spoiler alert

[spoilingstephanie]

[spoilingstephanie]

The screech-squeal of the roll of packing tape in her hands echoed against the stone wall behind her as Stephanie pulled out another long strip, getting all the way up on her tip-toes to lay a second strand at just above own eye-level in the entryway of the recreation room. Stephanie was humming under her breath as she made sure the double-layer of tape was secure (sticky-side out, very important) on both sides, rolling the reel of tape round and round in ever-busy hands as she surveyed her work. Perfect. An impish grin began as Stephanie snickered to herself, outright devilish with the laughter carrying out into the empty hallway as she quickly disposed of the evidence under a throw pillow on the couch. Leave it to Stephanie Brown to find trouble on her day off of work, but at least this was trouble that probably wouldn’t end with her splattered on the sidewalk. ...Probably. Maybe. The Winter Soldier could probably throw her overhead with just that big ol’ metal arm of his right out a window if he happened to be the first to waltz face-first into her sticky trap. Totally worth it, though, and then she wouldn’t have to write the report that was already way past due or tell Barbara she’d broken another comm unit. But now the hard part: waiting, absolutely impatiently, curled up on the couch with one leg bouncing up and down at an Energizer-Bunny-tpe pace with the TV remote in-hand and some bullshit reality TV show she wasn’t listening to droning on in the background. No, the entertainment she had planned was going to be much better than Keeping up with the Whats-Their-Faces for damn sure.

[spoilingstephanie]

I'm terrified of rejection But I get high off attention I drink my coffee light 'Cause I'm not fucking pretentious Say that I read for fun But haven't read in months Say that I'm settling down But I blacked out at brunch I swear sixteen was yesterday But now I'm closer to twenty-eight I'm focusing all of my energy on just staying awake Oh, I don't mean to keep Making it about me Everybody feels like this at twenty-three I know I'm not unique But I'm a drama queen I don't know why I'm surprised It's just a quarter life crisis

[spoilingstephanie]

poixonivy​:

Pam could feel her expression curling in anger and had to bite down on her tongue to keep from retaliating immediately, reminding herself that she was on the run now (actually), and she wasn’t in Gotham (the single most ridiculous place on earth), and that it wasn’t three years ago (obviously). If she got caught by the ISA, if Waller finally got her hands on her—

But she wasn’t going to tolerate some mouthy twenty year old calling her lady. What a brat. “What a pity for you, then,” Pam snarked anyway, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a flick of her head. “I’m sure that whatever corporate-funded charity you’re getting college credits for will be able to survive without you for another fifteen minutes.” 

...

At least it wasn’t cold out, Stephanie decided as she unzipped her sweatshirt to peel off the smoothie-soaked layer and fully assess the damage. At least the sweater was already purple, even if she was grumpy about the spill; staining wouldn’t be the end of the world. And, double bonus, it hadn’t soaked through too badly to the (...also purple) shirt beneath. The weather was nice enough that she’d survive without the outer layer, and she could wash it when she got to the station. Definitely could’ve been worse, even if her mood was soured and her breakfast was definitely ruined with little time to fix that with how perpetually late she was. “Corporate-funded-charity -- I’m an EMT, you -- ” Stephanie cut herself off as she looked up, and frowned a little. Tilted her head to one side as she looked the other woman over, a slight sense of dread undeniably beginning to settle in her stomach. “ ... You look familiar.”

[spoilingstephanie]

beendeaddonethat​:

Man, she was stubborn. Which’d be pretty rich, coming from him. “Got the impression, yeah.” Of Steph Brown and how she’d argue. Usually for a good damn reason, or so he’d thought, hearing it from Barbara. Jason considered the offer - a tie, not his usual - and the not-kid, not-Robin in front of him. Every strength hard-earned, every scar hard-survived. “Sure. Tie. Double gold in the screw-up-olympics.” With that, and a flash of a smile, he hooked his heel into the handle of that first aid bag. Dragging the whole thing across the kitchen floor, he bent to dig for some shit to make a sling. Just to help keep her arm where it oughta be for a little longer. Catsby swatted at his suddenly busy-elsewhere hands, of course. Asshole. 

