did you know all these chapters are named after song lyrics and quotes? this chapter, for example, is named after an italian mermaid melody song. happy almost new year's, peeps.

X~X~X

For a week, there was complete radio silence. Steph spent Christmas by herself and boxing day (which Beryl had introduced her to a few years ago and which she had adopted happily ever since) with her mom. After that first night, she went on patrol regularly, and every time someone else in the 'fam checked in she wanted to ask them where he was - but Tim and Babs had said they didn't know, and if Tim and Babs didn't know then no one else probably did. Steph had seen him on TV the day he had left, though. Steadily making her way through a bag of marshmallows (a luxury in her household), she had watched as he entered the glittering event in an impeccable, thousand dollar suit and exited early with a couple of giggling girls trailing behind him.

"Do you think i should give him some space?" Steph had asked when she met up with Cass on the 27th for post-patrol waffles. She had explained the situation very simply to Black Bat, fake names and changed situations and everything. Cass looked at her over the rim of her coffee cup, and Steph felt like she was being silently judged.

"...Yes," her best friend had finally said, and that was that.

Still, that didn't stop Steph from questioning, in the quiet moments during work and patrol, whether or not he was still in Gotham or had vanished somewhere else. She thought he could be burying Talia, or what was left. ('Nothing was left, Steph.') She thought that maybe this was his way of saying he wanted a break. Sometimes, at night, she thought she could hear his soft footsteps in his safe house the next floor up. She thought a lot of things.

Steph wasn't weepy, though. She was a tough, independent girl with a buttload of female agency, and the goddamn Batgirl to boot. She loved that pompous jerk (not that he knew that yet) and was worried as hell, but she went to work and she fought and she cracked jokes and tried to make normal. When she tried reading an article about this situation on her laptop, the columnist extolled the virtues of trust and respect and "setting free your loved ones", so she reminded herself of that whenever she woke up wondering where he was. Still, she always left the window unlocked on principle, and refused to wash the Gotham U shirt.

For New Years' Eve, she was invited to a party at Lydia's. It was a college party, sure, but the girl had a rockin' musical taste and access to a seemingly unlimited supply of Boddington's (even though she was only 19 and lived in this shittrap of a building, honestly how). She planned to slip out early to patrol, though, because she'd have to pick up the slack an Oracle-less night always left - in a rare fit of 'oh yes we are normal people too', the Graysons were going to Times' Square with the kids, lucky bats - and it didn't seem like she would have anyone to kiss at midnight anyways.

So she went, and she made small talk with college kids and found out that the Boddington's all came from Lydia's douchey London boyfriend jackson and watched Lydia skype her friends in California (who also seemed to be her boyfriends and girlfriends, in a surprising twist of events). She was fidgeting for the fiftieth time with her sparkly purple dress, her one and only clubbing outfit bought a lifetime ago with Kara, when Lydia came up to her.

"Someone's at the door for you."

Steph frowned. Hopefully not Tim again because that last meeting had not exactly been fun. "Who is it?"

"This guy in my Beginner's Combinatorics class. He says he knows you?" Lydia flipped her perfect hair over her shoulder, shrugged, and went to go make herself another drink.

Steph was bewildered. "Uh, sure, okay." Wary, she began pushing through the throng of people to the door. Somewhere between the second kissing couple and the bathroom, her heart flip-flopped, and she knew with dead certainty who the person at the door would be. Freakin' Lydia- like she didn't know who "this guy" was. With an almost audible pop, she extricated herself from the mob and found herself looking at, guess who, her ridiculous boyfriend Damian Wayne.

Anger and relief and happiness coiled together in her chest, and her lungs felt tight. "Hey, Damian," Steph said a bit breathlessly. She wanted to hit herself and then hit him. Her boyfriend had disappeared off the face of the earth for seven days, and that was how she greeted him?

Damian stared at her. "Hello." His voice sounded like he had a cold, even though he looked perfectly fine. More than fine, in fact. He was dressed in a casual suit and a crisp white shirt like he had just gotten back from a day at the country club that painfully reminded Steph of how long it had been since she had last had sex. Steph also noticed that his eyes were still bruised purple like he hadn't slept in a couple days and there was a new scar on his neck.

