browngirl

Four ficlets. PG at most, really. DC owns, I scribble.

"And then he told me to quit, can you believe it?" Bette's Valley Girl accent may squeak with rage, but those are real muscles bared by her spaghetti strap top. Steph nods, watching Bette's shoulders flex as she throws her arms wide, like she'll hug the whole room. "He wanted me to give this up. The nerve of the man! Even if he founded the Titans, even if he's a hottie."

Steph looks out at the multicolored spandex and glittering decorations of the Watchtower Year-End Holiday Party, and nods more vigorously. She didn't get that bullshit from Nightwing herself, but he is a Bat; God knows she got it from Batman, and not even Tim stood up to him for her. Not even Cass did. "Yeah," she murmurs, watching heroes dance and chat and mingle, people taking a break from saving the world. "I know what you mean."

"I know you do; you've dealt with the Big Bat himself," Bette says, voice lower and a lot closer. Steph glances over at her and her face is full of a secret, her smile sly on pink lips. "You wanna know what I think?"

Steph leans a little closer too, till her hair brushes Bette's. "Maybe I do."

"I think you're better than he'll ever give you credit for. And I think he can keep his lousy snowy city." Bette's hand settles on Steph's arm, light and warm and inviting. "I'm going home from here, and I could use a partner." Bette's eyebrows tilt up a little. "Come for a visit? Try it out? We could use some nice deep purple around town."

To California, and away from Gotham? Steph grins. "I'd love to. But it's eggplant."

"Eggplant, then," Bette repeats, memorizing it, and her teeth shine when she grins back.

This one is filled with dragons. Dragons, swordsmen and women in very impractical outfits, and bursts of light and music that signify magic. Steph shimmies in place as she plays, ducking and lunging with her character's movements; Tim sits still, mostly, but muscles along his spine and in his shoulders twitch beyond what's needed to operate his controller, and sometimes the ends of his hair reverberate with hidden bounces. Cass lies on her stomach between them, watching them play a video game on the equipment Steph insisted Cass needed "to make a Cave a home!"

The dragon falls with a rubbery bounce, the lights onscreen flash white and blue, the music swells with victory. Steph cheers, punching the air; Tim smiles, watching her. Cass is watching her, too, but she can feel Tim's smile in his side when she rolls back against him as she sits up. She'd meant to stand up, but Steph offers her the controller. "You sure you don't wanta play, B.G.?"

"You know she likes to watch," Tim says; Cass glances back over her shoulder, and he's smiling with his mouth and thinking about how Dick would do this, cheerful and mischevious and braced for a hit all along his body. So she just returns his smile, enjoying watching him be so happy.

Steph shrugs and gets to her feet. "Stay on this one, or Tomb Raider?"

Tim snorts. "You do remember my father's an archaeologist? Tomb Raider is completely unrealistic."

"Oh, and Dragons' Lair's just the height of accuracy." Steph tosses her hair, then pauses. "Well, we do live in Gotham."

"Don't remind me." Tim leans back, stretching his arms and shoulders. "Let's just finish this one and go in search of pizza. Sound good?"

Cass nods, and waits for Steph to say, "Yeah, that works!", and watches Tim push his stretch, breathe deeply, and relax.

Then she hits him.

"Want some pizza?" Mia sits down across the table from the blonde girl with a bluish black eye and a big red coat. She looks a lot like a picture Mia saw in some files Robin showed her, of a smiling girl in dark purple spandex silhouetted against Gotham's skyliner. Except that she's not smiling, really not-smiling, shoulders hunched as she picks at the slice of veggie Mia handed her.

Mia doesn't know why she cares, but she asks gently, "You still mad?"

She gets a one-eyed surly glance, before the girl goes back to poking at the pizza, eventually pulling off a piece of breaded eggplant, smiling lopsidedly, and eating it.

Mia sighs and sits back, looking around the pizza place, at its greasy walls and cheesy sports posters. With its crispy pizza and its cheerful, unflappable staff, it's a favorite of hers, or rather, Speedy's; Roy used to come here back in his day, and he brought her here pretty soon after she started. Right now it's nearly empty, just the guys behnd the counter and a couple of boys making out in the corner who could care less about teenage capes or anything else besides each other.

"No," mutters the girl. Mia snaps her head around, and finds her companion glaring at the pizza. "No, I'm not mad. I--- you could've taken me in and everything. I'm not mad."

