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Downtown Gotham is known for a few things.
The way that it has such a strong sense of fear and confidence at the same it tries to have a ‘casually poor’ atmosphere, it breeds street-rats, trained conmen and high school dropouts alike, and the only time that it will make you successful is when you leave it.
There is no not sophisticated enough, not rich enough or not smart enough, if you’re good for something then you’ll survive. It’s famous for keeping people on the streets.
Outside, things are always messy and beat up, especially near the peers -at least, that’s what you’d think if you didn’t live there. Even the druggies and the dealers alike don’t tread the streets at night, unless they’re looking for a beating that is. Gambling someone’s life away is okay, as long as it’s not their own. There’s always chatter on radios, countless news headlines and texts.
Batman and Robin - - Nightwing or Red Robin or Red Hood or Batgirl or Orphan - - at it again, they’d read. Saved this damsel in distress, beat up this thug, locked this mean guy who you all pretended not to know was bad behind bars , it always reads, no matter what, superheroes are real .
That always feels hopeful, being able to say that. But there’s just something about it, idolizing someone like that -it’s kind of like turning someone into a god.
And God? He’s never there when you need him.
When Stephanie Brown first took a hard look at herself in the mirror, pointed a finger against the glass and said “You are nothing like him, Steph.” (Her dad was a criminal. It made headlines.) “You’re amazing.” there was no turning back. Someone does something bad, and the bad is never allowed to outweigh the good.
If there is no light at the end of the tunnel, she will find it anyway.
Batman did not appreciate the way that Stephanie Brown worked her way into his- -Bruce Wayne’s- -life, but after she met his kids, his family? Oh, there was no turning back. Stephanie Brown always did love dressing up.
That was only part (half) the fun of being a hero.
Downtown Gotham was all warehouses and six-story apartment buildings for the lower class, two school districts that the Gotham Elites ignored. The further down you went, the dirtier everything became, or at least that’s what Steph thought to herself right up next to I want to clean it all .
Steph raced over all the rooftops and the Kane’s and the Calabrese’s mob deals and goons. Dust and grime kicked up in her face, and she grinned. Everyone should experience the feeling of heart-pounding adrenaline at least once in their life, and she didn’t know a better way than this:
To fight.
Fight for everything that she believes in, and even some things that she doesn’t.
Steph wasn’t exactly sure what justice really means, only knew that one of the definitions- -the principle that people get what they deserve- -is the reason that she puts on her suit every week.
Stephanie did not know Robin well. She knew of him, of course, everyone in Gotham did.
He had helped her once, find her dad again- -before the whole crazed mad-man Cluemaster thing even begun- -and she had wanted to grow up to be him -before the whole dying thing as well.
Stephanie Brown was ten years old when Jason Todd died. She had been seven when he first became Robin, and she had watched him on the news with her mom, cheering him on. She remembered dressing up as Robin when she was eight, and was asked if she was the Girl Wonder.
“Nope!” She replied, thinking of the second Robin, not the first. “I’m the bird!”
Batman and his birds were supposed to be the best of Gotham and they had been: fair and fighters, a young man who repaid his parents death with bruises on his knuckles, a teenager who never had a chance to live a normal life but liked it that way, and a boy who taught little Gothamite kids how to memorize street names and find shelter, who didn’t begrudge the rich while making it clear that he was one of them.
Once, when she was thirteen, she found Nightwing at a Gotham Crime Conference that her father insisted on attending ‘for old times sake’ and beamed up at him, all braces and wild blonde hair, and told him that he changed her life, and giggled and waved at the new thirteen year old Robin at his side, who was all too busy looking at something on his phone.
For Steph, his death wasn’t personal -and she didn’t want it to be.
Of course, that didn’t mean that it didn’t matter, she knew that it mattered to every single person that ever took the mantle after Jason Todd (and especially to the one before him), but oh god did it matter differently.
When the people of Gotham got together and told stories about the boy who fought for them, about the way that they could tell he made their streets safer and helped out Batman, when Commissioner Gordon- -Jim, who she’d get to know a lot better later in life- -told stories about him- -the twelve year old boy who never hid under Batman’s cape like the one before him, but smirked and grin, and read Pride & Prejudice even when on patrol- -Steph sat by, ten years old and quiet.
She thought this is what I want to be .
Her father became Cluemaster and, as they say, it’s all downhill from there.
Being Robin the year that Stephanie became Robin was a special treat, for a very odd definition of special that involved both infighting with Jason Todd as Red Hood and Tim Drake as Red Robin, and Lady Shiva’s daughter setting the entire Justice League on edge, as well as her father turning himself into her childhood nightmare: a villain.
