Chapter Text
Four months after Stephanie hit Tim in the face with a brick, she discovers a bigger bully in her life than Batman. Daniel with sandy hair and army boots and loud opinions about loud cars stands a head taller than Stephanie and has a habit of snickering at her Bubbles notebook.
The thing is, Daniel never really does anything.
It’s the way he moves around her, and the way he talks to others about her, and the feelings of glass fibers shoved down her T-shirt and clinging to her back when she knows he is watching. And Stephanie understands profoundly that none of the above could justify a fistfight during third period and likely bloody noses for both of them – not to the school, not to her mother, and eventually, when it all boils over and spills into her night activities, not to Batman.
She understands, yet she fantasizes.
“You have shown no progress,” Batman informs Spoiler, as collected as he is calm. Underneath her mask, Stephanie presses the tip of her tongue, as hard as she could, into the one sharp canine. Batman won’t remove his cowl around her, so she returns the courtesy, bears sweats gathering and cooling inside her hood, the edge around her eyes itching like crazy. She doesn’t even care that Batman has long been aware of her identity. It is a matter of principle.
Black gauntlet points to the screen. “There. Your hooks are still too open and wild. And you see what you did? Sacrificing stability.”
Your lack of restraint, Spoiler. Lack of discipline.
She resents how he never looks mad when he dissects her and takes apart everything about her that is not good enough. She resents the silence in the cave when she runs out of comebacks that don’t sound like excuses to herself. She resents, most of all, the fact that he isn’t even doing this because she is a girl. She’s pretty sure that he isn’t.
Stephanie is just not good enough.
She turns to the heavy bag and tries to drown the world out with dull thuds. She starts imagining Daniel’s face, gets mad at herself for not being able to stop imagining Daniel’s face, then gets even madder when Batman starts punching the other bag and the rhythmic booming sounds are so much more precise and sharp, and she wants to imagine Batman’s face but complete blankness is hard to hold on to.
If Bruce were anywhere near the man he wants to be, he'd tell himself that the changes in Robin was a good thing.
If Bruce were anywhere near wise, he’d know to keep his mouth shut about mundane details about Stephanie Brown’s life.
She drops her bag and its jostled content peeks out over the drawstring pouch. Irrelevant to the mission. He clears his throat. “So.”
So. Today they settle an argument, the argument, regarding her fitness, both in general and in relation to this role.
If Bruce were an honest man, he’d admit that he has no idea what he’s trying to accomplish here.
They start with the drill course, during which Rob– Steph– Spoiler fails twice half-way through and almost makes it to the end on her third try but gets nabbed by a stray red laser dot. Fourth try delivers her to the very end. There is an almost-smile when she lies flat on her back, limbs splayed, loose in her presumed victory.
Bruce puts her on the manual treadmill.
Eight miles is nothing, for someone in their line of work, even someone as fresh as Stephanie.
Eight miles of interval run on a manual treadmill is more a test of control than stamina.
Eight miles of interval run on a manual treadmill post what is effectively four rounds on the drill course, and you are looking at something that is designed to fail, and that has been Bruce’s intention all along. The way she’s finished the drill course on her fourth try is a testimony to her luck rather than skills, at this stage.
Luck runs out from under you Luck is wearing shoes without traction and being fine for a few months and treading on out one day and rolling down three-flights of stairs. Luck is thinking you could protect children clad in bright colors while you are a damn fool.
Luck is going to get her killed. Stephanie is drawing in breaths through her mouth. They are at mile five. She will fail. Bruce would rather she fail here, today, and walk on out of his life, this life, forever. He feels something, a sting of sweat in his own eyes, an irrational flame of anger plastered to his own neck by matted hairs, a pounding in his own ears that is on the verge of becoming distractively painful. They are at mile five and Bruce reminds himself that that feeling, is miles better than what could be, what might come, in the foreseeable future.
Blonde ponytail sways, erratic — she’s losing her rhythm. Of course she is. Bruce thinks he should signal for her to switch up. She might not be able to, in two more minutes.
Bruce thinks about that ponytail buried under rubbles, honey blonde beckoning him close, blood over the golden R crest.
