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The thing about having all your secrets exposed to the public is that it only really hurts the first time.
Steph’s dear old dad took care of ripping off the bandaid when she was dead. Steph only found out about it once she returned to Gotham, and her mom broke the news to her that the entire world learned on live TV that she was Robin, and that she’d died in the process. Fun times.
It was actually kind of nice, once Steph got back and became Batgirl. People could just come up to her during lectures at college and mention a problem they were having, and she’d go out at night and take care of it. No one snitched on her, in fact people were actually real decent about it. It was weird. Almost felt unnatural.
So. Her secret identity was far less secret than everyone else’s. But this was around the same time Steph got let down by Batman, started a gang war, got tortured, and died. When she heard the news she almost laughed, because wasn’t that just par for the fuckin course? Even in death she couldn’t stop making life more difficult for the bats. Honestly, out of all the shit her dad had done that one didn’t bother her too much. She mostly just felt bitter about it, because if Arthur Brown’s love only came in the form of trying to take down Batman after she died, he could keep it and shove it up his ass. If he’d been less of a shit father Steph wouldn’t have wound up as a vigilante in the first place.
But whatever, all of that was in the past. Steph was Batgirl, had a decent support system, was somehow a core member of the bats now, and had the most badass woman in the world as her girlfriend. The general public knew all about one of her worst moments? Well they could watch her recover and thrive and prosper. Robin hadn’t been the end of her story. Just a chapter in it.
Nothing could knock her down. Not permanently anyway. Not even death had been able to accomplish that.
So when Steph woke up to seven missed calls, fifty texts and one ominous message from Bruce Wayne that just stated “Call me.” she didn’t panic. Just yawned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
“Babe.” She elbowed Cass’s sleeping form, and her girlfriend grunted in response. “Any idea why your family is texting me like the world’s ended?”
Cass shot up, wide awake at the hint of danger. She fumbled with her own phone, squinted at the messages, and then shook her head and flopped back into the bed.
“Dumb PR stuff.” Cass muttered into her pillow, eyes already drooping shut again. “Not the end of the world.”
“Cool.” Steph reached down and kissed her cheek. “In that case I’m gonna make breakfast before dealing with all of it.”
“Waffles?”
“Had them yesterday with my mom. Not in the mood for that level of sweetness again today.”
“But the chocolate sauce.” Cass pouted. “I love the chocolate sauce.”
“Yeah?” Steph grinned. “Then make your own damn breakfast.”
Cass grumbled something probably insulting, then burrowed beneath the duvet like the blanket hog she was. Steph loved her so much it scared her a little sometimes.
She made her way into the kitchen and poured herself some cornflakes with the last of the milk. (Cass never restocked groceries, she just realised they were out of something and used that disgustingly large amount of Wayne money to order a refill delivery. Steph felt a part of her soul die every time she answered the door to someone delivering basic groceries like milk and eggs.)
Only once she had her morning coffee and a full healthy breakfast including an apple and a granola bar, did Steph finally open her phone again to see what all the fuss was about. The answer slapped her right in the face as soon as she opened Tim’s texts, a screenshot from four different online news sources all showing similar versions of the same headline.
Former Robin Stephanie Brown dating Bruce Wayne’s daughter? What does this mean for the relationship between Wayne and Batman?
Steph let her head fall forward until it hit the table with a satisfying thunk.
“Fuuuuuuck.”
“It’s not that bad.” She hadn’t even heard Cass come in. “They still don’t really care who I am. Just that I’m a Wayne.”
“Not that bad for you.” Steph grumbled. “I’m gonna have to dye my hair and wear a fake mustache for my next lecture. How am I meant to be getting a Masters in Criminology when everyone knows I’ve committed crimes regularly as a teen?”
“They won’t care. Robin commits good crimes. Like Catwoman when she steals from the rich guys and gives it to charities.”
