"Stephanie, get to Leslie's clinic.
NOW."
The voice of one Tim Drake crackled through her comms, startling the blonde from the rooftop coffee break she was taking. Scowling and using the edge of her cape to dab at the spilled coffee on her chest, she responded absently.
"No names on comms, or whatever…"
"I swear to Go- Batgirl you are the closest. We're sending back up. Silent alarm was tripped. Assassins."
Jumping to her feet, coffee falling from the roof to the street below as she took flight, deploying the grapple, a scowl setting in across her usually bright features.
"Lead with that next time, genius. Same as last time?"
"Looks like it. Just get to Leslie."
"Yeah yeah, I'm going…"
A few minutes later, crawling through a window to the emergency clinic of Leslie Thompkins, Stephanie frowned, slowly turning her head.
It was quiet. Eerily quiet. And dark.
Activating her lenses and scanning the building slowly, she found a cluster of signatures, towards the back office.
Letting out a slow sigh, Steph pressed forwards, dread welling from the depths of her stomach, pouring into her chest.
"Sitrep, Batgirl."
A new voice. Not Tim. He wasn't joking about backup. Cass. She let out a shaky breath, and spoke in a low whisper.
"Clinic is dark, no eyes on Leslie. Room full of heat signatures. About to investigate."
"We're still ten minutes out, don't do anything stu-just stay alive."
Tim again.
Lips twitching into a reflexive smile, she shook her head.
Almost like old times. Batgirl, Robin and Spoiler.
Almost.
She wasn't that person anymore. She was smarter.
Slowly cracking open the door to the office, seeing the would be assassins standing around the desk, Leslie sitting at it, with one more man, older, stood behind her, sword slowly drawn across her throat, resting there.
A precarious situation, but other than harried, Leslie was as of yet unharmed.
Keeping her hands in sight, Stephanie moved a step into the room, a weak smile pulled across her lips, before her mouth opened reflexively.
"Sorry I'm late, Leslie. 'Cross city traffic this time of night, you know how it is…"
'Oh my god. You just never stop, do you. It just falls out. There's no off switch to the mouth, is there?!'
As Batgirl took her step into the room, the assassins shifted, for the sword wielding man to wave them away, eying the blonde.
"I had been hoping for the Detective."
"Which one, the big broody one or the small sad one?"
A beat, before he narrows his eyes slightly.
"I see I'm not the only one that recognises Timothy's skills."
"Oh, yeah, sure. Skills. Obsessive disorders. Same difference."
Steph looked around the room, counting the assassins, before looking back to the man.
"Awful lot of killers for a li'l ol' doctor, don'tcha think?"
Also casting his eyes around the room, to what she could only assume were hand picked men and women, his mouth curled into a sneer, a familiar sneer, and before he could say whatever pretentious, condescending thing was going to spill from those curled lips, Stephanie gasped, snapped her fingers, and pointed at him.
"Oh! OH! I get it now! The sword! The 'I'm so great' attitude! You're the Gremlin's granddad! You're Ra's al Ghul!"
The comms in her ear crackle to life again, another voice, not Cassandra or Tim. Bruce. Her habit of leaving her line open paying off in her favor for once.
"Do not engage. Do not do anything to start a situation. I'm asking a lot of you right now, Batgirl, but stall. We're on the way."
You didn't have to tell her not to fight Ra's twice. She wouldn't if she didn't have to. The second part might be a little harder, what with her mouth having a mind of its own. However beat of silence and awkward shuffling between the assassins who weren't sure how to react to the declaration told Steph she was onto something.
Stalling engaged. She could do that.
You know. Probably
With minor stabbings.
Turning her gaze and lowering her pointed finger from the Demon's Head and tapped at her chin, getting ready to keep yammering.
"That makes sense now. I'm following. Ok…"
The sneer faltered, only slightly, setting into a displeased grimace. An expression Stephanie was all too familiar with from many a person.
"I expected better from the Girl Apprentice…"
Legitimately taken aback at being called an apprentice, she screwed up her face, flicking up the lenses, deliberately revealing more of the confused expression.
"Whose apprentice. Wh-?"
The sword lowered further, a flicker of his own confusion at Stephanie's very visible befuddled state, gesturing at her.
"... the Detectives. The Bats apprentice. You wear his symbol right now."
Shifting her stance from her slightly defensive, ready to react stance to one of being completely fed up, she flapped both arms in exasperation, then folded them.
"Man, I don't know where you've been getting your information, but he doesn't want me on the team, let alone consider me an apprentice. My presence alone annoys him to death. Do you know how many times I've been fired?"
Raising the sword tip again, having noticed it dipped, Ra's raised his chin.
"And yet, here you still stand."
Pulling a face, desperately wanting to get the blade away from Leslie, she shifted her weight again, unfolding her arms and putting her hands on her hips, looking at one of the assassins, sighing slowly.
"Yeah, I'm a slow learner sometimes. Not the brightest, y'know. I do a lot of stupid things…"
Hoping her one time foster mother followed along with the repeated idea of 'this is dumb' Steph dipped two fingers into a belt pouch and flicked the snagged green pod centered batarang towards Ra's.
If he was as arrogant as she thought he'd be he'd-YES
Striking the batarang out of the air with the sword, a mocking laugh starting in his chest, the goop, always the goop, impact triggered burst forth, spreading around him, encasing his sword and upper body.
As soon as the sword was away from her throat and encased, Leslie darted under the desk and out the door, which Steph pushed shut and stood in front of, like the world's strangest bouncer.
The rage, and confusion visible on his face as Ra's struggled against the already set candy green rubber cement like mix, two of the assassins trying in vain to pull at it, he nodded towards Stephanie.
"KILL HER?!"
Bo staff and a utility belt full of crap against a room of assassins, one of which is like a billion years old?
What was that about being smarter that she used to be?
So far, the suit was earning its keep, saving her skin from blades that she wasn't dodging, but it couldn't save her from bludgeoning, or her exposed facial areas.
Ten minutes seemed like an awful long time when multiple people are fixated on ending your existence, but Stephanie would die before letting anything happen to her family.
"You're loyal, Girl Apprentice. It's foolish, but admirable. That loyalty will get you killed."
The voice of the Demon's Head calls to her over the din of fighting. Reflexively, with a mouthful of blood, she laughs, spitting it everywhere.
"Sounds about right. But you'd be wrong. It's already gotten me killed once. It's just gonna be my thing…"
A crashing from both behind her, and the other side of the room announcing the arrival of her backup allow her another, louder reflexive laugh, as she sinks to her knees, signalling her body to stop creating adrenaline, to rest. She was done for now.
"Will you tell that idiot I'm not your apprentice, boss?"
A dark cape sweeps over her as her head hits the floor, her last memory of the night a displeased grunt of a response, the old team back together again as her eyes slip shut.