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“I don’t have eyes on Spoiler,” Oracle said, crisply.
“When did you lose her?” Batman asked.
“Ten minutes ago. I don’t know what’s going on.” Oracle hesitated. “I’m not sure, Batman, but I think she might be in distress.”
“Understood.”
***
Bruce followed the real-time trail of breadcrumbs Oracle was assembling for him. It seemed as arbitrary and as careless as she was, going everywhere and nowhere.
And then it landed there. On the roof of a hospital. Spoiler was there, sitting back against a chimney, the cape pooling around her as she bent over her knees, head cradled in her hands, her forearms resting along her thighs.
She was shaking, sobbing, helplessly.
Bruce knelt by her. “Spoiler?”
“Don’t touch me,” Spoiler managed, her chest heaving. “Don’t you come near me.”
Bruce stood up and carefully retreated a few feet away. “Oracle is worried about you.”
Spoiler shook her head violently, and pushed herself upwards, dragging her mask off her face and wiping her eyes, still sagging back against the chimney. “Oracle doesn’t like me.”
“She’s worried about you,” Bruce repeated.
Stephanie straightened her back and tilted her head up, so that she was looking straight up into oblivion. “You know what I’m starting to figure out?” she said. “That worry and love and like aren’t all the same.”
“Spoiler...”
“That girl,” Stephanie said, her voice full of anguish. “That little girl.”
“She’s going to be all right, Spoiler.”
Stephanie shoved her face into Bruce’s, her bare nose right up against the tip of the thick kevlar cowl. “She’s not,” Stephanie said, with their faces not an inch apart. “They cut her foot off, Batman. She’s never going to be okay.”
There are prosthetics, Bruce wanted to say. There are therapies that will make it easier for her. She can have a good and full life, even though this happened to her.
“You found her in time to save her life,” he said, instead. “She’s alive, and that’s the most important thing.”
“You don’t know,” Stephanie said, her voice raw. “You don’t know. I’m...I’m responsible. I have to take care of her.”
“Spoiler,” Bruce said, gently. “We have to try with everyone. But we won’t win every time. The girl, Alicia—she’s lucky. She has a good family that will give her all the help that she needs.”
Stephanie covered her eyes with one hand, her face mask dangling from the other, “Yeah,” she choked out. “I’m sorry. Go ahead. I’ll...I’ll follow you back in a minute, I promise.”
Bruce hesitated. “I want to save everyone,” he told her. “I can’t. But I want to. I will always try.”
“I know,” Stephanie said. She gave him a watery smile. “I know you have to. That’s what makes you Batman.”
***
Steph stood staring at the glass case that housed the costume: domino mask, chest armor, and gloves and boots, all seemingly suspended in air. Every individual piece must have been mounted on the finest of wires, in order to achieve that ghostly silhouette.
Jason, the plaque read. Just that. Just….Jason. There were other cases in the Cave, other costumes on display, but somehow, this one felt different.
Stephanie wasn’t stupid; she knew Robin’s colors well as any Gotham kid did. It was Dick’s old costume. (Stephanie knew she wasn’t even supposed to know that name; Batman had had a concussion when he’d called Nightwing by it, and they’d both been cagey with her for months afterwards.) It was the costume he’d worn before he’d grown up and become Nightwing. So why this case, with this costume, but a different name?
Jason, the plaque read. Stephanie traced the letters with her fingertips, and then touched her face.
Brass wasn’t supposed to smell like anything, but Steph’s fingers smelled like copper.
***
“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but you’re a big hit with the Birds of Prey,” Nightwing said, adjusting his binoculars. “The Black Canary thinks you have, quote unquote, ‘a lot of potential.’”
“Wow,” Steph said. “That’s...cool.” She adjusted a corner of her hood, nervously. “By the way, just, um, thank you. For doing this. Batman says you’re even better at this stuff than he is.”
The rooftop was higher than Steph had ever been before. She was slightly terrified, and a little high on adrenaline.
Nightwing didn’t look at Stephanie, as he dropped his binoculars. “Don’t mention it.”
