Chapter Text
One morning, during the final unexciting week of Stephanie’s life, her dad threw down the newspaper in disgust over the state of the world.
“Can you believe what the nation’s coming to?” Dad said, fishing for Steph’s attention. Steph, who was pursuing her own newspaper, just grunted. “Kooks in costume making an embarrassment of themselves in the news. And the American public just eats it up! Some two-bit thug gets his hands on a gun and a dime store Halloween mask, and suddenly he’s splashed all over the 24 hour news cycle for three days. It’s a disgrace.”
“The world today, huh?” Steph spooned a soggy frozen waffle into her mouth. The processed wheat swam in depressed sludge on her plate, oozing out onto the plastic table mat. “Is that why you’re reading last week’s paper?”
But Dad just smirked, smug and self-satisfied. Steph proactively dumped half her coffee cup in her mouth. A quick escape meant no man left behind. “Last week’s paper gave me this week’s idea. I have a killer one this time, kiddo.”
“Oh, god, here we go.”
“Listen to your old man.” Dad leaned forward, propping his huge and hairy elbows on the creaky table and sending the salt scattering. Steph dived to catch the pepper. Men shouldn’t get to be huge, it wasn’t fair. “You know my boy Hofferson? The old goat finally came through - he put me in touch with the Falcones. They want me to take care of a job for them.”
Steph choked on her waffle. “The mob ? Dad, you can’t be fucking serious -”
“Watch your mouth, kid,” Dad said rotely, not expecting her to watch her mouth for a second but his masculine pride incapable of letting the topic go. “This one’s foolproof. See, I sold them on my million dollar idea. It’s cutting edge, Stephie.” He tapped at the crumpled black and white photograph on the yellow paper, slowly sagging under the weight of Steph’s corn syrup ooze. Looked like Ricky’s vomit after he threw up at a house party. “I’m picking up a weapons shipment from the Russians - but I play the idiot in a mask. I slap on a cool outfit, yell a catchy name at the press, and guaran-fucking-teed that bonehead Batman shows up. I finally cap the bastard, the Falcones stop getting their shipments interrupted by some two-bit loose cannon, and everybody knows my name.” Dad grinned widely, creaking the peeling tabletop. “Foolproof!”
Steph gaped at Dad.
Finally, as the waffle melted into thin wheat and processed sugar, she said, “That is the stupidest bullshit I’ve heard in my fucking life, I cannot believe you are my father, you lunatic -”
“Shut up, Stephanie -”
“You’re asking that mob-buster to come beat your ass? You’re insane.” Steph threw her fork down on the table, almost in too much disbelief to be angry. Almost. It didn’t take much to piss Steph off. Uncle Daryl said she had a hot temper, but Uncle Daryl shouldn’t have cheated at cards. “Batman’s gonna make you eat pavement. He beat up Ivan Kovalenko’s dad, and the guy’s a brick shithouse. And the mob ? They’re gonna eat you alive, you stupid old man.”
“The mob is last week’s news!” Dad yelled, and Steph rolled her eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. Don’t you see it, Steph? Crooks in masks fighting back against insane masked men on crusades - that’s the future. Listen to what your old man’s teaching you. Keep up with the times or get left behind. You’re young, you have to look to the future.”
“Do you want to know the future?” Steph snapped. She shoved the front page of the newspaper at Dad, confronting him with the blaring headline in freshly inked black letters. CRUSADER DA MAIMED BY MOB VENGEANCE. “The future is every halfway decent person crushed under the boot of the mob. Harvey Dent tried to ‘look to the future’, and they smashed him up. Because he got on the wrong end of the mob . Why can’t you just keep your head down and get a real job, you loser?”
Dad stood up, chair skittering against the tile. He grabbed his jacket, sneering at her. “That was always your problem, Stephanie. You have no vision.”
