Stephanie Brown was Robin for 104 days before she was fired.
There had been, also, the three month training period beforehand. Apparently, she had had the shortest training period of Robin (Dick had trained for a year, Jason had trained for 13 months, and after Tim’s first brief stint as Robin he’d trained for 7 months). Overall, it’s a record to be proud of.
She had helped stop 215 violent crimes. 43 criminals were charged with federal offenses due to work she did as Robin. She learned how to code in 23 different coding languages. She learned seven new languages. She could only do a quarter as many pull ups as Bruce, and she could only run four miles before having to stop to pant for breath to Bruce’s 32.
She would never be as good as her predecessors. It was in Bruce’s every sigh, his every scold. It was in the display case of a torn Robin suit in the Batcave.
Stephanie's Robin had been different. Because her training period had been so short, Bruce had taught her what he felt were the most important skills of being a vigilante. Do not let your fear control you. Always try your best to think before you act. Learn to fall before you learn to be Robin. Check your gear every night you go out. Above all, you listen to me.
Stephanie wasn’t so good at the last rule. No Robins were. She was upholding a very noble tradition.
“Found our perp,” Steph said around a mouthful of M&M’s.
“Hmm,” Bruce said and took a sip of his slushie she had made Bruce buy. She’d told him to get Mountain Dew and Banana. The lack of complete expression on his face told her Bruce thought it was one of the worst things he’d ever had in his life.
“I’ll take that off your hands for you,” Steph said.
“Please,” Bruce muttered.
Being Robin was simultaneously some of the best and worst experiences of her life. Bruce yelled at her every other day, and kind words were sparing. Some nights, it felt like she never did anything at all but follow behind Batman and feel small and lost.
But those few seconds between flinging herself into the air and catching herself with a grapple? She lived for that. All the Robins loved flying.
Cassandra Cain was on another level. In any given spar with Bruce, she could knock him on his ass nearly a majority of the time. She was so in control of her body Stephanie couldn’t even be jealous the way she was with Dick, because Cass was so far beyond anything Steph could even hope to achieve it didn’t matter.
Cass never minded that Steph said weird shit or made jokes that were only funny to herself (Steph was a comedian, okay? If you throw enough at the wall, some of them stick. Some don’t, though). Steph had done alright in school, and she was funny and fairly pretty, but because of her parents and then because of her extracurricular activities Steph had never really had a best friend before. Cass, though, was just as weird as Steph. One of her favorite hobbies was going to Target and making Steph push her around in the shopping carts. She genuinely loved pickle juice to an absolutely disgusting degree. She liked to listen to Jersey Shore and then copy lines to tell Bruce. Cass was the best friend Steph ever had.
Steph, despite any appearances to the contrary, was an intense person, and she had never had any deep connections with people because it had never seemed like anyone got her. Tim, for a time, had gotten her. Tim was just as intense and self-obsessed and weird as Steph was at that age, and the mantle of Robin was almost mythologic at that point and Tim was hot and cool and smart and seemed to think Steph was hot and cool and smart. Tim and Steph, at 14 and 15 respectively, had both very badly wanted to be seen and held and appreciated by someone else.
Growing up means outgrowing the person you used to be. It means the people you grow up with change, too. Tim was Tim Drake, and then he was Robin, and then for a while he wasn’t anything, and then he was Robin again and then he was Red Robin. Steph had been Stephanie Brown, and then she had been Spoiler, and then she’d been Robin and Spoiler and then she had been Batgirl. At some point, none of those identities fit together. And it sucked. But it was okay. She’d been in love with Tim at 15 in the only way she could have been in love at 15, and it wasn’t until she was older that she realized little-Steph’s thoughts that Tim Drake was the only boy she would ever love were both incredibly dramatic and also very sincere in a way that she missed.
Training with Barbara Gordon was even harder than training as Robin. Bruce had been training her to be a vigilante first, to get her the skills she needed, and to be a Robin second. Bruce, almost as soon he decided to train her, had realized Steph would never really be his Robin. Steph had understood this. Steph didn’t try to be Bruce’s Robin, or Dick’s or Tim’s (or Jason’s). She’d only tangentially been a Robin. A New-Robin. A Maybe-Robin. A Blonde-Robin and a Girl-Robin and the Girl Wonder and the Robin who was the first Robin to turn her head too fast and whack Batman in the face with her thick braid. Nightwing laughed so hard he cried. Steph had had no real expectations to live up to besides not dying, and she nearly fucked that one up, too.
Barbara had decided she had expectations for Steph. Babs and Cass both thought she was ready to be the next Batgirl (after a few more months of training, obviously. Dinah Lance hit like a motherfucker). Steph had wanted to be Robin, because every self-respecting boy and girl in Gotham wanted to be Robin. Even the kids from the worst parts of town, who’s parents spat about the Batman, pretended to be Robin in the streets.
Batgirl was different. When Barbara had started, she had worked with Batman, was obviously associated with him, had been trained extensively by him, but she was still her own vigilante. She had her own parts of town to patrol, her own investigations to pursue, her own people to call on in times of need. Robin was never allowed to age, not allowed to stray too far from Batman’s bulletproof cape. Batgirl was something both more profound and more real than Robin.
Steph had a legacy to live up to. Steph had several legacies to live up to. Batgirl had been something new that she could make hers in a way she would never be able to make Robin hers. It was a hard grueling task, and half the time Steph thought maybe she really wasn’t ready, but then Babs would give her a hand up, or Cass would smile teasingly at her and give her a water bottle, and Steph thought maybe she should let her self-deprecating thoughts take a backseat for a while.
Stephanie Brown loved the feeling of free-fall. All Batgirls did.
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