Chapter Text
Maybe, Stephanie thought, as she curled up on the ground and weathered the repeated kicking Clayface had decided to deliver to anywhere he could reach, Batman was right and she really wasn't cut out for this whole vigilante thing.
It was a bitter thought, but not a particularly new one. Batman had made it clear as many times as it took he thought she was useless, and it was difficult not to feel that way when she went up against actual Rogues.
She felt something grab her collar and lift her up, flailing knives and batarangs that just sunk uselessly into his gooey mudlike flesh. She wished it was actual mud instead of some weird dna-shifting mess of protoplasm, because knowing that, she could never really get comfortable with all the bits of it that stained her costume. Mud was natural, somewhat, and washable. But fundamentally this was more like skin and cartilage sticking to her shirt and cape and that was so much grosser.
"You can't hurt me, little bat," he growled, slamming her against a wall, then considering for a moment before doing it a few more times, until Steph could feel something sticky and warm trickle down the back of her head, her brain rattled around in her skull. "But I can hurt you."
"The other Bats..." she coughed. "They'll stop you."
Clayface seemed to consider that, too. "They always do... don't they?"
"They do." She smiled with teeth stained red from her own swallowed blood. "And they'll do it again."
"I can't beat them..." he worked through, slowly, and Steph tried to wriggle free from his grip only for the mud to circle and suspend her by the neck. "But I can beat you..."
Stephanie clawed at the mud choking her, feeling her vision start to darken before Clayface finally let her go, falling gasping to the ground.
"Let's try this out for a change." Stephanie felt him shove her over, rolling her onto her back and climbing on top of her. "Open wide."
Her eyes shot to the biggest they could be as he shoved one massive muddy arm into her mouth, reaching down her throat with steady, squelching pumps. Compared to being choked off the ground, this was so much worse, the disgusting taste of his slime coating her entire tongue and the inside of her mouth as all she could do was punch and kick uselessly against him.
In optimal conditions, she knew she could hold her breath for three and a half minutes.
Choking on mud, feeling it push through her nose, and fill her stomach, Stephanie didn't last one before she felt herself black out.
+<>+
It was a slow and hazy trip, waking up in the Batcave's medical cot, and she knew long before she recognized the eccentric interior, where she was. She recognized the painkillers more than anything. These were the good ones, she was doped to high heaven right then, and despite that she was going to have to give a report on what happened any second.
Nobody ever said being a Bat was easy. Actually, they usually said the opposite.
"Spoiler. Report," Batman's classically restrained voice came from beside her. She hadn't seen him approach, but even when she wasn't off her gourd on pain medication, she never did.
"Feel like shit," she mumbled.
"What happened?"
"Clayface robbed a thing," she waved a hand, vaguely. "Store, on Eighth. Stopped him stealing, but..." she coughed, throat still feeling absolutely disgusting after the encounter. "He got me good."
"Did you see where he went?" Batman pressed, and even from her half-floating mental state, she had to raise an eyebrow at that.
"Thought you guys were gonna stop him. Thought he was gonna kill me." She coughed again, throat raw and ragged.
Batman looked to the side, exchanging looks with some other member of the Bats, she was sure. "Clayface wasn't there when we found you, but he left the stolen goods behind. Something else must have scared him off."
Stephanie thought for a moment, as difficult as that was in her current state. "...Hood?" She asked, eventually.
"Wasn't in the area."
"Shit..." Stephanie closed her eyes, determined not to let herself cry in front of Batman again. "If I just stayed awake a little longer, I could have seen what scared him."
"Or died." Cassandra placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, approaching silently from her other side. "You don't worry, Stephanie. We take care."
Stephanie cracked a smile at Cassandra's uneven English, flashing her a thumbs up. "Thanks, Cass," she said, weakly, and Cassandra squeezed her shoulder with a smile of her own before backing off again.
"You're benched for two months," Batman said. "Use the time to recover," he moved away, "and reflect."
"Another brilliant superhero job by Stephanie Brown," she muttered to herself, sarcastically. "Really killing it out there, Steph."