No. No. It was him. He was the one that pulled the golden children into the dark.
He watches Stephanie suffer through another five more minutes, complete silence on his part, something akin to choked down tears on hers.
Then he sends her into a sprint.
Mile six. Mile six is when he thinks she will stop, or she will stumble and he will tell her to stop. But she doesn’t, and Bruce has to shove a hand deep inside the knot inside him tying itself together to try and pull loose a single strand of feeling. He thinks, that it might be pride.
Pride was how he felt when Jason nodded his head and saluted a civilian with two fingers and turned back to grin at Batman, the young boy covered in dirt and scrapes.
To hell with pride.
He signals for Stephanie to go faster. There will be no slowing-down, from this point on. There is no test, no control, no reasoning. He will push her through the last two miles, and she will fail before she could finish. She must.
Mile seven and Stephanie is crying. She is crying and her legs buckle, and she stops trying to readjust back to better forms. This is it. Bruce should call it and tell her to stop and present the end result. See? Not ready.
She’s not ready to stop.
The human body is a wonderful thing. It knows when it is truly in danger and when it is simply being put through something that can just end. The consequence? None. The reward? Immediate and massive. When your lungs burn and your muscles scream, it is so easy to take that breath. Hit that pause.
Stephanie can stop whenever she wants to.
She doesn’t.
Bruce watches as she runs past the eight-mile mark, amazed. He opens his mouth to tell her that she can stop now, and then hesitates. She must have seen the number as well.
Why doesn’t she stop?
Blonde ponytail sways aggressively. Turbulent. Unassailable. He thinks about the way Jason swung his left hook. He thinks about catching that too wild move and barking out a laugh. He’s already dangerous.
What is the thing that separates these children from the rest of the brilliant spirits who once believed in an idea, a symbol, larger than their small frames could ever fill?
He thinks about Jason, fifteen and defiant, towards the very end, swinging his fists. He must have been, right?
Why didn’t he tell him to stop?
(But he did. He did. And was that –)
Stephanie is still on the treadmill. Her body shakes, either with exertion or with the force of her wet heaving breaths, Bruce cannot know.
Why doesn’t he tell her to stop?
What is he trying to accomplish here? Make sure that she never gets hurt, by forcing her to push her body beyond a limitation that is safe? Tell her to stay in line by destroying her belief?
He gestures for her to stop. She doesn’t. Bruce is suddenly too scared to reach out and physically stop her. He says That’s enough, Stephanie, and she ignores him.
“Robin,” he forces the name out of his dry throat, the smooth consonants somehow scratching its way up and blood fills his mouth. “You can stop now. You did it.”
“Fuck you!” The girl screams. She screams and punches the handles. She tries to punch Bruce, who catches her carefully as she falls. “Fuck you!”
Not fair, not fair. He knows. This life. These children. The way they came into his life. Not fair.
The way they left.
He sticks a straw into the electrolyte drink and holds it up for her, worried about trembling hands and sharp metal edge. Stephanie bats his hand away and fishes out the straw and throws it to the ground and chugs the drink and cuts her lip on the can.
Stephanie Brown sits with her head between raised knees and pinkish sweat dripping down her jaw. Bruce Wayne sits next to her and sighs.
They stay silent, or rather, Bruce stays silent, while Stephanie pants her way through another drink and throws the protein bar Bruce has offered her at his head. He watches her trying to stretch out the muscles in her calves and biting back a yelp when they riot.
He stops watching and moves closer to her when she takes a frustrated fist to her own legs.
“You can’t be angry with it,” he tells her. He sets his cowl aside and picks up another protein bar and sets it next to her, this time the wrapper still intact. This time Stephanie is the one watching wordlessly as he kneads out the spasming knots covered by black tights —base layer without a title, devoid of any personality. He uses a fraction of his strength, careful, careful.
“Your journals,” he starts, not risking eye contact just yet. “What happened to the old ones?” The bright-colored school things, notebook covers in every shade of purple, hoops of hairbands with little rings on them tied around a wrist, where did they go?
Stephanie stares at him. He wasn’t sure if it’s an attempt to reconcile Bruce Wayne with Batman, or just him with this conversation.