Of course she knew. Everyone in Gotham fucking knew Black Mask had bit it; been kinda hard to miss, the way the Red Hood went about the deed. Which was the idea. A real final ending. The kind that made an impression. In the sidewalk, on the city’s memory, saturated as that was in every order of violence. He glanced up from his search at the thanks, squinting in a sort of confusion as Steph I meaned and wished. He’d come back to that. Once Babs ironed this out. 

And there it was. Better. Jason smirked, then didn’t, shaking a triangular bandage from its sleeve. “It wasn’t not for you. Sionis was a shitstain, even by Gotham standards. He’d earned what he got, already. More than earned it. But then, then he went and - did what he did, to you.” Tortured a girl in a costume to death. His usual bluntness had fuzzed out, like a radio turning to static. “To a Robin. Even if you weren’t official, at the time, whatever. You were a Robin. And a kid. I just - I couldn’t let it go, like…”

Like Bruce let the Joker go. Like they all kept letting the fucking clown go. “Yeah.” Jason cut himself off, abruptly. And stood, just as sudden, twisting that bandage between his hands, letting it unfurl, twirling it over itself, and back. “’Kay, let’s get that arm slung. You know how this goes, right? Cave stuff.” It was cave stuff, the kind of first aid they’d got taught. That wouldn’t have changed, one Robin to the next. Not that much seemed to, honestly…

...

Stephanie half dropped, half tossed that comm link onto the tabletop surface with her good hand once Oracle had disconnected from the other line. It bounced once lightly on the table’s surface before skidding to a stop beside the peanut-flavored-whatevers. She frowned a little as Catsby seemed to follow where he went, eyebrows furrowing together slightly as she watched the cat weave around him and demand his attention; it would seem that all of the tuna and table scrap bribery Stephanie had done over the past few years was for nothing. She dangled down that good arm, wiggling her fingers slightly as she clicked her tongue to try to earn the cat’s attention, all for naught. “Traitorous bastard,” she mumbled under her tongue, that frown deepening. “Sinois was worse than a shit-stain,” Stephanie agreed in a dark tone, expression in a forced neutral but she was unable to keep the venom out of her tone. “Deserved what you gave him and more. A hundred times more.” For what he’d been, for everything he’d done to Gotham. For what he’d done to her, though she spent so much time actively trying to not think about that night that she didn’t like to let her mind wander there. Then he went and - did what he did, to you. Yeah, that was one way of putting it. Did what he did.  “I was Robin-adjacent,” Stephanie said with a wave of that good hand. “Close enough, right? Kinda? Actively trying to fix the Robin situation and instead ended up digging my own grave.” Literally, ironically, since Stephanie Brown was still technically dead. She wasn’t really sure, how all to go about fixing that legally: easier to get the paperwork for a new identity, crazy as that had been. “But, either way - yeah, thanks. It was...good to hear, he was gone, once I got back. Even if I’d kinda dreamed of doing it myself for a few years. There you go with the thunder-stealing again.” This time, it was said with an easy, lopsided smile and a short laugh as she allowed herself to slouch down a little in the chair. Stephanie eyed the bandage he had in hand with a long, drawn out sigh and nodded her head once. “Cave stuff,” she echoed with a roll of the eyes and sat up straight again. “Alright, alright, let’s get the first aid session over with. But first, you never answered my question: what in the hell are you doing in Barbara’s apartment?”

[spoilingstephanie]

helenahxnts​:

“Huh.” That was actually a way neater row of stitches than she’d expected, Helena thought, as she peered over the top of Steph’s head to the newly-raised hem of the dress. “Nice. Though I’m kind of skeptical that the dress is going to survive the night,” she noted with some amusement, primping Steph’s newly-arranged curls with practiced hands. “And don’t worry, you can do whatever you need with the hair; for now, I’m just going to make sure you have enough curly flyaway bits to distract from the comm.” 

She hummed as she set and twisted, reaching around Steph for bobby pins. “And I also have non-makeup bag jewelry if you need it.” Which was a ridiculous statement to have to qualify. “Remind me again how you ended up going on this mission?” 

...

