Title: And flings an oath, but says no more (Reference) Series: Three red words Story #3 Fandom: DCU (AU from Nightwing #93 and mid-Robin: Unmasked, spoilers in an AU way for Identity Crisis and Under the Hood) Summary: She smiles and says, "Hey, boss," like he's all suited up and grim as normal. Content: All ages as your average Batman comic book. Notes: Thanks to Betty for beta-reading. Steph doesn't trip over anything when she comes into the Cave and finds Bruce Wayne sitting there, and she's pretty sure she should get a medal for that. She doesn't gibber stupid things because she probably should've been able to figure it out by now, and she hasn't, and she's Robin -- And she knows damn well she's his second choice right now and that his first choice figured it out. So she smiles and says, "Hey, boss," like he's all suited up and grim as normal. He's gotta know that she didn't know, but Batman's never been anything but cool, and he doesn't twitch. "There are new security protocols in place. You'll have to learn codes for the voice recognition and biometric backup system." "Yeah? What's going down?" Now he winces, all barefaced and bad enough she's afraid the Joker's out on the town. "I can no longer trust one of my former allies." He wakes up the computer with a click, and there's a file open, a dossier Steph's never seen. Dick Grayson, and she'd know that smile anywhere. "Damn." Looking at pictures of Nightwing always makes her feel like she's stiffer than the Statue of Liberty, so she stretches her left quads while she reads the first couple of paragraphs. "That's not good." "No." Bruce Wayne looks at her with Batman eyes. "It's going to be very difficult, Robin." Steph blows her breath out and switches ankles, balancing on the ball of her foot. "What else do I need to know?" * They get the news about Jack Drake from Oracle way too fucking late and get there even later. Captain Boomerang is dead and so's Daddy Drake, and Tim has papers scattered all up the stairs and down the hall and blood soaking up the thighs of his pants because he's been kneeling there just that long. "Oh, fuck," Steph says, forgetting that Robin doesn't swear. Batman's not paying attention to the rules. "Tim," he says, and Tim looks up. He must've heard them coming, but he doesn't even wipe his eyes. "Where were you?" Steph swallows past the lump in her throat and reaches for him, but he shakes his head. "Too far away," she says. Tim closes his eyes. "I want the police. To handle this." She can hear Batman tense in the creak of armor and rustle of cape. Tim's got to hear it too. "The reason your father died --" "I'll destroy the evidence that points to anything but -- but misapprehensions." Tim stands up. "I'm sorry," Steph says. Robin says, for both of them, because Batman wants to -- she can feel him wanting to -- but he's not the kind of guy who's good at saying it. Tim looks at the floor, at the blood, at the bodies, and his shoulders look so taut it's like they're going to snap any second. "I know. Go -- just -- go." "You're not alone in this," Batman says, and touches Tim's shoulder. Tim shakes his head. And they weren't there, really. He's all alone. And Tim wasn't there for his dad, and Steph just wants to tell him it's okay to be angry and it's not his fault. But -- it's somebody's fault. "Sorry," Steph says again. "God, Tim -- let -- let somebody help." Tim shakes his head and points toward the door, looking away from her. "Get out." This is where Batman steps in and takes charge and makes things work right, makes Tim not hate them both. Except he doesn't. He just goes, like Tim's ordering them to, and Steph looks at Tim's wrecked pants and floor and dad and life and feels like she's never going to see him again if she leaves. But he doesn't stop pointing when Batman's out of the room, so she goes, too. * It's not every day you get the chance to say 'I could've told you that' to Batman, but Steph knows that there's no way to say it even when the option's there. She just memorizes the new biometric overrides, the new-new R-points, and bones up on myths about some guy named Flamebird from Krypton. Clark's homeworld, and she's still not over getting to call Superman that, even though she's got a whole list of names bouncing around her head for all the supers that ever heroed. In the mornings, she works on her GED. It takes her six weeks to learn enough to pass it, with Barbara's help, and with that out of the way, she's got nothing to do but be Robin as hard as she can. Mom doesn't get it, but her dad's dead and if she goes to visit every other Saturday and calls every day to leave a message saying she's not dead, Mom copes. She's pretty sure it hasn't been this hard to be Robin since Jean Paul was Batman, but she only knows that from Tim's reports after the fact. It's weird to read the stuff he filed and hear his voice in her head and have to remind herself, over and over, that he's a bad guy now. It's gotta be worse for Batman and he never complains, so she doesn't either. The first solo gig he gives her, she's got Batgirl for backup but the murder scene's all hers. For the first twenty minutes, she's afraid it's actually Tim's work, or