#I do want to write something short about Barbara's mentor ship under Cass and Steph

[teleportationmagic]

Continuation of this post about reverse Batgirl ft. Babara.

Cassandra's the first one to run into Babs.

It's been a few years - they've gone through a few more Robins. Bruce picked Jason up off the street, Tim dropped Robin for a second, Jason took it up. Jason died. Tim picked it back up again. There was a memorial to a dead boy in the Batcave, before he came back. Hoodie was on the streets again, no matter how much Bruce resents it.

The way she runs into her is... unorganized. She's launched by a creature straight into the side of a townhouse and flips so that her legs frame the redheaded teenager instead of making contact, before launching herself back into the fight and wrestling the thing to the ground. She leaves it tied up, and intends to make a quick visual check before moving on to the other three creatures that are rampaging through Gotham (Joker did a Thing) (Don't ask) when Barbara sticks out her neck and tells her to stop. Asks if she has a plan - asks if she knows where they are.

That is a negative. The situation is quickly evolving, and its all hands on deck. Barbara offers to help - she'll moniter Twitter and TikTok, see if she can give Cassandra any information that'll be useful. She even has access to the police networks - she can really help her out!

Bruce, through Cassandra's ear, is very much against this. But Barbara will stay in her home (which, while uninsulated (anymore), is not actually unsafe) (well, any more unsafe than the rest of Gotham) so she gives her a comm (That's not why I gave you extras, Batgirl!) (You said if I lose them. Lost one.) and heads out to fight giants. Barbara guides her through the city, taking her from stop to stop - she doesn't just keep social media open, but instead she surfs through city plans and sewer routes. Cassandra follows her directions - sweeping up and down Gotham. Barbara knows, by the end of it, that her contributions helped. Significantly.

She asks if she can stay on full time. Not as a vigilante, no, but just as a helper, someone to collate all the information they needed, to point Batgirl in the right direction.

Cass is hesitant. Bruce is hesitant. Steph wants to meet her first, but is also hesitant.

It doesn't help that, during their next mission, it turns out that Barbara had patched herself into their comms network through the one they gave her. She's picked up a codename in the meantime - Oracle.

It's Duke who ultimately argues her in. It's clear she won't stop - hell, which one of them actually stopped when they were told? And while Steph has complicated feelings about this, but she can't quite argue that he's wrong. (Jason also has complicated feelings about this! But he outwardly, he comes down hard on Let Her In, Actually) (Tim and Damian are on side I-haven't-met-her-yet)

Moreover, he continues, she's not actually in danger physically. In terms of new vigilantes, she's relatively safe, all things considered.

So Oracle is pulled into the fold. A lot of her work in the beginning is done out of her laptop, but as time passes (and she gets better and better at what she's doing) it evolves into more complicated stuff - actual hacking and archival stuff.

Cassandra, on the other hand, is growing up. She's been Batgirl for eight years, now. Damian and Duke change their suits, but Cassandra just adjusts hers for height. And now she is a mentor, to a girl older than when she picked this suit up.

"Maybe." Steph reflects. "Your just getting old. In general. Midlife crisis time."

"Older." She replies, tapping her on the shoulder. "Anciiiiiiient."

"Rude, so rude."

Batgirl was important to her, undoubtedly so. But it belonged to Gotham, and to Bludhaven. Cassandra had stayed there for so long, had based herself in those cities. She remembers, being younger. In the year between Cain and Bruce, travelling the world, and helping, where she could. And she helped here, she really did, but. But.

Barbara stays as Cass's main support, but eventually she starts helping out with the Robin contingent. It's Cass who teaches her the fundamentals of self defence - defence being the operative word there. She builds up her skillset so she can run away, instead of the more offensively focused approaches of everyone else. And while Barbara works with Jason, Tim, Damian and Duke, even, occasionally, she's always most used to working with Cass.

(Steph is taking this well! Steph is taking this like an adult, who knows her position in whatever this is is secure! She is not jealous of the proficiency of a teenager! Shut up Damian!)

But the thing is not everyone is Cass. And Barbara makes a bad call - sends Hoodie into a situation he wasn't ready for, and while he made it out alive it was by the skin of his teeth, with a week's worth of rest in the Batcave.

