she’d set out to look for. She didn’t have much hope for the latter.
“This Barbara’s?” Steph traced a finger through the inch-high layer of dust that had settled on every possible surface, and some she hadn’t considered within its reach.
Cass hummed in affirmation. “Dinah’s.”
Steph raised a brow. “I would’ve thought Dinah had better digs than this,” she said.
Cass gave her another small, familiar look, and the edges of her mouth turned up slightly. “Predictable,” she reminded Steph. And she’s married to Green Arrow, she added.
The cabin had one bedroom and one bathroom, and the kitchen-dining-living mashup. It was absolutely tiny, and Steph suspected that whoever had built it had renovated a public toilet, because why else were the walls tiled, and little drains in every room?
Are we staying here tonight, or just long enough for you to fill me in? Steph asked. She was tempted to asking Cass to stay and take Amanda back to Gotham with her after they’d finished defeating her and all. It’d solve all the problems that had cropped up in the last – she glanced at the clock, which was surprisingly still working – three hours.
Depends how long filling you in takes, Cass responded.
There wasn’t much to debrief on. The facts were simple. Amanda had been hired by Macmillan Rogers, that old dirtbag that Steph had taken down a few months ago, to hunt her down. Cass had followed her here, though she refused to call it stalking.
“So we catch her and turn her in for… assault,” Steph said, “and then you go back to Gotham, and leave me alone?”
Cass looked away. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“Then yes.”
The cabin had three bedrooms, but there was only one blanket that wasn’t totally unusable. Steph found the bedroom that had the best vantage point, and draped the blanket over it – though not before kicking at the bedframe and mattress repeatedly in hopes of drawing out any critters.
Steph had shared a bed with Cass plenty of times before. But they hadn’t since that night. She’d missed their sleepovers, watching Cass experience new things for the first time and taking pleasure in her friend’s face scrunching up in delight or disgust, or something in between. Steph didn’t know if Cass was exaggerating her emotions for her sake, but she’d enjoyed it nonetheless.
“You want the wall side?” she asked in a futile attempt at giving Cass the side that had the freaky chipped paint and strange hole in the wall.
Cass snorted. “No.”
Steph let out a long, exaggerated sigh, and sat down to take off her sneakers. She carefully didn’t watch as Cass roamed the perimeter of the room, and probably cabin as well, before returning to the small bedroom and placing her little duffle bag there.
Steph set her shoes down by the side, where they’d be out of the way but near enough to avoid having to step a single toe on the creaky flooring. She’d camped the night out in worse places, but it was different, somehow, when there’d been a mission, perhaps a stakeout.
She startled slightly when a hand appeared in her line of sight, waving a zip locked bag of chocolate chip cookies. Steph instantly latched onto them, knowing that they’d either come from that café near Cass’ place – the one where that waitress friend of hers had relocated to – or Alfred, and either option was absolutely heavenly.
“We’ll leave in four hours,” Cass said. “Sleep.”
Steph complied, knowing she’d only be able to sleep for an hour or so at most. She’d take over the watch from Cass when she came to again; Cass was familiar enough with nightmares that she’d understand Steph not wanting to sleep, and though Steph hated pity, that sympathetic look in people’s eyes, and absolutely despised being so weak over something that had happened to her – in the whole scheme of her life – a pretty long time ago, she knew that it would get Cass to sleep for at least a little while, and that was enough.
“At least sit,” she said as she crawled under the threadbare blanket. She’d replaced Cass’ leather jacket with a warm hoodie of her own, and had pulled on thick socks.
Cass complied, drawing her legs up close to her chest. And suddenly, Steph lost all weariness as she watched the familiar lines of her friend’s hands, gripping the side of her lets loosely. Cass’ hands were small, but her fingers were long and thin. Steph supposed that with a mother as beautiful as Shiva, it was bound to be the case that Cass would end up conventionally beautiful, but lately it’d been as though these were all new things that she was noticing about her friend, details in the larger scheme of things that she hadn’t realised before.
Sleep, the fingers that Steph had been staring at signed, and she felt her ears go warm at being caught looking.
She grumbled a few choices words beneath her breath, just loud enough for Cass to hear, like she would’ve when they’d been on less tense terms with one another, and then squeezed her eyes shut.
