Step Three - Spark

"Alfred, you're making waffles?" Steph said with glee after Agent A had given her a good squeeze in his warm and cozy kitchen, which a quietly pleased B had shepherded Steph into after greeting Batgirl underground in the Batcave and letting her change into casual clothes.

Because the paparazzi were always watching; it wouldn't do for Stephanie Brown, Nobody, to be seen entering Wayne Manor, after all. So secret entrances it had been.

"Indeed, Miss Stephanie," Alfred said with a smile. "I remember your preference for waffles. And I have a homemade strawberry compote to put on them," which was simmering on the stove, she realized, and smelled amazing, "with fresh whipping cream," he finished.

"Whipping cream?" she asked him. "Is that how you say whipped cream in England?" Alfred's face went into a mask of shock as B chuckled behind her ear.

"Whipping cream, Miss Stephanie," Alfred said severely, "is whipped fresh from actual cream. Not shot out of a ghastly can," he said.

"You'll love the difference," B said, smiling down at her.

And, wow.

What. A. Smile.

Steph had known intellectually that Bruce Wayne could make real, actual smiles. She'd seen pictures of them on the internet. But she'd never seen one in person, and it was beautiful and breathtaking and charming - no, dazzling - radiant - glorious - heartstopping - she didn't even realize that she'd gotten lost in it until B interrupted her daze.

"What?" he asked her, looking genuinely confused.

"I've never seen you smile before," she said in starry-eyed wonder. Alfred chuckled as he ladeled batter onto the hot waffle iron.

"I smile," B grumbled, sounding more like Batman than Bruce, but he couldn't quite wipe said smile off of his face to look properly Bat-ish as he said it.

"You smile upstairs," Alfred said dryly, "but never in the BatCave, sir. Thank your lucky stars, though, Miss Stephanie," the butler said, "that you have never encountered the ceaselessly smiling horror known as Brucie." Alfred gave a dramatic shudder.

"Brucie smiles a lot?" she asked, looking from Alfred to B's now truly laughing eyes.

"Brucie," Alfred sniffed with disdain, "smiles as vapidly and easily as a small child or sociopath, while trotting around whatever hideous social climber's event he has been coerced into attending in a twenty-five thousand dollar suit. Followed by a flock of vultures, of course, as he stumbles and bumbles his way through a never-ending parade of gold-diggers with a smile as wide as if he'd been Joker-gassed."

Steph's eyes had gotten big by the end of Alfred's withering poeticisms, because B was laughing. Out loud. So hard that his shoulders were shaking, in fact.

"You laugh, too?" she said in awe. "Who are you and what have you done with Batman?" she demanded.

"I'm Bruce Wayne," he said, reaching out for her hand in what she thought would be a handshake, but ended up being a gallant kiss to the back of her hand. Which definitely shouldn't have made her blush behind Alfred's back.

"Pleased to meet you," B said in a smoky voice, running his thumb over her knuckles as he let her hand go - was that supposed to be sexy? It felt sexy! - and were his eyes actually looking a little heated as they met hers? Whaaaaaaaat?

Clearly she was imagining things. Projecting her horribly embarrassing fantasies onto real life B, like an idiot.

In any case, his eyes were definitely slightly amused at her blush, which he had most certainly noticed. Steph had never felt more like the twenty-one year old woman that she was and less like a teenaged sidekick, as she bit her lip and glanced at the floor, blushing a little harder.

Fuck.

B wasn't interested in her, of course. He couldn't be.

He was just being silly with the hand kissing, Steph decided. He had to be. Because there was no way that he would be interested in dating a girl who he used to mentor back when she actually was a girl and not an adult… would he?

God. It would be so much easier not to crush on him if he wasn't so damned sexy in civilian clothes, Steph thought helplessly. Batman was far more easily ignored. Hm. That was kind of an awkward thought, she decided, seeing as she was going to be stuck with civilian B and his sexy-ass, snug on his thighs and butt jeans and his too-tight except not really because his abs and biceps looked amazing in it t-shirt for all of dinner.

Steph cleared her throat and asked Alfred if she could help carry anything to the table, pushing thoughts of SexyB aside. She might have felt B's eyes on her the whole time that the two of them ferried serving dishes to the table for Alfred - but it was probably just her imagination.

"So, I heard you're in college?" B asked her when the three of them finally sat down to their breakfast-themed dinner. "That's wonderful," he said warmly.