Cass’s calm confidence actually made Steph pause her stressed ranting, mostly because if Bruce ever heard Cass say that part about good crimes he’d probably cry himself to sleep. She wasn’t wrong , but Batman loved to pretend certain parts of the law didn’t apply to him. Steph pictured the way his jaw would clench and he’d sulk into his cape, and it was a funny enough mental image to calm her down slightly.
“Glad to know you’re taking this well.” Is what Steph replied in the end. “How bad are the rest of the gang handling the news?”
“Damian and Duke made fun of us, Jason posted anonymous tweets saying Bruce should add you to the will, Barbara is waiting until we can talk before doing her internet deletion spree…” Cass ticked each name off on her fingers. “Helena said to tell you that she’ll fight Bruce if he gives you trouble, Dick is stressing out and Tim is stressing out too. Bruce is Bruce.”
Bruce is Bruce. Never a good sign. Steph sighed, and opened her phone again. Might as well bite the bullet.
Saw the news. Should we just say nothing and let it die down?
Normally when she texted Bruce it took him two full days to respond. She’d actually tested this with Cass and Tim, all of them texting him at the same time to see who he’d respond to first.
(Cass won. No one was surprised.)
Today Bruce responded in less than five minutes. The sinking feeling in Steph’s gut increased. His text was short, with a link attached.
They’ve made a Reddit post about you. It’s trending on multiple social media platforms.
Steph clicked the link with morbid curiosity. The original post was pretty well done, calculating an accurate timeline of Steph’s journey as Spoiler, Robin and Batgirl along with educated guesses on when she and Cass began hooking up based on when she started showing up in photos with the Waynes. They were way off with their guesses, but for a theory it wasn’t that bad.
Things started getting worse in the comments. Someone theorized that Bruce Wayne had secretly adopted her and that she and Cass had kept their romance hidden to avoid being labelled incest. Someone else said that she and the third Robin had dated previously, and they’d even had a secret baby together. Maybe Cassandra Wayne was a cover to support her secret rekindling of the Robin romance? One random comment talked about how she always looked tired in her lectures, and how they thought it was due to crimefighting but maybe it was due to the large amounts of lesbian sex she was now apparently getting.
The weirdest comment was someone who mentioned seeing her buying waffles in the grocery store. That comment alone was not too bad, just a little creepy. But several replies to it turned into a full blown conspiracy that waffles were apparently her favourite food and that she was responsible for the one time the Waynes had been seen eating them at a diner. The amount of upvotes almost made her lose faith in humanity.
“Seriously, what the fuck.” Steph grumbled. “I eat them like once a month. It’s a special bonding thing with my mom. Why are people assuming it’s my favourite food over one instance?”
“It’s the internet.” Cass shrugged, nestling her chin on Steph’s shoulder so she could watch her scroll. “People are silly.”
“Well your dad doesn’t seem to appreciate the silliness.” Steph swiped back into her chat with Bruce, the reddit comments were starting to get slutshamey and homophobic, and she really didn’t need to see any of that. “What should we tell him?”
“That the Waynes don’t matter. Only Batman.”
“Oh I see.” Steph grinned at the cheeky smirk on Cass’s face. “You want to deliberately trigger another isolation spiral for him.”
“If we have to suffer… everyone should suffer.”
“The world should be so grateful you never became a supervillain.”
In the end, they made their way to the batcave and had a calm, reasonable discussion with Bruce and Barbara.
That calm, reasonable discussion escalated into a screaming match. But the important thing in Steph’s mind was that they tried. Everyone had passionate opinions, which was a good thing! They’d get the team cohesion aspect down eventually.
Bruce was mad about the publicity being a security threat, Babs was mad about it being an invasion of privacy, Cass didn’t care, and Steph… Well she didn’t like it. But she didn’t know how she felt beyond that. Leaning towards a mixture of Babs and Cass probably.
The real problem was how Bruce intended to solve his own worries. Namely, by having Steph and Cass sit down with freaking Superman for a public interview to ‘clear the air’.
