"Is it going to get colder so this whole sleet thing can stop?" I asked Babs as I tugged on another thin thermal layer to go under my batsuit. "Snow is fine, rain is fine, but the mixture, not so much."
"Weather report says it'll sleet all night," Babs said, not turning from her computer screens. Unlike me, she was in a Gotham U sweatshirt, blue pajama pants, and slippers with a cup of hot cocoa, looking like she was in for a night of trashy TV rather than infojocking. Who knew, maybe she did have one of those screens hooked up to Bravo or something. It wouldn't be the biggest surprise from her today—that honor belonged to the bouquet of flowers tucked next to her Nightwing plushie. When I asked her who they were from, she just said "a friend" with a smile that was definitely not the kind reserved for friends. But then she started tossing me long underwear and changed the subject, so I couldn't ask anything else.
"Ugh." I yanked the long undies down from between my butt cheeks. "So nothing you've seen so far is inside or anything?"
"Nope." She finally turned, her mug in hand. "It won't be so bad. The suit's slightly heated now and I can keep track of your vitals so you won't literally freeze to death."
"Good to know." I finally pulled on my batsuit and brushed my hair down with my fingers so I could put on my mask. "Where's Cass?"
"Here." She came out of nowhere, as usual, but still startled me a bit. I really had to get her to teach me how to do that. "Ready?"
"Got your layers on?" Babs asked Cass, who was gnawing on a protein bar. Not enough food on the flight, apparently.
"Mmhm," she grunted, finishing the bar in one bite, then slyly smiled at me. "Not that cold though, so I should be fine."
"You're a machine, Cassie," I said, smiling back at her. "Let's head out."
The cold was just as bad as I expected it to be, and then some. Cass immediately started jumping and swinging from building to building to get to our patrol area, silently challenging me to keep up with her. My competitive spirit was definitely starting to clash with the sleet hitting me in the face. Once we got to the resting area, she crouched on the edge of the building and looked out onto the city.
"Not your best night?" She said, smiling.
"It's freezing!" I sat instead of crouching so I could curl into a little ball. "Did it ever get this cold in Hong Kong?"
"Ehn." She shrugged. "Technically, yeah, but it always feels colder here. I guess it's the whole…city."
"Mm." I glanced into the alley below. It almost looked like it was purposefully trashed, but it wasn't—the garbage collectors didn't bother to get the scraps that the street dogs bit out of the trash bags and the street cleaners tended to operate more in the nicer parts of Gotham. One of the dogs knocked over an empty trash can, startling another mangy looking pup out of his sleep. They fought over a piece of discarded chicken before finally giving up and curling up around each other under some cardboard for warmth. I wanted to take them home, but Mom was strictly anti-pets because of her allergies. Maybe Babs would? Though she seemed like a cat person…
It was way too cold to think about this without moving or something. I would have to call the no-kill shelter in the morning. "Want to jump around a little bit more to keep warm? I think the sleet's letting up."
Before I could realize what was happening, Cass leapt across the narrow alley, laughing. She so would.
I followed her from building to building, tagging her shoulder. Without words, she knew it was her turn to be "it" and started chasing me after that. I swung around a fire escape and managed to tag her on my way up, but she got me when I landed on the dumpster. She darted down the alley to a narrower alley, where she stepped from wall to wall to get back to the roof. I hadn't quite mastered that move yet, so I ended up three-fourths of the way up before I slipped on the wall and almost busted my ass. Thankfully I grabbed onto an uneven brick ten feet above ground.
Cass looked down from the roof, checking to see if I was still alive. I gave her a thumbs up with my free hand before grabbing the brick. My fingers brushed something that was distinctly not brick—a piece of paper, which I caught before it got away from me. I put it between my teeth and climbed up the wall. Cass had stopped our game and was waiting for me to read it aloud.
I unrolled the scroll, but only found a code instead of legible words.
"It's just a bunch of gibberish, but it looks like a code." I turned it sideways, as if that would help. I pressed my intercom. "Hey, O?"
There was a bit of shuffling on the line, but I finally heard her say, "Yes?"
"We found a piece of paper with a code on it—not sure if it's worth anything. Can you check it out?"
"Yep, can you scan it with your goggles?"
I felt around for the right buttons to push on my helmet and held the paper in front of my face. "Get it?"
"Got it. Looks like it'll be fairly easy to crack, but I'll get to it later. Hold on…" She paused. "Need you guys on East 23rd and 1st Avenue, break in in progress at Gotham Natural History Museum. It'll probably be over by the time you guys make it across town, but you can collect some physical evidence for me. I've got the camera feed going right now."
"East 23rd and 1st," I repeated to Cass. She took off heading downtown, and I followed. She took the side route that I wouldn't have normally taken, but we got there just as GCPD did. We waited on top of the adjacent building while they went in—an ambulance was already there, wheeling a person out on a stretcher. He didn't look so good, but at least he was alive.
"God," I mumbled. "Security guard?"
"Most likely," Cass replied. "Always is."
Luckily the atrium to the museum was entirely made of glass, so we could easily see everything going on inside. Crime scene workers were taping off areas, and police officers were standing around, observing. After saying something to one of the crime scene workers, the cop peeled away from the group and went into the alley next to the museum, where deliveries typically came in. He just happened to look up, which was the only reason I realized it was Nick again.