"You heard, or you obsessively researched what each and every one of us Bats was up to as soon as you got back from the dead?" Steph asked him playfully. B was definitely grinning at her, now, with his mouth and everything.

"The latter, Miss Stephanie," Alfred said dryly. Steph smiled. At both of them, but her eyes were laughing along with B. The knowing way that his eyes twinkled at her definitely shouldn't be giving her sparkly fireflies inside her belly. Who could control fireflies, though? They lit up where they wanted to and it was not Steph's fault.

"What are you studying?" B asked her.

"You already know!" Steph complained. "Stop pretending, B." He huffed.

"I am trying to make normal conversation," he said, pouting. Steph snorted.

"As if you're normal," she said.

"Indeed," Alfred agreed with an affectionately amused glance at his once-young charge. "However, I do not know what you are studying, Miss Stephanie," the butler said. "Perhaps you would care to enlighten me."

"Why, certainly, Alfred," Steph said, emphasizing the butler's name with a smirk for B. "I'm studying sports medicine so I can become a physical trainer when I graduate."

"Oh, that is a wise decision, given your nocturnal activities," Alfred said appreciatively.

"And dayturnal," Steph said. "Batgirl isn't all about the night, the night, like some Bats I know of," she said, scrunching her nose up at B and poking his arm. He laughed at her, and it sounded genuine.

"Your mom must be proud of you, going into a health profession," he said seriously, though, with not a small amount of admiration in his voice, too. Steph smiled.

"Yeah, she is. She said I was smart to go into PT, too, that it had better hours than nursing."

"You're the only one of us to go to college and stick with it, you know," B said, sounding damn proud of her, and Steph felt her soul flush with pleasure at his compliment. "I'm paying for it, right?" he asked her. "Tim and Lucius worked that out?" he said casually, clearly assuming that of course they had taken care of their Batgirl.

Except.

"Um, no," Steph mumbled, her cheeks turning red for an altogether distasteful reason now.

"No?" B said, frowning, and even Alfred's eyebrows had shot up.

"Miss Stephanie, I had not realized -" the butler started to say, his own cheeks blooming a deep rouge. "I merely presumed - between young Master Timothy and Miss Barbara, I was sure -"

B quietly laid his hand over his elderly guardian's to comfort him, but the Bat was probing Steph's eyes with his for an explanation.

"Well, no one offered," Steph said reluctantly, with great embarrassment, "and I felt weird asking," she said, lowering her eyes to the table. "But I got some financial aid from the school," she said into her lap.

"And student loans?" B asked her, his voice sounding tightly controlled. Steph nodded, eyes still downcast, but she looked up when his other hand reached out and squeezed hers.

"I'll take care of it," he said, meeting her eyes. She was surprised to see that just under the surface of his tightly controlled Bruce Wayne face, B looked deeply pissed. "I'll repay the loans, pay the rest of your tuition, books, your housing, all of it," he said firmly.

"Thank you," she said softly. She had pride, sure; but not so much that she'd turn down her billionaire friend's offer to pay for college. He nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"I can't believe that none of them thought to take care of that for you," he said, the anger in his eyes starting to seep into his voice.

"Master Bruce, I should have looked into it," Alfred tried to apologize again, but B shook his head at him.

"You'd just lost your son," he said brusquely. "And were left to care for your recently appeared grandson and tasked with keeping the Batfamily together on top of it all. Barbara should have made sure that Steph was taken care of; she even works at the damn college," he snapped.

"Hey," Steph said gently, squeezing his hand that was still (still!) lying on top of hers. "We were all grieving, B," she said, swallowing hard. "None of us were thinking too straight, ok? And it's fixable. I really appreciate you being willing to cover all the finances for me now," she said.

"Of course," he said, his eyes flashing at her with a haunted look that told Steph that he, too, never stopped replaying their final hour together in Leslie's clinic, after Roman and before -

Steph blinked the shadows away and nodded with a slightly shaky smile. B held her gaze and didn't look away for a long minute, and she suddenly felt the most gut-wrenching yearning for what would never be hers.

"Are we still going to spar later?" she asked him, willing herself to banish her dumb dreams to her mind's dusty backshelf. He gave her a wicked smirk.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said, making her laugh.

Yeah, Steph was looking forward to sparring too, but perhaps for very different reasons.

