As soon as sniffled, her nose running has it had been for the last few days, Tim's voice crackled in her ear, finally sending her in the right direction of something interesting. It was just a mugging, apparently, but it was better than sitting on a rooftop trying to fight off the cold that had overwhelmed her sinus' for the last few days.
She dropped off the roof, taking what she hoped would be a short cut down the alley and around the block. Keeping to shadows the way she had been trained to, her boots barely a faint patter against the broken gravel. Maybe Stephanie was being a little too ninja spy, but she was bored as hell and this was the first time she could move her ass all night. God only knew what time it was, anyway.
Spotting the pair, Batgirl paused, observing for a few moments, looking out for any weapons or back-up the guy might have. Though, if this was a basic mugging, she highly doubted he would have any goons tailing him, but this was Gotham and in Gotham you could never be too sure of anything. Especially not the way this guy dressed. Tall, lanky, slacks, a crisp white dress shirt, - he dressed far superior to most muggers in the city.
That's when she noticed in, the leak hair, the pornstache.
She froze, her heart racing. No, it couldn't be. He was dead, he was dead and gone.
Yet here he was. Manhandling some innocent girl probably walking home from her part time job to pay for her families addictions. How old was she? Certainly not more than fourteen? Fifteen? She was so skinny, her clothes hanging loose from her frame, blonde hair in a messy bun. Poor girl was innocent in the hands of this bastard.
❝Jim-❞
Batgirl moved.
She jumped out of the shadows, in one swift movement, dropping low to kick the mans legs out from under him. Bastard better stay down, if he knew what was good for him.. Her eyes darted to the girl, straightening up and offering a sympathetic hand. She looked terrible up close, much worse than she had thought from the alley. Sunken eyes, creases around her lips, pale, shaky.
What?
In the awkward silence, the man on the ground managed to get up, take a swing and connect with the side of Stephanie's head.
❝You're going to regret that when you're recounting the tale to your perverted buddies and have to admit-❞ she swung, connecting with his jaw, lunging into full attack against this man while the girl took off in the other direction, muttering something about crazy blonde bats and needing to get clean before she really starts tripping, ❝that you didn't bring home a... treat because you got your ass handed to you by a girl.❞
That was it, it was all she cold say as she became breathless, swinging at the man and kicking at his stomach. Murray was gonna pay if it was the last thing she did. He was going to be put in jail and punished for his crimes. All the little kids he touched, all the children he ruined because of his sick fetish - she immediately shut down all communications between her and the cave, shutting out anything Tim or Bruce or anyone else might have to say. No, they weren't going to hear this. They wouldn't hear his pleads to stop or her brutality.
She was seeing red and becoming sloppy, her hands slick with blood - both her own and the drug dealers. There was no logic running through her mind, only pain and vengeance. This was no longer a fight between Batgirl and a drug dealer - this was a fight between Stephanie Brown and Jim Murray, the man that had be the cause of so much of her torment in her childhood. This was pure, unethical, savage revenge.
He needed to feel her pain and she wasn't going to stop until he did. Even if he died.
Wait. The sudden thought of killing him made her stall. That wasn't her, was it? She wasn't a killer. She had allowed Jason to kill those men on her behalf, she had watched the bullets puncture their bodies and bleed to death without doing anything to help them. Didn't that already make her a killer?
Rage flowed through her veins, tears and blood streaming down her face as she took a swing. Yes, she could kill. She could kill him. He could be the exception to the rule.
It was seconds to late and he had a small blade out by the time she made contact - the blade sliding through the Kevlar and into her stomach. Shit that stings. Immediately, she falls to her knees, warn to the core from the emotional and physical agony of this evening. She was bleeding, she knew it, but she couldn't react. She could only sit and watch through blurring vision as the man bolted in the opposite direction.
❝No,❞ she whined, using the wall to brace her steps until she could gather her focus again, ❝No!❞ Her voice was stronger, but she was too late, Batgirl had recovered too slowly - Bruce would surely have something to say about that - and he was gone, out of eyesight, probably off to his hideout or whatever he used to keep his deplorable actions a secret. Where ever he had hid out for all this time.
But she would spend the rest of the night searching for him - until she fell through her bedroom window at sunrise, pulling off her suit and pushing the equipment under her bed. She didn't bother changing into pajamas or checking the wound she had bandaged a few hours earlier. She didn't even bother trying to wash off any blood crusted over her body. She just fell into bed, exhausted and trying not to cry.