#or possibly recruiting her

[optiwashere]

Huh, I didn't even realize it'd been a year since BG3 came out until I opened tumblr this morning. Kinda wild. I didn't think much of the game's release: I like Larian's games, and I like the BG series. I wasn't ever going to skip the game, but I didn't think I'd play it at launch because I was busy working on a novel in 2023 and not doing well financially.

Thankfully, circumstances left me with a little bit of extra money last year just before launch and it meant I could spend on a video game. I needed a pick-me-up after said 2023 novel failed to go anywhere, and BG3 was right there. Like most CRPGs, I played it in basically every moment of free time that I had and did as much as I possibly could in one playthrough.

It's so odd how these small happenstances can snowball into coming back to fandom, finding some friends I might've never met otherwise, and writing a lot of fanfiction along the way. I'll probably have something more interesting to say/share when it's the 14th, AKA when I sat down and wrote my first fic for this fandom.

Anyways, it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more years to come 💜

[justanotherignot]

Rare Karlach Night Camp Dialogue

[sieglinde-freud]

really dont like any of nowi’s vanilla game supports what if i just married her to anna

[maegalkarven]

Also funny how while Ketheric is my least favorite villain from the Dead Three Chosen, he def is the one I respect the most.

Orin and Gortash are just problem children with behavior issues and delusions of grandeur. Ketheric tho? He just wanted his daughter back.

[cadrenebula]

Junelezen - Day 7 Boat

[yzafre]

The thing about TMNT 2012 is that while I like Rise more on an as-is basis, '12 gives me more creative inspiration.

Part of that is the "they dropped all these interesting, weird character beats then refused to do anything more than surface-level writing with them, if that", which makes me want to pull them apart and put them back together and write out what I was wanting from the character writing the whole time. That instinct to say "okay but what if they did this. focused on this. developed this. did this better." Which... is a thing I might eventually write out. It does exist rent free in my head, like... minimum 20% of the time lately. ((a problem when I need that space to finish my kh fic I've only got 5 chapters left to draft I'm so close))

But also it's like. I tell my self stories with a little enemy-to-ally OC guy in my head while driving or trying to sleep (as one does) and the next thing I know I'm thinking about like. The internal operations of the Foot clan. Shredder's branch in Japan vs Bradford's US branch. Like I think Shredder's was referred to as a crime family at some point, but was Bradford's? He wasn't just recruiting soldiers then making train and stay in waiting, was he?

And like, I assume he was recruiting through his martial arts classes, and I got the feeling his dojos were like a chain thing? Were they all across the country? What happened if he recruited from somewhere in California? Did he make them move to New York? Did he have, like... HR people to help him get situated?

What about Xever and Bradford's rivalry that supposedly pre-dates the show. Was Bradford just recruitment while Xever was doing jobs? Was Bradford also doing, like... missions or jobs? Were they usually tapped for different types of jobs? Were they, like, trying to improve their reputation and putting in bids so Shredder would send them more jobs over the other guy?

Bradford also had a TV show. So he had, like... businesses? With departments, maybe? Were those kept separate, or were they part of the whole crime family.... thing. Were anyone used for money laundering? Did the people working for them know what Bradford was up to? Were they staffed with Foot clan recruits? Who was in charge of Finances?

And like if they were doing actual crime things... what were they? Do I need to look up how crime families work to see how all they earn money? Was it really mundane or were they doing more complicated ninja stuff? ((I bet you could do crazy insider training if you could break into any company in the world. Also if you could sabotage companies to control the market. I don't know, the most I know about crime is what you see in Leverage.))

Also, like... equipment. The uniforms, and the weapons, and the gear, for all those recruits, that's gotta come from somewhere. How is that.. handled? Do they have free rein? Get a certain amount per year but have to pay if they lose it? Always have to buy it themselves? Where does it come from? Do they own the manufacturers through, like, shell companies? Do they have an R&D department that doesn't do combat? Information and logistics?

And suddenly I'm so many layers deep in it and I turn around and I don't just have one guy living in my head, I've got like - 6 at minimum.