Stephanie practiced a very specific way of tracking someone, so when Dad- -or Cluemaster, to most- -broke out of prison, well, she was the one that put him back in.
“I’m not going to visit you.” Robin snarled to him, Cluemaster, who was tied up with ropes. “You ruined our time together for me.”
Of course, he didn’t put it together in the moment, that the little bird side-kick could have been his daughter but a week later, quiet in his cell, staring at the white of his ceiling, he would. He cried, and wailed and begged them to let him out enough for the guard to threaten him.
Stephanie asked Oracle, the redheaded girl that Nightwing was fond of who kept online tabs on everything , if she could keep an eye out for her father.
When Robin followed Red Robin and Batman into the streets, her heart in her throat, she wondered if this was what it felt like to be brave. She never considered herself brave, she considered herself a too-confident coward. “Everything will be okay,” It was like her mantra. “Everything will be okay in the end, and if it’s not? That’s okay too.”
She settled down on the edge of a roof, with the boys and girls who have all been Robin, and listened to Nightwing and the other challenge Robin, watched as Red Robin throw each of her training victories in their ears, listening to Batman tiredly say if she wasn’t ready, she wouldn’t be here because he didn’t know that.
Stephanie Brown was annoying. Stephanie Brown forced her way into their lives, and she just as easily forced Bruce Wayne to take her out into the field with him. Stephanie Brown made them call her a part of the team until they forgot she wasn’t supposed to be there. Stephanie Brown made Tim Drake teach her how to fight.
It’s just their own fault, past that point, for caring about her.
The Joker was back, they said, and Stephanie saw Jason’s little body again as it was broadcasted on the news, his funeral for a fake car-crash, but really discarded on that broken down warehouse floor. He had been the best of the Robin’s.
Justice had killed Jason Todd.
That was the core of it, wasn't it?
If Robin had been a little bit greedier with himself- -if he cared about himself more, if he had been just a bit less honest, if he trusted less- -he wouldn’t have gone into that building alone. But he was selfless and caring and kind, he was honest and he trusted himself to do what needs to be done.
And it killed him.
Stephanie knew that it was unfair to blame Bruce Wayne for Robin’s death. So she didn’t. She blamed the man that was holding the crowbar and the one that pulled him out of the pit; never Bruce, never Jason. Tragedies happen.
One, she was sure, was not going to happen to her.
On the streets, Robin shifted and questioned them about everything, it was really annoying, sometimes, but she learned how to do a little bit of everything. Not well , but enough.
Batgirl watched steadily, the way her mother trained her to do, taking each word evenly but never saying her own. Nightwing stretched twice, once before every patrol and once after, and he did backflips off of high rises when he was bored. Red Hood made sure that all of his guns were loaded but he cared more about the days he got to quietly sit on the edge of the world, reading a book. Red Robin was one of the best tech-guy’s around, he was their eyes on the ground when Oracle was their crystal ball, feeding information back and forth through one another -sometimes, she would have sworn that they talked to each other in code.
Jason had been the best of them, the best Robin, and Stephanie was determined to fill his shoes. Jason had been the best of them, but they were still whole now.
There is nothing that they couldn’t do together.
The world was unfair. A smiling, survivor of a boy was strewn, dead and bloodied, on his own territory. Joker was a blight. When Dick was a teenager, whenever he raged or grumbled, his superhero of a father would always tell him in that gruff, pitying way, “Life’s not fair.”
So when Dick looked at her, complaining that she still couldn’t get the way to swing as smoothly as all of them seem to do on craplings hooks, and said, “Life’s not fair, Steph, sometimes people are worse at things than others.”
“I don’t accept that.” She said. “I’m going to get better. I just need someone to show me how.”
Dick shrugged, and would walk off soon after. “Well I can’t, I’ve got to get home.”
Life’s not fair, it echoed in her mind. Life’s not fair .
In the summer after she turned sixteen, she had a break from school for the first time after becoming Robin and met Cassandra Cain for the first time. She was in her living room, the news blasting across the TV about last night’s late night rendezvous with the Penguin. A noise caught her attention, she looked up as she opened the window and a black mask caught her in the shoulder.
Pinned to it was a note, in neat, perfect handwriting that read, for the next Batgirl. Look under your bed.
A purple velvet box was pushed into the far corner under her mattress, something she’s sure was to make sure that if anyone came in before her, they wouldn’t find it out in the open. It was a black suit, mostly purple lines running along it, her cape was purple on one side instead of red and on the middle, where her Robin symbol normally was, is a bat.
This, she thought at the time, is growth .
