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“So like, I am grateful for the help with Hatter’s goons,” Batgirl asked, “but what brought you to Gotham? It's a long drive from Seattle.”
"Long story, promise to catch you up later," Sienna replied. "How bad's the wait?"
"It's been worse. You good with a Batburger Deluxe?"
"Is it good?" Batgirl had decided after their patrol that, apparently, Red Canary had to try Gotham's famous chain restaurant. Frankly, a vigilante themed restaurant felt ridiculous, and Sienna couldn't imagine something like Batburger existing in Star City. According to Dinah, Ollie had yet to allow any non-local business to use his image in marketing. He'd allegedly gone on a rant about the evils of corporations the last time a company representative asked, leading to a lawsuit for emotional damages. He had yet to be bothered about it since.
"It's what I always get?" Batgirl offered.
"Cool, that works!"
"I'll be back there in..." A pause. "About ten minutes? Bats get special ordering privileges here, but there's still the line." Sienna hummed in affirmation, and Batgirl hung up.
Sienna swung her feet over the edge of the rooftop. It was still hard to believe that she was here, in Gotham. She'd made it to the level of heroism where she was fighting crime on the other side of the country! Even if she was mostly along for the ride with someone else, it wasn't like she'd expected to not have to work her way up the ladder like anyone else. She wasn't about to disqualify her own milestones.
And this wasn't just any city. This was Dinah's hometown. The home of Dinah's teammates. Sienna wasn't Birds of Prey-worthy yet, but... maybe someday. There was just something special about fighting crime in the city where Oracle worked.
There were, from what Sienna could tell, four types of hero team-ups. The first was what she considered team arrow to be: a group of people with similar skillsets and a shared history, who worked together pretty often. These were the most general and had the lowest 'barrier to entry.' The next step up was just like... friends that you fight crime with sometimes. Like Green Arrow and Green Lantern. That was what she had with Sideways: they texted, hung out every now and then, and texted the other when they needed help. Similar to that was 'cameo' team-ups, where you fight crime with someone you don't work with often. Either with a team you're not a part of, or with a single hero that you don't see much. There's usually a reason for these, and that was kind of what she'd done with Robin's team during the crisis. And then the highest tier was a legit team of people deliberately working together to fight crime. Like the Justice League, or the Birds of Prey, or the Titans.
Sienna had the first tier, and she had a friend or two, but she didn't really work with many heroes outside of Seattle and Star City. So yeah, she was still fangirling a little bit about getting to meet more heroes. Especially when they were more established than her. Maybe if she was lucky, Batgirl could get her Oracle's autograph.
It was one thing to know, in her heart, that being a hero was a choice that she made. It was an action she took every time she saw someone in danger and stepped in, every time she chose to put on the tights. But it was another thing to have other heroes acknowledge it. She didn't need their validation, but having it was nice. Being seen as an asset on a patrol, not a liability, felt like the world was listening when she insisted that she was serious about this and she wouldn't disappear. She wouldn't go sit in the metaphorical bus while everyone else fought crime. Not again.
She was so fucking glad that she hadn't run into Robin, even if she did kind of want him to see how much better she was.
Sienna hadn’t realized that she’d zoned out until she felt a soft tap on her shoulder and nearly (accidentally) leapt off of the roof. Fucking heroes and their uncalled-for sneakiness. “Hey!” she greeted, trying to play it cool.
“Sup,” Batgirl replied. She dug through the bag, handing Sienna a burger and leaving the large fries (which Batgirl had jokerized? Probably? That’s what the purple stuff was, right?) between them. For food from a somewhat insensitive, vigilante-themed fast food joint... it was weirdly good. She wasn't sure she'd like it in normal conditions, but Sienna had just finished patrol and was hungry. In that moment, it may as well have been the best thing she'd ever eaten.
“So,” Batgirl asked. “What’s the story? How’d you end up out here?”
“Black Canary was coming out here to see Oracle for something Birds of Prey-related,” Sienna said with a shrug. “I’m on winter break, so she asked if I wanted to come along. And like, I don’t have anything better to do, and she thinks I might be useful for something.” Dinah hadn't said what yet. Which would be a little annoying if she hadn't told Sienna up front that she couldn't say all of the details. Sienna wished she knew more, but it wasn't like she hadn't expected to be in the dark.
Batgirl nodded absently. “Seattle’s pretty boring?”
