it's me olivia again. this fic was written around a year and a half-ago right after the school year had ended. i kind of pooped most of it out in a few days. i hereby dedicate it to the tiny steph/damian community, but especially to quipquipquip. she's a star and a gem and i don't know her personally but her fics have touched me and i think of them fondly. please let me know if anything is too similar to her fics so i can change it. i should also mention that this fic was written for me, to my taste, and therefore there may be a bit of ooc-ness or plotholes or bad grammar. point those out to me too! thanks much and please enjoy and fav/review if you feel like. (many thanks to my beta cat.)
X~X~X
Some days, when the sunlight streaming through her window was a murky grey, and the smell of burnt toast from the apartment next door was way too overwhelming, and she had only gotten two hours of sleep, Steph wondered if Batman Inc. gave paid vacations. God knows she needed one- her boss always seemed to assign her mountains of paperwork and there was a steadily climbing bill pile that gave her a lump in her throat every time she saw it. Night life as a crime-fighter? Exciting. Regular life as an underpaid office worker at Wayne Enterprises whose daily meal only got as varied as the McDonald's dollar menu? Underwhelming.
Today was definitely one of those days. Steph flung her purse onto her shabby couch, barely wincing at the ominous creak it gave. She felt spent- she had gotten three hours of sleep the past two nights and was running on lukewarm coffee from the office, Captain Crunch, and a 2 a.m. chocolate milkshake. She wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for the whole weekend.
As she toed out of her worn-out pumps, a 'beeeeeep!' sound came from the purse she had thrown. "Oh no, oh God," Steph grumbled. She fished around in her bag for her phone. A blocked number appeared on the screen and Steph idly flipped it open. "Yeah?"
"I have been waiting in the tree outside your window for twenty minutes. You're late."
"Jeez Damian, it's Friday. The train schedule is always wonky on Fridays in the winter." Steph shrugged off her shirt, too lazy to properly unbutton it. She went to her window, undid the latch, pushed up the rickety frame. Cold wind blasted across her bare skin as she squinted out into the leafy expanse beyond. "You're Nightwing, you can open a twenty dollar lock."
Damian swung in past her, his dark suit stark against the dingy white walls of the apartment. "It's much more polite to ask."
Steph had closed her phone and was already halfway through with removing her pantyhose. She huffed, "When have you ever been polite?" The other crime-fighter didn't respond, instead shutting the window before moving behind her to help with the zipper on her skirt. Steph sighed her thanks and stepped neatly out of the hand-me-down tweed monster. By the time she had set everything over the arm of the couch, Damian was already in her kitchen, looking at the bills scattered across the floor (Steph had pushed them off of the table to eat her cereal that morning). He raised a water bill with prominent red ink and looked at her. Steph could hear the objection building up in his throat.
"It's been a rough couple of days," she admitted as she pulled on a nightshirt from the laundry basket in the corner (she hadn't yet folded it- she would, though! maybe later).
"If you had agreed to my suggestions for living arrangements, you wouldn't have to worry about such things." Steph rolled her eyes and tossed Damian a shirt and sweatpants before turning around to give him privacy. Despite constantly seeing him naked, sexually and not, she liked to think turning around made her seem like a good hostess. Besides, it seemed to give him some peace of mind.
"Yeah, yeah- but you were the one who wanted to keep our relationship a secret, and it's kiiiiiiiinda hard to do that if we're living together or I'm living in your safehouse or whatever. Plus, I couldn't just accept your generosity. I could barely accept the job offer Batman Inc. got me. This apartment is something of my own."
"Only just," Damian said gruffly, tugging his shirt on. Steph caught a glimpse of tan skin out of the corner of her eye and turned her head more to the left.
"Only just," she agreed. "But that's something."