She still lived in a civilian apartment complex because her father believed it was important to know her roots, and because of that, she didn’t ever want to leave it behind. Her father was wrong about a lot of things. This wasn’t one of them. She had a loud upstairs neighbor and everything, and it drove Tim up the walls whenever he stayed the night.
“Thank you!” She called out, cheeks flushed a bit -she loved opening gifts and one from Batgirl ? She wasn’t going to wait a second for that. “But, what are you going to call yourself?”
She didn’t know where Batgirl came out of, but it was definitely like magic when one second she felt alone and the next second, a girl about four or so inches shorter than her- -about five-foot six- -was in front of her, a black bat suit covering every inch of skin -a cowl with white eyes and a wide-stitch mouthpiece over her face.
“Orphan.” She said.
Stephanie grinned, and playfully bowed deep (honestly, she was a little intimidated, at first). “Nice name. Very… eh, original?”
Orphan, not Batgirl because now she was Batgirl, nodded, signing as she talked. “Thank you. Do you speak ASL?”
“Yep, I do.” She let out a sigh, ridding herself of anxiety, partly excited and partly relieved. “Do you want any coffee, or er, like, I don’t know…” Stephanie let out a huff, hand being thrown in the air. “Like literally anything you manage to find in my cupboards?”
The answer was yes, and Orphan took off her hood to reveal herself, trusting that because Bruce is letting this blonde girl be his apprentice, she was at least somewhat trustworthy (and it wasn’t like Cassandra Cain’s face was recognizable to the public anyway. She hadn’t gone public as Bruce’s daughter yet).
After that, the first thing that Stephanie told her was that she’s beautiful, and Orphan didn’t know how to respond to that other than to blow her off.
“Are you worried about the responsibility of being your own hero now, Orphan?” She asked. This was something that she could answer, but she decided to be stubborn.
“ Were you worried about being Robin ?” Orphan answered the question with a question, taking a drink of cold herbal tea she had dug out of the back of Stephanie’s fridge. She wasn’t picky. “ After the death? ”
“I dunno,” She shrugs. “I lived past fifteen, so I’m pretty sure I passed by those expectations pretty nicely. The rest of it was just doing what B said and ignoring anything Jason said.”
Evidently, pleased with that, Orphan stuck out her hand. “I’m not worried.”
“Hi, not worried,” Stephanie grinned, shaking her hand and her entire arm along with it. “I’m Stephanie, but you can have the special privilege of calling me Steph.”
“ Does everyone call you that? ”
“Yes.”
“ Then it isn’t special. ”
This was when she first started out.
Stephanie Brown didn’t have the trust of the team yet, so they wouldn’t tell her details of everything or themselves, it was tiring being in the field with people who thought that she was incompetent.
She stuck to Barabara Gordon’s side and listened to every single patrol night for three weeks straight until she knew the way that they all liked being talked to, what their base behavior was. She had Tim Drake train her with all the skills that Lady Shiva used, and the first chance she got, she ‘accidentally’ knocked Red Hood flat on his ass during patrol after making a stupid blonde joke.
Everyone was surprised at that.
Without asking, Jason Todd taught her how to use a grappling hook. “You’ll die, with that aim.” He told her, and lifted his arm, showed her how to use all the things Batman gave her without protest after one too many of her begging sessions. “Tumble right off the edge of a building.”
“At least I’ll enjoy the fall.” She said in return.
Steph was never invited to a single Justice League meeting.
She hid in the back of the batmobile or pressured Nightwing into taking her with him, or just busted in through the front door when she felt like she wanted to know what was going on. Wonder Woman rather adored her, and so she let her sit on the arm of her chair, and every time Batman huffed in her direction she would glare in return.
“Why don't Red Hood and Superman not get along?” She demanded to know. “It’s not because of the past crime thing, right? If it was, Superman wouldn’t be friends with Catwoman, would he?”
Diana would tell her, she had gone from Batgirl to Spoiler and never once managed to insult the amazonian. She was more like her mother than Bruce Wayne would ever be like her father. This was a good thing. “Why do you think that they don’t get along, small one?”
“Superman never respects his tactics when they’re working the same case.” She pointed out. “And he doesn’t like him being friends with his sons, said Kon was an exception once, when he was talking to Batman, because Red Robin is always between them.”
At this time Tim, Stephanie and Tim had already tried the whole dating thing, and it didn’t work out but it did make them better friends. After that, he flirted with Conner Kent for a year and they decided their friendship was more important, which made no sense to Stephanie because then they both turned around and dated one of their other friends -Tim and Jason, Conner and Cassie Sandsmark.