Dad stomped out the door in a huff - probably to go drink with his buddies at ass clock of the morning - and Steph sighed as she returned to her paper. The Far Side would soothe the ache in her soul. She needed it - emotionally, spiritually, and physiologically. Maybe she needed it so bad she’d have to skip school that day. Oh no, your honor, I just couldn’t attend, my stupid old man’s going to get us capped by the mob and I was overwrought by the vapors.
No vision her ass. She’d show him vision.
Steph turned to the funnies, using the front page death sentence to mop up stray syrup.
Stephanie had to do something about her father.
He was getting out of control. The guy was almost thirty four, he was practically senile. She couldn’t let him carry on like this. Forget pretending to be one of those costumed crazies - he was getting off at the bus stop for Cuckooville with a spring in his step.
Honestly, Steph wished she could blame this stupid state of affairs on supervillains or Batman or something. But Dad had always been like this. He had been totally obsessed with teaching her how to fight and shoot and stuff as a kid. It was, like, 90% of her childhood memories with him. She hadn’t really minded at the time - she had been an idiot kid who ‘wanted’ her dad’s ‘attention’ - but in retrospect it was really freaking weird! Why did he have to be so weird?
Steph had to do something about her weird idiot dad. He was going to get himself killed. Or worse - her killed.
Or worse - the guys might find out.
Steph had contemplated the matter all the way to homeroom attendance, at which point she bounced. It was the beginning of March, so none of the teachers even pretended to give a shit when Steph and her friends grabbed their boards and walked out. The teachers typically quit trying to stop them around October, and stopped pretending to care in December. Steph had it down to a science - although last year Mr. Franklin had hung on by his teeth and nails giving her shit over it until May . Crazy bastard.
The skate park three blocks down from the school was full of the usual loud, idiot subjects. On one side was the neighborhood park, and Steph could see the rousing pick-up basketball game populated by other kids playing hooky. On the other side another group of kids played soccer on the grass or held a fistfight near the fence - Rolf and Kev at it again - painting a perfect picture of teenage Gotham delinquency up and down the block. Adults feared to tread here. Steph stuck to her own crew, who had already broken off to rip down the half-pipe on their boards laughing and screaming.
Skating seemed like fun, but Steph just couldn’t get her head in the game today. She perched on the rusty metal fence around the park instead, swinging her legs as the crew yelled about nonsense over her head. She rotely accepted a cigarette and took a few drags just so nobody would notice how distracted she was.
What could she do? Dad was going to do whatever stupid shit he wanted. Normally the worst case scenario is that lands himself in the clink again and Mom has kick the junk just enough to hold down a job. Which was annoying, since a kinda-sober Mom was the most annoying Mom physically possible.
There was nothing wrong with being some petty-ass crook. Who didn’t do it? Steal shit or sell drugs like a normal person. But some guys like Dad got super offended at that - all upset over people saying that they’re small or unimportant. People like Dad were a dime a dozen, but he just couldn’t bear it. He had to be special and big. Steph didn’t like the fact that she was the same way.
Dad called himself an entrepreneur, which was really just a fancy way to call yourself a schmuck. Steph called herself a skateboarder, which was really just a fancy word to call yourself somebody with nothing better to do.
“ - don’t know, Steph, I’m taller than him! It’s kind of embarrassing, you know? I’m not dating a guy shorter than me. He probably has, like, small hands.”
“You are such a bitch,” Marco said, ignoring Angelica’s offended gasp. “You get your growth spurt in ninth grade. Girls get taller first, but boys get way taller later. Stop being sexist.”
“Sexist? Tino’s the one who told me no wife of his is ever working.” Angelica sniffed, taking a drag of her cigarette. “As if I’d ever date a loser like him. Bet he has a small dick, too.”
“This is why you gotta go with older guys,” Steph said wisely. She rubbed the cigarette in her hand, letting the smoke drift into the air. “Seventeen minimum. And a job.”