“The dress is absolutely going to survive the night. Have some faith in me.” Stephanie paused for a moment, still admiring her handiwork and ensuring that the stitches were secure, chancing a quick glance over her shoulder once she was sure that the curling iron was well out of reach of her neck. “...And if not, I am really good at clothing repairs and I will make sure it’s returned good as new. I’m not planning on things getting sketchy but I mean, you never know.” Especially with Stephanie’s luck. Things always went from 0 to fucking shit show in the blink of an eye. “Make-up bag jewelry should be just fine,” Stephanie said with a wave of the hand as she reached for the bag she’d set on the floor to begin to sort through it. “I think I have one of those fancy comm earpieces that look like earrings? Babs gave me one like, a year and a half ago. Might be broken,” which, really, was way more likely than not, “but would come in handy tonight.” If she could even find it. “It’s .... kinda something of a follow-up, I guess? A grade-A douchebag that was I was milking for info at a gala back in Gotham about a year ago will be at some black-tie-bullshit, so Babs brought me going up to Diana. Get to play the schmooze the rich dickbag card again to see if I can score some more info.”

[spoilingstephanie]

poixonivy​:

Pam barely managed to catch her balance, canvas grocery bags gripped tight in her hands. She wobbled dangerously for a moment before catching herself and glaring ferociously at the smoothie-covered blonde she’d run into turning the building’s corner.

“Then maybe you should watch where you’re going? Since you’re the one carrying around smoothies and some of us have places to be?” she snapped, her persistent headache too annoying of a dull throb for her to even attempt civility. She didn’t even stop to question why the other woman was speaking English, she just wanted to go back to the woods, find a less-awful, less-haunted patch of ground, and curl up and sleep. “It’s a good color on you, at least.”

...

“ -- Maybe I?” Stephanie floundered, blue eyes over-wide as she looked up from the steadily-seeping-in stain to the woman in front of her. “Maybe -- maybe you should watch where you’re going, lady.” And it could definitely be said that Stephanie should watch where she was going as well, but it was so much easier to focus on the anger steadily smoking away between her ears. “Some of us do have places to be, and now some of us need to go home and change.”

[our-happygirl500-fan]

All her anger is very justified but she still makes an effort to be positive 

[spoilingstephanie]

helenahxnts​:

“Yeah, you do,” Helena replied with a laugh as the door closed behind Steph, “and don’t you forget it.” She nodded to the dress draped over her arm at Steph’s suggestion, holding it out. “And yeah, I was thinking we start with pinning the dress up so that we can do our separate little tasks. Put this on,” she said, collecting her pins, “and let’s get to it.” 

–

“… would be elegant, but I think it’d look good to keep half your hair down. It’s thick enough that it’ll work, and might also distract from your earring being a comm unit,” Helena noted, curling sections of hair while Steph sewed by lamplight. “How’s it going, almost done?”

...

“-- and the Spoiler clears the finish line!” Stephanie held up the hem she’d finished showing, briefly flashing the neat, precise line of stitches that she’d put into the bottom of the dress. “I made sure to make them loose enough so that I can cut the thread after tonight, unless you’re looking for this dress to hit you mid-calf.” Stephanie slid the needle into the spool of thread, setting it aside as she laid the dress onto her lap. “Half down makes sense, definitely need to keep the comm unit hidden. And I promise to do my best not to just throw it all up into a bun halfway through the night and ruin all of your hard work.” Trying her best being the key here, considering she damn near always had her hair thrown into an insanely messy bun at the top of her head. “The good news is, the one nice pair of shoes I brought with me should work just fine with this, and I think I actually have a pair of earrings in the bottom of my  make up bag.”

[spoilingstephanie]

“ -- Fuck!” Blurple smoothie, all down the front of her purple sweatshirt, making the material much more purple than it had been a few moments before as well as wet and sticky. Maybe she should’ve been watching her corners, maybe she shouldn’t slowed her roll a little bit, but regardless of that she found her on-the-go breakfast poured down her front and onto the floor at her feet when she’d run smack into someone coming hot around the corner. Missed her shoes, at least - something about small miracles, but it was hard to focus on those when she was wet and cold and her breakfast had gone down the drain (or, well, down her shirt). “Where’s the fire? And there’s better be a literal fuckin’ fire, I’m wearing my smoothie.” 

[spoilingstephanie]

grimfacedknight​:

Her assessment earned a grunt, its amusement only demonstrated by the uptick of his lips. Stephanie had a way with words. Bruce certainly wasn’t the type to declare a suspect a “fuckin’ tool”, but her sentiments certainly weren’t misplaced. She was so different from Dick, Tim, and Damian. The way she expressed herself was only the top layer of that antonymic disposition. It was the very reason he had blocked her success at first. The consequences of that action were the reason he was working against his initial instincts to foster her now. 