It didn't take long for her to fall asleep again, but it took much longer for her to wake up. When she finally came to, the entire cave was empty and only dimly lit, her wounds had apparently recovered somewhat, even though everything still hurt, but she could tell she'd been swapped off the strong stuff onto something that'd give her a bit more clearheadedness, and she wasn't quite sure how much she wanted to think right then.
What she could tell was that she was hungry. Starving, actually.
"Alfred?" She called out into the dark cave. "...B?"
No response.
"Great." Stephanie was only able to stand waiting another two minutes before taking out her IV and sliding off the cot. She was lucky she'd apparently managed to avoid any broken bones, since trying to maneuver a cast through the occasionally slippery stone floors of the Batcave, she spoke from experience, was a complete nightmare.
Making her way to the elevator, and moving up to the mansion proper, Stephanie navigated familiar halls before finding her way to the kitchen and hopefully a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the absolute bare minimum.
"Bread... almond butter, no, peanut butter yes," she moved the offensive sandwich topping to the side. "Blackberry preserves, yes please."
"Late night snack?" Barbara's voice came from behind her, and Stephanie jumped in place, somehow avoiding pulling any stitches, but it felt like a near thing.
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Shit." She clutched her bruised ribs, leaning back against the counter to turn to the apologetic Batgirl.
"Oh god, sorry, Steph, I just got back from the Watchtower, didn't hear you got hurt." She reached for her, concernedly. "Are you alright, what happened?"
"'Sfine," Steph forced out, waving a hand. "No big deal, just Clayface roughed me up a bit. I gave as good as I got."
It wasn't true at all, but somehow Barbara's inability to keep that disbelief out of her expression hurt more.
"If you say so," she said, unsure, but changing the subject anyway. "How long you out for?"
"Two months." She turned back, ostensibly to keep making her sandwich, but also so Barbara couldn't see her expression when she said it.
"Yikes." Barbara passed her, opening the fridge to look inside. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm not quite dumb enough to fight like this." Stephanie scowled down at her sandwich. "See how I feel in a month."
"It's probably not a bad idea to take the full two months, you know." She bent over, digging into the fridge's bottom drawer. "You've been going hard at it, maybe you just need some, unf, downtime."
Stephanie felt her eyes drawn downward, watching Barbara's ass sway slightly as she tried to work some tightly packed food free. The sweatpants and tshirt she was wearing were a far cry from her usual tight leather costume, but even like this it was impossible not to notice the toned and rounded shape.
If she had an ass like that...
Jealousy wasn't a new emotion for Stephanie to feel looking at a member of the Bats.
But this...
Stephanie felt heat pool in her stomach, mouth drying as she stared.
"Got it." Barbara pulled back, standing up with a pint of brightly colored ice cream in hand. "Steph? You alright?"
"What?" Stephanie's eyes blinked back to hers. "Oh, yeah. Fine. I'm... yeah, I'm all good."
That was... not jealousy.
Huh.
Stephanie bit into her sandwich, deciding to table that for a while.
"You hit your head, didn't you?" Barbara smiled, wryly. "You got all the signs of a concussion, are you sure you should even be out of bed?"
"I didn't 'hit my head'," Stephanie retorted, a bit defensively. "It wasn't like I tripped and fell cause I'm just that clumsy, I got picked up by a supervillain and slammed repeatedly into a brick wall."
"Whoah, sorry." She held up her hands. "That was bad phrasing on my part, I apologize."
"I'm so sick of it." Stephanie went to her supplies again, spreading peanut butter to make another sandwich. "I go to school and I'm top of my class. I go climbing I get record times, I step one foot in this house everyone treats me like a goddamned invalid."
"I didn't mean anything by it, Steph," Barbara said, gently. "Nobody wants to put you down, we're just worried about you cause we like you, and we don't like seeing you get hurt."
Stephanie finished her second sandwich, palms flat on the counter with her hair falling messily around her face. "You know that's not true."
Barbara blinked, surprised. "What's not true?"
"'Nobody wants to put me down'?" She echoed. "'We're worried cause we like you'? You know that isn't true, of everyone."
She bit her lip. "Jason-"
"Not Jason." She shook her head. "Don't screw around Barbara, you know Bruce hates me."