“Dames have such high standards these days,” Marco complained. He was leaning against the railing next to Angelica, who was flanked by Stephanie on her other side. Slush melted oozily onto the ground, stripped of winter beauty and reduced to mud and ice. The guys on the basketball court were bumping Wu-Tang Clan, and Steph kicked her heels against the railing. “Job this, pimped ride that. What do youse bring to the table, nail polish?”
“Good sense,” Angelica intoned. Steph nodded and pointed at her.
But Marco ignored them, as he often did. He was staring out over the park, searching for a familiar group. “Whatever, dude. I’m gonna have fat stacks real soon and make some serious ice. I’ll be rolling .”
“Uh huh,” Steph said, exchanging an eye roll with Angelica.
“I mean it!” Marco turned to look down his nose at her, all pride and cooler-than-you. “I’m not gonna bother with a drag like high school. My uncle’s gonna set me up with a few guys and score me some jobs. Real easy money. Then I’ll buy a buncha Nintendos. And beer!”
The words - familiar, easy, the same words she heard from Marco and all the other guys at the park a dozen times per week - somehow grated today. Steph couldn’t keep her fingers from digging into her cigarette. “You are such a loser,” Steph snapped. “Why can’t you just score a job at the docks like everyone else? Get a life!”
But Marco just looked wounded, and a hot brand of shame burned in Steph’s gut. It wasn’t Marco’s fault. She was just pissy over her dad, she shouldn’t take it out on him. The world had enough of that - she didn’t want to do it too.
She just opened her mouth to apologize when Angelica squealed, jumping off the railing. “Rudy’s here! Come on, I want some change from him.”
Marco’s eyes lit up, and he hopped off the railing too. “Shit, no joke? How’s my hair look, Angie?”
“You are such a -”
But when the two ran off, yelling greetings to Rudy and his two friends, Steph hung back. Her stomach was swirling with frustration that she just couldn’t place and had a hard time justifying. Marco was so stupid. She hadn’t said money , she had said a job . What was so wrong with a good, clean gig? Why were boys so dumb?
Maybe she was the stupid kid. At least Marco had ambition. He actually wanted stuff, like Nintendos and beer. Steph was the one who wasn’t all heated up about making something of herself. It wasn’t as if she knew what she wanted to do with her life. At least Angelica knew she wanted a rich boyfriend and kids; at least Marco was ready to start his life. What did Steph want?
Nothing she could actually get, that was for sure. So she might as well want nothing at all.
A loud grind and a skittering crash of board on concrete hit her ears, and Steph turned around. The skate park wasn’t totally crowded this time of day, and it made the kid at one of the grind rails stand out. Or wipe out - bro was eating pavement.
He was short and skinny, about her age. His outfit was totally lame, just a red t-shirt and tight cut jeans with boring shoes. Steph watched him pull himself back up, expression set, before grabbing his board and backing up from the grind rail again. He ran forward, dropped his board on the ground, hopped on the grind rail, and...wipe out .
Nerd. Steph turned away, running up to meet up with the guys as the kid picked himself up yet again.
Unlike Steph and the guys, Rudy and his boys weren’t at the skate park more often than not. They were practically adults, and they had better adult stuff to do than hang around at some skate park. The older guys tended to congregate around the park at night, anyway - and every middle schooler knew better than to get in the way of that .
So it was always exciting when they saw them. They always hung out in front of the boarded up little brick building that probably used to be the office and bathrooms before the attempted order of the city government fell under the chaotic force of teenagers. Angelica didn’t get the big deal - Rudy was her brother, and it was impossible for a little sister to be impressed by a big brother - but Marco and Steph thought Rudy and his friends were the coolest people alive.
That was because they objectively were. Rudy, Vlad, and Angelov talked about real adult stuff. Like politics and Gotham and the state of the world. They had real wisdom.
“No way, pull-out always works,” Rudy was sagely telling an enraptured Marco. “Trust me. Everybody I know uses it. You only get her pregnant if you, like, don’t do it right.”
Angelica stuck her tongue out as Steph flushed and avoided looking at an amused Vlad. “What you telling this to Marco for? He couldn’t get a bird in Canada!”