She just thinks that a part of them realized they weren’t meant to be. As teenagers, it’s hard to realize that, and as young adults it’s even harder because then you don’t have mom or dad seeing everyone you’re with and telling you no, sweetie, they’ll break your heart .
When you’re that age, there’s no warning for it.
“Red Robin?”
“The small one.” She said, mind filling with Damian Wayne -who she didn’t classify as small like Tim, who would stay small, but angry, because she assumed that Damien, in part, would always be a little angry. “With the red x on his chest.”
“Ah, I lose track of all Batman’s silly sidekick names.” Wonder Woman nodded, and smiled a bit as she looked down at Stephanie. “There is a long standing history of pain between Superman and Batman’s son. There always have been. They’re too fundamentally different, the two of them.”
Her nose wrinkled. She was not someone who believed that differences in personalities are a reason for hate, but that night, she got to thinking (which was always her downfall, really, overthinking). She never met Jason Todd before he was affected by the Lazarus Pit, but she never mourned that fact.
She liked him as is, thanks .
Jason Todd was born to an unloving mother who led him to his own death and a cruel father who tried to beat him right to the edge of him. He was taken in, taken, not adopted, by a man who had everything to gain while he had everything to lose. He wasn’t hugged enough as a kid. He should have been so much taller, but it wasn’t a problem because with his height, everyone would assume he’s well fed. He stole things from rich people in order to have a meal the next day.
When he became a hero, Gotham groaned about a street-rat Robin instead of a cheerful sidekick. He is not invulnerable to bullets. Or batarangs. Or crowbars. When he is scared, there is no one place that he will always go to. His mind is a scattered place between safety and a storm. He is the casualty of all the wars that the adults in his life were too stubborn to fight on their own.
Clark Kent was born to a loving couple who cared about him more than they did their own life, they saw the future in his eyes and that’s why he was the one who was saved. He was adopted by an equally doting couple who made sure that he had everything he needed. He was hugged and cuddled and had his cheeks pinched more than he could count. He is not tall because of genetics but because of how much his parents pushed him to eat right and exercise, “You have to be healthy as a human too, dear.” He has never had to steal for his next meal.
When he became a hero, Metropolis cheered for the man in blue. He is invulnerable to bullets. And batarangs. But not kryptonite. When he is scared, and he does not get scared often, he always knows where he can go to feel safe. His mind is not a war zone, it is a logical safe haven. His parents died from a battle but he never would, an adult has never failed the likes of the man of steel.
Stephanie climbed into cold sheets that night, in a room hung with purple and black, with hints of yellow and red -there is pride in those colors.
Jason wouldn't have bled yellow and red, no, but he lived it. He died by it. He was the boy who always asked for anything and in the moment it mattered the most, he didn’t because it wouldn’t have mattered. He was going to try and save everyone whether he would live or not. She promised herself that night, to protect them, to live by this code, just like he did.
She stayed curled up, shallow breath causing her diaphragm to ache, for hours. Jason Todd was fifteen years old when he died. Then, he was eighteen. He was theirs. Just like she was theirs.
The world isn’t fair, they say it all the time. But it is. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen for terrible ones, and the sky is blue, the world keeps spinning and there are three-hundred and sixty-five days in every year, and they have to keep living on.
This is a fact.
Duke Thomas was introduced into the picture and in less than a month, Stephanie and Cassandra’s friendship shifted away from Barbara (who was spending more time with Dick and Kori anyway) and to him. They became a trio unlike many.
The silent, the inbetween and the too-talkative.
On the nights that they were able to do patrol alone, they got very little actual vigilante work done- -unless something serious was actually happening- -and decided to do some really small things, a few of which caused quite the scene, but was fun anyway.
They saved a cat from a tree not by climbing the tree or getting a latter, but by Spoiler- -the name she choose for herself when Damian became Robin- -sitting on Signal’s shoulders, and Orphan climbing up them both, one foot on his shoulder and the other on her thigh to grab the cat.
Little Robin showed up to take it to the vet, ten years old and furious at being called out into the field on a night off until he saw the angry furball clinging to Orphan’s cape.
They got twenty watering cans from a store two minutes before it closed (thanks for the platinum credit card, Bruce) and watered all the plants that they could find in some sort of convoluted race. Signal won, and Spoiler accidentally broke two pots and got into an argument with the owner.
“You’re supposed to help!” She shouted.
Water jug in hand, Spoiler raised both her arms defensively, which caused the water to accidentally sploosh! onto the already angry woman -so Spoiler, who had more common sense than to stick around to get hit with a broom by a mad civilian, took off.
“Clumsy.” Orphan called her.