Steph readied herself, and grasped the line firmly in both gloved hands.
Nightwing kicked her off the ledge.
Steph screamed as she fell. She didn’t mean to, but the raw terror of falling ripped it out of her, never mind that there was a harness to catch her if she didn’t catch herself—
—but then she caught herself, running down the last few dozen feet, using the line and the building to slow herself, until she was finally able to brace, legs on the wall, arms on the line.
Steph looked down. That was a bad, bad idea; it was so far down to the pavement it sent her head spinning and made her gut churn, and she had to shake her head violently to get rid of the image.
Staying here until her arms gave out also seemed like a bad idea. Steph looked up. There was the roof, and a faint motion that she thought might be Nightwing leaning out over the ledge to look down at her. They seemed impossibly far above her, but the whole point of this exercise was to learn how to climb a building even if the grapple mechanism failed. Steph tilted her head back a little farther, and beyond the roof, beyond Nightwing, was the sky. A smoggy, filthy, Gotham sky. But up there was better than down there, or worse, stuck between them both.
Stephanie put one foot above the other, and heaved herself up.
Slow and steady, she told herself. Keep on going.
One arm after the other. One foot after the other. Over and over. Up and up. Until she finally reached the roof again, and she grasped at the ledge, and hauled herself over over it. Steph rolled over into the roof gravel, and gasped, and then sobbed into her arm, in sheer relief.
“Good job,” Nightwing said. He didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic.
Stephanie pushed back her hood, and pulled off her mask, and just laid on the rooftop for a minute, looking at the sky.
Somewhere up there, there were stars.
***
“He’s such a jerk,” Steph said, wretchedly. “He hates me, Oracle. He never talks to me, he’s mean when he does—”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Oracle’s aggravatingly neutral voice said. “He’s…”. Oracle was silent for several seconds. “Unhappy.”
What’s he got to be so unhappy about? Steph thought, bitterly. He’s Nightwing! He was ROBIN!
“Hey, um, Oracle,” she said, instead. “Can I ask a question?”
“Of course,” Oracle said. “That’s what I’m here for, Spoiler.”
“I know that Nightwing used to be Robin. But...uh—there was another Robin, right?”
There was a pause. “What makes you say that?”
“There’s this big, fancy glass case in the Cave, with a Robin costume, and the plaque on it says ‘Jason’. So someone besides Dick—”
“Field names,” Oracle said, sharply.
“—wore that costume. Am I wrong?”
Oracle was quiet. “No.”
“I was just...curious where he’s at now,” Steph said. “I was hoping we could talk sometime?” She bit her lip. “I thought if I could talk to this Jason guy, maybe he could help me understand Batman and Nightwing better.”
There was a long silence.
“I don’t mean like...face to face,” Steph said nervously. “I know this is a whole big secret identity extravaganza—”
“No.”
Steph’s mouth snapped shut. Her hand hovered over the off button, but she hesitated, while the line stayed open.
And it stayed open.
“I don’t mean to be cruel,” Oracle said, after a long, heavy silence. “I can’t talk about this, Spoiler. I’m sorry.”
The line shut off.
***
Steph paced back and forth. “Hey, boss,” she said to thin air. “I was just wondering who ‘Jason’ is, and why no one will talk about him. Also, hey Batman, why am I practically the only person you talk to besides Commissioner Gordon? If you can really call it ‘talking’, that is.”
“Kid, your comm is on,” a voice said behind her.
Steph yelped. “Ohshitohshitohshit—” and she slapped at her comm frantically, until she remembered she wasn’t wearing one. Because she was at home, practicing questions she was too scared to ask. Steph whirled around to see Dinah Lance grinning at her, climbing in through Steph’s bedroom window.
“I was in town and I wanted to see how you were doing,” the Black Canary said, leaning against the windowsill. “Those clowns still steering clear?”
Steph all but melted. “Yeah,” she said. “Ever since you scared them off.”
“How about you, kiddo?” Dinah said. “It’s been ages. How are you doing?”
There were a million and one things Steph could say about how she was doing. But did the Black Canary really want to know them?