"We should probably go over to my apartment for this talk," Steph said solemnly. Shouting out a quick thanks to Lydia, she shut the door and jiggled her own open. As soon as Damian was inside, she slammed it shut and pulled him down to kiss her. His lips were warm and chapped, and at least that was normal.

After a few minutes of 'thank-God-you're-alive-and-we're-together' makeouts, Steph broke away. "Right now my brain is between kissing you more until your brain is leaking out of your ears before crying grossly, or punting you off the New Trigate Bridge and then doing the messy crying." She gripped his arms. "Start talking, bucko."

Damian grimaced, but he let Steph sit him down on the couch while she stood in front of him. "I was on a mission, Brown."

"Of course," Steph huffed, because she couldn't help herself. Also, she was pissed, did she mention that?

His blue eyes flashed. "Don't- do not interrupt me. Please." The blonde grumbled, but nodded. Damian didn't break out the "please"s unless he was super serious. "I went my grandfather, to see if my mother was truly dead. She is." He paused, then went on more quietly, "The weapons shipment was from Lexcorp. Grandfather was waiting to see how Batman would react to the news of Talia's death before striking, but my father has never cared for my mother enough to avenge her death. When nothing happened, my grandfather turned to me to kill those responsible."

Steph stared at him.

"Tt. Don't think me a fool- I didn't kill that bald bastard," Damian grit out. "I have more self control than that." He clenched his hands, and Steph noticed with a start that his cufflinks were purple. "After he realized that I would not play his game, Ra's got angry. He's become more and more unhinged since Father's comeback, and my mother was his only child. He decided to send me back to Gotham as a message to my father."

"Send you back?" Steph asked, unable to be quiet any longer. Seriously, what the hell was this family?

Her boyfriend sneered. "In pieces. Luckily, in his rage he seemed to have forgotten that I was trained by the same assassins he sent to kill me. I was able to defeat the last of them around West Virginia."

Steph frowned. "Does Bruce know about this?"

"Why?" Damian demanded. "I handled it."

"Yeah, you did," Steph said. "But Ra's might still have a kill-slash-maim order on Nightwing. Isn't it dangerous to be here?"

"No. Whatever Ra's thinks to send, I can handle." Damian's expression darkened, and he looked like he wanted to stab something.

Steph realized she wouldn't get anywhere with this, and plowed on to the real problem. "Okay, Damian. I get that you think you can do everything because you're practically Ninja Ken or whatever. But couldn't you have at least called me? Or texted? Sent a messenger pigeon? No one knew where you were, Damian. No one! Including, hmm, let's think, your freaking girlfriend! I was worried sick about you, you ass! I could've helped!"

"I was fighting off asassins, woman. i didn't have time to indulge your puerile need for affection."

Steph shot off the couch like it had bit her in the butt. If she were a meta like Kon she probably would have broken a table with her bare hands by now. "Puer- oh my God, puerile? I didn't even know whether or not you were alive! That's not puerile, you fucking douche, that's being a decent human being!"

"I'm sorry that everyone must cater to your needs, Ms. Brown, but some of us actually have important things to do," Damian spit. His voice was full of poison, and Steph felt like she's been electrocuted.

"Yeah, excuse the fuck out of me. I know that you're suffering right now, but that doesn't mean you can make other people suffer, Damian. Jesus Christ with a jetpack, you could've been killed. You were supposed to come back! I waited for you to come back!"

Damian just rolled his eyes at her and muttered under his breath, "Insufferable shrew."

Steph dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and bit her lip to keep herself from laughing bitterly. "This is what couples do," she said. "They communicate with each other. They tell each other shit and they don't fucking leave the other one hanging dry. This is what good couples do, Damian, and why couldn't you do this? Because you were fucking gallivanting across New England, fighting ninjas." Steph knew this wasn't true but she was so mad it just spilled out. Saying it gave her a vicious pleasure.

"Well, maybe we shouldn't be a couple then!" Damian yelled. He rose off the couch and stared down at her furiously. Nearly a foot taller than her, he looked so much like Bruce that she had to resist the urge to flinch.