[vaniri]

Jaheira joining my evil Durge and her morally fucked up companions, after they killed everyone in the Last Light Inn in front of her eyes, being like "I can fix them :)" 😭

[desolationcleo]

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Etho had failed to get Bdubs that life in s2e5. Maybe I wanna see red life Cleo and Bdubs being the feral murder couple they would have been had Bdubs not been restored to yellow

[tenrose]

Love it when I make a decision and basically everyone disapproves except for Solas lmao

[tiny-cloud-of-flowers]

(last one i promise) (SORRY FOR ALL THE ASKS) for felix!! how did you come to see catarina as a sister ?? whats your favorite thing to do together when theres free time ??

(IT’S ALRIGHT, ANYONE CAN ALWAYS SEND AS MANY ASKS AS THEY WOULD LIKE TO!)

Felix: “Taking some time off from your usual expeditions, are we? Well, it’s good to see you in good spirits.

To answer your first question, that.. took a bit of time. You know what I was like back at the academy, after all. I didn’t actually get to meet Catarina until partway through the year, since it was only then that we ended up in the same house, but.. I’ll admit she caught my attention pretty quickly. She’s never trained as often as me, but we ended up arranging to spar together a lot, and that’s really how things got started. I’d say we have quite similar ways of fighting, so that common ground helped us to build up a connection, and then.. we started talking about other things than training, somehow. I suppose it was just- refreshing, to have someone around who had such an outside perspective. She may have roots in Faerghus, but the fact she wasn’t raised there, or raised to uphold the same typical values the Kingdom prides itself on - or even anywhere else in Fódlan - meant that.. there’s a lot I felt I could talk to her about, in a way I just couldn’t with others. Also, she wouldn’t hesitate to give me a piece of her mind, or say what she thought about things. Not many others were like that, so it stuck out to me.

By the end of the year, it didn’t feel like we had developed the same dynamic I have with my friends - and I wouldn’t necessarily say it was any worse or better, it’s just.. there was something different about it. Maybe it’s because it was just something shared between the two of us, not a piece of a larger group setting. A closeness that almost seemed more natural, or permanent, than just friendship, even despite the much shorter time we’d actually known each other. What I mean by that is that.. Rina and I can talk about anything, and it’d never feel like what we had could just suddenly fall apart, no matter what we actually said to each other. In fact, I don’t know if we’ve ever fallen out in a serious way; we may bicker a lot over little things, but it’s always more playful than anything else - never as tense or able to suddenly escalate as it could be with others. So, that’s.. really where the whole “sister” thing started.

Oh, and for your second question - we still train together, a lot. Catarina prides herself on being a difficult opponent to strike, and I’m very familiar with that by this point, but it doesn’t make it that much easier to get a hit in on her. Sometimes it can feel like I’m fighting a mirage of myself when she’s more on the offensive, which.. is a strange feeling, but I think it’s good. She also keeps trying to help me with the magic side of things, which usually results in her taking a pile of books out of the library and dragging me somewhere to go read them with her until one of us gets bored. ..I’ll admit that seeing her own spellcraft in action has helped me gain a greater appreciation of magic than I used to have, but I’m still not close to her own proficiency. Then again, I know I’d overpower her if she wasn’t using magic, so me having greater physical strength can still be more useful than her balanced and more agile style. And, the magic I do know how to cast is already far above what most swordsmen could use or expect from me, so I still have the edge in most combat situations, even without being an expert.

I.. hope that all of this answers your questions. Feel free to stop by again if you want to ask more.”

[boysnberriespie]

Put up some pretty lights in the living room, and tbh just used hammer in hooks because we’re not getting that damn security deposit back 😭

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

an earlier entry in the tim & steph role swap au.

Bruce was trying to give her space. Stephanie knew that's what he was doing, but every time he inhaled like he was going to say something to her and then he didn't, it pushed her closer to the edge.