Bruce knitted his brow when she defended herself. He was uncertain what about him had indicated the need. Perhaps his facial expression. “I wouldn’t have asked for your assistance if I believed you incapable.” He would have determined some other way to go about this. There were others in the Mousehole who could have accompanied him. Perhaps M’Gann M’Orzz, a master of disguise like her uncle. He questioned her capacity for dishonesty, however. He wasn’t untruthful when he told Stephanie he selected her for her personal skills. “Are you nervous?”

“Family connections?” Bruce asked. “How did we meet?” There was always some work in creating a cover, and her preparation cut that time down just as she said. He didn’t know how he felt about showing up as her date, but for the name of the mission he could swallow the discomfort. Bruce Wayne’s public persona would surely be capable of attracting a woman as young as Stephanie, even if the notion was wholly distasteful to him. If she had other ideas, he would be open to hearing them.

...

Stephanie was quiet for a moment after he spoke - a rare moment for certain, and the silence felt heavy despite it being her own choice. This was a line she was still learning to toe, even years later. She had spent so much time desperately trying to do everything right when it came to Batman and working alongside him, had wanted nothing more than to be a part of the legacy and be his partner and that had all royally gone to shit. Then came the anger, the bitterness and resentment for how she’d been treated once she was on the other side and had time to sit and stew. Now she was somewhere in between, waltzing a tightrope while simultaneously walking on eggshells and she’d never been particular good at either of those. She was still so unsure of where she stood after everything that had happened (so much of which had been her fault, even if that was hard to admit or see), still had this desire to please him and make him proud that she couldn’t explain and that irritated her to no end, still had her own very complicated feelings to contend with. Very difficult for Stephanie Brown, who had never been good at masking her feelings or keeping them quiet. But she did, for a beat and then she nodded; it was better that way, she decided.  “No,” she began as she tucked her phone back away into her clutch, snapping it shut. “I’m not nervous.” Not for the job, in any case. “This is gonna be a cakewalk. I’ll charm the hell out of this guy.” That was the goal, in any case. Stephanie talked more easily than she did anything else, and she could play the interested bimbo part well if she had to. “No worries there, boss." Stephanie hummed a little under her breath as she considered his question, drumming fingers against her knees as she thought. “Family connections would be pretty easy to disprove, considering you’re Bruce Wayne, unless you want to claim to have collected another wayward youth.” Not entirely outlanding, considering the Dick, Jason, Tim and Cass of it all. “Could say I’m related to one of your business partners, or maybe you’re sponsoring my Georgetown scholarship?”

[roseworth]

Robin in Teen Titans (2003) #13 💛💛

[spoilingstephanie]

onetruewayne​:

“Yes. It was horrible. Angels and demons and romance, there is a world ending crisis to manage and yet they are so easily distracted.” Damian huffed. The whole series seemed to revolve around the premise of decisions made by a girl who was so easily influenced by her feelings and with less knowledge than anyone else in over half the situations she was in.

Damian sat on the edge of the roof, combat boots dangling over the street below as he adjusted the laces. “Who would even want to join this horrible book club? Oracle? Even petty criminals are bored of this, much less the person coordinating efforts to stop them.” This. So much this. He knew, logically, his brain and body were not done growing. Dramatic feelings were a symptom of being his own age. Nineteen and like the world was crumbling around him. Horribly common of him to feel that. If anything, trashy teen books were proving that point. The Young Avengers would probably enjoy it. “At least in your horrible series, something is always happening. If it were up to me, we could just break in Luthor’s house and hack his computers. He probably keeps incriminating evidence of crimes against humanity in a folder labeled ‘videos to help me fall asleep’.”

...