“What’s hanging, Vlad?” Steph asked as Marco squawked. She fluffed her teased hair a little, aiming for cool and aloof. “Any cool news lately? You hear about what happened in Jump?”
“Oh, dog, the Heaven’s Gate thing?” Angelov asked, eyes widening as he took a drag from his blunt. Steph hadn’t asked him, but whatever. “The cult guys who got themselves abducted by aliens?”
“Last time I checked they just kinda died,” Vlad said wryly.
But Angelov just shook his head, waving his hands excitedly. “No, no, man! They just looked like they died. But their, like, spirits totally got harvested by the Martians.”
Rudy squinted at him, sucking from his McDonald’s cup. “That don’t seem right, bro. I thought the Martians were nice.”
“ ‘Course they’re nice, dummy. That’s why they saved those Heaven’s Gate guys.” Angelov smacked his hands together, fired up. “We haven’t seen ‘em since that dude - what, in the ‘50s? It’s ‘cuz they knew we were doomed, man. So they’re helping some of us get out quick before the going gets bad, you know? Like Kurt Cobain.”
“You’re a nut, bro,” Rudy condemned. “I bet Martian Manhunter wasn’t even real. Government hoax.”
“Green Lantern was real.” Vlad stuck his hands in his pockets, platinum blonde hair falling over his eyes. “Saw that tank he crushed in World War II at a museum. Shit was cleaved in half. Insane.”
“It’s the CIA,” Angelov swore. “Flash killed Kennedy.”
But Vlad was just looking at the dim and overcast sky, and Steph couldn’t stop herself from looking up with him. There was nothing up there: just grey clouds and endless smog hemming them in and pinning them down. “I’unno. Maybe you’re right. The whole world’s going nowhere fast. All the war and starving kids in Africa and stuff. There’s, like, no point to anything, man. Biggie’s gone. All there is...is the half-pipe.”
Everybody held a moment of silence for Biggie.
But Steph couldn’t help but stare up at the sky even after Vlad looked back down and the conversation changed to other topics. Vlad was really cool and he had gauges, so he was definitely right. The world was going nowhere fast and it was all a waste of time. That was probably objectively true, but…
She couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Even if guys like Harvey Dent got themselves splashed with acid, he had still helped people. Batman was a whacko, but he was trying . Steph hadn’t even tried in school since she was eight, forget about saving the orphans or anything.
“So what’s the word, Rudy?” Marco was asking, badly concealing his excitement. “You’re all officially in with the guys, right?”
“Sure am, little man!” Rudy bragged. He put a hand on Angelica’s head and ruffled her hair, ignoring her scowl. “Gotta bring in that dough to keep that food on the table.”
“Stop messing up my hair, dorkwad!” Angie batted his hand away, but Rudy just laughed and ruined her hair even more. “You’re so busy lately, we never see you anymore.”
Rudy sobered a little, giving Angelica’s hair a final rumple. “It’s been hard luck lately. The Bat’s kinda fucking us up. Like, all our class guys are in the clink. He’s cutting off a lot of the...moneymakers too.” That was drugs and weapons and stuff. Rudy could be polite when he wanted. “The Falcones and Maronis are hella at each other’s throats right now. It’s not looking good out there.”
But Marco just perked up. “If you need extra help on the ground -”
“Maybe in a few years, little man,” Rudy said, and Marco deflated. But Rudy just grinned reassuringly, throwing an arm around Angie. She huffed, but gave him a tight hug anyway. “Don’t tell anyone, but we got a big deal going down tomorrow. Great-Uncle Freddie thinks that it’s gonna take care of our Bat problem and Falcone problem for good.” He glanced at Steph, so quick she almost missed it. “So stay away from the docks for a bit. But once we get everything taken care of we’re gonna be cruising from here on out. And I’ll buy Angie all the Timberlands she wants.”
Angelica squealed, jumping up and capturing Rudy’s neck in a big hug. “You mean it? Thank you, thank you, you’re the best brother ever!”
