30 Days of Demonfire

Stephanie Brown

"Nightstar," Oracle says into my earpiece. "Purse-snatcher in the area. Two blocks north of you."

The night's been kinda quiet. Bruce took the night off and my dad didn't even need to be Batman for the night. Which is good. I hate it when my dad has to wear the cowl. I find the snatcher, but the lady he took the purse from is gone. She's probably fine. If there was real trouble, Oracle would have told me to move faster.

I land across from him in the dark alley he's chosen as his cover.

"Sir," I say as calmly as I can, like I'm talking to a child or to my cat.

"You a cop?" the man dressed in dark clothes asks, and it's too dark for me to get a good look.

"Yes," I sigh, rolling my eyes. "I'm a cop. This is our new uniform."

"You're one of those Bat-types," he says. "You're just a little girl. I bet I could teach you a thing or two about being a woman..."

Gross. It's gonna be one of those nights, huh? Fine. Whatever. I can roll with it. "Sir, I don't think that's your purse you're holding onto there. If you give it to me, I'll tell the cops you were cooperative."

He throws the purse on the ground and he pushes me against the brick. All it would take is an eyebeam right to the face and he'd back off. I'm not scared.

He reaches into his coat and pulls a knife out of an inner pocket. "You an' me are gonna have a good time," he says, twirling the knife. "Or I'm gonna be forced to mess up that pretty face of yours."

I charge up my eyebeams, casting a pink glow from my eyes that eerily illuminates the alley. A shot off the knife would send it flying to the ground and I bet lover-boy's attitude would change real quick.

But I hear a cape in the wind and near-silent boots on brick and I change my strategy. "I don't think my boyfriend would like that very much," I say sweetly.

Narrowing his eyes at me, the man lowers his knife. "Boyfriend, huh? What kind of boyfriend leaves a girl like you all alone at night? Where's this boyfriend of yours right now?"

Smirking, I say, "Right behind you."

The man turns, startled, and as he turns Robin drops down from the rooftops above us, landing in a crouch in front of my thug friend.

"Hey, man, I didn't mean–"

"Shut up," Robin growls, and throws a punch that knocks the thug against the brick.

Robin doesn't beat him up too badly. We're not supposed to do that. But he is pretty mad, and he's swearing at him in muttered Arabic as he clasps handcuffs over his wrists. I take my new friend by the collar of his shirt and I drop him in front of the police station, then I fly back to collect the purse and see if Robin's still there.

He's leaning against the brick with his cape drawn closed, glaring a hole into the ground. I land in front of him and he still doesn't snap out of it.

"Hel-lo," I call, waving my hand in front of his eyes, and he raises his head to look at me. "Look, I don't need you to come looking for me on patrols. I'm perfectly capable of–"

"I know," he says, annoyed. "I was not coming to save you. I was coming to see you."

That was almost sweet. I ignore the warm bubbles that rush up from my stomach and I say, "Oh. Well, good."

"You should not have to deal with that sort of disrespect," he says. He's mad about that creep making a move on me. But he's not mad because somebody was hitting on his girlfriend; he's mad because somebody was hitting on me. He's mad for me, not for himself, which is fantastically great and all but I don't really know how to handle it.