Steph had spent the first week in her car, not bothering to book a motel room. She’d spent the first night – back when darkness had still left plenty of warmth from the sun – sitting on the hood, staring up at the black night sky, wishing for a glimpse of stars, maybe a sliver of the moon.
Of course, it’d been far too cloudy for that, but she’d gone on staring, unblinking, for hours on end, before tiredness had finally caught up to her and she’d crawled back inside through the open window.
Alone, in the dark on a patch of road that had yet to host any car but Steph’s in the entire time she’d been driving along it… Steph had forced down the part of her that began to second guess this decision. And she wanted, more than anything, for someone to call her and ask where she was, but her phone stayed quiet, and eventually, she’d drifted off to a restless sleep.
“You’re supposed to enjoy the drive,” Steph complained, holding on to her seat with a tight grip as Cass took turns at speeds that the road officials had probably never even dreamt of.
Cass didn’t say anything, but Steph swore that the corner of her mouth tilted up in that familiar smile, and she couldn’t find it in herself to be mad. If she did happen to die because her absolute maniac of a friend was at the wheel, then, well… it’d certainly be a more enjoyable death than her previous one.
“Oooh, take this exit!” she said suddenly, bolting upright in her seat.
She almost regretted her words when Cass responded immediately, jerking on the wheel and slamming on the brakes in order to get the car across the three lanes to go through the exit. Steph was glad that she’d gotten her tyres changed before heading out, because her old ones would’ve exploded at the mere thought of a turn like this.
“And now a right… a left, and… no, no, wait, turn back, I meant right… yeah, keep going straight…”
Cass followed her instructions with a single-minded drive (hah!). Steph hadn’t expected that. She’d been waiting for questions and frowns, finger taps on the wheel and a twisted mouth, but it seemed like Cass was… trusting her.
Why did it feel like a surprise? Cass had wordlessly trusted her so many times in the past. But this time, with that assassin somewhere on their trail, it felt like Cass was trusting her with something important, a life or death decision, when really, the reality was that Steph was absolutely determined to see the giant hairdryer.
“What,” Cass said stonily when they’d come to a jerking halt. “Why?”
“I feel like this would’ve felt cooler for you if you’d been a Bratz fan,” Steph told her, stepping out of the car.
They’d attached Cass’ bike to the back, in that secure grip that Babs had told her would take Superman to remove forcibly. Steph shouldn’t have doubted her, but in her defence, those turns had been terrifying. The bike was now caked in dust and the back wheel caked in dirt, but, Steph mused, at least it was still attached and not flung to some deep corner of the American wilderness like she’d thought it’d end up.
It was when Cass didn’t lecture her that Steph knew she was mad, and this time was no different. But she’d been on this road trip long enough – had been existing without Cass long enough – that right now, she didn’t particularly care. Instead of turning to look at her friend, she walked up to the little stand that had been placed in front of the hairdryer, peering at it.
The information on it was old, worn away by the elements. Steph blew out a disappointed breath, wondering if she dared take a selfie in front of it and send it to Babs right in front of Cass. Had Cass looked for her? Had she asked around about her? Steph didn’t know, and she didn’t know how to ask.
The hairdryer itself was nothing spectacular. Steph had foolishly expected it to be blowing out air, perhaps, or sparkly in its design, but there were holes in the back that meant that the only air that this dryer would be releasing was natural ones.
“Finished?” Cass said when Steph turned around. Her arms were crossed and she was leaning against the car, and she looked just like every girl’s dream in high school.
“You can say it,” Steph muttered. “It was a waste of gas for something so meh.”
“It’s not fun when you say it first,” Cass said, but at least the annoyance in her tone had dimmed slightly.
“Where’re we going?” Steph asked when they got back in the car.
The general plan, Cass had explained that morning, was to lay out a trap for Amanda in a place where they had support. They’d string her along like bait, staying just out of reach long enough that she wouldn’t pick up on it until they waited long enough for her to ‘catch’ them right where they wanted her to.
It’d been a whole bunch of words that’d given nothing of the real details away. Steph hadn’t had her coffee yet, though, so she’d been more than cranky enough to tell Cass so, but even then, Cass had spilt nothing.
Now, she said, “Metropolis,” and left it at that.