She'd spent her evening busting her way out of one of the Riddler's stupid puzzle traps, and when Batman had found her shaking out her left hand and standing over an unconscious heap of cheap green tailoring, he hadn't even had anything to say about her making that rookie mistake that had gotten her nabbed in the first place. He'd sucked in a breath. He'd let it back out. Stephanie had zip tied the Riddler's hands together and grit her teeth against the urge to throw a batarang at Bruce.

The last time things between them had gotten this bad--

Well.

The last time Stephanie had felt this trapped by the costume, the last time she'd kind of wanted to punch Bruce in the face just for glancing at her sideways, she had ended up tortured by the Black Mask in the middle of a gang war.

So she couldn't exactly blame Batman for trying to give her space, especially since none of this had anything to do with him. (Mostly.) But that didn't stop it from driving her nuts.

God, there was no way she was getting to sleep tonight.

Stephanie threw open the door of the Batmobile before it could pull to a full stop, ignoring Bruce's frustrated grunt, and cupped her hand around her mouth as she jumped out of it. "Hey, pipsqueak!" she shouted.

The kid seated at the big chair by the Batcomputer barely glanced in her direction. His chin just tipped up even further than it already was, and he gave a visible sniff of disapproval. Stephanie didn't care.

"Ten minutes," she told him, slamming the door of the Batmobile behind herself and pointing two fingered from her eyes to his. "Be ready to go by the time I'm in my civvies."

"It's three in the morning," Nightwing called down to her, equal parts vaguely disapproving and vaguely amused. He was leaned up against the desk next to Damian, his domino in hand but otherwise still in costume. She wasn't sure why he was in Gotham for the week, except maybe an eldest sibling instinct that Bruce was not really handling the addition of their newest family member all that well, but she supposed Blüdhaven had (somehow) held itself together for years before Nightwing ever made an appearance.

"Which is exactly why Damian should be asleep," Batman said, his voice heavy with disapproval, but both Nightwing and Robin flatly ignored him. Just like they'd been ignoring his mandates that the kid be kept out of the Batcave entirely.

"Waffle House never closes," Stephanie countered, "and I want an All-Star Breakfast."

"So you're kidnapping my little brother to feed him hangover food?" Dick asked dryly.

"Bruce is the one who keeps telling me that just because I still have parents doesn't mean I'm not 'family.'" Stephanie couldn't help the snide bite to her voice, even if it made Bruce sigh and Dick roll his eyes. "I'm taking the little assassin out. We're gonna bond."

"I do not want--"

"I could not care less," Stephanie said flatly. "Ten minutes, Damo. I just gotta get out of this suit."

Against the background murmur of conversation from the upper platform as Damian continued complaining and Dick told him to suck it up or whatever, Stephanie disappeared into the locker rooms to peel off the Robin suit.

It hadn't changed much over the years--not to brag, but she'd pretty much nailed it, first try. Red tunic/skirt with yellow details, green pants, black cape with yellow lining, chunky green gloves, yellow combat boots with a winged detail at the ankles as an homage to the traditional pixie boots. It was cute, it was comfortable, and it was really good for applying her fist to the face of any nearby criminals. The only thing she'd ever radically altered was how she did her hair.

Jason and Dick had both had boring, short dark hair the whole time they'd been Robin, so it had been a new frontier for Steph. A place for her to really leave her mark on Robin's image, even beyond the revolutionary addition of "pants." Naturally, she'd gone a little crazy over it.

Her first pass had gone for volume. A green headband with two points, reminiscent of the ears on Batman's cowl, and a teased out riot of blonde that stood up well against free falling off of buildings (by virtue of requiring an entire can of hairspray to achieve). It took forever to tease and even longer to wash and brush back to its usual silky smooth texture, but it had looked cool as hell.

Tim thought so, at least. And that meant Steph had stuck with it longer than she probably should have.

She'd later tried pigtails and promptly ditched them the first time the Mad Hatter made a weird comment; then she'd gone for a high ponytail, and then a bun, which were the most practical but also so fucking boring. When she was sixteen, she cropped her hair up to her chin just to try something different, and that length turned out to be so much worse when it came to getting hair in her face, since she couldn't really pull it back.