Sienna let out a small laugh. “Right now? Yeah. The pigs were interesting, but since then there's been nothing unusual. Small crimes, but no big fish.”
“Wish I could say the same for here,” Batgirl sighed.
Sienna hadn't heard of anything going on in Gotham. Probably because there was somehow always something fucked up going on in Gotham. "What is it this time?"
Batgirl shrugged. “Batman and Catwoman were at war recently. That sucked.”
"Yikes," Sienna replied with a sympathetic wince. "Everything Black Canary tells me about Gotham just makes it sound like a worse and worse place to live.”
A small chuckle. “It’s rough here, but it’s home.”
The two drifted into silence as they ate. Batgirl's mask was down, which was either a sign of trust or a sign that Batgirl didn't think Sienna would figure out her civilian identity. Which was correct, since she didn't think she could find it out, but also didn't really care.
"I see you stuck with the sticks?"
"Yeah! It was easier to stick with the weapon I was already learning how to use, you know?"
"You're getting pretty good with them. You been training?"
Sienna preened a little at that. It was hard to stand out in the hero world. Heroes besides Dinah almost never noticed her. The fact that Batgirl remembered her from the crisis was hard not to freak out about a little bit. "Yeah. I've been using a lot of YouTube, studying some videos of Nightwing... that kind of stuff."
"If you want, I can spar with you any time," Batgirl offered. "Well. Not any time. But I've trained with eskrima, and I know a couple tricks."
"Really?" Sienna asked. "That would be awesome! If you have time while I'm here, I'd love to!"
"Just find me on patrol sometime."
"I will."
"How long have you been in action, anyway?" Batgirl asked. "Because, like, none of us knew about you until you showed up."
"A little while? But like, I hadn't been a part of anything big until then. I was just doing small-scale stuff. I don't know if I would've gotten involved with the hero community at all if Black Canary hadn't..." Her voice trailed off.
"Do you have any main rogues or anything?" Batgirl asked, clearly in an attempt to shift the topic away from the deaths of the Justice League.
"Not yet. Not ever, if I'm lucky, but I doubt it."
"It might be a while, at least," Batgirl offered. "You chose to take up the whole hero thing, right? Without a connection to any of it? When that happens... it happens kind of slowly, but it starts to eclipse your life. You can only hide it from your friends, your family, for so long. Once a villain is obsessed with you, there's only so much you can do to keep them safe. I've seen it happen before."
Sienna stiffened. "I got enough shit from Robin, ok? I know what I'm doing, I—"
"Wait, no, I wasn't trying to stop you!" Batgirl interrupted. "I just. I've seen other people down this path before. The longer you're a hero, the harder it is to escape it. I mean, Robin's friend Arrowette tried to retire, and she keeps getting dragged back into things. I wanted to hide all this from my mom, even though my dad was a villain, and she still found out eventually. You're new, and I'm not going to act like you don't know what you're doing, but you deserve someone in your corner being blunt about what you're getting yourself into."
"I know," Sienna sighed. "It's... I know that this is the easiest it'll get, and the stakes will just get higher as I get stronger. This is what I'm passionate about. I just know that this is what I'm meant to do, you know?"
"Yeah," Batgirl laughed. "I get it. I started out with a specific goal, found out that this is my passion along the way. Batman was against me the whole time. Don't let them get you down, almost every bat has major control issues and thinks being an asshole will solve their problems."
"Why are you here?" Sienna joked. "I mean. Obviously it's your home. But I could not put up with them full-time."
"I just try to stick with Batgirl and Oracle," Batgirl laughed. "There's so many people you won't like in the hero community, but there's too many people that you will to care about the dicks."
"That's a relief," Sienna responded, only half joking. "I haven't met that many. I was a little worried that everyone was like that."
"Well, I'm not," Batgirl offered. "Here, let me put myself in your phone— Oracle's telling me that I need to leave soon, but this was fun and we should totally team up again sometime."
"Totally!" Sienna agreed, handing her phone over. There were four types of hero team-ups. Sienna had thought that this was the 'cameo' type, but she was starting to hope that it might end up being more of the start of a friendship. It'd be nice to know a couple more people in the hero community. "What does Oracle need you for?"
"Ventriloquist was spotted. It's all hands on deck."
"Mind if I tag along?"
Batgirl grinned, handing Sienna her phone back. "I thought you'd never ask."