At first, Steph opened her mouth to shoot something witty back. But then the meaning of his words hit her like a bus, and the blonde felt all the blood drain away from her flushed cheeks. "You don't mean that." Damian was silent. "Damian, you don't mean that." He looked away from her, and her heart stopped. "Damian wayne, you don't mean that."

"...No, i don't," Damian admitted. He sank back down into the couch, which groaned under his weight. Despite his 18 years, he looked so much like the lost 10 year old that didn't know what a moonbounce was she wanted to choke. Instead, she stood silently before him and fisted her hands in her dress.

Finally, after a full minute of quiet, Dteph breathed in deeply. "Fon't fucking- don't ever say shit like that. oh my god, please don't." Dhe exhaled and put a hand over her eyes.

"Okay," Damian agreed.

"Do not ever say that again."

"I won't."

Steph took another breath, then almost laughed. In these months since she started dating the youngest Bat, she had used deep breathing so much her lungs were probably permanently expanded. More than ten years later and those pregnancy classes were really coming in handy. "Look, oh boyfriend of mine: I understand that a Bat's gotta do what a Bat's gotta do. I know that you're not touchy-feely either. but you're my boyfriend and I care about you." 'Love you,' she added to herself, but that was not a bombshell she wanted to drop right now. "I want to help you, even if you don't want me to or I know I shouldn't. Okay? I know you're going through a hard time, and I know that this is your shit to deal with, but you gotta give a little."

Damian was starting to look emotionally constipated. "Next time, just call okay? Call your girl before you run off to meet with Ra's and his merry band of killer minions."

"I thought," he said, "that if I called you you would ask to come along."

"Yeah, I probably would've," Steph said mildly.

"You couldn't come along. I didn't want you to ask." Damian fingered a cufflink. "I won't accept your help for this."

"What does 'this' constitute, exactly?" Steph asked, bemused. Had he heard anything she was saying?

"My grandfather. My family."

"A little late for that, Damian." Steph rolled her eyes. "I may be the yellow-headed stepchild in the Batfam, but I've been swinging from rooftops with them since I was fourteen." She grabbed the hand that was fiddling with the button. "I've battled Ra's before, too. I understand you want me to stay out of your business, but-"

"Not my business," Damian muttered. "I just don't want you to come along only to fumble around and hurt yourself. you're a hassle." Steph paused, then laughed. She dropped Damian's hand and swung her arms around the back of his neck. The boy blinked, but tentatively brought his hands to her waist.

"I worry about you too, you jerk," Steph said fondly. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Any other time, she might've called him out on his assumption that she couldn't take care of herself, but she let it slide. His mom, one of the most powerful women in the world, had died only a few days ago, and she was, frankly, considered by the public a B-rate superhero still ostracized by the team she was in. She ran her hands down his arms and kissed his eyelids, then his forehead, then his nose. He was leaning up to kiss her for real when the alarm on her watch went off.

"Ah crap," Steph breathed. "Time for patrol."

Damian glared at her wrist like it had keyed his car. Steph had never seen a sparkly purple Rapunzel watch experience such vitriol before. "It can wait." He pulled her down to press his lips to hers. Steph hummed happily into the smooch, but pushed him off after a minute.

"It probably can't. It's New Years' Eve, and that means drunken frat boys and tons and tons of drugs. Calendar Man got released from Arkham a few days ago, so he'll probably try something too." She squeezed his shoulder and made for the closet where she kept all her batgirl gear. "Are you going to patrol tonight?"

"East End," Damian huffed. Steph sympathized- that was one of the worst neighborhoods to have when you really wanted to beat something up. It was filled with newbie drug dealers who were so mindless it should've been illegal and fear gas junkies that attacked anything costumed. But because of the sheer size of Gotham and the limited amount of Bats, Oracle's master schedule was law.

"Okay, well here's the dealio: why don't you and I meet up here after patrol? Tomorrow I don't have work, so we can hang out here and eat waffles and watch The Proposal. And by watch The Proposal, I mean make out like teenagers while Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds fight in the background." Steph struggled out of her high heels and kicked them in a corner.

"Whatever you wish, Brown." Damian shrugged. He sounded long-suffering, but the blonde knew about Damian's secret love for Sandra Bullock movies (She swore he had looked almost emotional during The Blind Side).

Steph smiled at him one last time before stripping off her dress. Duty called.