Stephanie hummed as she read through an apartment listing. It was starting to look like she might end up taking Tim up on his offer after all.
"- gets dragged in, he's going to - Oh, hey, Stephanie!"
She looked up to see a group of girls stopping at her library table. Of the six, she recognized three of them. Marissa Crow had gone to the same high school as Stephanie, just a year ahead, and they'd shared a weightlifting class for the three years they were at school together. Yasmine Gonzales was on the medical track like Stephanie so they had a few classes in common. Sasha Bellamy lived in the dorm next to Stephanie's and she and her roommate sometimes let Stephanie crash with them when her own roommate was getting on her nerves.
The three smiled at her and Sasha nodded to the table. "Mind if we sit with you?"
Stephanie shrugged and moved her things closer to her. "Go ahead. I'm mostly just wasting time until my three-thirty class."
The girls gave their thanks as they settled around the table. Most of them pulled out books, laptops, or tablets to work, but Marissa and a girl with green hair Stephanie didn't know turned to each other to continue whatever conversation they must have been having before they walked up.
"Are you sure there's nothing he can do?" the vertette asked with a frown.
"Nah," Marissa sighed. "Most of his buddies are already working that night and the few who aren't won't be able to cover for him, he's checked, and he's not risking big nose's wrath by bailing."
"Who's got a big nose?" Stephanie asked and turned away from her laptop at the first sign of entertaining gossip.
"Penguin," Marissa groaned. "My older bro works for him. Ryan was supposed to get Lyra and me into this cool new club in Newtown this weekend, but Penguin's got this big thing going on tomorrow night. If Ryan gets nabbed by the Bats, there's no way he'll get bail in time to take us."
Stephanie tapped her pen against the table. She knew the club Marissa was talking about. It was an exclusive place that had popped up three weeks earlier and was suspected of hiding a magical drug ring. The Bats had been trying to get into the club to scout it out on the civilian side, but it was too gritty for Brucie and the club was more about connections than money or looks so Kate couldn't work her magic. No one could use Red Hood's connections without being tied to Red Hood as a result, so he was out too. Tim was reaching out to some of his Draper contacts, but that would take time.
"You're talking about Lotus, right?" she confirmed. "If I can keep your brother out of trouble, would you bring me with you? My cousin and I have been wanting to go, but he's been too busy to take me."
Marissa and Lyra shared a look while Stephanie noticed a few of the other girls pretending not to glance at her.
"How can you do that?" Lyra asked.
Stephanie shrugged. "I know a guy."
"I need a favor."
Jason grunted, not looking up from the work Roy was doing on his helmet.
"You know how you're working a deal with Penguin tomorrow night before the bust," Stephanie asked poking at a device on the table near them until Roy slapped her hand away.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Uh-huh. Anyways, I need you to get Ryan Crow out of the building with you before Dick and Damian crash the party."
"Never heard of him." He tilted his head to Roy.
"Me neither. You sure he's one of Hood's?"
"Nope. He's one of Penguin's."
"And why would I save one of Penguin's goons?"
"Because you'd be the best pseudo-ex-brother-in-law ever?"
"Pass."
"Is that seriously how you describe yourselves?"
"Because he's getting me into Lotus this weekend," she offered instead, ignoring Roy's muttered comment.
Jason's gaze shot up. "How old is this guy exactly?"
"First of all, I'm an adult."
"Barely."
"I'm nineteen!"
"Exactly."
"Might I remind you what you were doing at nineteen?" she said, poking Jason's arm. "That's right, putting heads in duffle bags."
"It was just the one bag!"
"Right, so no judging if I decide to date older men. Anyways, gross, no. I'm friends with his sister and she agreed to take me, but we won't be able to go if he gets nabbed in the bust."
Jason watched her for a moment, then rolled his eyes and turned back to the helmet.