(She tackled the issue by breaking the hairspray back out for a while and doing her best version of Wolverine's classic hair-horns, which Dick had loved and Tim had hated and Young Justice had all begged her to keep doing forever and ever, amen. She didn't, obviously, but every now and then she would bring it back, just to watch them lose their minds.)

(Stephanie retired that style forever when the boys died. Cassie understood.)

So the Girl Wonder was sporting a simple french braid, these days. Practical, cute, and the pin at the back was a spare batarang. She'd also resurrected the headband, this time in red.

Stephanie dropped the batarang into her purse with trembling hands and shook her hair out of the braid, pulling it back up into a messy bun. She ignored the jeans and sweater she'd been wearing when she showed up for patrol in favor of raiding Cassandra's locker for a pair of sweats and an "Everything's Bat-ter in Gotham" tank top that she was pretty sure Cass had stolen from Tim. It was a little chilly for the tank, but she had a jacket in the backseat of her car.

She took the steps up to the Batcomputer two at a time, purse slung over her shoulder, and skidded to a stop behind the big chair. "Ready?" she asked. She did not resist the instinct to give Damian a knuckle noogie, even though he broke her hold and launched himself away from her almost before she could touch him.

A smile was there and gone on Dick's face, too quick for Damian to see before the kid turned around. "He's ready," he asserted.

"Good," Stephanie said, loudly, drowning out any further protests, and quickly shepherded the kid back down the stairs.

Damian glowered the whole way over to her car. "Grayson says that I am required to thank you for your generosity in inviting me along on this endeavor," he told her. He sounded not only begrudging, but also rather dubious, like he thought Dick was lying to him.

Stephanie stopped moving. She looked down at Damian; he glared back up at her. She raised her eyebrows and made a "get on with it" motion with her hand.

"Thank you," Damian ground out.

"You are so very welcome, Damo," Stephanie said, saccharine sweet, and she started walking again.

"You will cease using that nickname immediately," he ordered. It was cute how he sped up slightly to make sure he didn't fall behind her.

"Do you have a different one in mind?"

"Damian will suffice."

"No, it won't."

"It is my name."

"And therefore," Stephanie drawled, "it is not sufficient as a nickname. They serve different purposes." She grinned, ruffling his hair as she stepped around him to open the passenger door for him. "I'll live with Damian for now," she compromised, "as long as you start thinking about an option you wouldn't hate."

"I will hate anything you can think of," Damian informed her.

"Then I guess I'll have to get creative," Stephanie said dryly. "Get in the car, wild child."

She was expecting it when Damian looked at her car, wrinkled his nose, and then looked back at her. That was pretty much the same reaction Tim had had the first time he'd seen it, too. "Is this vehicle safe?"

"Boyfriend rebuilt the engine for me last year," Stephanie told him, cheerfully. "It just looks like a piece of shit. Camoflauge. This is Gotham, Damian; you don't drive a nice car unless you feel like making a charitable donation to the nearest chop shop."

"Tt."

But with one last distrustful glance, Damian got in.

Stephanie closed the door behind him, biting back a grin as he immediately reached for the seatbelt, and fired off a vague wave as she jogged around to the driver's seat. "We'll both come back in one piece," she promised Bruce.

He nodded, a dubious expression on his face, and Dick elbowed him and muttered something Stephanie couldn't hear from the far side of the cave. Honestly, Bruce should be thanking her; it wasn't often he got quality time alone with his eldest these days.

The nearest Waffle House to Wayne Manor was about a fifteen minute drive back towards the city, where Bristol's sweeping hillsides gave way to mixed-use and commercial zoning. Stephanie let Damian enjoy his stubborn silence for the lengh of the drive, listening instead to the left rear window where it rattled in its frame and humming idly to herself.

Pretty much all Waffle Houses were the same, full of brown tiles and white tables and the heavy smell of grease rising from the open bar top, but they all had their individual quirks, too, and Stephanie knew this particular WaHo by heart. She and Tim used to come here all the time as they snuck in and out of Bristol under Batman's nose; it had a great view of the bus stop right across the street. They could get food and keep an eye out for their ride all at once.

