If the Suit Fits

Batman had been Gotham City's Dark Knight for twenty years. That was longer than Stephanie Brown had been alive.

Now, clad in her own batsuit, Stephanie wondered if she'd last that long. Or, better yet, if she'd have to. Because while Gotham could discuss Batman's legacy ad nauseum, she had to admit that even if one took the view that crime was lower now than it had been two decades ago, it was still higher than most cities in the country. And it didn't help that Batman had left for parts unknown, leaving Gotham City at the mercy of the Crows, or more recently, a glory queen.

The voice in her head, one which talked in her mother's voice and called itself her conscience, told her that this was insane. Gotham City had started off with one protector. At the most, it had had three – Batman, Robin, and Batgirl. For all her unease with Batwoman, teaming up with her as a duo would still be preferable to going it alone, right? Like, Star City had started out with a single vigilante, and he'd managed to recruit a team of arrow-shooting, pole-whacking psychopaths before hanging up the cowl (supposedly) and leaving Star City in the hands of an actually competent, graft-free police force. That wasn't even touching on more esoteric stories such as all the speedsters that kept appearing in Central City, or beyond that, rumours of a time travelling spaceship filled with enough weirdos to make Doctor Who look sane. Standing on one of the rooftops, she looked at an armoured convoy making its way through the streets below – the Crows had the right idea, even if they were private security acting like private security. Treating Gotham as a gated community, where they were the only ones allowed inside the gates, and everyone else might as well be outside them. The GCPD, for all their faults, had managed to patrol the streets without carrying semi-automatics and making the city feel like a police state.

Still, the GCPD was still around, or at least one of them was. After all, someone had to have lit the bat-signal, its dark shadow shining a light against the cloudy sky. And it was still shining, which meant that Batwoman hadn't turned up. And that meant…

This is insane.

That meant she had to keep going. That meant, she had to extend her cape and glide with the night wind.

Stephanie, don't!

She managed it somehow. A month's worth of bruises outside town had given her all the experience she needed. So it was with some difficulty that she managed to glide over to the site of the signal. As for landing…

Shit!

That was another issue. She managed it, but stumbled onto the top of the building. And that caused the trench coat wearing man standing by the signal to look around and look at her with a look of shock, yet also amusement on his face.

"What the hell?" he asked.

Stephanie scrambled to her feet. He was a cop. The cop. Commissioner James Gordon. The man who wouldn't bend, the man who wouldn't break, the man who'd been Gotham's protector even before the arrival of the Batman. Or at least that was what word on the street was – not so much word from the GCPD itself, since that would require admitting that they'd been a cesspool of corruption before they got scared enough to sort themselves out, and jealous that a potential psycho was doing a better job of cleaning up the streets than they were. Stephanie figured that the truth lay somewhere in the middle.

"Batgirl?" he asked, a small smile showing on his face.

She got to her feet. "Commissioner."

The smile faded. "No. You're not her."

"Excuse me?"

"Voice is different. Hair is different. Face is different."

"I'm wearing a mask."

"And Batgirl would have actually managed to sneak up on me, and would have used a voice modulator." He gave her a wave. "Listen, kid, I'm glad that there's girls in Gotham that-"

"I'm not a kid!"

"Really? And how old are you?"

"…nineteen."

"Nineteen," he said. He walked over to the bat-signal, looking up at the sky. "Listen, I'm willing to turn a blind eye if you leave now. Just get the costume off and we'll call it a night."

The costume was hiding just how red Stephanie's face was. She'd expected some incredulity, but "some" was the key word. She'd still managed to glide through the night. And it wasn't as if Robin or Batgirl had been any older than she had when they'd started fighting alongside the Caped Crusader.

"You still here?"

Stephanie took a breath. "Commissioner Gordon…how long has that signal been up?"

He didn't say anything.

"Has it occurred to you that Batwoman might not be the hero Gotham deserves?"

He snorted. "Didn't think Gotham deserved a hero."

"Really." She walked over to the edge of the building, nodding to another convoy below. "Is this what we're stuck with? The Crows?"

