Prompt: Stephanie Brown

Word Count: 1,578

Day twenty-one of the thirty day drabble challenge

This was almost gonna be the prompt "Jason Todd" prompt instead of "Stephanie Brown" (sorry Bubblez, I'll try to stick Jaybird in here somewhere) but Steph kinda flowed better.

"Nightstar," Oracle says into my earpiece. "Purse-snatcher in the area. Two blocks north of you."

The night's been kinda quiet. Bruce took the night off and my dad didn't even need to be Batman for the night. Which is good. I hate it when my dad has to wear the cowl. I find the snatcher, but the lady he took the purse from is gone. She's probably fine. If there was real trouble, Oracle would have told me to move faster.

I land across from him in the dark alley he's chosen as his cover.

"Sir," I say as calmly as I can, like I'm talking to a child or to my cat.

"You a cop?" the man dressed in dark clothes asks, and it's too dark for me to get a good look.

"Yes," I sigh, rolling my eyes. "I'm a cop. This is our new uniform."

"You're one of those Bat-types," he says. "You're just a little girl. I bet I could teach you a thing or two about being a woman..."

Gross. It's gonna be one of those nights, huh? Fine. Whatever. I can roll with it. "Sir, I don't think that's your purse you're holding onto there. If you give it to me, I'll tell the cops you were cooperative."

He throws the purse on the ground and he pushes me against the brick. All it would take is an eyebeam right to the face and he'd back off. I'm not scared.

He reaches into his coat and pulls a knife out of an inner pocket. "You an' me are gonna have a good time," he says, twirling the knife. "Or I'm gonna be forced to mess up that pretty face of yours."

I charge up my eyebeams, casting a pink glow from my eyes that eerily illuminates the alley. A shot off the knife would send it flying to the ground and I bet lover-boy's attitude would change real quick.

But I hear a cape in the wind and near-silent boots on brick and I change my strategy. "I don't think my boyfriend would like that very much," I say sweetly.

Narrowing his eyes at me, the man lowers his knife. "Boyfriend, huh? What kind of boyfriend leaves a girl like you all alone at night? Where's this boyfriend of yours right now?"

Smirking, I say, "Right behind you."

The man turns, startled, and as he turns Robin drops down from the rooftops above us, landing in a crouch in front of my thug friend.

"Hey, man, I didn't mean–"

"Shut up," Robin growls, and throws a punch that knocks the thug against the brick.

Robin doesn't beat him up too badly. We're not supposed to do that. But he is pretty mad, and he's swearing at him in muttered Arabic as he clasps handcuffs over his wrists. I take my new friend by the collar of his shirt and I drop him in front of the police station, then I fly back to collect the purse and see if Robin's still there.

He's leaning against the brick with his cape drawn closed, glaring a hole into the ground. I land in front of him and he still doesn't snap out of it.

"Hel-lo," I call, waving my hand in front of his eyes, and he raises his head to look at me. "Look, I don't need you to come looking for me on patrols. I'm perfectly capable of–"

"I know," he says, annoyed. "I was not coming to save you. I was coming to see you."

That was almost sweet. I ignore the warm bubbles that rush up from my stomach and I say, "Oh. Well, good."

"You should not have to deal with that sort of disrespect," he says. He's mad about that creep making a move on me. But he's not mad because somebody was hitting on his girlfriend; he's mad because somebody was hitting on me. He's mad for me, not for himself, which is fantastically great and all but I don't really know how to handle it.

"Relax," I soothe. "It's not the first time that's happened, and it won't be the–"

"What?" he demands his voice sharp.

I guess that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Listen, it's not the end of the world. It's not like every guy I ever have to arrest does it. Some guys think girls owe them sex, or something."

He takes my arm and he pulls me gently. "Not all of them." He says it so intently it's like he's trying to convince me.

"I know," I say and he slides his hands to my hips and he brushes his forehead against mine.

"Not me," he murmurs against my hair, and I curl my fingers into his cape near his back.