Stephanie would ditch her domino and gloves and pull a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants on over her costume; sometimes she stayed that way and rode the bus alongside Tim, but more often she'd change back to Robin and lay flat against the roof to surf it all the way into the city, while Tim begrudgingly paid his fare and made small talk with the driver.

Stephanie took a moment to pull her jacket on in the parking lot. Out of the corner of her eye, she could almost see two skinny kids yelling and sprinting down the street, one waving their bus passes in the air, the other with yellow combat boots peeking out from beneath oversized sweatpants.

It felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like yesterday. Tim hadn't even lived in Bristol since he'd finally gotten a judge to agree to emancipate him.

She shook her head and shooed Damian away from the car. "Hey, Allie," Stephanie greeted, and she held the door for Damian in such a way that he was forced to walk under her arm to enter the building. He jabbed at her with his bony little elbow in retaliation, but Stephanie didn't even flinch.

The waitress glanced up from the receipts she was counting on their little spike next to the register. "Hey, honey," she said, with a genuine smile. "Ain't seen you in a while."

"Senior year is kicking my ass," Stephanie told her dryly.

"I don't envy you." Allie offered a bright smile, flicking through the last couple of receipts and then pushing them back flat against the counter. "Who's the kid?"

There was no cover story that Steph would be able to offer that would would sufficiently explain their presence in a Waffle House at 3:37 AM, so she didn't bother to come up with one. "This is Damian," she said. She poked him in the shoulder and raised her eyebrows.

He rolled his eyes, but said, "Hello, waitress."

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "Her name is Allie. That's how you're going to address her," she told him, calm but unyielding. "Go pick a booth."

Allie just shook her head. "Cute kid." For some reason, she sounded like she meant it.

"He's a work in progress," Stephanie sighed.

"He's got a good woman in his corner. And such pinchable cheeks." Allie grinned, pinching her thumb and forefinger together repeatedly as she watched Damian beeline for the back corner, picking the side of the booth where his back would be against the wall.

Stephanie couldn't help her own grin, tucking her hands in her pockets. He had picked the laminated menu up from the table and was studying it with a frown. "I guess he is pretty cute," she said thoughtfully. She hadn't thought about it, much. All she could ever seem to find herself doing when she looked at him was check for knives and catalogue every little hint of the Bat in the shape of his jaw. "He definitely gets it from his mom," she added, even though Bruce wasn't around to hear her making fun of him.

He probably had a sixth sense for that kind of thing by now, anyway.

Stephanie let Allie wave her off, promising she'd be by their table in a moment, and dropped heavily into the booth across from Damian. "Anything look good?" she asked, with a light kick to the bottom of his sneakers.

(Fifty-fifty on whether Alfred had bought them for him, or Dick.)

"This is all inedible," Damian said flatly. He kicked her back, much more forcefully.

"It's Southern American diner fair," Stephanie corrected. "Lots of salt and a bucket of grease. It's delicious." She hesitated, watching his scowl deepen, and added, "You can just get a waffle if you aren't that hungry."

As they ordered their drinks and food--Damian got the waffle--and fell back into overwhelming silence, Stephanie came to the realization that she didn't really have any idea how to talk to Damian. She was good with kids--great with them, even, but the usual go-to topics of school and Disney movies didn't really apply to eleven-year-olds raised in the League of Assassins.

"What do you even do all day?" she asked, her own frown stealing across her face. "Hang out with Alfred?" It wasn't like Bruce was letting the kid tag along to WE; he still hadn't made any official announcements to the press regarding Damian's existence. Stephanie had the niggling suspicion that he was procrastinating, at this point.

Damian glanced up at her through the fringe of his bangs, two parts suspicious to three parts cagey. "Pennyworth is acceptable company," he told her, carefully.

"Fuck yeah he is," Stephanie agreed, more cheerfully than she necessarily felt. She had the sudden sense that she was treading water with no sense of just how deep it was going to get. "Alfred's the best. But what do you guys actually do?"

"Why do you want to know?" Damian demanded. "I follow Father's instructions. I do not--" his eyes glanced aside towards Allie-- "enter his study unattended."