Of course, Rudy was already the best brother ever. Their dad had died in the military when they were little, and their mom had died a year back. He took care of everything for them.
Rudy was so cool. Seventeen year olds didn’t get to make a bunch of money the normal way, and definitely not enough to keep the apartment going and keep Angelica in Timberlands. As dumb as Marco was, he worshiped the guy for a reason. That was a real man - nothing like Steph’s dumb dad.
But Steph knew that whatever deal he was talking about, it was the same thing her old man was getting wrapped up in. It made her bite her fingernails, ruining her glittery purple nail polish. Purposefully bringing the Bat in...last time the Bat busted up a weapons shipment almost every unlucky shmuck involved went straight to jail. Steph could get along without her idiot dad, but Angelica couldn’t get on without Rudy. She’d have to go live with her aunt who already had four brats to round up. In Philadelphia - the knock-off Gotham. If anything happened…
She couldn’t do anything. Like Vlad said - a bunch of kids had no power to make anything better or fix the mistakes of dumb adults. There was nothing she could do.
For some reason every inch of Stephanie hated the thought.
Eventually the gang decided to go down to the Good McDonald’s (not to be confused with the Shit McDonald’s, or the Haunted McDonald’s) and split an order of fries, but Steph elected to stay behind. She spun some yarn about not skating yet today or feeling tired or something. She didn’t actually remember. Nobody really noticed how distracted she was, or if they noticed they didn’t really care. People tended to mind their own business around here.
So Steph found herself sitting on a bench alone, pulling her puffy vinyl windbreaker tighter around her chest as the last remnants of a cold spring wind blew, watching the kid on the grind rail fall on his face again and again and again.
It was almost kind of stupid. Stephanie was impressed. She had been in that position a million times before, stubbornly doing something again and again until she got it no matter how many times she failed - when she started skating, when she tried to blow smoke rings, when she just couldn’t get the hang of whistling - but it was weird to see somebody else so determined. Stephanie was practically famous for how insanely stubborn she was. Dad said it was because she thought she was smart.
But there was a certain solidarity among skaters, and the kid was a new face. It was rare to see somebody alone, without their guys-from-HS120 or friends-from-IS 405 or coworkers-from-McDonald’s. The sight of a kid, wiping out again and again, completely alone…
Even if Steph couldn’t help the world, that didn’t stop her from helping just one nerd.
“Hey, nerd! You, wiping out!”
The kid stumbled on his own feet again in sheer shock, whipping around to stare at her in shock. He had big blue eyes and high cheekbones with a pointy chin, messy black hair complementing his weirdly pale skin. He was objectively a little cute, but he’d only attain hotness if he learned how to skate.
The kid pointed at himself - ‘who, me?’. Steph dug her hands into her pockets, raising an eyebrow. The kid blanched.
“Uh,” he said, “I don’t have any money.”
Good lord. Steph stood up, walking over and pointedly waving her own board. “You’re new here, right? I’m Stephanie Brown, from IS 405. Do you go to school around here?”
The kid froze with wide eyes like a hilarious deer as Steph walked up and dropped her board on the ground. “Uh, not - not really? I just - uh, you know - wanted to...find a new place to skate.”
“You mean learn how to skate?” Steph asked judgmentally, and the kid winced. “It’s okay. Skater code means I got your back. Watch and learn, scrawny.”
It took almost an hour. It didn’t have to take the hour - Steph could have just shown him how to actually grind and then walked away - but she found herself sticking around anyway. The kid was funky.
He wasn’t good at skating. But he just didn’t stop getting back up again. He tried something new each time, adjusting his approach and thinking it through, and he made Steph show him enough times that he could copy her with perfection. It was a little impressive. And somehow a little scary. He had the most intense look in his eyes that Steph had ever seen - something beyond stubbornness and the need to skate.
The kid’s name was Tim. She couldn’t really get any other personal details out of him. That was cool, some people were private.