“Yeah, yeah,” Spoiler sighed, leaning onto Signal’s side. “We all have bad nights.”
“Agreed, but only Nightwing breaks things like that. He’s a chronic faller when he does all his tricks.”
“Are you calling me a Dick?”
Their laughter was loud enough that night that it echoed around the allies of Gotham enough that Oracle herself begged them to be quiet. Loudness like that, the feeling of joy that comes along with freedom, it’s amazing. Stephanie was glad she got to experience it.
After the first death that tarnished Batman’s record and started a family war, Bruce Waybe stood up to address all of his Robins- -previous and current.
“In the field, when you have to make a choice between doing what is right and staying safe, remember what happened to the boy who was good, and fought to do everything right, and brave, but went into that building under the guise that fighting was worth his life.” He said. “It wasn’t.”
She was sure then that all Jason heard was another lecture telling him that he wasn’t good enough (something he liked to think that Bruce thought, when it wasn’t the case at all) and all the other Robin’s just heard that they should never stop fighting- -Batman was a fan of telling them that if they need to run away, there’s nothing wrong with it- -and just fight better, or harder.
But Stephanie heard past the growl in Bruce’s voice.
There is no “Jason is kind of right, sometimes, people need to die.” here. As much as the other Bats are a fan of defying Bruce, a fan of violence (why would they have the job if they weren’t?), they aren’t so much of a fan at looking at the bigger picture through his eyes.
Bruce Wayne is never going to accept that someone killing another person is okay.
It’s a tragedy, what happened to Jason. It will always be a tragedy. And it is also a tragedy that Bruce, who was blamed for the incident by both his sons at the time, was right. A kid died, and his father refused to take revenge because death is a tragedy .
Jason was loved by Bruce Wayne as his son in all the right ways, he was loved by him more than he was loved by Dick or Alfred or anyone else at the time. He was loved enough to avoid becoming an excuse for murder. Bruce would take the weight of that grief on his shoulders for the rest of his life, and then to the grave.
After they were all dismissed, Stephanie stayed back and spun her phone around her hand, relaxed against the arm of the couch. “I’m glad you’re not my dad, old man, I hope you know that.”
Bruce, after all this time, knew better than to be offended. He just arched an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“The rest of them, your birdies,” She said. “They’re way too close to you to really see what’s going on. There’s a thin line between you and Batman, B. The first time you made them breakfast in the suit, you crossed the line and there was no going back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean , they think you care about them like how Batman should care about Robin. Like how a superhero looks to his sidekick. Not how a father looks to his son, or daughter.” Stephanie pointed at him with the short end of her phone. “And I think you care so much about them as children, that you forget you’re supposed to see Robin and all your little sidekicks in different ways.”
He just frowned, and stared.
She grinned. “I guess I’ll leave you with that, everyone needs a little factory resetting for their brain every now and again, you’re no different. And B?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re my mentor too, old man.”
Bruce smiled at her, nodding just a bit. Alfred and Selina were the only two that told them they were ever proud of them, or happy because of him, and repeated things like that- -according to Stephanie- -lost their ‘oomph’ after a while. She was happy to change things around.
And be a mind-blowing conversational speaker.
Stephanie still watched the news every night. Everyone her age, or close to it (particularly Duke and Tim) mocked her for this.
Batman and Robin - - Nightwing or Red Robin or Red Hood or Spoiler or Signal or Orphan or Oracle or Batwoman - - at it again, they’d say. Saved this chid in distress, arrested some thug, locked this bad guy to help out the police , they always reads, no matter what, superheroes are real .
That always feels hopeful, being a part about that. But there’s just something about it, living this kind of life -it’s kind of like turning yourself into a myth.
And myths? They’re never true, are they.
When Stephanie Brown took a hard look at herself in the mirror, pointed a purple-gloved finger against the glass and said “You’re good enough, Steph, believe it ,” (She was a hero. It made headlines.) “You’re amazing.” there was no turning back. Someone does something good, and the good will always outweigh the bad.
The light at the end of the tunnel might be weak, but it is there, it always was.
Orphan did not appreciate the way that Stephanie Brown worked her way into her- -Cassandra Cain’s- -life, but after she first laughed because of her? Oh, there was no turning back. Stephanie Brown always did love making friends.
That was only part (half) the fun of being a team.
Stephanie didn’t come to the Wayne Manor when she and Jason hung out together.
They went to her house, a little one-story blue and white house that only she has the key to (though, she doubted that any one of her family could figure out where she lives when she’s not prancing around the Manor, and break in). When she turned eighteen, she figured it was time to move out of the apartment her father picked for them.