Nightwing-Dick's, come to stir things up around the old homestead, but there's no sign of either of them and she finds brown hairs. After that, she breathes a little easier, even when she's hacking the police database with Oracle's voice in her ear. It takes her too long to solve the case by her own time sense, but Batman squeezes her shoulder when she gets the murderer to pee his pants for the cops. He's got other options -- Cass, always, and anybody on the list of names from Arthur Curry to Wally West would be proud to work with him. And faster, in West's case, for sure. Steph looks at the big glass Case labelled 'A good soldier' sometimes and wonders if Tim ever felt like he was the last-picked, too. She volunteered for this, like he did, and she's seen those autopsy pictures just like he must've. Every time she compares herself to Tim, she misses him again, and then she hates herself for it and gets Cass to kick her ass. "I'm not as good as he was," she says, and Cass is still too fast to block, even when she's throwing a kick at Steph's head. Proof. Again. Like she needed more. "Better," Cass says. "You're better." "Oh man, no." Steph blocks two punches and takes the third right in her side. "He's smarter than me -- ow, good one -- and faster and --" "Batman smiles more now." Steph takes one in the nose because that's too much to think through in the middle of a spar and sits down, hard. Cass pins her like you're supposed to and gives her a quizzical look, like she can make her whole body a question mark. "He never smiles." "Not with his mouth." Cass lets Steph roll her, get her leglocked, and taps once so they can start over. "Okay, but -- still no." "Every day, it's -- less dark here." Cass throws the first punch, and Steph can't breathe deeply enough to talk for a few seconds. "He's pissed off at them and -- damn! -- and sad, and I'm not helping, ow, and -- ow, time." She bends over, trying to catch her breath. "But not alone." Cass does a handstand. "He likes teaching you." "I don't learn fast enough." Steph wipes her eyes. "I have to catch up to Tim -- to Dick -- and I can't." Cass flips back to her feet and Steph straightens up. "Not a race." She gestures straight across with one hand. "A puzzle. A crime scene." Steph smiles with half her mouth and feels like Tim. "Not a game." Cass shakes her hand instead of her head. "No. Too important. Too hard." "Right." Steph falls back into a ready stance. "Too much to learn." Cass answers her with a leg-sweep, and they're back to training, going too hard to talk. * "You cannot neglect your breakfast three days running, Mistress Stephanie," Alfred says, ignoring how she did that last week. Right now, he's right, though, because the muffins smell like heaven. She grabs two and salutes him, backing through the kitchen doorway and heading for the Cave. "I won't do it again," she lies, and he shakes his head at her. She's not good enough for him, either. He never lets her see him looking sad, and she's not sure he's ever looked happy in anything except that BBC way, but she's not the people he wants to take care of. It sucks not being fast enough on her feet or in her head for Batman, but not being good enough to make Alfred relax is worse, sometimes. She thought Bruce was going to be at work by now, but he's in the Cave watching footage. Tim's new uniform, and a guy in a brown jacket, and they're fighting together. Bruce switches to a different camera, and the guy in the brown jacket has Jason Todd's chin and the guy under his boot is bleeding and has a pattern of bruises Steph saw for the week and a half Red Hood was operating in Gotham. Mostly the pattern was on corpses and Bruce never talked about them except to say who'd done it. Tim and Jason Todd move to cover each other like they've been training together for years. Or like Batman trained them both and they're working from those patterns so they can brutalize the guys they're fighting. Tim's opponent is never going to hold a pencil again, and fuck playing the piano. Allowable force isn't lesson one, but it's way the hell up there, and then Tim breaks out the flamethrower. Flamebird breaks out the flamethrower, and Red Hood who is Jason Todd who had a pile of heads in a duffel bag ducks out of the way and lets him sear guys who aren't good guys but who are goddamn people. "I'm going to kick his ass," Steph says. Bruce pauses the tape and she can actually hear him take a deep breath, which is so weird for him she takes another step towards him. Not that Batman wants a hug -- but -- hell, she does. "I am," she says again. "God, he's -- he's not Tim. You think you know a guy --" "He is," Batman says, and it's not Bruce's voice. "Not where it counts." She never thought she'd argue with the Batman, but -- hey, she's learning a lot. "He's not. God, I thought I was in love with him. Tim, you son of a bitch." Bruce turns his chair around and he looks like he's watched the video about twenty too many times. "He hasn't killed anyone yet." "So?" Steph folds her arms. "That's not the guy I knew. It's just plain not." Bruce arches an eyebrow at her and glances at the secondary console. "You've analyzed his previous fighting techniques --" "-- to death --" "-- but not Jason Todd's, to the same degree." Bruce looks up at the screen. "Double-check for patterns of -- of brutality. And when they occurred, with reference --" he swallows. "To ongoing investigations at the time." Steph blows out her breath. "We've been over Garzonas so many times I could draw you a picture." "Other instances," Bruce says, and turns his chair around. "This kind of behavior does not emerge suddenly unless there is some kind of psychosis." "Jesus." Steph pulls up a chair and runs her hands through her hair. "It would explain a lot." "No." That's Batman again. "That's not the explanation." Steph presses her lips together for a second, wondering how much she can argue this. "We'll see, okay, boss?" He starts the tape again. * "No way," Steph says, and she can't stop Batman from getting to the car no matter what she does, but he's not suited up, and he's not heading for that car. "Look, we need you here." He crosses his arms in a way that makes her think of Tim, back when Tim was Tim. He should have his cape instead of civvies. "You and Batgirl are more than capable of patrolling for a night in my absence." It's the best compliment he's ever given her and she's not in the mood to be bought. "Still no, Bruce." He narrows his eyes at her. "This is necessary." "I bet that's what Tim thought, too." Steph shakes her head. "And he went and he didn't come back." He looks away from her and she's winning and -- and losing. Really, really losing, because his jaw's setting. "I should never have encouraged him to study -- what happened." "Because it was your fault Tim was totally obsessed with -- with Dick?" Steph rolls her eyes. "I saw all those pictures, too. Like you could've stopped him from being interested." Bruce shakes his head. "There were ways to ameliorate the situation." "Maybe." She shrugs even though it matters more than a lot of things. "But it's too late now. You're the bazillionaire, you know not to throw good money after bad. Don't go there, just -- just don't." "Avoiding the issue hasn't improved it." "And turning to the dark side will?" Steph throws up her hands. "Jesus, I can't do this job by myself. I know you need a Robin, but I need a damn Batman, too, and Cass just isn't tall enough." She gets him to twitch -- not to smile, but it's what Cass would think of as a smile, maybe. "I'm not going to defect," Bruce says, and his voice is gentler. "Abdicate," she says, "really, it'd be that." It's shadowed, but he does smile. For a second. It's all she needs. "Look -- don't go by yourself, that's all. I could --" she tugs at the skirt of her uniform "-- I could change and come with you, so you don't have to?" "No," Bruce says, and he's moving, now, away from the stairs and away from the places where anybody wears civvies around here. "No. You've convinced me." When he says stuff like this, she wants to punch the air and dance, but she doesn't do that kind of thing when he's in the room. Much. "Of what?" she asks, following him. "I'm not going tonight." "Or ever?" Steph asks hopefully. He takes off the suit jacket, hangs it up on an Alfred-approved hanger, and starts unbuttoning his shirt. "That's not a promise you should ask of anyone." Steph scratches behind her ear because she can't rub her eyes in the mask. "You're not going to promise not to go alone?" Bruce's smile now has a lot more to do with Bruce Wayne the professional twit than it does with anything else. "Do you think you're more immune to their wiles than I am?" "Fuck yes." She wrinkles her nose. "I'm not going to fall for their crap. I got enough twisted thinking from my dad." "Ah," he says, and maybe it's just being polite to turn away to take off his shirt so he can pull on the tunic. She knows the patterns of scars on his chest as well as the ones on his back. And she knows he's hiding his expression from her. If Cass was there, it wouldn't work. Steph's just going to have to learn a few more tricks. "Plus I don't love them anymore," she adds, because even if she can't read shoulder postures, she knows a couple of things. Bruce's obliques have enough scars that they look quilted in places, and now every one is standing out like bas relief. "Is that relevant?" "Considering whether you're going to run away with the guys who're turning the 'haven into a bloody pulp? Um, let me think -- really yes." She walks around him so she can glare better, even though he can probably hear it from anywhere nearby. "I know I'm not a replacement. I'm not even a freaking runner-up. But I know a couple things, and -- and you're kind of vulnerable when it comes to them." "You're doing well," Bruce says, and he puts the cowl on. "So you're not going alone?" Batman taps his ear through the cowl. "Backup isn't that hard to summon." "Yeah," Oracle says in Steph's ear. "I've heard that before." Batman's not responding. Steph keeps her smile to herself. "So -- you'll take me with you," she says. "Cassandra's far better at stealth than you are." Steph shrugs. "Like they'll believe you're there alone anyway? But -- as long as you don't just run away." "I don't intend anything of the sort." And you are sane, demur
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