She doesn’t answer him that day. Bruce assumes she will never answer until one day, with a foot plopped up on a stool, Stephanie blurts it out.
“Daniel thinks I look stupid in purple.”
Even as she says it, she thinks This is pointless. B will find it pointless. Best case, he won’t remember the only one-sided conversation between them where she was the one not talking; worst case, he will grunt and hum and tell her to focus on a mindful cool-down process.
Bruce says Daniel is an idiot like that is a fact and she almost falls out of her chair and the resulting shift almost has her pointed toes kick Bruce in the nose, but the man pays it no mind. He runs knuckles along the muscles wrapped around her shins and lectures her about not paying enough attention to them, and mutters Daniel is an idiot, again, like he even knows who the hell Daniel is.
Like Bruce and Steph are somehow on the same side, and it’s more than the same side of justice, for once. He doesn’t really press, which is why she offers. Steph switches leg and mumbles. “I like Powerpuff Girls.” She had a lilac planner with Bubbles on top and was perfect for everything.
It was, until the day she took it out her bag and never put it back in.
Bruch hums. This could be the end of their conversation. His hand squeezes around Steph’s ankle, only once. She has seen him give a casual ruffle to Tim’s hair, or a fleeting knock of shoulders with Nightwing. He doesn’t do that, with her. She thinks it’s because she’s a girl, but maybe it’s just them.
“I like the Gray Ghost,’’ Bruce tells her, in the same way he says Robin, status report. It evokes a short and nasal laugh from her. Do all children grown in adversity gain that same scrappy way of masking sadness with levity? Stephanie pulls her legs back as Bruce leans away. They are done for today.
“Yeah but I bet people don’t make fun of you for it.” They do not. Those in possession of this knowledge about him will not. Stephanie stands and stretches both arms high above her head. She’s grown inches in the amount of time they’ve known each other. Children that age can shoot up like beanstalks overnight. He should know.
“Girls age thirteen to twenty-five cannot enjoy anything,” she throws that out at him, seemingly randomly. Bruce wants to have a good response, and before he could get there, she’s turning around and heading out again.
Say one thing, he commands himself, just one nice thing.
“There is nothing wrong...about you,” he calls out to the retreating back, and winces at his own effort. That is not, in fact, a nice thing to say.
It makes Stephanie pause. Her head tilts slightly and her eyes glance over, sky blue, there is something so young about her.
“There is nothing wrong about you,” he repeats, galloping along through the dark. “If you want, I could...talk to Daniel.” He doesn’t know for certain who Daniel is, but he has gathered, from the disappearing colors, that it might be a schoolmate with unwarranted opinions and thus an aversion towards anyone bigger than himself.
The second thing is not the right thing to say. Steph snorts again and tosses her hair over her right shoulder. “What, man to man?” She asks, and disappears before Bruce could clarify that no, it is not like that.
He isn’t sure what it is like, except he thinks about Jason, again, in that alley. The first time they’d met. The burning question. Where are your parents, lad?
He is not her father. These days, he is barely anyone’s father.
So why does he bulk buy purple training tops and stripped socks and tugs at his collar like an idiot trying to not make his self-consciousness become a more saturated color than his attires?
Probably because the jolt of emotion in his heart when he saw her showing up in her purple tights again and eying him like she was waiting for disapproval. Probably because of how she is now blinking at him without a word for a solid minute. Probably because of how when she finally speaks, she speaks in an almost-reverent whisper, and she says, B, do we match?
Jason, tangled in the blankets, tousled hair going every direction, tugging at his pajama sleeves. Look, B, we match.
In Bruce’s mind, he can still see Jason with that toothy grin.
In Bruce’s mind, the boy will always remain fourteen and unbearably young.
But this isn’t about Jason. It’s about Stephanie, who doesn’t say hey, B, we match; who doesn’t even ask are you doing this on purpose?
She asks do we match like she is prepared to wave off whatever casualness Bruce could whip up, like she understands she will lose nine out of the ten fights she gets into.
But she’s still here.
“I think we do,” Bruce agrees. He walks them over to the training mats. “I’m going to show you a move that you can use on Daniel, next time he sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong.”