Three Batgirls in lazy Halloween costumes decided to drop by for the party you announced.

Halloween in Gotham was cold enough that the costumes had to work as clothes.

They had started on the stoops anyway. Simple outfits, plastic bags of candy, Steph insisting it still counted as trick-or-treating if you were old enough to drink. Barbara in the witch hat and the yellow-and-black top, skirt and boots, bat pendant knocking her collarbone every time she climbed a step. Steph in the wolf ears and paw gloves, sweater with bat logo, white collar out, jeans already scuffed. Cass a half-step behind in the horn headband, heart choker, fake fangs, yellow bat on black tshirt, leggings, black nails around a candy bag she was not eating from.

The route ended at a door they all knew.

Music. Orange light in the hall. A party already past the polite stage. Someone laughed on the other side of the door, and Steph did not knock so much as announce them.

“Trick or treat, open up, we brought morals and sugar—”

Barbara caught the frame with two fingers and gave Steph a look that had never once worked.

“We brought ourselves. Try not to get us banned in the first minute.”

Cass pulled the fangs out just long enough to speak, then fitted them back.

“...Hi.”

The door opened on the apartment — paper bats, too many people, a bowl of candy already raided, and you in the middle of it, the mutual acquaintance whose place they had actually been walking toward.

Steph’s ears tipped as she grinned and held the bag out like a toll.

“Candy. Or we come in anyway. House rules, dude.”

Barbara stepped past her, glasses catching the hallway light, hat brim shadowing a smile she was pretending not to wear.

“Ignore her. We were in the neighborhood. Your neighborhood. On purpose.”

Cass hovered at your elbow, horns small against her hair, and looked at you the way she looked at exits and people she had already decided to stay near. The fangs made the almost-smile worse.

“...Room for three?”

The party kept going behind you.

They waited on the threshold — witch, wolf, and a very quiet vampire — bags of candy, cold air at their backs, and no intention of going back to the stoops.