Stephanie held up her hands in a show of innocence, leaning back against the dingy vinyl of the booth. "Not an interrogation, kiddo--Damian," she corrected herself, before he could do more than inhale. "I'm not spying on you for Bruce. For one thing, it would be incredibly hypocritical of me, considering I never listen to a word he says. But more importantly, I just wanna get to know you, Damian."

He nodded, slowly. "And being appraised of my actions will allow you to form a more cohesive picture of my character."

"Finding out what you do all day and then asking you how you feel about it will get me a good sense of your personality," Stephanie corrected. She kicked his foot again. "I know your character. You're Bruce's kid, through and through. You have a goal--" she put her hands up next to her head, index fingers extended, to mimic the ears of Bruce's cowl-- "and you'll run yourself into the ground to achieve it."

Damian studied her, his green eyes narrowed, and a frown line traced between his eyebrows. He looked so fucking much like Bruce did when he was working on a case. That annoying silence stretched between them again.

Stephanie sighed, hugging her jacket around herself and waving a vague hand. "Or you could ask me questions to get to know me," she invited gently. "If you don't wanna talk about you."

She leaned forward, her voice pitched too low for Allie to hear, and told him, "You're not the only one with a complicated family life and a parent who would've loved for you to fall off the deep end and inherit their criminal endeavors, for one thing. Actually, that applies to me and Cass. You guys have even more in common than you and I do, honestly. But I want you to be comfortable talking to me, if and when you need to."

"Cluemaster--" he said it with a truly incredible sneer-- "does not compare to the realities of the Demon's Head."

"I know," Stephanie sighed. "I'm just sayin', Damian."

She let her head thunk against the back of the booth, hugging her jacket even more tightly around herself. This had been a stupid idea, she noted, tapping her feet idly and feeling the way they stuck to the floor. Damian was locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and banging her head against his walls wasn't making her feel any more settled.

(What had she thought? That they'd have some kind of breakthrough and suddenly she'd be so sure that he needed, he deserved, Robin that she could just--

Decide to walk away?

Stephanie was coming to the same realization that she thought Dick might have, years ago: Robin was a child's game. Robin was Batman's partner, but they weren't equals; Robin had a lot of autonomy--and Stephanie's Robin had even more than Dick's or Jason's had--but ultimately, Batman still watched Robin's back. Batman still called the shots.

Maybe she was a little bit tired of it. Maybe she felt like she was trying to fool herself into being someone she hadn't been for a while now, every time she pulled on the pixie boots. Maybe she didn't really want to do it any more.

But Batman needed Robin. Bruce needed Stephanie.

He wasn't her dad, not like he had been for the previous Robins, because Stephanie had asked him not to be. She already had a dad, and he was a complete sack of shit. She didn't want Bruce to step into a role that had only occasionally brought her happiness, and had mostly brought her furious anger and bitter disappointment. But in that screamingly dysfunctional way that characterized all of Bruce's relationships, he was still--they were still--family.

Bruce needed family. He had ever since he was eight years old, watching his parents die in front of him.

But somehow that made things with Damian more complicated, not less.

He certainly had the technical skills to be Robin, but Stephanie knew he needed Bruce, he needed his dad, and not Batman, more desperately than either of them were admitting (and maybe more than either of them could even recognize) right at that moment. Would it make things worse, to add the layer of Batman and Robin on top of that already fraught relationship? And if Stephanie walked away from Robin now, would Bruce even try to make it work with Damian, or would he just catastrophize and self-sabotage his relationship with his son?

Could she stand to play a part in that?)

Damian cleared his throat, and Stephanie blinked, lifting her head to look at him. He was rather carefully not meeting her eyes, pulling paper towels off of the roll to spread them across his lap as Allie set their food down in front of them.

"How... did you spend your day?" he asked, somewhat awkwardly.

Well, Stephanie thought, as a smile crept its way onto her face. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

***

Stephanie was breathing heavy, and every muscle in her body was screaming in protest, but she couldn't just give up.