Huh, Steph thought. She hadn’t expected that.
Steph wasn’t conventionally attractive, and life had more than hammered that into her head. She couldn’t blame the scars that marred her face, her crooked nose from being broken and reset so often, or the chip on her jawline for that. Kids had made fun of her nose long before she’d been forced to learn what racism was, and her hair had been pulled on by people ‘fascinated’ by seeing them spring back to her scalp plenty of times before it’d been used against her on the streets as a dirty fighting tactic. Maybe that was why she’d only kissed Cass when she’d been wearing a mask.
Steph had only been to Metropolis a few times before her death. A school trip on those rare occasions when her father had felt like sticking around for a little while and had paid for it. A mission with Tim. When she’d first started high school and wanted to mark it with a trip.
Now, she had to split her time between Barbara’s new place in the city and her mother’s home in Gotham. The city had lost some of that shine that her youthful eyes had gazed upon it with when it’d felt like something unattainable, something larger than life. Superman’s city.
It was dark by the time they arrived, having stopped a few too many times on the way there. Steph was driving now, having taken over from Cass a few hours ago. With the street lights lighting up the inside of the cabin, Steph couldn’t stop her eyes from flickering to her friend’s face every few seconds, watching the colours flash by on Cass’ sleeping forehead.
She stopped at the first motel she spotted, still a little outside the actual city. Cass was stirring when she parked in front of the reception, but Steph didn’t say a word as she stepped out of the car, stopping only to grab her phone and wallet.
Booking a room was second nature now, and she stared stonily at the teenager who blinked sleepily at her as he tapped slowly on the screen in front of him, before finally handing over a key.
Steph snatched it up, and tried her best to not stalk back to the car.
Cass had gotten out and was stretching, her hair a mess and in what Steph was pretty sure was Tim’s hoodie. It did nothing to make her mood improve, though she had no idea what had happened that had changed it so rapidly.
“We’re in room 33,” she said, thrusting the key towards Cass, as well as the car keys. “You park. I need to make a call.”
Steph didn’t give Cass time to respond, instead walking in the other direction to find a decent copse of trees. She was glad she had a jacket on; the wind was biting at her flesh, managing to make its way down the collar and up her sleeves. The tiny patch of skin at her ankles that wasn’t covered were two strips of ice blocks by the time she’d dialled in the number and it’d begun ringing.
“Steph?” Barbara’s voice was concerned, alert. “What—Is something wrong?”
“Did you send her here?” Steph asked in a tight, low voice. “Cass. Did you tell her to follow me?”
There was a pause, and Steph could practically see Babs pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Steph,” she started, in a cajoling tone, but Steph cut her off.
“Babs, give me a straight fucking answer,” she hissed. “Did you or did you not send Cass after me?”
Barbara sighed. “Both, in a way?” she said. “I kept to my promise, Steph. She started asking like a few days after you left, and I didn’t tell her anything except that you didn’t want to be followed, but when I caught wind of the assassin, I called her in.”
Steph let out a low breath through her nose, willing herself to get a hold of her emotions. “I had it handled.”
“Normally, yes, but you didn’t expect anyone to come after you. You didn’t even take your suit along,” Barbara argued. “Look, she’ll help you take care of the assassin and then be out of y—”
“Thanks, Babs,” Steph said, and hung up.
It was stupid to be sitting out here in the cold when there was a warm room and hopefully hot tea waiting for her inside. She could practically see Cass flicking through the take out options, eyes lighting up at the options there were now that they were in a city that was bigger than a few miles in each direction. But she couldn’t make her legs move to take her back.
She’d liked this last day or so out on the road with Cass. She just didn’t know if that was because she was lonely, or because she’d missed her friend. If it was the former, then she could perhaps accept that her travel was coming to an end sooner than she’d expected. Maybe she’d say goodbye to Cass and take a long detour on the way back to Gotham, or perhaps she’d go straight to the Birds of Prey headquarters and ask for a mission to ease back into the game.
But if it was the latter? What then? Steph didn’t know if Cass would stay if she asked her to, and she knew that there was a chance that she’d say yes out of a sense of responsibility or something equally as honourable. Cass was nothing if not honourable. And Steph wouldn’t be able to take it if she forced her friend to stick with her after the awkwardness of that night, just for the sake of duty or the like.