Jason broke hundreds of plates, bowls and cups alike, let it shatter on the ground of her garage and smirked at her every time she handed him another one. Steph could have found something less destructive to do with their time, but she figured that it was good for Jay, every now and again, to feel something shatter that wasn’t himself.
“I’m alright.” Jason said. “I am.”
Steph shrugged. “Alright, I believe it. Sometimes shit goes weird, wrong. And it’s not like good things don’t happen.” She tossed a ceramic mug out, and it seemed to explode on the cement. “That isn’t it. Good things happen, they just don’t feel as life-changing as the bad things because they’re expected.”
Defensively, he crossed his arms. “People expect bad things to happen, Steph.”
“Not like us, Jay.” She gave him a hard look and handed him a plate. He threw it like a frisbee. “You’ve gone through more shit in your lifetime than other people will in three of them. You can still be sad about it. But you need to heal too.”
“If you’re not going to throw them,” He deflected, and she let him. “You could at least give me the box.”
Stephanie didn’t hesitate to hold the box closer to her chest, the blue set of dishes clinked around as she did so, Jay huffed at her. He’d get his way, get something from her when he gave something up himself; the only thing that she wanted in the moment was for him to be honest.
But she gave him a choice -she always would. If he wanted to walk away, she’d never stop him.
He sighed. “I don’t know what’s happening, Steph. I’m… I’m changing.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I don’t believe in things like you, sometimes when people are bad, they can’t go back.”
She looked at him hard, pale blue eyes to his vibrant ones. “Who told you you were so bad? You’re a punk, Jay, you’re not bad .”
“Tell Bruce tell.” He huffed out a laugh.
She thrusted the box into his hands and dug her phone out of her legging’s pockets, there was a fierceness in her blue eyes that nobody was able to ignore. “I will.” She said. “Give me half an hour.”
Stephanie loved to believe that people could change, loved when they didn’t put themselves into boxes. Some people put themselves in boxes only to tear it down, to crack all the corners in half. Sometimes, for some people, that’s easier than just opening the top.
Jason Todd, she firmly believed, was one of these people.
The two read together, lying about her living room, or, when Cassandra wanted to sit on the carpet, under three blankets with a movie blasting on her wide flatscreen- -when she couldn’t feel or see much, it helps- -on her back porch, where Steph made fun of him for sitting like an old man.
Really though, she just liked that he was able to relax around her.
“I think I’ve got bats in the attic.” Steph said once, and Jason looked over to her, read how serious she was, and started laughing and didn’t stop until she closed his book without the bookmark in, losing his page. Then he took her to the attic and proved that it wasn’t bats -it was raccoons.
“If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said that bats already have enough of you.” He joked. “If you leave cat food out in the backyard, they’ll leave your attic alone.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Who knows, maybe they’ll try to eat you next.”
“Jason!” She sputtered. “Raccoons don’t eat people.”
His blue eyes shined happily, and it made her grin. “They could.”
“Prove it.” Regardless of how happy the moment made her, she crossed her arms grumpily. “You can’t.”
Jason Todd was the kind of person who needed a challenge every now and again, needed someone to come along and make him prove that the impossible actually is possible, and make his brain do something other than just work, work, work like it always does.
Something needs to prove to him that shadows are just bends of light, not bottomless pits, that nothing is as bad as it seems.
Memories were a problem for most of the Robin’s.
It didn’t get bad until they went down to the Batcave and sparring began.
Cassandra once broke, blacking out, and when she woke up she had knocked them all unconscious, and spent the next few weeks sobbing against Duke and Stephanie’s shoulders, hand rubbing against her chest in an apology. Jason once saw a batarang flying around, remembered his throat like an open wound and collapsed onto the ground, sobbing for Bruce. Dick snapped, angry tears streaming down his cheeks, and he decked Bruce hard enough to land him on the floor, and pushed everyone who tried to stop him from running hard enough to leave bruises. Damian would run away, snapping, katanas spinning around his hands -only letting Superboy calm him down. Duke would often flinch and laugh it off, but he was the one with the most nightmares.
Night Terrors are a different story.
Tim shuddered to a stop, shaking in every limb after Jason knocked him on his ass -confused about why he didn’t get back up. Tim Drake always got back up after you knocked him down, no matter how hard he was hit. It was one of his more annoying qualities, really, sometimes (as Stephanie would tell you) people need to learn how to stay down.
This time, he stayed down.
They got him up into the living room before he started hyperventilating. “Just like -just like before.” He gasped out, and Stephanie tucked him into her side. “When, the, the week, the week he came back.”