Down in the BatCave, though, Steph found herself slipping into a sense of déjà vu as she got ready to work out. She hadn't changed clothes in the BatCave in such a long time - not since she'd been Robin, in fact, due to working with Oracle as Batgirl instead of continuing to work with the main Bats, once she'd escaped from Leslie and made it home.

Home. To Gotham. B. The Rogues. Roman.

The nightmares always started off the same, tied up in Black Mask's warehouse. His laughing, mocking face. The drill. God, the power drill.

And all Steph could do, all she could ever do, was scream for B. She knew that if she screamed loud enough, he'd come and save her. She was sure he would - so sure -

But Batman never came.

And when her tripping REM cycle finally finished with Roman's torture in her nightly dreams, it was evil Leslie who had her tied up, laughing at her like a deranged witch, telling her that she never should have become a vigilante, that this was her punishment for luring other teeanagers to early graves.

And Steph was alone, still screaming for B, screaming until her lungs ran out of air and her dream-voice was too hoarse to make a sound, until she'd finally wake up, body sweating and throat raw.

Her mom had started wearing earplugs. She couldn't take Steph's nightmares waking her up every night, she'd said. Steph couldn't take it, either, but unlike her mom, she didn't have a choice.

And no one ever came to comfort her. Not her mom. Not Tim. Not B. Not in real life and not even in her dreams.

"Steph?" B's voice called to her from the other side of the locker room door. "Are you ok?" She drew in a shaky breath and blinked, trying to refocus her eyes on the present. How long had she been standing there, frozen?

"I'm coming," she said as she begged the fog to clear from her mind. She looked down and realized that she'd paused half dressed, lost in her ghoulish memories. "I'll be right out," she said through the door to B, trying to quickly finish changing.

He gave her a concerned look when she finally emerged. And Steph usually hid her PTSD from everyone, her mom and Babs included, but she felt a tug on her soul to tell B the truth, and she didn't feel like over-analyzing the reasons why.

"Sometimes I have flashbacks," she admitted, looking up into B's caring eyes. His gaze turned sympathetic and his expression became even more concerned.

"Are you sure you're up for sparring?" he asked her, scanning her with his piercing eyes as if maybe his Batvision could see her mental wounds manifesting themselves in an assessable format. Although, hell. He was Batman. Maybe he could see that deep into her psyche.

"I don't know about sparring, actually," she said hesitantly. And that was a change, wasn't it? Teenaged Steph would've laughed in B's face if he'd ever dared to suggest that she might not be up for something, no matter how un-up for it she might have been.

"Maybe we could work out together instead?" she asked him. "Something where I don't have to worry about defense?"

"Of course," he said immediately. "We can do some stretching and then do some katas so I can evaluate your attack techniques. You can show me how far you've progressed."

"That sounds good," she said gratefully. B gave her a gentle look and rubbed her back a little bit as they walked out to the practice mats, and dammit. That felt really nice.

Too nice.

And not just because she liked him. Which, yeah. Sue her. She foolishly, hopelessly did. But it wasn't only a crush that was filling Steph with longing. She hadn't had anyone offer her comfort in so, so long. Her mom and Tim? Nope and Nope.

And while Steph and Cass were still best friends, Cass was at the moment in deep cover overseas, dismantling the root of some of the trafficking chains leading to Gotham. She and her bestie rarely got to talk these days, the time difference making it hard to connect.

Babs was a good ally, but she was Oracle, Steph's Batgirl-supervisor-slash-mentor. Babs hadn't even thought that Steph was up to being Batgirl at first, when Cass had handed her BFF the mantle, so Steph definitely wasn't about to go crying on Oracle's shoulder. She didn't need any hints or suggestions or downright orders about hanging up the cowl coming her way. Being Batgirl was the only thing keeping her sane, she thought grimly. No way would she risk losing that by opening up to Babs in a moment of weakness.

But that was why B's hand, gentle and soothing, was almost bringing tears to her eyes. Damn. It. Fuck, being on the receiving end of a little bit of caring felt good.

"Why don't we start with some Tai Chi to warm up?" B said when they got to the mats as she furiously blinked and wiped her eyes under the pretense of putting up her hair. "I'll lead you through the forms," he was saying, "and you can follow. Afterwards, we'll do the katas together."

"Sounds good," Steph answered with a relieved smile on her face.