Finally, Tim pulled it off. He ran up, dropped his board on the ground, hopped on, and flipped up to perform a picture-perfect grind.
Without a tinge of sarcasm, feeling almost proud, Steph whooped and hollered. “King of the grind! Once you knew what you were doing you got that fast, bro!”
Tim grinned at her, straight white teeth flashing. “I wobbled at the end. I’m gonna hit the longer one next. I want to master it this week before I try the half-pipe.” He paused a beat. “Thanks. Bro. You didn’t have to help me.”
“Skater code,” Steph said mysteriously. She bumped her shoulder with his, making him flush, and couldn’t help but grin. “I should catch up with the guys. They’re probably wondering where I am. But you keep trying, dude. You got what it takes.” She found herself stopping short, weirdly awkward. “You just gonna skate all day? You don’t got anything else to do?”
Tim just shrugged, obviously a little embarrassed. “Nah. My folks - uh, they won’t notice if I disappear for a week straight.” He sounded a little bitter about it, but Steph just nodded in understanding. “And I’m homeschooled, so...not much to do all day. I just do whatever.”
Somehow, Steph found herself asking, “Doesn’t that bother you? That your life is just...I dunno, bouncing from thing to thing, and you can’t do anything about it?”
As usual, it was only after Steph said the thing that she realized the thing was mega rude . She clicked her mouth shut, already flushing with embarrassment, but Tim just blinked at her. He seemed almost immune to embarrassment - taking everything straightforwardly in the spirit it was meant.
“Yeah,” he said frankly. “I hate it. That’s why I’m skating.” He looked out over the park - at the kids laughing and pushing each other, at the groups of kids sitting in circles and passing blunts around. “When I feel powerless...I always want to do something about it. Skating makes me feel like I can be a different kind of person than who I am. Somebody who’s tough and cool and powerful. You know?”
“Does learning the grind change the kind of person you are?” Steph asked weakly. “Nobody looks at me and sees a baller. They’re always brushing me off as a dumb little kid.”
But Tim just shrugged. “Then prove you’re a baller, I guess. You’re already tough and cool. Just show them.”
Show them. Just show them…
“I gotta go,” Steph said in a rush. She grabbed her board off the ground, finding herself clutching tightly at the sandpaper grip. “Good to meet you, talk to you later, bye!”
She ran off, Soaps skidding against the grimy cement, finding herself running faster and harder than she intended. As if she could push through that thick invisible barrier that kept her inside that skate park - inside her pointless, go-nowhere, be-nothing life.
If she ran fast enough, could she break free? If she tried hard enough, could she show everybody who Steph Brown was?
Dad told her not to tell anybody about how tough she was or how much she knew. He said that people might ask questions. And guys didn’t like girls who could beat them up. She would never be able to get a cool older boyfriend with a job and a car if he knew she could floor him. Nobody would ever look at her as if she was just like them, a cool girl who everybody liked but nobody really respected, if they knew what she could do. They freeze her out of the park or something. Literally the end of the world.
Right now the end of the world felt like a VHS extra. She had to make sure Dad didn’t do anything stupid. She had to make sure nothing happened to Rudy that would put Angelica in trouble.
...but if they didn’t know…
If nobody knew…
Where did Dad keep that stash of cash again?
Steph, admittedly, did not have a plan.
This was not a new thing for her. She was aware that this was a recurring problem. She was not good at thinking ahead, or thinking out her decisions, or doing anything that could be remotely considered ‘intelligent’. Steph knew this and had made her peace with it long ago. Once Stephanie Brown decided to do something she did it, and lame stuff like ‘planning’ and ‘thinking about it’ would get in the way of her credo. She would figure everything out once she got there.
She was an on-her-feet, on-the-fly thinker. Some people were like that. It was fine. Everything would be fine!
But this was a new day, and a new Steph. She was going to think things through and pull off the greatest heist ever. Just like in Point Break.