Cass started down the fire escape of the building to get to the scene, but I stopped her.
"Alley—I know this cop." I waved her over to the other fire escape that was closer to him. I didn't want to startle him, so I made sure to shuffle a little bit. He looked up from his notepad, slightly confused until he realized it was me. Then he smiled and it practically lit up the whole alley.
"Batgirl and…friend?" He nodded at Cass.
"Oh, this is Blackbat. We're…partners, kind of."
"Nice to meet you," he said. Cass nodded back at him. "Investigating this too?"
"Yep, just trying to get some information. What happened?" I glanced right behind his shoulder since his eyes looked too green up close. Either that or he was shooting attractiveness beams at me because he just couldn't help it, and that made him too hard to look at directly, like the sun or something.
He sighed through his nose. "Broke right in the front door and raided the new crystals exhibit. We're still trying to see exactly what was taken. Some of those crystals were worth a lot more than others and not everything was taken. Should be about ten minutes before I can get an update, if you want to stick around."
"Hmm." I looked at him directly again, then over my shoulder at Cass, who was looking over the alley. I wasn't sure what else to say to him. Couldn't ask about what he'd asked not-Batgirl me, couldn't ask about him and Babs. Couldn't ask him if he was single in general, though it would be kind of weird to go on a date while wearing a cape and thigh-belt. Plus, apparently he wasn't even sure if I was legal, according to what I'd overheard one of his co-detectives saying about me. So that was great. How did I manage to easily pass for eighteen when I was fourteen, but now I was asked if I was excited to be eligible to get my learner's permit? Besides a ton of makeup and push up bras?
"Kind of cold for you to be out in a unitard, isn't it?" He finally asked, smiling so that both of his dimples appeared in each cheek. "I'm wearing long johns plus three layers and I'm freezing out here."
Long johns. Why was that so adorable? What if they had little snowflakes printed on them? "The suit's heated."
"Makes sense." He shuffled his right foot against the concrete absently. "Out here like the Pony Express. Rain or shine or snow or sleet…"
"…Batgirl's patrolling Gotham's streets?" Good one, Steph. "But I think that's the postal service motto."
"Close enough." His smile broadened. I really hoped O wasn't checking my vitals because my heart was definitely pounding. God, this was bad.
"Detective Gage?" A young police officer peeked into the alley. "Oh, uh, hi…didn't know you—"
"It's fine, I was just chatting with Batgirl about a few things." He turned toward the cop. "Updates?"
"Yep, the only crystals missing aren't particularly rare—they're like the kind you can buy in those little kits at kids museums, only in a bunch of less common shades." The cop shrugged and told us the name, sounded like Latin, which I recorded and sent to Oracle.
"So not a whole lot to go off of at this point?" Nick asked, his brows furrowing. "I'll go take a look."
"Alright." The cop's walkie-talkie bleeped and he left the alley to go answer.
"See you later, then?" Gage asked, squeezing my upper arm gently and stepping close to me. It was a friendly gesture, but he never touched me before.
"Yep, I'll be around." I wasn't sure if I should touch him back, because I definitely would have touched the wrong place.
"Nice meeting you, Blackbat." He nodded at Cass again, then left us alone. My arm still tingled where he touched me.
Even under her mask, I could tell Cass was giving me one of her Looks without an explanation. Thankfully she didn't say anything, not even while we snuck a few bits of evidence to take back to Babs. We started going from building to building again until she abruptly stopped to look around, kneeling at the edge of a building.
"So." She finally looked at me. "The cop is…good looking."
"That obvious that I like him?"
"Yep." She stretched a bit. "Googly eyes from both of you."
"He was not giving me googly eyes! Or googly eye-ing me, whatever." Was he eyeing me? My flirtometer was basically broken, but it wasn't that broken. Plus he didn't know my actual name. I mean, he did, but he hadn't connected the two identities and probably shouldn't. If he did, those googly eyes would probably go away, unless he had a thing for nineteen year old college students who often rocked side ponytails during the day because they how they wore their hair to bed.
"He was." She stood and took off across the building again. I tried to catch her to ask her how exactly he was looking at me, but I couldn't until we got back to Babs's place. But by then, we were too close to Babs for me to actually ask. She heard basically everything that went on in her version of the cave, and she probably didn't need to know about my crush.
"Mind if I have a bit of that hot chocolate you were drinking earlier? I need to defrost," I said once we were behind her, pulling off my mask and shaking out my hair.
She didn't answer—all I heard was fast typing and a quiet sigh. Her screens were filled with feeds of police officers and text. It must not have been excessively urgent since her sigh sounded like more of one of mild annoyance than desperation, but it was a sigh all the same. Or maybe she was just tired since there was a mostly empty bottle of wine next to her hot cocoa mug. But on the other side of the bottle of wine were two cups, so someone had been over recently.
"Damn it," Babs whispered under her breath. "Stephanie?"
"Hm?"
"Dr. Weinhardt's been arrested for stealing approximately a hundred thousand dollars worth of jewels—"
"Him? Wow, he seems like the type who wouldn't even steal ketchup packets from a restau—"
"And somehow all signs are pointing to you being somehow involved. Stephanie Brown you, not Batgirl you." She finally turned to look at me. "Thankfully they don't want to make an arrest at this point, but we definitely have a problem."
"God, this again?"
"Tell me about it."