Stephanie was lying on her back, considering what to do with her latest bribe, when she felt eyes on her. She turned to see Marissa, Lyra, and their friend Nancy huddled together, occasionally glancing her way.
When they realized she was staring back at them, they flinched. They whispered between themselves for another moment, then came over.
"Hey, Steph."
"'Sup." When they didn't say anything else, she asked, "Did you need something?"
"Uh, yeah, kind of." The three shared a look again as Marissa cleared her throat. "You know that favor you did for me last month."
"With Penguin and Lotus?"
"Yeah, that. Thanks again, by the way. How the hell did you manage to get Ryan onto the team escorting Hood's goods?"
"Told you I knew a guy. I'm just glad you guys could bring me to the club. Never would have gotten a chance to go before the Bats shut the place down." Stephanie grabbed her water bottle from where it was sitting next to her and took a drink. "Why were you asking?"
They once again shared a look. "Well, Nancy was wondering if you could give her a hand with a similar situation."
Nancy looked a little pale, but nodded. "See, my boyfriend works for Riddler and he was supposed to have Friday off so we got tickets to a concert, but then Batgirl and Red Robin busted one of his operations so the rotation got all shuffled around. Now he's working and we're going to miss the concert. I was hoping… I mean, Marissa and Lyra told me what you did for them…"
"So you wanted to see if I could get your boy off the hook," Stephanie finished.
She nodded. "I've got two extra tickets because my sister and her BF were going to come with us, but they broke up so the tickets are yours if you can help me."
"What's the concert?"
"Saffron and Poppy."
Well, she did like Saffron and Poppy. And Duke would owe her one if she brought him since he'd been going back and forth over asking Bruce for the money to get tickets, with it only getting worse as the concert grew closer and prices skyrocketed. (Honestly, what's the point of getting adopted by a billionaire if you didn't extort said billionaire for the greater good?) And Tim was still in Riddler's system so it wouldn't be hard for him to take one guy off the work schedule.
"Alright, deal."
"You can do it?"
"I know a guy who can. What's your boy's name?"
"Hey, Sig, remember how I brought you to that concert a few weeks ago?"
Signal eyed Batgirl warrily. "Yes."
"Time to repay the favor."
"I'm going to regret this."
"Says the guy who likes jumping off bridges."
"Gotham Harbor is safer than one of your schemes.
"Thanks. Anyways, a friend of mine thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him while he's at school in the afternoon. Right in your patrol timeframe! Mind looking into that for me?"
"No? I really don't think that's what we're supposed to be using our detective skills on."
"Aw, you thought that was a request," she cooed, patting him on the helmet. "You owe me, remember?"
He groaned. "Fine, but then we're even."
"You got it!"
"You going to tell me why you need Alvin Draper to give this guy an alibi?" Tim asked as he adjusted his leather jacket.
"Nope."
"Hey, Tim, you're not going to believe -" Bernard cut off as he came into Tim's office to see a trio of people hanging around in the room.
Tim was at his desk, slumped in his chair with his keyboard in his lap and staring blankly at the computer screen.
A blonde girl was lying across the couch. She was wearing a sleek suit that was slightly rumpled from how she was laying as well as a nice pair of aviators that were pushed onto the top of her head. She also looked insanely hot.
A familiar young woman was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, stretching. Cassandra Wayne was equally hot, especially in the tight-fitting dance clothes she was wearing.
Bernard was loyal, but heck if he wasn't tested by all of Tim's incredibly sexy older siblings and friends.
Then again, Tim is also incredibly sexy, he thought as Tim set the keyboard back on the desk and stretched in a way that showed off the toned body hiding beneath his boring work suit perfectly.
"Hey, Bernard, what are you doing here? I didn't think we had lunch plans today," Tim said with a smile, ruffling his hair cutely.
"We didn't. Just thought I'd surprise you." He didn't do it often, not wanting to give the stiffs Tim worked with any more reason to question their young boss's competence, but it was fun to do it every so often and he always made sure to call Tam beforehand to be sure he didn't interrupt anything.