She nabbed the cash and rode the bus down to the police supply warehouse that afternoon. For the first time Steph wished she had one of those contacts that could hook her up with actual riot gear, but only Certain Kinds of Dudes had those hook-ups. A loser dad had to be enough. If she batted her eyes at Crooked Lenny enough and pretended that she was picking stuff up for her dad he gave her whatever she wanted. He even looped her into the fenced merch, like the crate of kevlar that may or may not be stolen cop gear. This was what Vlad would call redistributing the resources. Hella cheap too!
Steph took the gear home and spread it all out on her bed, squinting at it. Kevlar vest, bodysuit, bandolier, steel toed boots…she had the gear. Did she have the plan?
Hey. She should totally paint the breastplate purple. And sew the hood from the raincoat onto the back. Maybe make a whole cape out of it. That would be so cool. The fit way more important than some stinking plan that she didn’t want to think about.
Perhaps as a direct result of Steph’s coping mechanisms - or perhaps not, it could have been anything - it wasn’t until she caught the midnight bus the next day with a very cool outfit stuffed in a duffel bag that she realized she didn’t know what she was doing.
Her steel toed boots bounced on the thin metal floor of the bus, creaking it over and over again. This was fine. This was cool. She totally knew what she was doing. Plan! Right here, right now!
Step 1: Show up at the deal as her super cool alter ego!
Step 2: If everything goes okay, then dip.
Step 2b: If things go south (they will), then rescue Dad’s fat from the fire.
Step 3: Be totally awesome and make everybody fear the name of…
What name?
If there was any more details to her plan that she should have added (how she was going to rescue Dad’s fat from the fire, what she would do if they were actually halfway successful at killing Batman, what she would do if anybody saw her and tore off her ski mask and transition goggles), she promptly got way too distracted to consider them.
How could she have forgotten to think of a cool name?! Even Dad had a cool name - before he went out that night, he had been yelling something about the Cluemaster. She couldn’t even manage something as lame as the Cluemaster?
That was probably why Steph got all the way to Dock 6 before really realizing what she was doing, which was helpful for making sure she didn’t freak and chicken out. Everybody called Steph super brave, but that was usually because she forgot what she was supposed to be scared of halfway through doing it. She ducked into the shadow of two shipping containers and changed really quickly, pulling on the bodysuit over her tank top and shorts and spending way too long wrangling the buckles of the body armor. Kevlar vest, check. Super tough breastplate, thigh and shin guards, check. Nightstick, check. Awesome hood to cover up the kinda-lame ski mask and goggles, check. She pulled her hair into a ponytail with her only black scrunchie. It was go time.
This area of the docks was someplace Steph was never allowed to go, so of course she snuck in with Angie and Marco all the time. Jacob’s dad used to work here before he busted his leg in a work accident and had to go on disability, and they used to go visit him with Jacob during work. It was really just really creepy lines after lines of shipping containers. It always reminded Steph of church - a bunch of pews neatly lined up in prayer. A kind of holy space, where people dedicated their lives and sacrificed their bodies. And embezzled.
She slunk along the alleys of the shipping containers, carefully holding out her sparkly flashlight and checking around corners. This was some real ninja stuff she was doing.
Finally, she heard the sounds of people talking. Steph quickly shimmied up the bars of the shipping container and hopped onto the top, lying flat on her stomach next to a big pile of construction stuff. This was a big open clearing, where they parked the cranes and stuff. She peered her head over, super carefully, she could see - yes!
The first person she saw was Dad in his dumb costume, holding a really big gun. There were two groups of guys in the courtyard, clearly split. Somebody had set up a small spotlight so they could see each other clearly. They obviously weren’t really pressed over getting fingered - the dock security was paid off, if not mob themselves, and they wanted Batman to show up anyway.
Steph chewed her lip. Dad said that he was working with the Falcones to steal some weapons from the Russian mob. They weren’t really local, and mostly just dropped in for import/export stuff. Gotham mobs pissed them off all the time, it was a tradition. So the guys on the other end of the courtyard should be Russians, right?