Steph swung her fist out suddenly, her instincts honed both by training and the paranoia of a woman alone in the dark in a strange city. Her knuckles hit flesh, and she drew back, about to land another punch when the figure she’d been aiming at stepped into the light coming from the motel sign, and Steph relaxed.
“Give some warning next time, geez,” she muttered, stuffing her hands back into her pockets.
“You’ve been out here for half an hour,” Cass said. “I thought…”
She didn’t have to say it; Steph knew exactly what she’d thought. She let out a sigh, and muttered a grudging apology, but made no moves to go back inside.
“I meant it,” Cass murmured. “I’ll go back after this is done. You can… be alone again.” Her mouth had a twist to it, as though the thought of Steph wandering like this was unpleasant to think about.
“I talked to Babs. Sorry you had to come all this way,” Steph said, eyes on the grass. “I could’ve handled it.”
“I wanted to,” Cass said, turning towards her. Steph could feel her friend’s eyes on her, but she didn’t meet them.
She let out a huff of breath, the air fogging with her exhale. “You don’t have to pretend, Cass. We can still be friends without being like… ride-or-die friends or some shit. I know it’s been awkward since…” Was this truly how she was going to say it? Steph trailed off, not knowing how to form the words, not knowing if she even wanted an answer.
“What?” Cass prodded.
Steph ran a hand through her hair, feeling unmoored and hating Cass for making her spell it out like this. “Since that night,” she said, just short of snapping it out.
Cass went still. “Oh,” she said. And now she was the one to avoid eye contact and seek out the blades of green at their feet. “Then I’m sorry, too.”
“It’s not your fault,” Steph said in as stable a voice as she could manage. She tried for a weak grin, though she knew it was too dark to see it. “I came onto you, didn’t even give you a chance to stop me, and I made you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t’ve—”
“Stop,” Cass said, whirling back around to face Steph. “You think…” Her mouth moved a few times, trying to form words, and Steph could read the struggle on the furrow of her brow; and as much as she wanted to use this pause as a way to redirect the conversation and escape, she wouldn’t. Cass deserved to get this out. Finally, Cass said, “You think I was uncomfortable.”
Steph could only nod.
“You were the one to run away and never talk about it again,” Cass said, voice rising in a way that Steph had never heard before. Cass drew in a sharp breath, and this time, her fingers moved like lightning, all sharp edges and jagged corners. You’re still running.
Taken aback, Steph tried to find the words to respond, but nothing came out.
But that was when Cass moved, running forward and using the tree they’d been sheltering beneath as a wall to spring off of. Steph whirled around, trying to look for who they were fighting, but in the darkness, all she could see were flashes of someone in dark clothing.
A punch landed directly at her gut, and Steph’s body bowed forward, trying desperately to get the air back into her lungs. She crouched down, this time spotting Amanda as she approached, and swung her leg out at her in a kick, direct to her shins.
Had the assassin not lifted her leg at the last minute, it would’ve definitely caused a fracture. Steph stood from her crouch, body in a fighting stance. She resisted the urge to look around for Cass, because she’d disappeared after landing that first blow. She trusted her, of course she trusted her, but she wished that she’d been let in on whatever plan they were executing.
“I don’t have nearly the money you’re probably being paid,” Steph said, breaths coming in faster than she would’ve liked as she dodged another swing, “but I can offer up friendship, a couch to crash on… uh, a sparkly keyring of the world’s largest hairdryer?”
She ducked, and this time Amanda’s fist slammed into a tree. Steph aimed a blow at her midriff, putting as much of her strength as she could into it to try and knock the wind out of Amanda’s lungs, but she jumped back at just the right time.
“You’re out of practise,” Amanda chided.
“Y’know,” Steph panted, “you could’ve tried to kill me after you’d slept with me. Why leave us both hanging like that?”
She rambled when she was trying to find a way out of a problem (or when she was nervous, happy, stressed, excited…), but it’d been one of the things that Bruce had looked nostalgic about when words had accidentally begun spilling from her mouth on patrol. It was a useful tool, he’d told her. And then he’d gotten her to watch a few videos from the cowl cam, of a baby Robin who manipulated goons three times – maybe even four – times the size of him simply by speaking a little too much.
