II. Legacy
Dad isn't one of the big guns, not really, but he helps. Sometimes he works as an assistant to the police, which Stephanie thinks is about the coolest thing in the world. Sure, her dad's kind of a square when it comes to the whole drinking, drugs, premarital sex thing, but the successful capture of twenty villains (so what if they were small time) is pretty freaking cool. He even helped Batman in his latest imprisonment of The Riddler by a stroke of his own ability to relate.
She sees the pills Dad takes every morning, and how he washes his hands a little too often, his compulsion to have everything in order. Symmetrical. It isn't so bad. Luckily, taking his pills gives him all the sense of order he needs most of the time, and it helps him understand. He's usually quiet about it, so Steph doesn't mention it.
When she turns fifteen, she begs Dad to let her help, and the next day there's an eggplant colored cape made of some sort of fire-resistant bullet-resistant material in a plastic wrap on her bed. Apparently Batman owed Dad a favor.
It's not like she's really able to just go over to the Batcave and say "Hey, Robin. Wanna go down to the burger joint for a Coke?" but she's a superhero like her Dad, which is the coolest, and every Thursday she gets blindfolded and driven to the Batcave for training. Every Thursday the path winds a little bit differently, but there's always a very long, slightly curving path at the end. She hasn't broken out the maps of the city -- yet.
Robin's better than her at just about everything, but he's a bigger superhero than she is and he trains, like, every day, and works with the Titans and Batman and Nightwing and The Flash and, like, everybody, and Steph's some little girl taking self defense classes by comparison. She kicked a bad guy in the kneecap once, and she's very, very good at dodging, which she figures is a good thing. Mostly. Especially if she's someday capable of actually hurting someone.
Batman makes talking noises about starting some weight training, and she can tell he doesn't really like her, but Dad helps Batman out sometimes, so maybe that's the important thing.
This Thursday, she and Robin are sparring, and Robin's not going as easy on her as usual. He's actually starting to sweat, for once, which gives Steph a little gleeful feeling inside that she tries to ignore since she's supposed to be fighting not squealing like an eleven year old at a concert.
Kick.
Robin dodges, using the motion to put some momentum behind a punch aimed at her ribs.
Blocked, and twisted.
He escapes her hold easily, sliding beneath her to trip her up.
She jumps, ball of her foot connecting with Robin's shoulder, which is when his hand comes up to catch her ankle, and the weight throws off her trajectory, and wow. Mat or no, this ground isn't soft, and also there's a Robin on top of her. A heavier-than-he-looks, wide-eyed Robin on top of her. With a very nice bottom lip. A Robin who, in fact, is breathing.
"Scout," he says finally, and his voice sounds different than usual, but that's possibly because it's his "lying on top of girls" voice, and Steph hates this secret identity thing, wants to rip off her stupid mask and push back the hood of her cloak and say 'My name is Stephanie,' but instead she just answers,
"Robin." It comes out more breathily than she'd intended, and Batman clearly isn't even paying attention anymore because armor or no, there's definitely a Robin on top of her, the lenses on his mask aren't up, and his eyes are really really blue. He moves a little against her, and that was definitely his (very well toned) thigh brushing against the inside of her (not quite as well-toned) one, and he's looking at her.
He's actually looking at her kind of a lot.
"I. Um." He starts, and then stops and goes back to just looking, like he expects to find the secret to life in her cheekbones. Or maybe her mouth, which he's staring at pretty intently. Like maybe her upper lip is secretly a super villain or something.
"You um?" Stephanie replies.
Robin's eyes are fixed on hers now, and Steph's fairly certain she's crazy because otherwise Robin's blushing. "I." His arms twitch, and she thinks for a second he's going to reach to feel some part of her. She really hopes he goes for a good part because she's starting to thrum with something just from the way he's been looking at her.
Instead, he pushes himself up a little. "I should. get up."
And he does, leaning over and offering a hand to help her up.
They go back to practicing forms after that.
Robin says he'll teach her some of the meditation things he learned in Europe.
Maybe it isn't Dad keeping her in training with Batman after all.