"Bruce doesn't hate you. If he hated you, he'd never let you in here, secret or no secret. He just..." she scratched the back of her head, uncomfortably, "doesn't always know how to show it."
Stephanie spread out another sandwich, angrily spooning the ingredients onto the bread. "You know, I wish you could feel it, sometimes. Cause to you, it has to look like Bruce just giving me a hard time, like he did you, but I tell you, when he looked at you I can guarantee what he saw was potential. He knew you could be a great superhero, knew all of you could, with the right guidance, and even if he gave an effort at pushing you back from becoming heroes, that's what he saw and that's what he damn well did. But you know what he sees when he looks at me?" Barbara opened her mouth to answer, but Stephanie kept going before she could. "He sees a stupid kid who's going to get herself killed, that's what. He doesn't think I'm a hero, doesn't think I ever could be one. He sees nothing in me, a big fat zero on the potential scale, and I really like you Barbara, but you have no idea what that feels like."
"I don't..." Barbara laid a hand on her shoulder, making her turn to face her. "I don't think Bruce sees no potential when he looks at you. It's just hard, after everything, for him to go through another student, another kid, to... get attached."
"And that," Stephanie removed Barbara's hand from her shoulder, moving away, "is why I wish you could feel it."
"Steph," Barbara followed after her, ice cream in hand. "Steph, come on, don't walk away mad."
"I'm going to bed." She waved a hand irritably behind her. "I have a concussion, remember?"
Barbara stopped following her not long after that, and Stephanie went back to the Batcave, to sourly climb back into the medical cot and try to sleep. For once, it wasn't the pain that was stopping her.
"Stupid Barbara, stupid Bruce." Her fists tightened around the sheets, bunching them up in her grip. "I don't need them to believe in me. I don't quit."
Even if it killed her, like Bruce and Cass, and whoever else thought it would, she wouldn't quit.
She was a hero, and that wasn't going to change.
+<>+
Stephanie had her arms crossed, sitting up in bed to glare down at the sitting apologetic Barbara.
"I'm sorry, Steph," she said, a surprising amount of genuine emotion coming through with the words. "I didn't mean it, I hope you know that."
"I know." Steph's glare lessened, somewhat. "It's just frustrating."
"I know what it's like to be frustrated," she said, consolingly. "Maybe there's some way I can help..."
Stephanie mulled it over for a moment or two. "Well, I guess more time sparring on the mat is out for now, but short term if you bought me a couple fresh strawberries it'd go a long way."
Barbara laughed, sliding closer. "Fresh out of strawberries, Steph." She leaned closer, and Steph felt her hand slide beneath her shirt, soft fingers brushing against Steph's stomach. "How do you feel about cherries?" She asked, lowly, lips brushing against her cheek.
Steph felt her head dragged to the side, lips parting to let Barbara in, kissing her more and more hungrily, devouring her tongue, hot and wet and-
Slimy.
Clayface.
Stephanie jerked up, eyes blinking to adjust in the nearly pitch black cave. No sign of Barbara anywhere, but the remnants from the dream clinging to her despite that. The feeling of Barbara's hands feeling her up, of her kiss on her cheek, her tongue in her mouth...
Stephanie clapped her hands to her cheeks, waking herself up a bit more in an attempt to banish the far too vivid images from her dream.
"Jesus, what is up with me?" She muttered to herself, her thighs unconsciously rubbing together around the wetness that had gathered there while she slept. "Straight as the cut of a fucking diamond one minute, I get the shit kicked out of me, suddenly it's ogle my teammate season."
She thought for a moment. "I mean, I guess it's not the first time I've done that. Tim I-"
As the thought of Tim's ass or pecks came into her mind, Stephanie was suddenly overwhelmed with revulsion so strong she had to clutch the side of the cot and cough into the air because she thought for a moment she was going to throw up anything left in her stomach onto the floor.
"What the hell?" She tried thinking of Nightwing, Hood, Signal, but all of it produced the same effect: pure, almost foreign, disgust.
She dove for the table beside the bed, flipping her clothes around and digging in her pocket to pull out her phone, typing in to google the most pressing question of the moment.