The commissioner didn't say anything.

"You know, I grew up believing two things," Stephanie said. "One, that Batman could do no wrong. Two, that the police were completely useless."

"Can't say I can fault those beliefs too much," Gordon murmured.

She hadn't expected to hear that response, but she kept going. "Nineteen years, and I learnt that those truths weren't complete truths. Batman wasn't perfect, and the GCPD, while not perfect, is still preferable to what we have now."

Gordon shrugged.

"Surprised they even let you use that," Stephanie said.

He shrugged. "The Crows turn the other way. I turn the other way as well – if there's a vigilante in Gotham City that brings criminals into the penitentiary, who am I to complain?"

"What if it's for the wrong reasons?" Stephanie asked.

"Wrong reasons?"

For a moment, Stephanie didn't say anything.

He mind was a month behind her.

Her mother worked at West Mercy Hospital as a nurse. But she'd started off in the lower ranks, so to speak, and had seen what crime did to Gotham. Knifings. Gunshot wounds. Hit and runs. It was why she'd insisted her daughter take self-defence classes and stick with them (that, and being the daughter of Arthur Brown made you a target). Because she didn't want to one day be informed that a Caucasian female had been admitted to the ER, turn up, and find her daughter on the operating table. At the time, Stephanie had rolled her eyes, but now, fourteen years after taking her first self-defence class, her eyes were wide. Partly because it was night, and there wasn't much light in the alley. Partly because she was fighting to stay alive.

There were five thugs, and one of them was already unconscious. They'd wanted her backpack and everything in it. Caution had urged her to just hand it over and get it over with. However, seeing the looks in their eyes, seeing the way they held their blades, Stephanie realized that they wanted a whole lot more besides. So she'd tossed the bag over to them, but kicked the first bastard before he could catch it. Now, three minutes later, one of them was unconscious, one of them was cradling his ribs, and one of them was clearly having second thoughts. Problem was, that still meant that four of them were on their feet, three of them were still capable of fighting, and two of them still wanted to keep fighting. Also, blood was seeping out from a slash across her stomach, and her right eye was blacker than the night sky.

"Anything else little bird?" one of the thugs asked. He tossed his knife from one hand to the other.

Stephanie spat at him. "You Sandor bloody Clegane?"

"…what?"

"Game of Thrones."

He stared at her.

"Oh great, I'm attacked by physical and cultural Neanderthals."

That set him off. Enough for him to stab at her, and for her to grab his arm with her left, then bring her right down on his. He yelled, and considering that Stephanie could feel bones breaking, she couldn't blame him. Still, that wasn't enough to stop her from kicking him in the stomach, sending him falling to the ground.

Which was a small victory. Because one of the thugs had another knife coming her way, and it was headed straight for her neck. Stephanie yelled, knowing that she couldn't block it in time, and-

"Holy shit!"

Who exclaimed that, she couldn't say. Maybe it was her, maybe it was one of the thugs. But it didn't matter as the giant black thing dropped down from above, landing on one of them with great force.

Batman?

That was Stephanie's first thought, but it quickly evaporated. Batman was gone. This was Batwoman – she could recognise it in the suit, and more distinctly, the red hair. But it didn't matter. She was safe. And Batwoman was kicking arse. Well, not really kicking arse, but rather breaking bones and serrating flesh, but still, same thing in the end.

It was over in a matter of seconds. As Batwoman looked at her, a smirk on her blood-red lips, Stephanie found herself trembling.

"You scared kid?"

She didn't say anything. There were tales of how Batman had terrified those he saved as much as those he saved them from. Right now, she could see why.

"Here." Batwoman picked up the backpack and tossed it to her. "Men like them have taken so much from us already, we don't need them to take any more."

It struck Stephanie as a slightly odd thing to say, but so grateful was she to her saviour that she didn't bring it up. So it was with a small smile that she caught the backpack.

"See you around." Batwoman got out her grapple gun, pointed it upward and-

"Wait."

…stopped, giving Stephanie a look.

"That suit," Stephanie asked. "You make it yourself?"

