#cxinwayne

Sleepovers with Cass were always fun. Growing up, Steph didn’t have a lot of friends. People didn’t take to her for whatever reason, no matter how hard she tried, so to have someone like Cass meant the world to her. Even in the quiet moments like now where they were simply laying on her bed as a Spotify playlist played on Steph’s laptop in the background, changing into one of her favorite songs.

“Oooh!” Steph beams and sits up abruptly, getting off the bed and making grabby hands at Cass. “Dance with me, Cass!” She let out a huff of breath to get the mess of curls out of her face as she beamed at her. “Pretty please with like six cherries on top?” She jutted her bottom lip out as she leaned in closer to curl her fingers over the other woman’s to try to pull her up to her feet.

Dick was... distracted.

Okay, maybe that was an understatement. Dick was beyond distracted. Gotham, Bludhaven, and New York were all in states of disarray, facing chaos from pumpkin gangs (seriously?) to mouthy sewer rats, and Nightwing needed to be out there, needed to be keeping the peace and making sure people were safe. But all Dick Grayson wanted to do was sit with his parents, talk to them about everything and nothing.

It was a whole new kind of dilemma. 

He was sitting on a rooftop in full Nightwing gear, fingers thrumming against his knee. He’d asked his parents to hang at his apartment, which was stupid. They were ghosts, so he was pretty sure there was no danger in letting them tag along if they wanted to. But... The idea of even potentially seeing something happen to them, after that fateful day on the trapeze nearly two decades ago? It made his heart pound and his stomach drop. So he was sitting on a rooftop, alone.

Well. Maybe not alone.

She wanted him to hear her. He wouldn’t have known she was there if she didn’t. Cass had always been good at sneaking, even when it came to sneaking up on people like Dick who were trained to see everything coming. He tilted his head to let her know he knew she was there, waited until she stopped at the ledge behind him. “Hey,” he greeted. “You been fighting pumpkins? I haven’t figured out how to, like, arrest them yet. Where do you put the cuffs?”

Finding out that Cass was back in Gotham had Steph practically vibrating with excitement. It had been ages since she had seen her best friend after she had gone to Hong Kong. There was so much she had wanted to tell her, to sit on the couch with her and play Mario Kart while they inhale snacks that Alfred made for the pair. There was also a part of her that was excited for Cass to see her donning the purple and black of her Batgirl uniform once more. The one she had initially packed away deep in her closet, reflecting on how she didn’t deserve the bat symbol that was on her chest. Not anymore. Not as much anyway, she had more faith in herself.

Landing on a rooftop, Steph beamed to herself when she saw the familiar form of one Cassandra Cain. Knowing fully well she’d hear her coming, Steph all but rushed over to hug the girl tightly from behind, the ‘welcome back!’ was muffled against the back of her shoulder before she picked her head up. “I missed you. We should get some pizza, rooftop pizza sounds killer right now.” Steph steps back and smiled at her, an almost nervousness creeping up on her at Cass seeing the Batgirl uniform before her once more.

Kori was plenty familiar with the various bats. Whether that was working with them herself a time or two before or through stories she had heard from Dick. She felt she practically knew them all herself. Had seen flashes of curly blonde hair under a cowl or the red and green and yellow of a familiar Robin suit that had evolved over time since she had seen it dawn on the man she had known for years. She knew that they were secretive, seemed to keep to their familiar close-knit group. A dysfunctional one, but close regardless. So to step into Gotham and not immediately be confronted or told to leave was a feat in itself. 

Coming across the woman she had recognized as one of the bats and a younger sibling of Dick was surprising, especially with the rubble of the building that was blocking her way to get to a man on the run. Kori landed on the rubble and offered her a hand, “Would you like some assistance. He will not get far.” 

To a certain extent, this would have been a great moneymaking scheme, having Halloween decorations all coming to life. But that should have been done in an nice, organized, not being remotely threatening way. John might well have done it himself if the price had been right, but then again, he might also have accidentally conjured up something like this--ruddy pumpkins that were going around and harassing people. That just was not right no matter how you sliced it, and he was more than willing to slice up those gourds if they did not stop.

"Oi, you wanna pick on someone yer own size?" John snapped at the pumpkins, which turned from the people they had been going after and started after him instead. "Oh bollocks." He took a few steps back, and nearly bumped into someone. "Ah, sorry. But uh, don't look now, 'cause there's a horde o' soddin' pumpkins headed our way. Which is not somethin' I ever thought I'd be sayin', even in my line o' work."

@cxinwayne

Daisy had both hands up and a goofy smile on her face. "Well, to be fair, that quake was not me." She had a feeling that it was Rictor replying to her quake. A terrible habit that she had let herself fall into. And one that pissed off humans and mutants equally. She could almost hear Fitz yelling at her to knock it off — or May giving her that icy stare that said a thousand things without her lips moving. (It was horrifying to imagine.) Her hands dropped to her sides, and she motioned towards the alley between them and the next building over.

She looked over the edge and hummed slightly. "I was hoping that they'd take it as a warning and take off," she admitted. "Bad guys never pick the easy way, do they? Which is also probably not a surprise, huh?" Daisy offered the other her hand, a symbol that they'd be a team for a night. "Do you ever team up with someone who doesn't wear a mask? I mean, I can put on eyeliner and like... draw one on, but that would be weird."