'can concussion make you gay?'
Her eyes flicked back and forth, taking in several articles talking about rare cases where someone's sex drive went into overdrive after a traumatic brain injury, or stopped functioning altogether after the same.
No mention of swapping preferences.
"Decrease in inhibition. Increase in thoughts of sex, increase in sexual frustration, increase in personal irritability, come on, there has to be something that..." she froze, going up to the search bar at the top and typing in something else.
'poison ivy sightings gotham'
She scrolled through a few, flumping back into the cot with a sigh. Not even close. She was clear on the other side of town when Steph got attacked, even if she'd adapted some kind of new love pheromone that didn't make people love her exclusively, just women in general, and also feel disgusted by men for reasons Stephanie had no idea where to even begin grasping.
So... what? She was just gay now? Out of nowhere?
Cassandra's smile flashed in her brain, and Stephanie felt a bit of warmth in her chest at the image.
"I guess, not a hundred percent out of nowhere," she allowed. "I always thought Cass was cool, but never like... that."
Her image of Cass warped, imagining her naked far too easily with her usual skintight outfit as reference and feeling a surge of heat from below that made her clap her legs together in surprise.
"Shit. Okay, I definitely like that, got the memo." Her right hand twitched to do something about that, but with some difficulty she forced it down again. Out of ways she truly did not want to receive the disappointment of Batman, being caught jilling herself in the Batcave was very high on the list.
She really wanted to get home, but until she'd recovered more, that'd be...
Stephanie looked down at herself, tapping a few places like her arms and ribs experimentally after she noticed.
No pain. No wounds?
How long had she been asleep for?
She checked the clock on her phone. Two days after the fight with Clayface. She figured it probably took her at least a few hours after being brought to the Batcave to wake up, then she went to sleep for a while, made those sandwiches, went back to sleep and... two days? Really? A day and a half would have been concerning, but two full days made her wonder just how long they had her on the heavy painkillers after they brought her in the first time. No wonder she was so hungry the second time she woke up. Even the IV wouldn't have helped much with that.
She frowned, thoughtfully.
Two days also wouldn't have been enough to fully heal all those cuts and bruised ribs.
Maybe another Leaguer was in the Cave for something else and just sprinkled a little magic healing on her or something. Zatanna could do that, couldn't she?
Stephanie's mind instantly went to fishnet tights wrapped around juicy thighs.
"Jesus Christ, I get it." She jabbed a finger toward her nethers. "Down girl, not the time."
In her head, she ticked the 'increased libido' option for post-concussion her to the 'probably yes' category.
Removing the IV that had at some point been replaced in her arm while she slept, Stephanie climbed off the bed, looking down at the wet spot clearly left behind where her crotch was.
"Yeah, that's..." she covered the spot with the covers, hiding it from view. "There we go. That'll sort itself out."
She grabbed her clothes, changing quickly before walking to the elevator and out the front door, glad the sunrise was just barely cresting the horizon, so she still had a bit of time before the other Bats returned.
It wasn't like they had a wholly consistent schedule, but if they weren't back by the time the sun started to rise, it was usually a safe bet they'd be out another hour or two in some capacity, civilian or otherwise.
Stephanie climbed onto her bike and rolled down the road toward Gotham proper, wishing not for the first time that she had permission to use any of the multiple cars Bruce kept, even the non bat cars.
As she rode along, her head kept getting invaded by thoughts of Barbara, Cassidy, Zatanna, and whoever else randomly popped in there, either naked, or kissing her, or... occasionally becoming even more explicit.
Stephanie didn't have a lot of experience with sex, but she wasn't a virgin, which was what made the lack of any kind of specifics in those images so frustrating. In her head, she knew roughly what lesbians did together, but none of those pictures really came together, it was always hazy and disjointed.
She made it into Gotham proper, pedaling down grimy streets and on-fire trashcans in the lovely city she called her own.
That's when she encountered something she really should have figured on: cities tended to have women in them.
It really wasn't that they were any prettier than Cass or Barbara. In fact, going by athletic shape, facial structure, style, smile, personality, any reasonable measurement pertaining to Stephanie's tastes, there wasn't a chance any old random Gothamite could compare.
