happy birthday, steph!! (read the whole verse here)

Stephanie fucking hates Scarecrow. She’d gotten a lung full of his fear toxin just a few months after her return from the dead, and it’s not an experience that she’d like to repeat any time soon. At least this time, she has Black Bat and the Batman himself at her back, with a few more batboys on the way. The fear toxin is an old one, and Scarecrow is more desperate than usual, low on lackeys and resources just a week after his last escape from Arkham. Batgirl gets a few good punches in for good measure, and her own peace of mind.

“We done here, Bats?” She asks, once Scarecrow is knocked out and cuffed, several cops hauling him into the back of an armored van. She knows that Batman likes to stick around until the cops can collect his more dangerous rogues, but the sun is starting to peek out from behind the buildings of downtown Gotham, and Black Bat is a steady shadow at her back, the very tips of her fingers pressed lightly to the small of Batgirl’s back. Steph thinks she might be drunk off the touch, and when Bats gives the go-ahead, she links Cass’ fingers in her own and darts out of the alley.

Gotham is slowly but surely starting to awaken, cars rumbling down the cracked streets and businesses flipping their signs from closed to open. Steph doesn’t know exactly where she’s going, but Cass follows just a step behind her without a second thought. The sight of a street sign gives Steph an idea, and two brief minutes later they’re in front of Tim’s favorite breakfast place, the one that serves piles of greasy bacon and hash browns and pancakes as light and fluffy as clouds.

“Breakfast?” She asks the shadow behind her, and after a moment Cass gives a decisive nod and squeezes Stephanie’s hand in her own.

It’s a testament to Gotham’s strange and enduring adaptability that only a few people gawk when the two of them settle into a booth, Cass pressed up against Stephanie’s side, her uniform’s hood pulled back from her head to reveal the domino mask underneath. She leans her head against Steph’s shoulder and traces patterns with her thumb on the back of Steph’s gloved hand. God, Steph hopes that she isn’t reading this wrong.

“Anything I can get for you ladies?” The waitress asks, chipper despite having two of Gotham’s masked vigilantes sitting in her section. Steph figures that with Tim’s sleeping habits, the people who work in his favorite haunts must get used to the Boy Wonder frequenting their establishments.

“We’ll have three orders of the breakfast special with eggs over medium and hash browns, please,” Steph responds, not even bothering to open the menu in front of her. Cass smiles broadly and nods, gesturing towards her stomach.

“Long night,” she says, and the waitress laughs.

“Yeah, I bet. Coming right up, then!” She whisks away their menus and leaves them in silence.

“Missed you,” Cass says, tugging their gloves off. First her own, then Stephanie’s, and then their bare hands are intertwined between them on top of the table, Batgirl and Black Bat leaning their weight against each other in the hazy light of a Gotham morning.

“I’m right here,” Stephanie reassures her, stroking her thumb along the arch of her best friend’s wrist.

“I’m not alone?” Cass asks, and something very small and very vital in Stephanie’s heart shatters into a million tiny pieces. Their food is deposited on the table in front of them and Steph wants to devour her entire plate and yet is somehow loathe to release Cass’ hands. Cass doesn’t make any movement to disentangle their fingers, but Steph can see the way her body leans ever so subtly towards the warm plates in front of them.

“You don’t ever have to be alone again,” Steph blurts, and then slaps a hand over her mouth without even thinking about it. Cass just grins, long and slow and so fucking beautiful it makes Stephanie want to cry and laugh and kiss her until Cass smiles like that for the rest of her life.

Cass keeps smiling while she presses a fork into Steph’s hand, and then both of them dive into the meal, the warm pancakes and eggs and piping hot coffee settling something in Steph’s stomach. This is Tim’s favorite place for a reason, and it does feel good to give herself a post-patrol reward. She wonders, briefly, whether the time spent with Cass or the meal itself is that ‘reward,’ and then decides that it doesn’t matter. After all, she gets to have both now.

This diner is obviously Tim’s favorite stop for a reason; the food is so delicious that Stephanie plows through it without hardly stopping to breathe, and the coffee is brewed dark and rich with caffeine. Exactly what she needs right now. The meal is gone in minutes, Cass leaning back with a gentle hand resting on her stomach as she finishes off the last of her tea.

“Um,” comes a tentative voice from behind her, and Steph tears her eyes away from her best friend to crane her neck at the girl standing beside their booth. She has a small camera in her hand, and is shifting on her feet like she’s nervous, even though she can’t be more than a year or two younger than Steph herself. “I was wondering, could I have a picture?”

Steph looks at her blankly, Cass’ hand tightening in her own. The girl flushes and looks down.

“I just—I didn’t think there were any heroes like me, that’s all.” She points down at the table, to their fingers linked together, and Cass smiles softly.

“Of course,” Cass says, and the girl breaks out in a relieved smile. Stephanie smiles back, because she remembers how it feels to be young and confused and relieved when she found out that she wasn’t broken. The girl raises her camera, and Cass’ lips meet Steph’s cheek, their entwined hands held up between them, and the flash goes off, and Stephanie is smiling so hard she’s afraid her mask is going to slip.

“Thank you so much,” the girl says, and she rushes off without another word. Cass huffs a small laugh, her lips still scant inches away from Steph’s face, and then relaxes back into Steph’s side.

“Happy birthday,” Cass murmurs, the smile evident in her voice.

“I didn’t realize you knew,” she replies, pleased.

“Dick told everyone. Wanted to make sure we knew.” Of course.

“Should I be expecting a surprise party, then?” Cass’ fingers squeeze teasingly.

“Can’t tell you. That would ruin it, right?”

“Right.” Steph thinks that if Cass never moved her head from where it’s resting on her shoulder, she’d be happy. Of course, that’s when Cass moves, nodding her head at the waitress as she collects their empty plates and hands them the bill.

It’s worth it though because as they move to get up, cash dropped hastily onto the table, Cass drops another gentle kiss to Steph’s cheek, just inches away from her lips.

Stephanie doesn’t stop smiling all the way back to the manor.