Amanda came rushing towards her, and that was when Steph knew that she’d probably fucked up at some point here. She wrapped her legs around Amanda’s torso, and aimed blows at Amanda’s head, but that didn’t stop the impact from leaving her absolutely breathless as her head knocked against a tree trunk.
Amanda released her, and she felt herself slide to the ground, landing ungracefully. She could see Amanda approaching her, and did her best to get some air back into her lungs and into a defensive position, but she was now lightheaded, little black dots littering her vision – the little that she could see, anyhow.
The first kick to her ribcage landed, but the second time Amanda attempted it, she grabbed her by the ankle and twisted, leading to a satisfying crack. Amanda toppled forward, and Steph grabbed her in a chokehold. She’d underestimated how much strength Amanda still had left, because the moment she did so, Amanda shoved her head back against Steph’s face, and the crunch of bone was the last sensation Steph was aware of.
Maybe it was the fact that Steph had fallen for her when she’d been so young, still in high school. Maybe it was the fact that Cass had only ever experienced a few kisses here and there, never anything long-term. She remembered Cass complaining to her about how Bruce had chased off Superboy, and had wondered to herself if she cared about Cass more than she cared about Bruce’s opinion of her.
What would a future with the two of them even look like? Cass had a penchant for disappearing for days on end without telling anyone, going off on missions without saying a word or asking for backup, and returning home bloody and broken. Not to mention all of Steph’s issues, all the flaws that she’d been dealt and the ones that she’d carved into herself. The two of them would never last together. They’d stay friends, most likely, but long-time material they were not.
Something was tracing over her skin when Steph regained consciousness. Her entire face felt like a giant bruise, and she loathed to open her eyes when she could tell it’d be a bright horror show out there.
But she did so anyway, because there was something tracing a picture on her wrist, and she wanted to know who it was.
“Hey,” she said, voice rough.
It was, as she’d suspected, insanely bright. There was light blazing in through the thin wisps of cloth that apparently counted as curtains, and lights in the hallway were on, despite it clearly being day. The buzz of low voices was the next thing that Steph registered, and flicking her eyes to their direction, she saw that the news was on.
“You’re awake,” Cass said, leaning back, and part of Steph regretted not enjoying the sensation of her hand touching Steph’s for a little bit longer.
“Unfortunately,” she said, trying to sit up. Her ribs were definitely fractured. “What happened?”
“I called in some favours, but they took a while to arrive,” Cass said. “But you don’t have to worry about her anymore.” She lowered her voice as she continued, “The official story is that that she was an ex-girlfriend stalking you, because the motel called the cops.”
“That’s pretty accurate, actually,” Steph mused. “Just ‘one night stand’ instead of ‘girlfriend’.”
Cass handed her a glass of water, but otherwise didn’t respond. “I booked two nights here,” she said. “You should rest before heading off again.”
Steph processed this silently. “And you’re going back to Gotham?”
Cass looked at her. “I gave you my word, didn’t I.”
You don’t have to go waged with you can make it to Gotham before nightfall if you leave now. Steph didn’t say anything; she didn’t know what to say. The conversation from the previous night felt like something from a different time entirely. Here, in the daylight, she and Cass were two planets orbiting the same sun, but never to truly align.
Cass’ fingers twitched where they sat on the motel bed, inches away from where Steph’s had lain only moments ago. You didn’t make me uncomfortable, she said. You’ve never made me feel uncomfortable.
But you never brought it up again, Steph said. I thought…
Her fingers slowed, hovering midair before coming to rest back down on the blanket covering her legs. She looked up at Cass, only to see that Cass had been looking at her this whole time.
Finish your trip, she said to Steph. And when you’ve found what you set out to look for, you can come and find me.
Steph didn’t stop her as she collected her duffle bag and stepped outside, and she didn’t watch as Cass released her bike from Steph’s car. She understood what Cass was doing, why she’d decided to leave. The Steph who’d kissed her friend on a rooftop had died, and the Steph who was watching her friend leave had set out to find something that she was missing. She understood why, but her chest was tight as she listened to Cass’ bike starting up, ears craning as the sound faded away.
And now she understood who she’d been collecting the knickknacks for.