The only advantage they had right then was proximity. Somehow, that fact alone was enough for Stephanie's apparently sex-crazed mind to start picturing them naked.
It wasn't all the women, more the ones that fit what Stephanie was quickly coming to realize as the broad range for her new type. Fit women in a variety of hair colors and a distressingly large age range suddenly fell under her leering gaze as she cycled through the city.
But somehow, after what felt like an absolute eternity, she made it back home.
The few seconds it took to fiddle with the apartment keys felt like hours, and when she finally slammed the door open and shut behind her, if she saw her mom was home, she would have cried, but for once luck was on her side and she was able to lock the door and make it to her room, tossing her bag to the side just in time to land on her bed and strip her pants off her legs.
Her tshirt was still on, scrunched uncomfortably from the hurried way she jumped on her bed, and feeling far too hot and oppressive in that moment, but as Stephanie reached a hand into her underwear, it was far too late to think about removing it.
"Fffuck." It felt like she was reaching into a tap of boiling water, her drenched pussy puffed up and angry from the lack of attention. She'd barely brushed against the outside before she felt her hips buck forward against nothing, so sensitive she couldn't even recognize her fingers as her own.
"You don't worry, Stephanie," she imagined Cass sliding up against her, whispering to her roughly in that adorably imperfect way of hers, and suddenly it was too easy to imagine the fingers were hers. "We take care."
Teasing carefully around the edges, brushing against her clit that felt impossibly sensitive before spreading her apart and digging two fingers inside.
"Fuuuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Steph cursed at herself, back arching against her pillows at the imaginary Cassandra's ministrations.
She chuckled, and what must have been a pillow pressed into her side shifted to be her, pressing up against her, warm and soft. "It okay, Stephanie. You let go now."
Stephanie came, spraying over her bed in a way she never had before, her frustration finally boiling over into this electric orgasm rocking down to the tips of her toes.
Her hand wouldn't stop.
"Come on, Steph, you didn't really think we were done before, did you?" Barbara on her other side, older, teasing, and suddenly the hand was hers. "We're not going to stop until you're aaaaall worn out. It's really the safest way to make sure you don't hurt yourself."
Steph bit her lip, rebelling against the words, until the hand cupped her roughly, palm rubbing against her clit, making her cry out.
"Don't pretend this isn't for the best," Barbara whispered, lowly. "I've been doing this a lot longer than you have, and experience," three fingers dipped in, stretching her wide in tune with the intensity of the words, "always. Wins."
She came again, her other hand sliding up to her shirt to cup sensitive breasts from underneath her bra, gentle and agreeable one moment, rough and commanding the next, still her fingers hadn't stopped.
"Always so sad," Cass whispered, solemnly. "Why not let help? We help. Let help."
"You want to know your potential, Steph?" Barbara chuckled, lowly. "It's this. It's always been this. You're just a toy for the Bats to pick up and put down whenever we want. Now be a good little toy," she smirked, the image so real it felt like it was burned into her brain, "and cum for us."
Stephanie screamed, cumming again, over and over, until exhaustion coated her like the juices destroying her bed, Cassandra and Barbara banished to the corner of her mind they came from and her hands finally stilled.
"Fuck." Her neighbors definitely heard that. She just had to hope it wouldn't make it back to her mom, or she'd be wondering just what her 'night job' was teaching her.
Stephanie threw her arm over her eyes, every part of herself shaking, too hot and too cold all at once, and heart feeling like it wanted to beat out of her chest. "What is wrong with me?"
Cass and Barbara were her friends, her coworkers. She thought they were great, but that... she'd never done that before. Never touched herself to any of the Bats, at least not since becoming one. She'd ogled a bit, sure, admired, but never gone that far, even for a moment.
This felt like she'd crossed that line with a backflip.
"I gotta get to Doctor Thompkins for a CT, figure out how much Clayface managed to rattle my brain." She sighed, bracing herself to get out of bed before finding all of her limbs were absolute jelly. "Or tomorrow. Tomorrow I can do that."
Stephanie's eyes slid shut, finally, for the moment, sated.