She leapt the gap between buildings with the ease of long practice, her cape and braid both whipping behind her, and landed on the ledge with the satisfying crunch of grit against concrete. Batgirl was barely a step behind her; she landed with a pather's deadly, silent grace, and Stephanie rolled fluidly to avoid the jab of her gloved fist.

("I've got something to talk to you about," Cass had said, crouched on the fire escape outside of Stephanie and Crystal's living room. "I haven't figured out the words yet."

Stephanie shrugged. "We'll try the other kind of talking first, then.")

That was why Batgirl hadn't connected yet; Stephanie was good, years of training with Batman--and with Batgirl--making her fast, and strong, and smart, but hand-to-hand combat was never going to be her primary forte. But for rooftop tag, it didn't matter; they weren't trying to one-up each other.

Cassandra would end it when she was ready to talk, and not a minute before.

Robin sprinted, sure-footed, along the concrete wall rimming the apartment building's roof, then suddenly dove to the side, tucking and rolling to absorb her momentum. Batgirl leapt past her, towards the gargoyle on the corner of the rooftop, and pushed off of it, throwing herself high and far enough to cut across Stephanie's chosen escape route.

Stephanie cursed, dropping to one knee to avoid the fluttering fingers Batgirls left trailing behind herself, and pivoted back towards the way she'd come. This was the endgame, she recognized; Cassandra was pushing her faster, cutting closer.

Robin kept a few steps ahead of Batgirl for two more direction changes, and then they were near the center of the roof, and it wasn't about speed any more. They were almost sparring, Batgirl throwing punches and jabs and sweeping out with her legs as Robin dodged and weaved and whipped out a back handspring to avoid her.

And--

Thud.

The heel of Batgirl's palm connected, dead center, with Robin's chest, and Stephanie let herself be knocked a step backwards by the force of it.

"Nice one," she panted. She reached up to squeeze Cass's hand, and Cass squeezed her right back, briefly.

"You, too," she promised, and Stephanie tried not to be disgruntled that she wasn't even out of breath.

"Gummies?" she asked, pulling two packs out of a pocket of her utility belt and wiggling it towards Cass.

"Please," Cass said, delighted, and Stephanie tossed some to her.

Cass rolled up her mask as Stephanie led the way back towards the gargoyle, and there was a big grin on her face as she poured the gummies out into her palm. "I didn't know they made these for the JLI."

"Neither did Batman," Stephanie snickered. "Why do you think Booster's front and center on the packaging?"

Cassandra laughed, hopping up to sit cross-legged on the ledge, leaning back against the gargoyle, and Stephanie straddled it, one leg dangling to either side.

"So," she said. "What's cookin', good lookin'?"

Cassandra snorted, but she didn't answer for a long moment, sorting her gummies by color. Finally, she popped a little green flame into her mouth and said, "I know you've been thinking about what comes after the R."

Stephanie froze.

She swallowed, looking down at her own unopened pack of gummies, and smacked it lightly against her palm. "That obvious?" She tried to sound cheerful about it. It fell a little flat.

"Tim told me."

"Ah."

("I could just quit," Stephanie said. She was lying on her side on Tim's couch, knees hugged to her chest and her cheek squished up against the thigh of his jeans. "I mean, I only ever started doing this to stick it to my dad."

"Yeah, all those space aliens you fought with Young Justice really stuck it to ol' Arthur," Tim said dryly.

Stephanie ignored him. "I'm not Bruce's kid. I don't live in his house. I could just quit, and I would only ever have to pull all nighters to finish writing lab reports or whatever, and none of it would be my problem, forever and ever amen."

"You're not gonna quit," Tim said, firmly, as he unnecessarily jerked his PS4 controller and made an annoyed noise as his character got eaten by a zombie.

"I think I am."

"You're not gonna quit," Tim repeated. "You know me better than I know me, right?"

"I know you're about to die again."

Tim growled, jerking the controller again, and continued, "And I know you better than you know you, and I know you're not gonna quit. Steph, you didn't quit when Batman tried to fire you--"

"I wasn't even Robin yet, he had no authority over me," Stephanie muttered.

