alwaysroomforhope | (no subject)

(no subject)

Steph is really hoping this will just be a quick jaunt. A really quick one. She's still not sure why, exactly, she agreed to go with Babs to visit Gotham. Sure, she misses it, but - she still can't ever go back.

She's fidgeting with her security badge uncomfortably, half-turned to speak to Babs as the Door opens; she breathes in deeply before setting her shoulders and shutting her eyes and stepping through.

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Barbara's right behind her, swinging the door shut before Stephanie can really get her bearings and change her mind.

Which is good, because as soon as Steph opens her eyes and looks around, she immediately grabs for the doorhandle again, face full of fury and fear.

She knows that skyline. She knows that streetscape. They're on the Hill, and Gotham is spread out and burning below them, people screaming and sirens wailing. She's walked this way once before.

"Babs!"

The door does not open into the warm, friendly light of the Bar when she grabs it - just into a dank, miserable lobby.

"Let's go." Barbara's voice is cool. Professional. She's in mission mode.

And she's rolling forward toward a cluster of buildings that looks abandoned. Except Steph knows that they're not.

"Babs, what the fuck?"

Steph presses her back against the door, wide-eyed, shaking her head. (Actually, a little into the door; it is the ghost thing.)

"What the actual fuck are you doing?"

This was supposed to be a fun visit, not a guided tour of Steph's worst nightmare.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Babs asks in that same cool tone. "I'm correcting a mistake."

Stephanie Brown wasn't supposed to die. Not tonight.

"I'm not going in there."

Steph isn't breathing fast, because she doesn't need to breathe, being a ghost. But she'd absolutely by hyperventilating if she could.

"And you're not going in there, either!"

"Wrong on both counts," Babs shrugs. She certainly hasn't stopped her chair, for one thing. Though, perhaps oddly, she's adjusted her course slightly, angling for an alleyway a hundred yards or so from the front door of the not-really-abandoned building.

Steph isn't moving. She's going to wait right here. Babs will come back when she realises Steph's not following, right?

Oh, wait. Babs.

Steph jerks herself into motion, hurrying after her to grab the arm of her chair. In theory, this is enormously rude, will probably result in her getting an electric shock, but will turn Babs around.

In practice, her arm just goes through the chair as if she isn't there.

"Babs! Stop!"

That cool tone is a bit strained when Babs speaks again. "I've been planning this for too long to stop now."

Three years is a lot of planning, and waiting.

"I don't know if you've noticed," Steph says, a bit shrill, "but you're in a wheelchair and I'm a ghost! What the hell are you going to do?"

Babs smiles slightly. They've almost reached the alley. "Rendezvous with our backup." Obviously.

The backup in question is in the alley, leaning nonchalently between her motorcycle and a wall, examining the fingers of her leather gloves and apparently completely oblivious to the chaos around her.

She looks up when Babs returns with a floating ghost.

"Took you long enough."

"We're ahead of schedule," Babs responds with a roll of her eyes. And Dinah knows it.

"You make the schedule, Babs," Dinah says, detaching herself from the wall with great effort. "You don't tell me what it is."

Not that Dinah asks much, She trusts Babs to work out the details.

Steph's face is a bit like: ;alsdjf;laksfjas df.

"You - you brought Dinah into this?"

"Well, hello to you too," says Dinah who has been brought into it and clearly had no free choice in the situation at all.

"There's me thinking you'd be sick of being dead by now."

"And I'm in a wheelchair, and you're a ghost." As Steph had just so helpfully pointed out.

Steph splutters a bit, but - well, it does make sense. It isn't her they're rescuing, after all, just an alternate timeline version of her. Babs's version.

After a second, she sighs and puts her hand over her face. "You know, you could have told me you wanted to do this."

"Let's get going." Apparently Babs wasn't going to answer Steph's point. Besides, what was she going to say? 'Yeah, I could have'? Or 'Well, I didn't'? Because both of those were true, but not exactly helpful.

Dinah grins at Steph instead, cheerfully cuffing her on the shoulder as she heaves her bike into an upright position. She's only just arrived in the city, and hasn't had time to stash it somewhere yet.

"So what's the bar like when you're from?"

"I just left Halloween," Steph says, attempting a smile. "So ... you know, the usual."

Her heart is, surprisingly enough, not really in the banter. Not when they're here and another version of herself is dying horribly just a few hundred yards away.

"Do we have an actual plan, Babs? Last time it was - it was just me, you know. I don't think you even knew about it."

"I didn't," Babs agrees. "But I do now." So of course she has a plan. "I just need you to lead the way."

To where it all went down.

Steph would frankly rather lead the way into a lion's den.

But it'll be worth it, if they save the Steph in Babs's timeline. At least one of her should get a chance to live.

She sets her shoulders and nods, lip caught between her teeth. "It's a couple of stories up. There were arched windows -- like those, up there. That's probably it. That's - yeah, that's it."

The window, and the staircase, and the gun, and she'd crawled out the ground floor door, and --

Oh. A gunshot, loud and close by. Steph's hand flies to her shoulder in reflex.

Babs scowls. There isn't an easy way for her to get up there, she suspects. Elevators are out almost everywhere, and she doesn't do stairs.

"How much time do we have?" she asks Steph, voice actually growing urgent.

Steph glances from Babs to Dinah, still rubbing her shoulder. It actually hurts.

Actually, everything kind of hurts. Not as much as it did then, but -- it still hurts.

"He - he gloats for a little while," she says, deliberately keeping her voice firm. "I don't remember how long. Then he leaves, and I - and she escapes."