“Why does it always have to be Clark Kent?” Steph didn’t know why that was the issue she chose to voice, but fuck it. “I mean, surely he’s got better things to do than this? Why don’t we just use Grace O’Halloran or something? We know she’s clean.”
Bruce gave her that special glare Steph liked to think he’d created solely for her.
“This is too sensitive to be left to the public.” He growled. “It has to be someone who knows both sides, civilian and vigilante.”
“Why does this need to happen at all?” Cass had a scowl on her face that rivalled her father’s. “It’s stupid. We need… less publicity. Not more.”
“No, we need the right kind of publicity. An interview that puts an end to all the rumours flying around and sets the record straight, that’s what will fix this mess.”
The way he said “mess” while side eyeing Steph was enough to get her to raise her voice in complaint. He matched her tone in response, and soon everyone was yelling. They only stopped once Damian and Tim came down to see what the commotion was, and Bruce growled out that they were doing the interview and that was Final.
At which point Cass threw a batarang into one of the monitors and stomped away. Steph liked to think she would have done the same thing if she knew it wouldn’t end with her being banned from the cave yet again. Instead, she just stuck her tongue out at them all and followed Cass upstairs.
Cass marched into the living room and flopped down on the couch, watching the daily Gotham news on TV with her arms crossed and a dark frown on her face. Steph sat down next to her, curling her arms around her girlfriend despite how pissed Cass looked.
“It’ll be fine.”
“Not doing the stupid interview.”
“Barbara agreed with Bruce that it would be the best way to control the narrative.”
“She doesn’t know everything.”
Steph didn’t dignify that with a response. She just curled tighter around Cass, and prepared for the inevitable.
They did the interview. Steph made the tactical decision to leave the Clocktower while Babs convinced Cass. Whatever she said had Cass coming back to their apartment with tears in her eyes and her fists balled up, but she told Steph that they were doing the stupid interview.
And if Babs had managed to convince Cass, Steph knew better than to try and fight that. So she put on her nicest, cleanest shirt and a pair of slacks she only wore when she went to those ridiculous five star restaurants Cass convinced her to try, and together they made their way to Wayne Manor for an exclusive video interview with the Daily Planet.
“Just treat it like an undercover mission.” She whispered to Cass as they walked in.
Cass nodded, sharp and jittery. It did not inspire a lot of hope, but hey, Steph was an optimist. At least Clark’s welcoming smile was kind. He counted down with his fingers before the camera switched on.
“Hi I’m Stephanie Brown.”
“And I’m Cassandra Wayne.”
“And we’re here with the Daily Planet to answer all your most burning questions.”
Alright, go team. They hadn’t botched the first few lines.
“Lovely to be here with you.” Clark sounded sincere, bless him. “I suppose we should start off with the most pressing question according to the Internet: What is your relationship status?”
“Girlfriends.” Steph said.
“Partners.” Cass said at the exact same time.
Clark only winced a tiny bit with his eyes. Steph kept her smile bright and sunny even as Cass let out the fakest sounding laugh beside her.
“By partners I mean dating.” Cass clarified. “Partners together. I’m a lesbian and she’s my lover.”
“Although who knows?” Steph grinned. “We might end up making great business partners too in the future.”
Cass slapped her shoulder incredibly lightly and let out another false laugh. She was really nailing the fake persona thing. Steph felt genuinely delighted by that.
“I see.” Clark’s smile was genuine. “And when did you first meet?”
“Oh what like… Seven? Eight years ago?” Steph looked at Cass, who nodded. “Back when we were both shithead teens. It’s a funny story actually, we met thanks to Cass’s brother Tim. Back then he was a family friend of the Waynes and Cass was like... Not technically adopted but everyone could tell Bruce wanted to, he was just scared about overstepping.”
“She came over to my house.” Cass picked up the story, a fond look in her eyes as she smiled lovingly at Steph. “And I was really into gymnastics back then. So was she. We should have bonded over it. But I was uh…”
“A shithead?” Steph winked.
“The shittiest.” Cass blew a kiss back at her with a smirk. “She asked me for tips. I told her to become faster and walked away.”
