BAE Chapter 79

No one’s record is spotless. Stephanie is well aware that of all the people foolish enough to willingly get involved in this madness, no one’s record is worse than hers. Barbara is the golden child. And Bruce always went easy on Kate, maybe because she knew how to put on the right face for him.

Stephanie is different. Being fired twice isn’t even the worst of it. Those are just footnotes on her dumpster fire of a CV.

Now she’s behind the wheel of the Batmobile. Although naturally, Alfred isn’t letting her drive. She’s cruising back to the Cave, and the consequences of her actions are becoming apparent. She’s going to have bruises and there will be pain, but bruises and pain, she can handle. Judged against her track record, tonight looks pretty good. So even if it hurts a little to move and she’s not allowed to drive, there’s a smile behind her mask.

“Shall I prepare something to eat, Ms. Brown?” Alfred asks. As Gotham wooshes past the Car.

She’s about to ask for lasagna when Kate speaks up over the channel.

“Steph, you all done?”

“Finished,” Stephanie replies.

“You want to come and help me?”

The hesitation lasts about a second. Stephanie speaks before Alfred can.

“Of course,” she says.

“I’m on the roof of the Carlyle.”

“On the way. Alfred, can you change course to get me close?”

There’s a little hesitation on Alfred’s end, only a fraction of a second.

“Of course, Ms. Brown. Safe travels.”

“Thank you, Alfred.”

The Car roars back into the city and the canopy opens. Cold wind rushes into the cockpit and Stephanie stands up as the Car tears past traffic. She raises her grapple gun and fires.

To be fair, Kate makes her costume work. The dramatic wig and her vaguely hostile-looking mask connote all the right things to strike fear, which means something. A woman of average height simply has to work harder to scare criminals than a 6’4’’ man with bulging muscles. And no one ever talked about this, but Bruce’s boots are slightly lifted, giving him even more height.

Meanwhile, Stephanie looks like a purple ninja Halloween costume with a cape and a bat on her boobs. Now that she’s older, things like this seem easier to understand. Maybe she should’ve gone with pointy ears.

Their capes billow in the wind as they meet in the middle of the rooftop.

“Did it go OK? I heard the police chatter,” Kate says.

“Nothing serious,” Stephanie lies.

“Good. Looks like there’s a buy about to happen on Canal Street. There’s a dead zone because of sewer work. It’s not as obvious as an alley or an abandoned warehouse. I’ve clocked distributors staging from three different families. And you won’t believe who else. That girl, Lotte de Jong?”

“She’s here?”

“No. I think she’s probably still underground. But she had a gang, and one of the girls that I didn’t recognize here is a known associate from med school. I think this is a Seed buy. I have a drone camera watching it. I think whoever’s behind the street supply is going to show up tonight to sell another round to the distributors.”

“Out in the open like this?”

“Word's getting around,” Kate replies with a shrug. “Bats. More escape routes out here.”

“What do you want to do? What does Babs want to do?”

“Babs doesn’t know. We can try to shadow our wholesaler, but I think we send the best message if we do it Bruce’s way and just crash the party. I mean, with two of us it should be fine.”

Stephanie nods.

“We’ll wait until the supply is here. I’m guessing it’ll be a truck or a van. We want to hit that first, knock out the tires so they can’t leave. We hit them big and flashy and they’ll scatter. KO and bag as many as you can. I don’t care if a few of them get away.”

Stephanie considers it. It sounds good to her.

“I’m in,” she says. Cassandra could do something like this by herself in her sleep. Together, Stephanie and Kate should be able to handle it. “But we should tell Babs.”

“I will. I’m just going to leave out that it’s probably Seed. I don’t want her to overcomplicate it.” Kate touches her ear. “Babs, Steph did her thing already and now she’s with me. I have a buy here with low-level reps from all over. We’re going to watch until a supplier shows then break it up.”

Stephanie waits in suspense.

“All right,” Barbara replies. She sounds out of breath.

“What are you up to?” Kate asks.

“Training.”

Right. Barbara’s still having to be wary of the effects of Ivy’s ****. She’s also got her hands full with Wayne Enterprises and her PR campaign. And, apparently, she has a thing going on with Summer Gleeson. Busy girl.

“OK. We’ll clean up the streets of Gotham while you stretch. Kisses,” Kate says, and turns back to Stephanie. “Let’s get set up. They could show up anytime.”

Stephanie isn’t about to comment, but she’s taken aback and impressed by Kate’s professionalism. Her therapist has told her that she has a problem with comparing herself to other people. Maybe she does, but it doesn’t change the fact that literally every comparison objectively ranks her at the bottom. The worst Robin. The worst Batgirl. Now, she feels like the annoying little sister in this new team.

Team? Gosh. That’s what this is, isn’t it? She’s never been on a team before. Never been invited. Kate and Barbara both have, of course.

Of course.

Stephanie follows Kate to the edge of the building and joins her in looking down, taking in the dark street. Two street lamps are out, and the construction site for the sewer work is conspicuously dark. Kate’s drone buzzes up out of the dark and she catches it, folds it up, and puts it away before sinking to a crouch. Stephanie kneels beside her.

“That girl down there, vaping? That’s Lotte’s friend. She’s been there almost half an hour. Too cold for that. There’s a car in that alley, and the plates are registered to one of the Roman’s guys. Couple of others have made passes on the block and you see there? One, two, three, four—all of them loitering. They’re waiting for sugar daddy to show up with the goods.”

Kate’s read on the situation looks right to Stephanie.

Kate’s mouth becomes a frown.

“It’s a little clean,” she notes.

“What do you mean?”

“Organized crime isn’t always this organized. And it’s a little obvious. It doesn’t take a bat to clock this. If GCPD cruised by here, they’d be onto this in a second. And they haven’t cruised by. That’s interesting. Gordon needs to clean the house. Get in position and wait for my go-ahead. I mean that in the least bossy way possible,” Kate adds, looking over at Stephanie.

“You know, you’re pretty cool when you’re acting like this,” Stephanie tells her.

“Are you swooning for me?”

“Uh, no. That’s not what I meant.”

“Damn. Well, things didn’t go so well with my last blonde girlfriend. But to be fair, she wasn’t as pretty as you.”

“I was just being impressed with how on task you were, and now you’re flirting.”

“You just had your sexual awakening. I want to ride those coattails.”

“Riley Beaumont was not my sexual awakening. And you’re no Riley Beaumont,” Stephanie adds.

“Maybe. But Tim’s the one I have to compete with. And I like my odds against him,” Kate retorts.

Stephanie smiles.

“We’ll have to pick this up later, beautiful. I think it’s showtime,” Kate says.

There’s a big SUV turning onto the street. It’s a dead end with the construction. This is downtown, but not the part with money. A car like that? At this hour? Plenty of cargo space. Kate’s probably right.

Kate flits away to get into position.

As Stephanie gets ready to do the same, Barbara’s voice is in her ear.

“Stephanie, there’s a lot of chatter about the Moench Building. What happened?”

There’s no time for this. Should Stephanie tell Barbara the truth? Or downplay what happened?