"--and you didn't quit when Azrael kicked you out of the Batcave, and you didn't quit when you got pregnant, except temporarily, and you didn't quit when you got tortured by Black Mask, and you didn't quit when your predecessor came back to life and tried to kill you, and you didn't quit when your dad went to jail. You don't just quit. You were--" he paused the game, gesturing wildly. "You were made for this. You love it. You love helping people. And you love being Robin, you're just..." Tim shrugged, brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "You're ready to move on."

Stephanie pressed her nose more firmly into his thigh. "I think I'm scared," she admitted, a little hoarse. This was going to be really hard for Bruce, and she'd spent more than four years watching Batman's back. She didn't know how to just turn that off.

Tim's fingers stroaked through her hair again. "The zombies aren't real, and they aren't going to get you," he teased, and Stephanie shoved him off the couch.)

Cassandra sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and admitted, "I've... been thinking about what comes after Batgirl, too."

Stephanie choked on her own spit. "What?"

"A lot has happened," she said, soft. "I did a lot of things. I'm not the same, now."

"You weren't you," Steph said, frantic, and she reached out to catch Cassandra's hand, squeezing it tight. "None of that--Cassie, you can't blame yourself--"

"I don't," Cass assured her, squeezing her hand back. She let go to reach up and push her cowl the rest of the way off, letting her short dark hair catch the slight breeze. "But it still changed me. And..." she prodded at the gummies in her other palm again, mouth slightly tight as she searched for the words to explain herself.

"Batgirl was my first real identity," she said slowly. "But Oracle has been begging me for years to learn to be someone... outside of the mask. I think maybe I'm finally ready to do that, properly. And I think... that once I know who Cassandra Wayne is, that it might be nice to... reinvent the mask, too. For both sides of me to be identities I discovered for myself. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Steph said softly. "It does."

Cassandra ducked her head, her eyes crinkling with a bittersweet smile. "It's going to be hard," she said. She laid a hand over the bat symbol on her chest. "I'm going to miss this. I'm... worried Barbara won't understand why I need to do it... like this."

There was a lump in Stephanie's throat. "That I definitely get," she managed. "But Babs gave up Batgirl before she ever even dreamed of becoming Oracle. I don't think you need to worry about it. Not... not like I need to worry."

Cassandra watched her as she swallowed, turning to stare out across the glittering Gotham skyline. "Bruce is going to feel like I abandoned him," she said softly. "Batman needs a Robin. And Damian's right there, and just the right height for it, but... I don't know if they can be what each other needs when it comes to Batman and Robin."

And to Stephanie's surprise, Cassandra nodded. "I... agree," she said, quite simply. She dumped the gummies out onto the concrete wall to free both of her hands. "But I have... an idea. It's what I really wanted to talk to you about."

"What?" Stephanie asked, frowning.

"Batman needs a Robin," Cassandra told her. She held up one hand palm flat. "But something that I think... maybe we've all overlooked over the years..." She held up her other hand. "Is that Robin needs a Batgirl."

Cassandra poked Stephanie in the center of her chest, right where she'd connected the heel of her palm to end their game of rooftop tag. Stephanie hadn't noticed the bat symbol sticker, then. She stared at it now, wondering, as Cassandra said, "You could help them both figure it out. You've already started trying."

"Huh," Stephanie said, thoughtfully.

***

(Stephanie never got the chance to explain it all to Bruce. She was still his Robin when he died.)

[welcometogrouchland]

well idk about anyone else but i- as the anon who sent u the darius camila ask in the first place, would be elated

I'M WORKIN ON IT FOR U ANON 🫡

[queen-scribbles]

So I stumbled across an old fic I wrote circa KotET release anddddd apparently either Torian used to have green eyes or I really hadn't paid attention before writing it. xD Either way, v jarring to read now.

[ashes-of-ailell]

oh Ashe and Dorothea support conversations, you could have been so famous

[kimmkitsuragi]

im killing minthara and suddenly it hits me that i might start playing my evil durge before this run ends because hhhhhh i wanna know mintharaaaa