"That's because you're not an asshole." I narrow one eye thoughtfully and tilt my head. "Well, actually..." I say playfully, grinning.

"Tt," he says, but he's smirking. He raises a hand to my cheek and I lean forward to kiss him.

We almost never do this outside his—our—apartment. But Damian knows where all the cameras in the city are (I'm supposed to know, too, and I basically do, but I'm pretty sure that only Damian, Tim, and Bruce can confidently say that they know where every camera in the city is) so I'm not worried about it.

We get caught up in it. In each other. It starts out sweet and slow but Damian pulls me against him harder and I let my fingers slide into his hair. He turns us so that I'm between him and the wall and I'm about to suggest we knock off early.

But we're interrupted before that happens.

"Oh my sweet crap."

We are very lucky that it's Stephanie who caught us and not Bruce or Tim or, worst of all, my dad.

I drop my hands from around Damian's neck and he straightens his arms so that his elbows aren't bent anymore, which puts quite a bit more space between us than there was before.

"What are the two of you doing?" Batwoman demands, her voice incredulous.

Damian sighs and rests his back on the brick next to me. "Kissing," he says simply, and I guess he's come to the same decision I have.

We aren't hiding our relationship from our family because they wouldn't approve. I mean, that's probably some motivating factor from hiding it from my dad, but I'm really not sure whether he would or not. If our entire family knows that we're dating, that's a lot of pressure. At this point, if we break up, there's no awkwardness all around. We haven't said hat out loud, but we both know it. And there's all the pressure, and there's also the pressure from the media we'd have to take and nobody should have to go through that at the beginning of a relationship. Ultimately, though, if Stephanie decides to rat us out—which I'm pretty sure she won't—it's not the end of the world.

"How long has that been going on?" she asks, sounding more curious than anything.

"About ten minutes," Damian replies, and I shove him because holy crap, that is so not what she meant.

"Around a month," I say.

"A month?" she echoes, incredulous.

"Well, not counting the prior occurrence before—"

"Great X'hal, shut up," I hiss, and I almost clap my hand over his mouth but he'd make me pay for that and not in the fun way.

"This is so perfect. Little D and Ri-Ri. You're like rappers."

"Ri-ri?" Damian asks me, smirking, addressing me by Steph's usual nickname for me.

"Little D?" I shoot back, which makes him scowl.

"Don't make fun of him too bad," she says, grinning. "Your dad's Big D."

"Great," I mutter.

"So I'm assuming you guys want me to keep your little secret."

Damian shrugs. "If you wish."

"Besides it's not a total secret. Lian knows," I tell her defensively.

"And Colin," Damian adds. I didn't know that. I guess that's fair, because I don't remember whether or not I mentioned to him that I told Lian.

"Great. You guys can double date," Steph says sarcastically.

Lian's dating Zach Zatara, but that's not the point.

"So let's cut to the chase," Steph continues, crossing her arms in a business-like manner. "I'll keep your little secret, but you guys gotta name your first-born daughter after me."

I don't even know what to say to that.

"I'll name my first-born son after you, Brown, if you leave now," Damian says, surprising me by following through with the joke, and he turns with a flourish of his cape and he covers me with it.

"Gross," Steph complains. Which is really unfair because she and Tim are the grossest couple I've ever seen, even before I temporarily lived with them after my dorm burned down. "Remember to use Bat-protection."

Damian makes a completely offended face, and that about kills me. I duck away from him and I hold my hand over my mouth because I'm laughing so hard, and Damian just keeps clicking his tongue because he's annoyed at me. He offers me his hand, I guess to pull me up, but I take it and yank him down to sit next to me and I kiss him again and for a minute I kind of wish we weren't keeping this secret.

Because it's so nice.

Yeah I don't ship Dami/Steph at all. I think he'd actually get along well with her and try to protect her from Tim and joke with her even though he doesn't joke around with very many people. But that was not meant to be shippy at all.

Also I totally just made "Ri-Ri" as a nickname for Mar'i up right now but I really like it and have absorbed it into my headcanon.