"Good. Good. Um." Mia fidgets her bow a little. She could've, really. She's still not sure why she didn't just arrest the girl when she caught her, dressed in purple and jeans with a bag on her back, nimbly kicking the crap out of a big guy as he cried like a baby. But... maybe it was the wide eyes of the kid with the torn shirt, the way he looked at the girl like she was his hero. Maybe it was the sleeve from the kid's shirt still clutched in the guy's hand. Maybe it's Mia's vague certainty that she can place this girl. "So, you got a name?"

"Spoiler," mutters the girl, tugging a black olive off the slice and dropping it.

"Pretend I've seen the movie," Mia says, putting a little Stern Hero into it.

The girl snickers, as wanly as she'd smiled. "No, really, I'm the Spoiler. I'm --- I was --- a cape in Gotham."

"A Bat?" That makes the girl wince, and fold up even tighter. "Oh." So. "Hmm." Make a joke, Mia, make a joke. "Here on a college visit?"

"Huh?" Spoiler blinks, and then starts laughing, a little hiccupping in it like she hasn't in days. "Huh, no, I... no. I'm just passing through. And you've been really great to me." She smiles, soft and real. "Especially considering. Thank you, Speedy."

"Where're you going?" Spoiler's vague motion confirms Mia's suspicions. She's been there before with nowhere to go, and she knows who else has. "Yeah, I thought so. C'mon."

Spoiler's eyes narrow and her jaw sets; no wonder she fights in a full-face mask. "Speedy, I really like you. I don't wanna have to fight you again."

"You mean, you don't wanna get beat again." Mia smirks teasingly. Really, it was a lucky shot, and the net-arrows are actually useful.

Spoiler smirks back. "It was totally a lucky shot."

Mia grins. "Mmm-hmm." And gestures, holding out her hand. "I'm not taking you in, Spoiler. I've got someone for you to talk to."

"I'm not going back to Gotham," Spoiler says stubbornly, but she gets up. "So don't---"

"Please. Are you coming, already?"

"All right, all right." Spoiler nods, hefting her bag. "Where we're going, you have any mashed potatoes?"

"I think we can manage that," Mia says. Roy's gonna get a kick out of this, she thinks, as she watches Spoiler's shoulders unhunch, and smiles.

A thousand years in the future and five solar systems over adds up to the worst jet lag ever, and Cissie's got her bow ready but really, with her eyes all blurry, she couldn't hit the far side of the Pentagon. The sky looks mostly the same, even if the buildings, well, she hopes they're buildings, because they aren't even squarish, they don't look familiar at all. While she's listing off wishes, Cissie hopes really hard that Cassie and Secret made it here, that Kon wakes up, and that Robin gets back from talking to whomever he went off with, the green jerk and the blonde girl in pink.

And where the hell is Bart?

Cissie grips her bow a little tighter, squeezes her eyes shut and cracks them open, wishing they'd focus and her head would stop throbbing.

A blur whisks past. "Bart?" Cissie calls. She needs him, and she needs him to stay still. "Impulse? Could you---"

"He's right," a girl's voice whistles past, Doppler-shifting. A momentary blur; a female speedster? "You really--" Cissie's hair and skirt ruffle in the breeze spun around her. "--are pretty." Light warm taps to her cheeks, and she lifts her bow, but... it doesn't feel like an attack. "Really pretty." And another, on her nose, before the blur whirls together into a girl with Bart's friendly eyes and a long swinging brown ponytail. "Hi! I'm XS! It's good to meet you! You're Arrowette, right? You're so pretty!"

"Uh--" is all Cissie manages to say before the speedster girl -- XS? -- babbles on, speeding up, hands waving too fast to be seen. "And you've got lovely archaic weapons, wow cool! We don't have any low-techers on the Legion right now, and the dampening field stops energy weapons, this'll be just what we need---"

"Wait, wait," Cissie gasps. "Wait, what?"

"You're with the Legion," XS explains, smile big and wide. "The Legion of Superheroes. The rest'll be here soon, they sent me ahead to say hi, I told them to bring a stretcher for your friend. It's so good to meet you. And Bart's right, you're really pretty."

Cissie opens her mouth, and shuts it, and giggles despite herself. "It's nice to meet you too, XS," she says, lowering her bow.