“Was? Does that mean that you’ve finished? Because strap on in, Wonder Boy - it’s a whole ass series and it’s even longer than Twilight.” Not that Stephanie had read the entire series herself, but she could get the Sparknotes version for herself while she continued his torment. “There’s also a movie based on the first book and a TV show. Both are arguably very bad, but y’know it seems to fit the theme. Part of the experience, it’s so bad it’s good.... and by that I mean it’s really bad but also kinda good?”  Stephanie snorted out a laugh at the idea of being in a book club with Barbara and Damian, wondering just how long it would take to find a middle ground of what book to read.  “Something tells me that we’d spend all our time arguing on what book to read first and we’d end up dismantling book club before book club even started. Not to mention Oracle is busy with other stuff, or so I get reminded every time I hop on the comms for non-work-related conversations.” She knew Barbara was busy, saw it herself: Oracle had her hands in everything, never stopped, and that meant that Barbara hardly ever slept. “Well, it could be up to you. Ask for forgiveness instead of permission, blah blah, but I don’t know how forgiving that forgiveness piece would be.”

[spoilingstephanie]

helenahxnts​:

[ TXT ] Washing hair lest offing is healthier actually so you get a past [ TXT ] *less often **pass

God damn typing one-handed. Helena huffed as she tossed the dress on the bed, rounding around towards her desk to see if she could find pins. She’d borrowed it the other week so that she could get around to fixing her suit, finally, but she’d never—aha! 

“Gotcha, little bastard,” Helena muttered triumphantly to the spool of thread, settling behind her desk. 

[ TXT ] Alright I think I have most everything we need. 

Alright, now to thread the needle before Steph got there…

...

“-- I’m here!” Stephanie practically skidded around the corner, knocking on Helena’s doorframe as she announced herself and entered without waiting for an answer. “I’m here and I am ready to ....do whatever I can do to help speed this along. Thank you, by the way. You are saving the day. I owe you big time.” There would be a big ol’ bottle of wine in Helena’s future, and that would just be the start. “I can sew, so maybe we should start with pinning up the dress and I’ll sew while you do....whatever it is you do with my hair.” True to her promise, Stephanie’s hair was newly washed and thoroughly conditioned, still damp and beginning to dry in its usual curls. “I can also kinda do make-up. We’ll see when we get there. Tag team, by our powers combined, blah blah.”

[spoilingstephanie]

@onetruewayne

“ -- Did you get the book I left for you?” The next in what would likely be a neverending series of attempts to piss off the boy wonder, but Stephanie truly couldn’t help herself. She’d managed to convince him to read and watch Twilight, and so now she wouldn’t stop until she successfully managed to convince him to dive into all of the big teen sagas. Up next was The Mortal Instruments, and Stephanie figured she was still upping the ante even if he never made it past the first book considering the big fuckin’ shock delivered at the end. “We can make a little book club, y’know.” It was almost like old times. Almost. Sat up on a rooftop on a quiet night, spring breeze rustling her clock and hood. If Stephanie closed her eyes, it was almost as though they were back in Gotham: the lights of Matchak were not as bright as the city of Gotham, but the air was certainly cleaner. “Save it for rooftop chitchat when nights are lame, like this.”

[spoilingstephanie]

beendeaddonethat​:

Oh, awesome. And she was competitive. Yeah, okay. He’d heard there was a resemblance; maybe he could see it. Just a bit. Beyond the dying. Babs hadn’t told him all the ugly details of what’d killed the other dead Robin. There’d been a whole crashing crescendo of shit, he knew. Couldn’t bring himself to push Beegee for more than she’d given, not with how bad it cut her up. How it absolutely gutted her. Jason couldn’t say he’d ever seen or heard Babs so broken down, before or since. Not in her own hospital bed, on death’s fucking door, strung up with blood bags and morphine and whatever the hell else, the Joker’s laugh skittering around behind her harrowed eyes. No, talking about Steph, what happened to Steph, what’d been done, to Steph - that was worse, somehow. That, Babs had cracked for. 

And here she was, this not-kid. Ex-Robin. Tallying her mistakes up, with that dead-on defiance. Like she was proud to just be here, still trying to figure her shit out. After all that. 

She should be. Jason let her rant. Real patiently, for him. Sipping that vodka, not stepping on her moments, her string of messed up moments. Though he did frown, brow creasing in confusion as Steph charted the back and forth of who’d worn the red, green, and yellow. Wow. To think Dick and him had been the least messy legacy, Robin to Robin. Sure sounded that way. The bad blood had felt so fucking thick at the time, but…  

But what did he know, really, about how things’d been, in the cave? After him. Only what Babs had said. He’d tried not to ask about that, either. About them. Like he wasn’t sure he could, after everything. So he kept quiet, piecing all this together. Then, shifting in his chair - man, Steph was making him jitter, bouncing around like that, the over-energy familiar, like… so much of this - he took his turn. Because, apparently, they were doing this. 