Cass tries to explain to her that it's not the end of the world. That everyone's alright, that people lived. It's a visceral experience, for her - arguing down to a girl who believes unshakingly that this is her fault. That nothing can change that, redeem that. It's Steph, in the end, who can wheel herself into Commissioner Gordon's home and share that same experience - of not knowing. Of miscalculating. Of doing better, next time.

It's to the both of them that Barbara argues that she should be able to do fieldwork. Not forever - she doesn't want forever. But. If she has experience, if she knows what it's like for the rest of them on the ground, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe she can keep herself from making this mistake again.

Cassandra points out that she'd onboarded under certain conditions. Barbara pointed out how much the rest of them risk their lives anyways, how they'd started much younger then she was. Stephanie taps the metal of her chair once. Twice.

She tells her how she lost her legs. That could happen to her too. Think on it.

They give her three days. In the meanwhile, Cassandra thinks as well. About Batgirl. About America. About the League base she'd found when she went to fight her mother, about the dead men left there.

People needed help. Gotham and Bludhaven, they had people and she'd learned the investigative skills she needed to help, on her own. And Barbara needs the legitimacy, the confidence. A mark of her confidence.

She discusses it with Stephanie. Stephanie brings up that Barbara might choose to do the sensible thing, actually, and Cass replies with a single upturned eyebrow.

She doesn't. And Batgirl is passed down again. Cass puts together another costume.

She won't leave. Not just yet, but she knows she will. When she brings it up to Bruce he maps out his own route, when he was new to this, working through Asia and Europe and Africa, picking up mentors and teachers who gave him the skills he needed. Maybe she'll learn something too. Something irreplaceable.

In the meanwhile, it becomes clear pretty soon that Babara's absence from the comms presents its own problems. Stephanie cracks her fingers, and decides to take the task up. Learning is a slow process - she predates the internet just enough for it to be slower, unweildy - but they trade. Old combat experience for tech experience, mixed in with social engineering. Barbara spent years cracking passwords through finding vulnerabilities in the code, whereas Stephanie shows her how to make the right phone call.

(Something else that is becoming clear is that Batman is getting older. He's not been a young man, by the time Cassandra had joined him, and he was getting no younger. There was time for a successor.)

(They just hadn't meant for it to be this soon - )

Bruce dies. Tim goes looking for him, leaving Robin behind, Jason following close. Duke, Damian, and Cassandra gather in the Batcave to decide upon a legacy. (Steph wants to tell them to roll dice for it.) It's not about pride, except in the ways it is - Duke as the most of experienced of them, Damian having known Batman alone and Cass as the one who'd worked under him the longest. There are objective metrics they could use for this, but it's not an objective contest.

"Trade it." Steph suggests, after a half hour of deliberation. "We still need Nightwing and Signal, and whatever Cass wants to take up now. Set up a rotating schedule, until you figure out the best fit."

"It'll be noticeable." Damian hisses, but it's a contemplative hiss.

"He did this alone, didn't he?" Cassandra points at each one of them and he inclines his head. "Yeah, but still. He thought that Batman had to be alone, that it was his to bear."

"It can be ours." Cass says, the simplicity feeling like a bell. Her eyes dart from brother to brother, something like certainty settling in the room. "All of ours."

There is also the matter of the child leaping through Gotham city, trying to avenge his parents. The ache of it brings Damian to his knees. The fifth Robin flies next to Batman, Batgirl on their side.

Robin and Batgirl start the beginning of something, slow and fumbling. That's a first, Stephanie remarks, and there's agreement across the board there.

Dick is Damian's robin, and Duke's, and Cass's. Barbara is Cass's Batgirl, and Steph's and Dick's. Tim and Jason send messages, from time to time - progress reports and stories. Damian has half a conniption when he hears that they're going up against the league.

Barbara partners with a bunch of other Gotham vigilantes - the Birds of Prey. Steph organizes them from her position in the Batcave, running comms and tracking movements. Barbara is by far the youngest of them, but her presence is appreciated, nevertheless. Dinah toys with taking her on as an apprentice.

Bruce comes back. Jason and Tim piece it together, and the pull on him, stumbling back into the present. Batman takes to the skies again - going from three keepers to two.

Then to one. Saying goodbye to Gotham hurts, when Cass leaves - but she leaves with a promise to come back, a kiss on the cheek for Stephanie, a hug for Bruce and Duke.

Barbara gives her a comm as she leaves. Takes a promise that she would keep it, no matter what. And that's a promise Cassandra keeps - voices of Batgirls old and new echoing through it.