Did Steph really want to have to explain her mistakes, even to Dinah?
It was killing her.
All of it. Every moment. Week after week of moments. The day of, and the slow recovery. Hiding her face in her own arm, sinking in shame, frightened of what she’d done; begging the nurse to take her straight away, so Steph wouldn’t be tempted to go back on her word.
So she wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to cling to the baby and then keep her, and raise her, when Steph couldn’t possibly be enough. Steph didn’t even know what enough looked like. She only knew she’d never had it.
Steph couldn’t possibly raise a baby. It would be too selfish to even try.
“Do you want to hold her?” the nurse had said.
Every fiber of Stephanie’s body screamed yes. She’d shivered with the intense desire to turn over and reach out, and hold that thing she’d made, that baby, the living creature who lived because of her. A little person. A little...girl.
“No,” she said, muffling her face under a blanket.
The nurse hesitated in the doorway. “You’re sure, honey?”
It was kindness; it was torture.
“I’m sure,” Stephanie said, willing her voice to be as even and strong as it could be.
The nurse left, gently closing the door behind her, and then, Stephanie had lost herself for so long that she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to come back to Spoiler.
“I’m great,” Steph said to Dinah, as brightly as she could. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually been hanging out a lot more with Batman…”
***
“Remember what you’ve lost,” Ivy said, viciously. “Remember everything you’ve ever squandered.” She toed the edge of Batman’s cape, flicking it up with her foot. “Men are so wasteful.”
Batman struggled to push himself up out of the mud. “I’m...surprisingly economical,” he croaked, before he collapsed, finally succumbing to the poison touch of Ivy’s vines.
“Enjoy your nightmares,” Ivy hissed. “May you dream about everything you’ve ever lost. Just like me.”
The night was split by an unholy banshee scream as Spoiler came barreling in from the left, boot-first, leaving Ivy reeling and clutching at her nose.
“You little bitch—” Ivy said, groping at her.
Spoiler didn’t take the time to bait Poison Ivy. She hit. She hit as hard as she could, and with everything she could scrabble with.
There was the remains of a park bench, left over from the days when Robinson Park wasn’t just Ivy’s personal playground. The boards came off too easy, rotted through, and when Steph smashed them across Ivy’s face she knew it was scratches at best. So she ran. Batman was down, Steph had pissed Ivy off just enough…
She was right. Ivy did follow her, and holy crap crap crap Steph had not planned this out, and everyone was right about her. She thumbed her comm. “If anyone is listening, Batman’s down and Ivy’s after me,” she yelped.
There was a loud click, and then silence. A minute later, Nighting announced “Almost on your location, Spoiler.”
Great.
She kept moving. She looked around enough to keep a sense of her surroundings, and then she whirled around to see him.
Nightwing. (Or as she liked to think of him, that guy.)
“Oh thank god,” Steph said, leaning back just a little against a street lamp.
“Where is he?” Nightwing growled.
“Last time I saw him, he was in Robinson Park,” Stephanie said. “Kind of, uh, lying in the mud.”
“What?” Nightwing said, sharply. “You left him?”
“I was drawing her off!” Steph protested. “And Ivy’s gonna be here any minute, Nightwing—”
And then she was, or nearly so.
They could tell, when the grass poking through the cracks of the sidewalk started creeping at their boots. The upper east side wasn’t exactly Eden, but it had its share of greenery. An elm tree quivered, ominously.
“Get out of here,” Nightwing said.
“What? Are you kidding me?” Steph protested.
Nightwing whirled, and planted a hand firmly on Steph’s chest, shoving her back. “You listen to me, Spoiler,” he said, in an harsh voice. “You’re not ready for this. I don’t think you ever will be. And your job right now—your only job—is to go get Batman out of the mud where you never should have left him in the first place, and to get him home safely. Do you hear me?”
Steph nodded stiffly. She shook the hungry grass off her boots, and then she turned and went to find Batman.
Sometimes, Stephanie really hated Nightwing.
***
Grapple and parkour; flip and stitch. Steph ran as fast as she could, back to Batman.
He was still there, in the mud, where Steph had left him. She scrunched her eyes shut, and ignored the hot tears slipping out of her eyes and staining her mask. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, and she scraped mud away from Batman, trying to get as much of it off him as she could.
He was so huge. Steph sat back for a second, head thrown back and lip bitten, hard, in sheer frustration. He had to weigh a ton. How was she ever going to get him back to the car?
Just as she bent over, bracing herself to drag, because she didn’t know how else she could do it, Batman’s eyes flickered open, and latched onto Steph.
“Jason,” he breathed, and he reached up, caressing Steph’s face through her hood. She stiffened.
“Boss?” she said quietly. “Batman?”
Batman thrashed, and twisted about the mud, finally hauling himself up to his hands and knees. “Jason,” Batman choked out. “Oh my god.”
“Batman,” Steph said helplessly. “I’m not Jason, I don’t know who that is—“
Batman sobbed, throwing his arms around her, dragging Steph down onto her knees, clutching her against him. “Son,” he said, clutching her. “My son—Jason—my son—oh god you’re alive, you’re alive, Jason, thank god you’re alive, you’re here—”
Oh.
***
“It shouldn’t be too long now,” Agent A said, solemnly.
Nightwing grunted.
In Steph’s personal opinion, being able to create a counteragent to a supervillain chemist’s home-grown hallucinogen in less than a day was pretty amazing.
To Nightwing, it was too slow.
In Steph’s personal opinion, Nightwing needed to relax.
He’d hated her almost since day one. Almost.
(Day one had actually been pretty good. Batman had introduced them, and Nightwing had shaken her hand. He’d congratulated her for taking up the cause. He’d asked, nicely, what had prompted her to fight crime, and he seemed to approve of her answer.
The next time he met her, a month later, he’d been bitter and cold. No matter what she said or did, he stayed cool to Steph. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong. No one would tell her what she’d done wrong.)
Steph sat in the corner and tried not to feel Nightwing’s death glare on her. It was easier than usual, because she was so caught up in the sense-memory of Batman’s crushing arms; the shudder of his head, bowed over Steph’s shoulder. She shivered, remembering the heaviness of his body, loose and broken, sinking over hers, her arms rising up, trying to catch him as he slowly fell, collapsed across her lap, and she cradled his head.
I wanted to hold you!
Steph blinked, hard.
Nightwing and Agent A had their heads bowed over a table, fussing, and fiddling with something Steph couldn’t make out.
“It won’t be long now,” she murmured to Batman. “They’ll fix you up.”
But they won’t, not really, she thought. That was who Jason was, and that was why Jason wasn’t.
Steph broke off, went to the farthest part of the Cave that she could find, and she pinged Oracle.
It took a few minutes, but Oracle answered.
“This Jason guy,” Steph said bluntly. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
There was a long, shocked silence. “Yes,” Oracle said, finally.
“How did he die? What happened to him?”
“Spoiler...what’s going on?”
“Batman had a bad trip after Ivy got to him, and he kept calling me Jason, Oracle. I know it was bad. I need to know how bad.”
Another silence, not as long this time. “Jason was the second Robin. The Joker...he murdered him.”
“Oh my god,” Steph said, softly, somehow shocked, in spite of everything.
“Spoiler,” Oracle said.
Finish a sentence, why don’t you, Steph thought.
“The reason Nightwing is...it’s just…”
“What?” Steph felt exhausted and furious. At the same time. All the time.
“You’re so like him.” Oracle said, plainly. “It’s been very hard. For everyone. It was never personal, okay?”
Here was everything that Steph had wanted to know, for months.
She shut off the comm, and drifted away.
***
Spoiler was crouched on a gargoyle, and not by accident. Some part of her hoped it would summon him. Supernaturally, as if by totem.
He’s a detective, idiot, she told herself, and pushed back her hood, and pulled off her mask. She needed the air on her face. She tilted her head back, breathing the wind, the clean air you could only get this high up in Gotham, near the top of the highest skyscraper in town—
Steph’s eyes flicked open. The totem had delivered.
Batman eased down a few feet back from her, as far as he could safely sit, given her precarious perch. “Spoiler,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“I am now. I’m….sorry you had to see that.”
“Good,” Steph said, staring far down at the tiny lights of the Diamond District. “That you’re okay, I mean.” All those buildings, the ones that money built—the ones that money lived in. She’d never live in one like that. Dad wanted to, Mom didn't…not want to.
“And you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You didn’t tell me about your son.”
She didn’t hear the retreat, he was that quiet. She only felt it in the quiet shift of air across her back, through her cloak.
She didn’t rush. She climbed up the last several floors, the way Nightwing had taught her, so that they were on the same plane.
He was kneeling over the opposite side of the roof, shaking. She knelt by his side, and leaned against him, so she could feel the quake of his body against her own.
“I’ve never told anyone this,” she said, her voice strangely steady. “But I had a baby. It’s why I had to stop being Spoiler for awhile.”
“You had a baby?” Batman shifted under her shoulder, tectonic plates unrestless and unsatisfied. “What happened?”
Stephanie closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t...how was it…” He sounded uncertain, but Stephanie still wanted to dig into the cliff of Batman and make a home there. Wasn’t that was Batman was there for?
“It was a closed adoption. I asked for it,” she said, quietly. “I don’t know where she ended up. I don’t know if she’s safe, if she’s loved—I’ll never know. I don’t know if she’s even—” Stephanie faltered, unable to give voice to the terrible thought. She could be dead, just like your son. Just like Jason. “I don’t even know her name,” she said, brokenly.
“Oh my God,” Batman said, as if the concept of a teenage pregnancy was something shocking, unthinkable. He put out a hand and touched her face. “You’re only sixteen.” After a long moment, he slid back his cowl, still staring down at her. He looked familiar, but Steph couldn’t place him.
“I was fifteen when I had her,” Steph whispered. She tried to go on, but then her throat caught in a sob, and then all that would come out was tears. Batman shifted to that he was facing, reaching out, and Stephanie fell into his arms, weeping helplessly.
***
Batman gave good hugs. Steph hadn’t know that before. He’d never hugged her before, or Nightwing, either, even though she’d gotten the distinct impression that he’d raised Nightwing, that he’d been more to Robin—the first one—than a mentor. (Was Dick Batman’s son, too? They had one heck of a weird relationship, if he was. But Batman and Nightwing were pretty weird people.) The only physical contact Batman had ever bestowed on Stephanie outside sparring and weapons instruction had been a firm clasp on the shoulder, his way of saying “good job” when even those words were too much for him. It hadn’t seemed strange; in Steph’s experience, that was what men were like. Hugging was for girls.
Maybe not. Right now Batman was holding Stephanie like a lifeline, and she had her arms encircled around his neck, and her face buried in his chest.
It felt good. It felt safe.
Batman was the only thing that had ever felt safe, to Stephanie.
“You never talk about him,” she mumbled, into his chestplate.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“No,” she said. Steph was still crying, but at least now it was just tears sneaking down her face, and not the full-body party from before. “I get it. It hurts too much.”
“It does,” Batman said quietly. “I think about Jason every day. Every day, it hurts. Part of me wishes I could forget him, and that I could stop.”
“And then you hate yourself for even thinking that,” Stephanie said.
“I would never be able to forgive myself for forgetting Jason,” Batman said softly. “His memory is all that’s left of him.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Steph said, shifting in Batman’s arms so that her face was free. She looked up, up at the sky, up at the smoggy red. Nothing like the red of the tunic—Robin’s red breast was a bright, clean, color, a bold one. “He was Robin. Robin is—was—a hero. All the people he helped, all the people he saved—they’re still here. Everything good he did in his life is still here, even though he’s gone.”
Batman sat silent for a few moments. “I never thought of it like that.”
“You could tell me about him,” Steph said shyly.
“He was—” Batman paused and cleared his throat. “Jason was the best. He was the bravest person I’ve ever known. I should tell you how I met him, some time.”
“Met?” she said. Wasn’t Jason his son?
“Oh,” Batman said. “I adopted Jason when he was twelve. Both of his parents were dead, and he was homeless. He—” and here, Batman actually chuckled “—he was trying to steal the wheels off the Batmobile. I caught him red-handed.”
“No,” Steph breathed.
“Yes,” Batman said. “Then he hit me with a tire iron and tried to hotfoot it away, the little spitfire.”
Steph couldn’t help herself; she giggled at the thought.
“Sharp as a tack, too,” Batman continued, starting to smile. “He picked things up incredibly fast. He was so empathetic—he always tried to take care of people, even me.” Batman closed his eyes and the smile became a grin. “He was funny—he could make me laugh, no matter how terrible things seemed. He loved doing that. He’d make it his goal, to get a smile out of me; wouldn’t stop until he did.”
Batman. Grinning.
Batman.
“He loved school, too,” Batman said. “Reading. Languages—he was taking German when he—” He stopped, abruptly, and the smile vanished. “And Robin. God, Jason loved being Robin. But it was being Robin that killed him.”
“I’m sorry,” Steph said, and really meant it. “He sounds wonderful.”
“All I ever wanted was to give him a better future,” Batman said, in a voice laced with pain. “He’d had everything taken away from him, when I met him—everything except his potential. His circumstances were...not good. He was on a path he didn’t want to be on and didn’t know how to get off. When I offered him a chance—he took it straightaway. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to help people, not to hurt or steal.”
Steph thought she was was all cried out now, but suddenly her eyes were burning again and she closed them, trying to banish the image of that stupid orange and blue jumpsuit from her mind, trying to banish the wave of shame that came with it. “Oracle said that I reminded everybody of him,” she said in a low voice.
“Did she?” Batman sounded slightly startled. He paused, seeming to consider it. “Yes. Yes, of course. I can see how you’re similar.”
Stephanie pushed away from him, out of his arms, although she didn’t scoot away. He released her gently and without protest. Steph drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t suppose Jason had a two-bit crook for a dad?” she said, more bitterly than she meant to.
Batman’s mouth crooked. “Actually, he did.”
Yeah, well, it’s Gotham. “And an addict mom?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re never going to believe this,” Batman said, almost dryly. “I’ll give you his file, when we get back to the Cave.”
“If you don’t mind,” Steph said, “And I actually would like to read that, but if it’s okay—maybe you could just tell me more about him?”
“All right,” he said.
She couldn’t reciprocate; she didn’t know a thing about her daughter beside what she’d already said, but as heavy as all of this was, there was something cathartic about speaking the unspeakable, about sharing this with him.
Stephanie loved Batman, but she didn’t know him.
Maybe she could.
***
Dick settled down next to her, sweaty and stinking from his workout.
Steph fanned herself, and flicked over a glance.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Steph took a swig from her water bottle, and then dumped most of the rest of it over her head, feeling the water roll down her face and chest and arms, and the heat evaporating off her skin as it dried.
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate you saying that.”
“I just—” Nightwing said. He stopped. “I wasn’t…”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Steph said, staring up at the ceiling.
“I was a terrible brother,” Nightwing said, anyway. “I only met Jason a couple of times, and I was an ass to him at first. I thought we ended things okay, and I gave him my number, because I knew Bruce could be hard to deal with. But he never called. And the next thing I knew, he was dead. I wasn’t even on the planet. I came home, and my brother was dead, and I’d barely even known him.”
Nightwing’s face was bleak. Steph hoped she wasn’t supposed to comfort him, because she knew she didn’t have it in her. He hadn’t given her enough. She didn’t have it in her to give to him.
Steph shut her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Stephanie.”
Well. Then.
“Batman,” she said, eventually. “What’s that like?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s it like? What does he mean to you? What do you mean do him?”
“I see,” Nightwing said, a little amused, a little thoughtful. “It’s….complicated. He was what I needed, when I met him.”
Stephanie jerked.
“My parents had been murdered in front of me,” Dick said, as if he hadn’t seen her flinch. “I was eight years old. Bruce...he knew what that felt like. He wanted to save me. And he did.”
Bruce?
The name triggered something in Stephanie, and suddenly the familiar, unplaceable face and the name slammed together.
Bruce Wayne. Holy shit. And...and Dick Grayson, and Jason Todd.
“Oh,” was all she said, while her head spun into oblivion.
“He gave me a way forward,” Dick said. “He helped me find justice. He gave me a purpose. I’ve never looked back.”
“I’m sorry,” Steph said in a tiny voice. “I’m really sorry that you lost your parents. It must have been awful.”
“It was,” Dick said. He stretched upwards, and she could hear his tendons pop back into place. “I still miss them. But I love my life, Spoiler. Bruce is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah,” Dick said, with a smile. “I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
***
“Oracle,” Steph said, screwing her courage to the sticking place.
“Spoiler?”
“Batman told you everything, right?”
“I know everything,” Oracle said, dryly. “I don’t need Batman to tell me things.”
Steph was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but there were a lot of questions she was shelving for now, in favor of the big one. “Oracle, you said I reminded people of Jason.”
A pause. “I did say that.”
“Do I remind you of Jason?”
Another pause. “Yes.”
“How?” Steph said, quietly.
Oracle made a noise that sounded remarkably like clicking her tongue. “You have courage,” she said. “You want to rise above your circumstances. I respect that.”
“Thanks,” Steph said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Oracle?”
“Yes?”
“Am I a good person?”
Yet another pause, and then a chuckle. “Yeah, you are, Spoiler. I know a lot of good people. You’re definitely one of them.”
Okay.
Okay.
***
Steph shifted on the roof, looking upwards.
“I used to dream about you,” she told him. “I’d sit here and imagine you swooping through the air. You’d put him in jail and you’d save me from...everything.”
Bruce leaned against her, bumping shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault everything sucks,” Steph said. “You try to make it not. That’s why…” she trailed off. “You make things better.”
Batman cleared his throat. “There was something I was hoping to…well.”
“What?”
“I looked,” Bruce said quietly. “I found her.”
Steph froze.
“I can tell you or not tell you. It’s up to you.”
Steph didn’t move a muscle, or even breathe. When she was starting to get dizzy, she took in a sharp, shallow breath, and then another. “Is she safe?”
“Yes. She’s safe.”
“Whoever has her—they love her?”
“They do.”
“Okay,” Steph breathed.
“Do you want to know?”
Steph shook her head. She wanted to cry or scream or— “If I knew, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”
Batman put his hand on her shoulder, and squeezed. “It’s in the computer. Just in case.”
“Thank you,” Steph said. And then, she didn’t mean to, but she did; Steph leaned against him, and whispered, “What did they name her?”
“Leah,” Bruce said. “Your daughter’s name is Leah.”
“Thanks,” Steph said, blinking furiously.
There was that firm shoulder clasp, and then Batman was gone.
Steph mouthed it carefully.
Leah. Lee-ah. Leah.
Steph carefully climbed back through her bedroom window, back into the house she hated, back into the bedroom where everything felt small and smelled like mildew.
She left the window open.
Steph stripped off her costume, letting the armor Batman had given her clatter carelessly into the corner of the closet, tossing a blanket over it. Mom was at work, and if she hadn’t been, she’d be too stoned out of her mind to notice the noise.
Leah.
Goodnight, Leah. I love you.
***
Bruce stopped at the bottom of the stairs, as something tickled his memory.
Jason skidding down the bannister. Dick had done it too, much more successfully—
“Oof,” Bruce says, snatching Jason before he can fall; hefting the child, as if he was actually a burden. “Alfred, I found this luggage, can someone claim him—” meanwhile, Jason is shouting joyfully, trying to kick his way free of Bruce.
“Not so fast,” Bruce admonishes, wrestling with him.
“Let me go!” Jason shrieks.
“Never!” Bruce growls.
Jason wriggles free, and then, as soon as he is, runs back and leaps up onto Bruce’s back. “I’m not going anywhere, old man,” Jason says, into his ear.
“I know you’re not,” Bruce tells him, reaching back to ruffle Jason’s hair. “I love you too much.”