“Awww you remember.” Steph’s giggles were only slightly exaggerated for the camera. “I can’t believe you still managed to woo me after that.”
“You wooed me first.” Cass shook her head with a laugh. “I fell hard without even wanting to. Luckily, my heart didn’t listen to my head. Best decision ever.”
“How long have you been together?” Clark was a good reporter, he actually sounded invested in their relationship drama.
“It’s weird,” Steph twirled some hair around her finger. “We were in that in-between phase for a long time, you know? We were best friends, then we both moved away from Gotham for a while, life took us in different directions. And when we came back we didn’t know what to expect. But if anything we clicked even harder. I know for me, that’s when my feelings really began to change. It took a loooong time for me to realise I was bisexual and be comfortable with that, I had a lot of shit to work through. But I was spending every day with Cass and we were basically doing everything couples do except kissing, and after a while I just couldn’t stop asking myself: Why not? Why aren’t we doing the kissing part too?”
Cass nodded along throughout Steph’s entire speech. When the focus switched to her, she met Steph’s eyes with an intense gaze.
“I’ve been in love with you since I was eighteen.”
Oh.
So Steph didn’t actually know that part. This was brand new information to her, and Cass’s nervous stare convinced her it wasn’t a lie for the cameras.
“You have?”
“When you saw me training. Martial arts instead of gymnastics this time. And you asked to train with me. And even though you sucked you wouldn’t give up. You kept coming back. And then you left and there was this hole that hadn’t been there before. And it made me sad. I didn’t understand why.”
“When did you know?” The rest of the room was nothing but background noise, all Steph’s attention was focused on Cass. “When did you realise?”
“When I lost you.” Cass admitted softly. “And when I saw you again. After you came back. I saw you and I knew. And it hurt, because I didn’t deserve you anymore. Maybe I never did.”
“Hey, no. You’ve always deserved me.” Steph reached over to grab Cass’s hand. “Neither of us are perfect, that’s what made us click in the first place, right? You fucked up, I fucked up, we’re both more than a little fucked up in plenty of different ways. It works for us, yeah?”
“Yes.” Cass nodded, and she brought Steph’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “It does.”
Clark coughed awkwardly, jolting them both back to reality and the camera still rolling.
“So how did your father react when you told him you were in love with Stephanie?”
“Badly.” Cass said flatly. “He’s not a homophobe, just has issues with her specifically. Stupid issues.”
“Uh…” Steph’s brain raced as she tried to figure out how to spin that.
But before she could Cass stood up.
“The interview is over now. I need to go kiss my partner. A lot.”
“Right.” Clark nodded, seemingly too relieved to be free of them to point out that wasn’t how interviews normally worked. “I’ll find a way to make the footage flow smoothly. Have a nice day girls.”
“Thanks Mr Kent.” Steph waved as Cass dragged her out of the room. “Sorry you got roped into this!”
Clark waved goodbye, and Steph got the small joy of knowing that she’d somehow managed to make Superman sweat.
Probably just due to the sheer awkwardness of witnessing their confessions, but whatever. A win is a win.
The interview aired. Bruce and Babs somehow edited the footage in a way that satisfied both of them as well as Clark’s journalistic integrity. The love confession went viral, and people started caring more about how much they loved each other than the fact that Steph was an ex-Robin and Cass was Bruce Wayne’s daughter.
Was it weird seeing a vulnerable moment with your girlfriend trending on Youtube, with comments talking about how they hope a love like that found them someday? Most definitely. But Steph had seven new hickies, a tired but content girlfriend curled into her side, and the knowledge that the coolest woman in the world was not only in love with her, but had been pining after her for years.
The public could have that video. They could have her time as Robin. They could even have their weird fucking waffle conspiracies.
What Steph had with Cass? The thing they shared between them every time they looked at each other, every time they touched, every time Cass kissed her with a desperation built on years of history? No one would ever have that but them.
And Steph wouldn’t have it any other way.