“Okay, Robin number four. I was benched, not fired. Got me there.” Only there. “Then I ran away. Around the world. Into an active warzone. Or two?” Three? Busy week, anyway. “Got myself murdered. By a clown.” No need to get into that. “For the comeback, I went and committed a shitload of actual murder. And mayhem. Like restarting a gang war. Finishing it, too. For Black Mask, anyway…” he half-muttered, mostly into the bottom of his glass. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and so did Gotham. Some new sonofabitch, or a few, would’ve stepped in to fill Sionis’ Louboutins. There’d always be more. But he sure as shit didn’t need to tell Stephanie Brown that. “And: I grew up to be an internationally wanted criminal.” Jason busted into one of those bags of whatever-they-were - just to spare her arm, that’d been a decent dislocation - and handed it right over. Because Steph was staying put. Obviously. “So, nice try.” Maybe his lead in the shitted-the-sidekick-thing-up-lympics wasn’t quite so far as he figured, but. Come on. He’d been trying to give her bruised ego a boost. Or relate, or something. Whatever. “Concede the title, feel better about yourself, eat some peanut-things. And we’ll see what Oracle says.”

They sure would. Jason clicked the commlink on. “Hey.” Just to signal Babs, so - there, he’d heard the channel open. “Spoiler’s fixed up. Anterior dislocation of the right shoulder. Bruised ribs, almost definitely. No fractures, probably. The usual.” Bumps and scrapes. “She’s fine. Not enough to head back out. In my unprofessional opinion. You tell her, she might even listen.” Maybe. Holding out that link for Babs to have the last word, Jason knocked back his vodka. And petted the damn cat.  

...

“All I’m hearing are a lot of similarities and reminders that you stole my thunder before I even knew there was thunder to steal.” Banter always came surprisingly easy for Stephanie Brown (one of her strengths, or one of her most annoying qualities...sort of depended on who you asked and how much talking she’d done around them recently) and this was no exception: Stephanie Brown and Jason Todd may have been fucked up ships in the night or whatever when it came to actually meeting, but Stephanie somehow felt like she knew him despite all of that. She’d heard so much from Barbara, anecdotes of his time in the cave before the events he’d chronicled that had led to his death, starting bittersweet and ending with an ache that Stephanie could practically feel herself through the former Batgirl’s tone. They knew the same people, have worked out of the same cave, had worn the same damn fucking traffic-light-colored-uniform and bore the same name. “Not gonna win this one over on me. Fuck up, fired, dead-not-dead. We follow the same pattern. I’d be willing to accept a tie, but if you’re too good for that then I can further present my case. I’ll have you know, I’m one hell of an arguer.” The mention of Black Mask didn’t go unnoticed, and Stephanie went momentarily quiet, ate the damn peanut-flavored-things as instructed almost mindlessly. “I heard about that,” she began on the last chew of the mouthful she’d popped into her mouth, swallowing and reaching for the water he’d pushed her way for the pain medication. “The Black Mask thing. Babs told me, after I came back.” That was...complicated. It would never not be complicated, she figured.  Sionis was burning in hell like he deserved, living on through the fucked-up-legacy he’d left behind and eternally in Stephanie’s nightmares. “Thanks. I mean, I know it wasn’t for me, but thanks all the same. Wish I could’ve been there for it.” Blue eyes squinted in his direction as he spoke through the communication link to Barbara again, and she shook her head once. “Fuckin’ sneaky,” she mumbled. “She’ll be the first to tell you I don’t listen.” And she proved to be correct, Barbara’s voice coming over through the link to say just the same at almost the same exact moment as Stephanie. Stephanie rolled her eyes, reached with her uninjured arm for the link he held her way. “I’ll stay put, oh mighty and powerful Oracle.” She half-glared at the other Robin as she spoke, huffing out an absolutely unneccessary and over-dramatic sigh. “You had best expect a full range of questioning on this later, Oracle. I demand all details. Also, I’m going to remind Catsby of how much he loves me and spoil him rotten while I’m here. Be prepared for a cold shoulder when you get back.”