"So this is Bernard?" the blonde asked. She sat up, setting the bag of chips she'd been eating from on a side table and pocketing her phone.
"Yeah, this is him," Tim said with a nervous expression Bernard didn't understand. "Steph, Bernard. Bernard, this is my friend Stephanie."
"The Mythical Stephanie," Bernard said with an impish grin and turned to the girl. He looked her over again and nodded. Yeah, he could see why Tim wouldn't even consider giving anyone else a second glance while dating her. At her confused expression, he explained, "Tim used to talk about you all the time when we were in school together. Considering none of us ever saw you, we thought he made you up. Darla was sure he was lying about having a girlfriend as a way to let her down easily. I just figured he was gay and using a fake girlfriend as a beard."
"Really?" Stephanie asked, donning her own impish grin as she glanced at Tim.
"You're fired," Tim huffed and she blew him a kiss. "What were you saying when you came in, Bernard?"
Bernard smiled at Cassandra then walked over to drape himself over one of the chairs in front of Tim's desk. "Okay, so you know how Cluemaster has a daughter? S-something. Stacy, I think. Stacy Brown."
Cassandra gave a small cough as she gracefully settled into another one of the chairs.
"Oh, yeah, Stacy! I've heard of her," Stephanie chuckled, walking around the desk to lean against the back of Tim's large office chair.
Tim's face was blank as he nodded.
Bernard felt like he was missing something, but carried on. "Well, I was on the conspiracy forums during my morning lecture -"
"Of course you were," Tim said, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands with a soft smile that had a warmth settling in Bernard's chest.
"R-right, so I guess Stacy's taking after her old man and now rumors are going around that she got hired here, so two main theories have popped up. Get this, apparently, you two are working together. The real reason you took the company from Wayne was that you plan to use her connections and Wayne Enterprises's power to become the next Lex Luther."
"Oh my god, yes!" Stephanie shrieked, bouncing and shaking Tim's chair. "Tim, Timmy, Timbo! Let's go supervillain! We could totally take over the world! Beat Lexy at his own game! Imagine the look on Mercy's face!"
"Luther wishes he was Tim," Cass said and gave Stephanie a high-five when the blonde leaned over Tim's desk for one.
"For the record, I'm not against dating a world dictator, but I would like some forewarning," Bernard teased.
"We're not going supervillain," Tim laughed, shoving Stephanie off his desk and righting the stacks of paperwork she'd knocked over.
"So theory one was great, what's the other one?" Stephanie asked.
"There's actually a bunch of theories, but most of them aren't getting any traction. The only other one that is says that she's the mastermind, that she's seducing Tim to get the Wayne fortune so she can establish her own criminal empire.
Stephanie cackled and Cass shook her head while Tim raised an eyebrow.
"We've been broken up for years and now they want to throw out gold-digger accusations," he snorted.
"Wait, you seriously dated a supervillain's daughter?" Bernard asked, perking up.
"Like the guy who had a crush on a mob princess for the longest time has room to talk."
"Not judging. Just surprised. I mean, everyone calls her GU's Godfather around campus. Doesn't seem your type."
"Wait, she's called what?" Stephanie said, all laughter dropping from her voice as she frowned. She shared a confused look with Cassandra and Tim.
"Yeah, it's kind of a well-known secret that she's got connections to some of the big names like Penguin, Two-Face, and Ventriloquist. I mean, no one knows, but everyone's pretty sure. Some think she's even got connections to people like Red Hood, Poison Ivy, and Riddler."
"Why would people think that?" Cassandra asked.
"She's been doing favors for people, hence the Godfather nickname, and sometimes the favors involve some high-level stuff. Plus, she refuses to tell anyone how she did it other than that she knows people."
Tim and Cassandra turned to Stephanie, who gave an awkward chuckle.
"Oops."