A week before Tim’s best friend died, right when the Lazarus Pit was still affecting Jason right down to his very core- -angry about the presence of another Robin, trained by Lady Shiva, officially brought into Batman’s guild a year after- -he broke into the Teen Titan tower and beat Tim Drake nearly to death.
And Tim Drake bounced back.
He got back up.
It’s rare for them to talk about it, it’s not nearly the most traumatizing thing that happened to Tim in that time frame. Kon-El, or Conner Kent, is his best friend. As is Bart Allen and Cassie Sandsmark too. The difference between them is that Kon died and came back and they didn’t.
The reason for sympathy is that Kon doesn’t remember a thing about it, and Tim remembers too much.
Jason Todd would never apologize for it, and Tim Drake didn’t need him to. That wasn’t what the issue was. Stephanie told him that his problems reminded her of a Matryoshka doll while pressing an ice pack to the back of his neck, “In and out, Timmy,” She said. “In and out.”
“And pull off the, off the layers?” He, even gasping, even tearful, joked around.
“Yeah,” Stephanie said, more serious than he bothered to take her. “And pull off the layers.”
Uptown Gotham was all high-rises and twenty-story business buildings for the upper class, two school districts, one for the Gotham Elite and one for the simply rich. The higher up you went, the cleaner everything became, or at least, that’s what Steph thought to herself right up next to I don’t want to do this .
Steph swung from rooftop to roof tops and the Wayne’s and the Lex’s closed deals and employees. Rain and wind blew up into her face, and she grinned. Everyone should experience the feeling of the slow-paced excitement at least once in their life, and she didn’t know a better way than this:
To fall.
Fall right off the edge of a building, a highrise, the world, even if she’d catch herself.
Steph wasn’t exactly sure what justice really means, only knew that one of the definitions- -the quality of conforming to law- -is the reason that she snickers when Bruce Wayne pulls on a suit, wanting to whisper, don’t you know, you’ve done the wrong thing too?
Dick Grayson was the same, in both love and war. Stephanie had admired that.
He, the flexible and talented (and kind of scary) Boy Wonder, charged after what he wanted with vigor. It was kind of Bruce’s downfall, making sure that he was so well trained because now, truly, if Dick wanted something he was going to get it one way or another.
He was a single child soldier, but people flocked to him.
The original Robin- -who would be the only one to ever argue with you that it is not named after the book, idiot , it’s named after Robin Hood, the original vigilante, duh - -turned to Nightwing, took off to Bludhaven, and still had an entire League biting at his heels, wanting him to come back.
They would always want him, honor him as a hero, so when the war really hit Gotham, he was almost prepared.
“Sometimes,” Dick told her. They were two cups deep into a bottle of wine that he promised not to tell Bruce that she was drinking. He was sad. She was just happy about the company. “I still miss them both, you know.”
The Pre-Lazarus Jason, and Wally West.
The little brother he couldn’t save and the best friend he never got the chance to.
Dick talked about Barabara Gordon, his best friend, and how they got her back from the Joker just three nights before, and then talked more about how he could never put on the Robin suit again, the memories that it would bring up, all the things. He despises wearing the color red now, but said he’s proud of Jason, now, for still wearing that red brand across his chest.
She wasn’t going to tell him that to Jason, it’s just a way to remember his true roots when he’s out fighting for Gotham, and how none of them start at the bottom of some pit.
Stephanie had gone up to her room the previous morning- -after seeing Barbara Gordon’s red hair splayed around her discarded body, the Joker cutting her up, paralyzing her and displaying it out on the comms for all the Bats to see- -and thought of other red things.
Paint stains are harder to get out than blood. Water washes them both away.
“I forget, sometimes, that Jason is the same boy that died. He’s so different.” He sighed, taking another sip and letting out a long sigh. “But it’s all the little things, the way he likes his tea and hates Alfred’s waffles, and that stupid grin of his. God, we used to get into so much trouble together.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “You still do. I don’t think the pit has anything to do with this. I think that your life is hard to process for you, and back then, before he died, you were living the ideal civilian-vigilante life. Now, everything is harder. Don’t you think every older sibling mourns how young and different and innocent their younger sibling is?”
“Oh.” Dick blinked at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it like that.”
That night, they, twenty seven and her twenty, took to painting Jason’s old room in the manor a deep red on three walls and yellow on the fourth (with the help of a cranky Damian Wayne) despite not knowing that when Alfred found it, if they’d have another birthday.
Gotham was a war-zone.
It always would be, and it always has been, she fights anyway. She stained her hands, fingertips to elbows ,with paint that smeared around her forearms a furious blood-orange, Damian sliced open a cherry colored apple with his knife and shared slices with them both.