[spoilingstephanie]

grimfacedknight​:

He inclined his head, satisfied with her willingness to cooperate. “Vance Bloodgood. He’s old money, but he’s also a leading weapons manufacturer for the Swedish military.” Bloodgood was the type to be targeted by a number of Bruce’s rogues if he was running his game in Gotham. He thought of Selina emptying his coffers and smirked to himself. “He loves art and the ocean, according to my sources. He just bought a full sized sailboat a few weeks ago.” Bruce was present on most forms of social media, but he didn’t claim the literacy Stephanie undoubtedly possessed. It was probable she would have more information on their target in the time it took them to drive to the benefit than he collected in his cursory scans.

“ ‘Shit like this’,” he repeated. He looked over at her with a little amusement at the corners of his eyes. For a fleeting series of seconds, he didn’t see Stephanie. He saw a boy with dark eyes plucked from Crime Alley and dressed in red, yellow, and green sitting beside him stinking of cigarettes he didn’t think Bruce noticed he smoked. That thought struck Bruce so hard in the stomach his teeth clenched, causing the muscles of his jaw to stand out sharply. He’d seen Jason in her before. It got her killed. Inhaling through his nose, Bruce remembered the pepper of bullets at his feet and the vision of red in the trees outside the fortress nearly two years ago. His hands tightened so hard on the steering wheel that the leather creaked. 

Just as quickly as the change came upon him, it was gone. He couldn’t focus on Jason or anything but Stephanie. He couldn’t think of her death and her return and how different it was from the second Robin. He’d refused to give Stephanie the focus she needed in the past. He wouldn’t repeat his arrogance in assuming he could control her fate as one would a marionette on a string. “You can do it,” he told her, thinking the better of pulling up the file he’d made for her. “Nothing too outlandish or easily disproved. I can’t have Oracle insert the alias on the internet and corroborate the details you give until we get back and give her the transcripts. I don’t know how much poison masquerading as food you’ll have to give her if you’re too elaborate and add too much to her workload.”

“Vance Bloodgood,” Stephanie repeated aloud as she took typed out the name in her phone. Stephanie was able to find his social media profiles with ease, starting with instagram and scrolling through the thumbnail photos, finding that she was able to quickly confirm the information that Bruce had given her. “Goddamn, this dude looks like a real douchebag,” Stephanie said with a bit of a cringe as she clicked one of the photos to enlarge it. “New admittedly-awesome-looking sailboat, check. Lots of show-y gala photos at flashy museums, check. Too fast cars that cost more than the entire apartment building I grew up in, check.  Blonde women half his age, check.” Stephanie rolled her eyes as she continued to scroll, eyebrows knitting together slightly as she made notes. “What a fuckin’ tool,” she mumbled, more to herself than Bruce as she continued to scroll with her eyebrows knitting together just slightly in concentration. “Shit like this,” Stephanie confirmed, smiling slightly as she continued to other social media platforms to continue her digging. “Spy shit. Undercover shit, which I call spy shit because it’s more fun that way.” She’d done a few undercover-type-stints for Barbara and the Birds of Prey over the course of the past few years. Admittedly, it wasn’t Stephanie’s favorite type of operation but it was definitely sometimes necessary with the job. Even only half paying attention to Bruce with her nose deep in social media dive, Stephanie was able to notice the change in his disposition; the change was sharp, quick, and Stephanie looked up from her phone. She noted the tension in his jaw and found herself frowning before she could catch herself and fix her face. He’d always been hard for her to read, which led to overcompensating and jumping to every conclusion in the book (from bad to worse and back again, and everything in-between) - that had not changed over the years, and Stephanie’s mind was racing ahead to try to trace back to the change in his disposition. “I can do it, y’know. For all the shits and giggles I’m spewing, I’m more than capable of doing this job.” And she’d prove it, too. She was already internally bristling, prepared to further defend herself without the need to do so even indicated. Always jumping ahead. “I think I have an alias I can re-purpose for this,” she continued, pushing through and turning back to her phone. “It’s one I used once-upon-a-time for the Birds. Social media profiles should just need a little tweaking and then Barbara’s work is cut in half and my cupcake bribery will be next to nonexistent. Better for her health, y’know.” It took a few guesses to log back into those social media accounts, but Stephanie made quick work of it. “Meet Aurora King, already documented as a student at Georgetown University though now she just so happens to be studying art history.”