Batwoman gave her "the look," one that pierced through the mask she was wearing. The type of look dear old dad had given her when she asked why he'd turned to crime as a career path.

"Like, there's all this crazy talk about how Batman made his suit, but if you managed to make one too and-"

"It used to be his suit," Batwoman said.

"What?"

"Used to be his suit," Batwoman said, smirking in a way that Stephanie didn't find as endearing as before. She tapped the composite with a sound that reminded Stephanie of Kevlar. "Course, had some adjustments made, so now it fits a woman. Perfection, eh?"

"You took his suit?"

"Yep. Again, with adjustments." She tossed her red hair. "Wasn't going to let Gotham City think a man was doing a woman's job."

"Does it matter?" Stephanie asked.

"Course it matters," Batwoman snapped. She glanced at one of the thugs, who was starting to get to his feet. "If I'm going to save this city, least it can do is acknowledge me as who and what I am."

"A vigilante?"

"A female vigilante." She smirked. "Something new."

"But there was Batgirl, and right now there's Black Canary, and White Canary, and Supergirl showed up a few times, and there's Vixen, and-"

"Kid, you can play semantics, but at the end of the day…" The thug, nearly at his feet, got a foot instead – right in his jaw. He moaned and collapsed down to the ground. "All that matters is that the world acknowledges us. Finally treats us as being worthy of the spotlight. Because if it doesn't do that, then what's the point?" She gave the thug a few more kicks for good measure – Stephanie winced as the sound of bones breaking reached her ears.

"Later kid. See you around maybe."

Stephanie watched as Batwoman used her grapple gun to go upwards. She stood there, staring. Frowning. Wondering what the hell just happened.

See you around, Stephanie thought to herself, thinking on the woman's words. Her actions. Above all, her motivations. Yeah, I bet I will, you narcissistic prick.

She looked down at the thugs, either unconscious or moaning. Not that she felt any sympathy for them, but…

I should go.

She took a breath and ran off into the night.

She needed time to think.

"Wrong reasons," Stephanie said. "Pride. Self-gratification. Kind of like the Joker, only less sadistic, and more narcicistic."

Gordon's lips were a mix of smile and frown, something Stephanie didn't think was possible. "So, under the assumption I believe you, and that you know this…what's the problem?"

"That the wrong reasons will only take you so far."

"And you're a better alternative?"

"…maybe."

"Maybe." Gordon walked over and patted Stephanie on the shoulder. "Listen kid, I've seen your type. You know what the difference was between you and the last two?"

Stephanie remained silent.

"Batman was there. Group of crazies, but I'd rather have a group of crazies than a lone child crazy."

"I'm not crazy."

"Believe it or not, I believe you. That's why I'm going to tell you to go home now, before I arrest you."

"I-"

"Go," Gordon said. "Do that, and we'll call it a night."

Stephanie saw that he wasn't going to be convinced. "Alright," she murmured. "But one day, you're going to remember this moment. And when you do…I'll be there."

"To rub it in?"

"No. To help." She nodded, and extending her wings, glided off into the night.

The day occurred five years later.

The Crows were gone. Batwoman was gone, moved on to greener pastures where she'd be seen as a novelty. That was the way the vigilante business worked – there was kind of "peak fame" for vigilantes, whether it be the Green Arrow of Star City, or the Flash of Central City. Gotham was different in some respects in that it had never fully recovered from the rut of crime it had fallen into three decades ago. The likes of Batman and those who followed him had saved it from falling into oblivion, but Gotham would never recover its old lustre. Jokers were followed by knaves. Cats by dogs. Penguins by vultures, looking for any hint of blood so that they might feed on the carcass.

For Stephanie Brown, she knew that saying she was fine with that would be a lie. But that was the way of the world. All she could do was keep it from falling it into a crater. So to that end, she landed softly behind the old man standing near the bat-signal.

"Commissioner."

She smirked as she watched him jump and turn round to face her. He was old, she reflected. So old that she found herself wanting to ask what would happen when he finally retired – would the GCPD appoint someone new to light the lamp, so to speak?