She felt more than her muscles start to relax as B led them through the slow stretches and poses of the Tai Chi. Every single day found her plagued with an overflow of anxious emotional energy, leftover from her nightly routine of neverending nightmares. She did a lot of stretching and conditioning by herself as part of her daily training, but none of it ever seemed to help relieve her mental stress, no matter how hard she tried to meditate like B and then O had taught her.

But now, as Steph followed B into each languid movement, she felt her spirit's ceaseless chatter gradually turning down the volume until it became a dim hum in the background. And then, finally, she was nothing but her breath and the flow of the chi - mingled with an overwhelming gratitude to God and the Universe.

She had come back. She had come back, back to her home, back to B, back to Mother Gotham. And miracle of all miracles - B had come back, too. They'd each once thought that they'd lost the other for good - but here they were again in the Batcave, Batman and Robin, their movements flowing together in a rippleless pool of synergistic energy.

B glanced over his shoulder at her as they finished the first form and he got a startled look on his face.

"What?" Steph said, when she noticed how he was staring at her.

"You're crying," he said in surprise.

"I am?" she said, reaching her hands up to feel her unexpectedly damp cheeks. She sniffed in surprise and rubbed her eyes. When she looked up, B was headed towards her with a clean towel.

"Are you ok?" he asked her, his blue eyes turned dark with concern as she wiped her face dry. "We can stop if you're not up to it today," he said, laying a warm hand on her shoulder as he looked down at her, trying to parse out the reason for her upset.

"No, I'm enjoying the Tai Chi," Steph said honestly. She paused, considering the source of her tears. "I think I'm happy," she finally said. B quirked his eyebrow up at her with a disbelieving smile.

"Really," she insisted, even though her own smile came out a little crooked and wobbly. "I'm so happy that you're alive," she said, her voice becoming hoarse. "You're alive and I'm back home. I never thought we'd be together again, B," she said, more tears starting to flow, but she laughed a little bit through them with the sharp-edged joy that was overwhelming her.

His eyes melted with warmth as Steph's watery ones looked up at him with sparkles of light dancing in them, despite the fact that she was drowning in tears. He stepped forward and pulled her into a hug.

It wasn't the tight, desperate, proof of life, rib-cracking hug that had marked their two previous reunions from the dead. No, this time his touch was light as a butterfly and as comforting as a cocoon. Steph gratefully melted into it, letting him wrap her up in his arms, as she rested her head on his shoulder.

She didn't realize that she was crying again until he started gently caressing the back of her head, which felt so good that she began crying even harder. She hoped that B couldn't tell the difference, that she was crying now not because she was happy, but because she was so tired of being alone.

Despite her much-coveted position as a Bat, and despite her mom having finally achieved sobriety, and despite being enrolled in college where a normal person would be making lots of friends, and despite having bonded with Dick and Damian in the two years since B had seemingly died, Steph felt so lonely. Her emptiness was a raw wound that she'd buried inside her as deeply as they'd once buried her empty coffin, and she took great pains to make sure that no one suspected what lurked underneath her bubbly exterior - except with B, apparently. Huh.

"We've had a rough road, you and me," he said into her hair as his arms cradled her with just the right combination of strength and tenderness. "Looking at you all grown-up reminds me how much time I lost. How much time we both lost," he said with regret. Steph sighed into him, barely registering how naturally she was molding herself to his body as he held her.

"At least we're both here now," she mumbled into his shirt.

"Yes," he agreed, gently tipping her head back so he could look down into her face with a smile. A real smile. A smile similar to the one he'd given her upstairs in the Manor, the kind that Alfred said that B never made in the BatCave - except this smile was even warmer than upstairs. More genuine and less dazzling. Not as breathtaking, maybe, but way more toe-curling.

Steph was smiling back before registering that her tummy was fluttering with those damn lightning bugs again. Persnickety little creatures, shining wherever and whenever they wanted to. Most unfair.

"Let's keep going with another form," she said resolutely, because tiny adorable glowy bugs of happiness and joy be damned. She could keep her stupid fantasies shelved!

But B kept smiling at her as he let her go, and he was still smiling when he glanced over his shoulder from the mats to make sure that she was ready to begin the next form. And Steph wasn't an expert at reading body language like Cass was, but when B faced forward again and began his movements, she swore that even though all she had to go on was his back muscles for clues, he was one hundred percent most definitely still smiling. For her.

Steph was glad that she was standing behind him because, Spoiler Alert: she was still smiling, too.

A/N - more to come! I'll post a new chapter every day. This fic is completely written.

You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble