Work Text:
Spoiler was currently curled up in a roof, legs out to against the wall for extra leverage as she clinged to one of the warehouse’s structural poles. Her muscles were currently killing her, but thus was the price she paid for eavesdropping on criminals who didn’t live in her house.
Only one month ago, this kind of thing wasn’t in her job description (not the eavesdropping in precarious positions part, just the non-cluemaster part), but recently she’d been hoping to branch out beyond her cluemaster MO. Kicking her dad’s evil teeth out was honestly the best thing she’d done in… ever, really. But, after so many arrests and breakouts, the police were getting a bit tired of cluemaster- and with the upped security he’d be in prison for at least another month. That meant less Spoiler. And less Spoiler meant more Stephanie doing a whole bunch of nothing for the rest of her life.
Stephanie, being a good samaritan and having a general distaste for existentialism, decided that she’d rather punch bad guys on the street than have to decide what to do with her life. Well, she was getting to the punching bit- cluemaster’s gang was full of cowards, while other Crime Alley criminals were usually a bit better than that. Stephanie didn’t have a death wish, okay? She just had to go to the gym a bit more, then maybe she’d let herself take on 5 guys at once.
Anyways, the point was, Stephanie was not having a fun time right now, but sometimes a vigilante (a hero!) of her humble origins (and reputation) had to get up and dirty between 2 walls. She could do that (even if she’d much rather be down on the ground kicking some criminal ass). So, she leaned her head lower and hoped to dear god that her gloves weren’t actually made as cheap as they’d cost. If not, she might have to prepare for a broken face.
The biggest, toughest looking guy in the room was speaking over a couple of maps. He was probably the leader, considering his big toughness.
Apparently, her lead (a couple of drunks, go figure), had been right. This was a child trafficking deal, although it seemed disconnected from the bigger gangs. A small deal, but still important all the same. Stephanie would have to be very careful with this case.
The first thing to do would be to tip off the cops. The idea was that they would, you know, do something about the literal child traffickers. But, if they didn’t act in time, Spoiler knew about a few guys who would totally owe her if she gave them this type of info. Because sometimes the only ways to keep the criminals in check was to set other criminals on them. That was just how Crime Alley worked.
“But, eh- uh, what ‘bout Spoiler? Isn’t she kind of a threat ‘round here now?” One of the guys below asked.
Her own name was music to her ears! Finally, some recognition- and from the bad guys, no less. She was starting to feel giddy.
“Everyone knows that Spoiler only deals with Cluemaster and his guys. If we were dealing with him, sure, a leak could happen. But he’s visiting the slammer right now, Spoiler’s not gonna show.”
“He’s right. She won’t show at the deal- no one’s gonna show other than Sam and the client, isn’t that right, boys?”
The rest of them nodded and mumbled. ‘Sam’ puffed up his chest.
Inwardly, Stephanie scoffed. Spoiler only fought cluemaster, her ass! Stephanie busted any deals she heard about- which, sure, were usually related to cluemaster. She just didn’t have the money to buy proper disguises, so almost all of her information came from clumaster’s buddies. Even the ones with tough knuckles had loose lips when they thought no one was listening.
Did every criminal in the city think that Spoiler would only show up for cluemaster? Well, screw that. She’d just have to keep beating these guys up until they realized that Spoiler was staying no matter who was behind the clues or the gun or whatever. (she hoped to god that only the riddler and her dad stuck to the whole brain teasers shtick)
In her moment of distraction, she didn’t notice her feet sliding down the walls until it was too late to catch any momentum back. Then all of her weight was being carried by her arms and her gloved hands were slipping. Trying to do a pull up that high in the air probably wasn’t a particularly good idea, but it was either a bad idea or no idea and Stephanie wasn’t a coward, so bad idea it was.
However, perhaps trying to do a pull up with wrists only was probably not an impossible feat for an olympic gymnast, but she was definitely not one of those. She tried, but, you know.
She fell.
And, so- okay, Stephanie wasn’t exactly sure if this was common knowledge or not, but when someone falls, they fall fast. Weird, right?
That means that it’s really hard to do anything to stop yourself from breaking something when you’re about to hit the ground- because you literally have 5 seconds to 1) process that you are falling, 2) figure out the right way to do something about it, and 3) actually do something about it. Stephanie was barely able to do the 1st, thought that a double-backflip was the right thing to do for the 2nd, and uh. She didn’t really get to the 3rd step.
Needless to say, she was incredibly lucky when she landed right on top of a guy, only twisting (spraining? breaking?) her ankle on his neck and breaking their table as she rolled on her side mid-air, which was far better than splattering on the concrete floor of the warehouse. If only she wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of dumbfounded crooks with guns.
Her first thought was: apparently those gloves were made pretty damn cheap. Her second was: oh shit.
Stumbling through one of the nicest, coziest alleyways she had ever seen, Stephanie was very positive that she was the coolest person on earth. Batman? Who’s that? Ever heard of a gal called Spoiler? No? Well, what are you waiting for- she’s cooler than Wonder Woman! (vaguely, stephanie wondered how bad a concussion she could get from the butt of a gun knocking against her skull a few times. probably not bad enough for a doctor, who would probably tell her parents, who would then…)
The clattering of a trash lid broke her out of her thoughts. She flinched back as she turned to look behind her. Oh. She’d knocked over the trashcan herself. Made sense- yep, definitely checked out. Man, she was really out of it.
(and almost definitely had a concussion)
(shit)
Stephanie grasped at her face. Good- none of her mask had been ripped. She wheezed, partly in relief, but also because she felt like she really needed to. God, that fight had been tough. Not anything she couldn’t handle, of course! But still. Ouch.
Suddenly, a wave of exhaustion overtook her adrenaline rush.
Oh shoot- where the hell was she anyways? The alleys had all started to look the same ages ago. And also kind of spinny, but at this point Stephanie had kind of been expecting that.
She stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth in thought. (she was pretty sure that was blood she was tasting, although whether that blood was from her or the guy who she’d bit while being punched in the mouth would be a mystery forever) The smartest thing to do while nursing a bunch of bruises and a limp would probably be to go home. However, her headache (concussion) really wasn’t doing it for her and, to be honest, it was hard to figure out which way was which when it felt like the world was continuously shifting under her.
That meant Stephanie was allowed to take the much stupider route without being called an idiot (although, there was no one around to call her an idiot except for future-steph).
She was fine enough. Which was why she swung open the nearest door with the word ‘diner’ on it. Fighting crime made a girl hungry, and there was no one around to judge but her. Stephanie wasn’t the judging type though- so, there, everyone was happy. Except for her leg. And her ribs. But those guys weren’t going to be happy for a looong while.
Stephanie stumbled through the door, almost tripping over her torn cape (damn, she’d have to sew that up later). The diner was blindingly bright inside (like it was probably worrying how much the brightness hurt her eyes) and smelled like pancakes, waffles, and coffee. There were only 2 other customers with her, both staring at her. Which, y’know, fair.
As she walked over to the counter (where the old guy at the register was also staring at her), she dug through her suit for some cash. She swore she had some on her- for emergencies (like this one).
Ah ha! She took out a crumpled $5 and slid it on the counter, “What can I buy with this?”
The guy raised his eyebrows at her, and she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Was $5 really not enough for anything. Maybe she’d accidentally walked into one of those fancy diners- where waffles are 15 bucks. Her smile twitched (not that he could see it), then she clamped her hand back over the cash, ready to pull it away and laugh it off.
“Haha! Joking- I’m totally joking. I have more money than that!”
He just shook his head slowly. Like what (good) parents did when their kids were doing something stupid. He was shaking his head fondly. “Keep the cash, Spoiler. You can have something on the house. Can’t let Crime Alley’s vigilante pay with dollars covered in blood.” (yeah, there was definitely blood on that bill. oops)
Now this was the shit Spoiler lived for, other than the whole stopping crime thing. The recognition of the people. It had only happened once or twice within the past few months, but it was slowly increasing in numbers. It was also probably going to give Stephanie an ego bigger than any Rouge around, but it was nice to be appreciated, to be noticed. She wondered if Batman and Robin felt this high too, or if they were too good at their jobs for that kind of thing.
“Waffles to go then!” Then, wincing at her volume, she added a quieter, “Thanks.” And shoved the bill back in her pocket.
The guy gave her a lopsided smile, “I think everyone around this area has, ah, been hit by Cluemaster. Nice to know someone’s looking out for us. A smart one, too.”
Stephanie could feel her skin heat beneath her mask. Okay, that was a new one. But, it made sense. Sure, cluemaster was small compared to an actual Rogue, but his robbing, dealings, and recruiting had a lot of impact on the area. All crime did really. (a small, very wrong, part of stephanie couldn’t help but be glad that cluemaster was affecting people other than her and her mom)
“It comes with the job. You know how it is.” She gestured to her bloody outfit.
“That’s the Cluemaster’s arch nemesis for ya!” And he chuckled as he walked off, presumably to get her a plate of waffles.
She grimaced.
Gross. Why did everyone think that she fought cluemaster exclusively? Spoiler did way more than just cluemaster work, she worked outside the family. Her throbbing everything could attest to that.
Her dad wasn’t even a cool enough villain to get one! Especially when his supposed arch-nemesis was her!
Before she could deny the assumption, a foam container of waffles were shuffled her way. But the guy looked at her with gratefulness, and Stephanie just couldn’t bring herself to say anything about it.
Because, like, sure, it was stupid as hell. But she was being acknowledged, by criminals and civilians alike. That had never really been a thing that happened to Stephanie. To her dad, she was dead weight. To her mom, she was around. And to everyone else, she was just another future criminal. She knew what everyone thought about her, and that only made her want to be better than they’d ever be.
This recognition didn’t exactly mean she was big league, but beggars couldn’t exactly be choosers. And, at this point, Stephanie was definitely a beggar.
She would move beyond the shadow of her dad eventually. She knew that (she had to believe it). She just had to keep at busting deals and passing info around. One day, every criminal would fear her and every civilian around would cheer her name. Everyone would respect her, and it would be great.
She waved goodbye to the man as she left. To the other people too, although they had stopped staring at her. He couldn’t see her smile.
Stephanie sat outside in the alleyway, mask partly raised, to eat her waffles (they had whipped cream and were drenched in syrup- she was totally going to this place again, spoiler or not) with a plastic fork. The floor was dirty, it smelled bad, and the sun was coming up, but it was better than being home, worrying about how the hell she was going to cover up her bruises and walk without a limp. That was for future-Steph to worry about.
(right now, stephanie’s life was made entirely of waffles and pride)