She refuses to let anything taint the color for her.
Stephanie Brown looks good in red.
At her funeral Cassandra was chosen to read off her eulogy, but there, in front of the crowd- -the family, Diana, Jon, just the people that Steph trusted- -she found the first fight that she couldn’t win.
Do not stand on my grave and weep, I am not there.
The worst part about it was not that she couldn’t work up the courage to do it or find the right words. The worst part is that she knew Stephanie wouldn’t have blamed her, or cared, or any stupid thing people are after someone else gets scared to do something they never expected the would have had to do.
I do not sleep.
Tim took over.
I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sunlit ripened grain.
“Steph was a mess,” He said. He looked more tired than ever. Jason cracked a smile, at least. “An honest to god mess. But I think out of everyone, I mean everyone that I really know, she was the only one put together. She had that whole happiness thing down. It was actually kind of annoying.”
Dick rolled his eyes but beside him Kori was silent, a warrior whose comrad had fallen. Mar’i has been crying against her father’s expensive suit all day -the seven year old only pulling away to sit in Cassandra’s lap. She was her third favorite aunt, after Stephanie and Barbara in first place.
Now, her second.
It feels wrong, like stealing something that Stephanie had.
Stephanie though, would be the most impressed and supportive third-place aunt in the entire world. “She loves you, Cass,” She’d scold. “You’re awesome, so who better to look up to?”
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
“She was always preaching this ridiculous concept of self love. She was like, this weird, eccentric, run on the mill blonde that found a way to weasel her way into all of our hearts. It was like, how do I put it?” Tim sucks his teeth. He’s anxious.
“It’s just a speech, Timmy, it’s not a college application.” Stephanie would have mocked him for it, and been grinning. “It’s not life or death, or anything.”
When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush; of quiet birds in circled flight.
Tim grins for her. “Stephanie didn’t like the definitions of things, and she didn’t like putting people under one label -that’s why she believed so much in second chances. A bad guy is never bad enough. God -this little freak thought everyone was interesting.”
“Definitions,” Her words echo in his mind. “Exclude the possibility for change.”
“We all have memories of Steph,” He said, and Cassandra squeezed Mar’i tighter to her chest. She was crying, and that was okay. “There’s a theory that says that if nobody knows you’re alive, then you’re not. Stephanie really put that to the test. She liked to ask everyone what they thought about the whole ‘if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound’ question. Her theory, I think, was that anyone, alive or not, was still here if you remembered them.”
“That is what we Amazonians feel as well. A way to keep our ancestors and their honor alive.” Diana said. She buried one of her shields with Stephanie -a warrior’s burial. “She was right.”
I am the stars that shine at night.
“Her favorite quote,” Cassandra said, signing along with her words. Tim immediately fell quiet. “Was from the Land of Oz.”
“I gave her that after she made me watch the Wizard of Oz.” Commented Jason, a sad, proud smile spread across his features.
“‘You are unusual’ returned the Scarecrow ‘and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed’.” She echoes. “Damian’s favorite was her second.”
“L.F. Baum.” Damian said. “I’m familiar.”
“They shared quotes all the time.” Jon, his best friend, tells them when Bruce looks over, a bit confused. “He needed inspiration for a few paintings, I think.”
“Oh.”
“That was her favorite quote?” Dick said and grinned softly. “Are you sure that it wasn’t ‘bend and snap’?”
“Oh ha ha, very funny.” Tim rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, we all know that her favorite movie was Legally Blonde but c’mon, nothing in there was favorite quote material, like? We all know it.”
“Uh, actually, I think that Elle Woods is quite quotable.” When Duke said this, it was more obvious than anyone else that he had been crying. “And you guys are all wrong for hating on that movie.” He paused. “Steph would’ve hated this argument.”
“No,” Bruce said, shaking his head. She was never his daughter but she didn’t want to be either. They got into more fights- -bickering contents- -than anyone there. It was similar to him and Clark, that’s how he knew they both needed it to thrive -or at least, enjoyed it. “She would have loved it.”
Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there.
They share agreements, and laugh a little more. Both Duke and Cassandra find one another before the ceremony is done, and grip each other in a tight hug. “We will survive this,” They translated from the strength in one another’s grips. “We could survive anything. For her.”
I did not die.
People change, and they rage, and sometimes, the good die young, it hurts, grief sometimes makes you seem stuck in one place, but everyone knows grief, people sometimes can’t change, the world isn’t fair, and the sky is blue, the world keeps spinning and there are three-hundred and sixty-five days in every year, and you have to keep living on anyway-
This is a fact.