"Batgirl." He walked over to her. "Still doing the old jump scare routine?"

"I think it's a tradition now. One set by those before me."

"Right." He smiled, and for a moment, looked ten years younger. "Remember the first time you came here. You couldn't even land properly."

"And you remember what I said that night?"

"I do." He pulled something out of his jacket. "Which is why this is for you."

She looked at the documents – it was a pair of shipping manifests. One for electronics, the other for guns and ammo. Both were registered to the same ship, that was due to arrive at the docks in one hour's time.

"Boys upstairs don't think this is enough evidence to act on," Gordon said. "Still, if a certain vigilante dropped by, made a fuss, and we turned up to discover that there just happened to be an illegal arms shipment…"

Stephanie nodded. "I'll get on it." She walked past the old man. "Goodnight, commissioner."

She stretched her wings, ready to take off through the night.

"Wait."

But lingered, as she looked back at the man behind her.

"Batgirl," he murmured. "Why Batgirl?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're twenty-four now. Why not Batwoman?"

"There's a shipment of illegal arms due to arrive in fifty-nine minutes, and you want to know the rationale behind my name?"

Gordon shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to know. Especially since…" He looked aside. "Twenty years of Batman. One year of Batwoman." He looked back at her. "And now, five years of you. I should-"

"No," Stephanie said.

"Excuse me?"

"No," she said. "Don't thank me. Don't ever thank me."

"Why?"

"Because if I make this about me, if I think the world owes me anything…then I might as well not do this at all."

Gordon didn't say anything, but Stephanie could tell she understood. Or at least some of it.

She understood that heroes and heroines had come before her. She understood that their fight was her fight. And she understood, even if Gordon didn't, was that she would use the name "Batgirl" to honour the one who had come before her, and fought for the city, and not for herself. Who hadn't left after the Crows were defeated, her ego fulfilled. Who'd pulled herself from the ground up, rather than taking the toys of those who had paved the way. He might not know that. But he remembered that night five years ago, when a young girl had seen an old man, wanting to fight for something bigger than herself. And right now, that was all the gratitude she needed.

In silence, she took off through the night sky, heading to the point where sea met land. To where past met present. To where Gotham's eternal struggle would be continued.

Where legacy would be honoured, and her path would be forged.

A/N

...okay, let's talk about the CW Batwoman trailer.

Here's the thing - outrage culture in its current form and as it pertains to fandom, has existed since at least 2014. Y'know, the whole "force feminism" of Ghostbusters 2016, or the "forced diversity" of The Last Jedi, or whatever the hell the "controversy" over Captain Marvel was supposed to be. I can name other examples, but at this point, I'm thoroughly over it. So on one hand, with the trailer for the Batwoman TV series having aired, I've got another case of outrage culture going the full mile.

On the other hand...okay, not only does it not look that good, but by God it's got the subtlety of a brick. The trailer wants the viewer to know two things, above all things. One, it's that Kate Kane is a woman. The second? She's a woman. Like, holy shit, it actually managed to make Supergirl look subtle. So, on one hand, I've got the outrage cycle going full tilt, but on the other, I've got a trailer with its head so far up its arse that it's making the night more brown than black. Newsflash sweetie, if you don't want people thinking you're Batman, maybe you shouldn't nick your cousin's batsuit? I mean, I guess the distinction between Kara and Kate (in the context of the Arrowverse) is that there was never any doubt from day 1 that Kara did what she did because she genuinely wanted to help people. Kate? Not so much.

Granted, did I need to write this up? No, not really. I'm arguing that Kate Kane's coming off as a hypocrite in the trailer, but I'm arguably being just as much of a hypocrite now by writing this up. Well, anyway - maybe the show will do well, maybe not. I mean, Arrow started off great and then went to a place where it wasn't so great, so maybe Batwoman will have the opposite trajectory? I dunno.

At the least, got to write Stephanie Brown, even if it's welding her into the Arrowverse. As someone who read some of her Batgirl run years ago, that was fun at least.