But Rudy hinted super hard that he’d be here. He said that they’d be taking care of the Bat and Falcone problems. Rudy and half his family were Maroni …
Something was super weird. Steph took off her goggles for a second, squinting. It was hard to see in the dim lighting, and she could hear Dad talking and negotiating the deal. She should have been paying attention, but somehow she found herself trying to pick out the faces of the Russians…
Steph’s eyes widened. And then the lights went out.
The clearing plunged into darkness. Steph frantically took out her flashlight and flipped it on, and she saw a dozen similar beams burst through the night. In a weird way that made it worse. It meant that they could see what was happening just enough to understand, but not enough to do anything about it.
A stray white beam of light cut out a dark figure in the night, tall and shadowy. A yellow logo flashing in the night, a sensation of movement, and the flashlight cracked onto the pavement and extinguished.
A yell. A scream. Another flashlight out.
Meaty and familiar sounds of dudes getting whaled on. A flickering shadow. Another flashlight out. More screams - of pain, of terror.
Finally somebody had the presence of mind to flip the spotlight back on. But it was far too late - it only illuminated a single man standing in a crowd of prone bodies, a splash of shadow in the soft light, fighting hard against a man twice his size.
Even under the light, singled out into a single human form, it somehow didn’t diminish him. You could barely tell that he was just a dude in a costume. There was an unmistakable sense of power and authority about him - the kind that every man wanted, but almost all fell short of. Only the really impressive guys had it - guys like Grandpa Maroni, who had been so nice to Steph during Angelica’s birthday party. Batman was who guys like Dad pretended to be. Batman was who guys like Dad would never be.
In that moment Steph wanted it - the whatever it was that made him stand so tall and look so proud. She wanted it so badly it burned within her, setting something deep in her alight that roared so high and hot in her chest that it was almost painful.
That moment consumed everything in her, wiping away every ounce of doubt and powerlessness. It left something else in her chest instead, something that expanded to fit everything in her that had just been wiped clean.
Steph wanted to be Batman when she grew up.
In the moment after that she realized she had bigger problems. Batman was totally whaling on the big dude, but he was like twice Batman’s size and he wasn’t going down easy. Steph winced as Batman took a serious one in the jaw. That was gonna smart tomorrow.
But he was so busy with the guy that he didn’t realize that there was somebody limping up behind him. The spotlight glinted off his gun, and Steph watched in horror as he raised it to aim squarely at Batman.
She didn’t think - filled with righteous heroism, or maybe just panic. There was no way she could jump down fast enough to handle a dude with a gun . She’d get wasted. She frantically looked around the shipping container, cursing herself for not bringing any kind of projectile whatsoever - she was such an idiot for refusing to bring a gun -
There was a brick. Steph grabbed it. Better than nothing.
Thanking God for five years of softball and Dad’s bizarre idea of parenting, Steph let the brick fly. It sailed through the air, sending her heart jumping in her chest, and Steph watched in horror and joy as it landed squarely on the guy’s shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground.
The sound distracted the big guy, but not Batman. He laid the big guy down flat before turning to the dude Steph totally just wasted, squinting down at the mysteriously heroic brick. His eyes traveled up and up until they landed on Stephanie.
They narrowed. Stephanie squeaked.
She saw him before Batman did. Maybe that was the problem - Batman must have seen Stephanie jump up in alarm. He turned around quickly, cape whipping around his calves, and Steph watched in horror as Batman saw what she saw.
It was Rudy, frantically trying to make a break for it. He was practically tripping over the bodies of - of his friends , holy shit - in an attempt to escape, but Batman was faster. Steph saw that the escape route directly in front of him was blocked off, covered with a stray piece of paneling - when had Batman put that there? Some trap this was!
But Steph’s heart jumped into her throat again when she saw Batman advance on Rudy. He was going to collar him. Angie would cry so hard . Angie didn’t deserve that and Rudy didn’t either. He was a good person! Batman was supposed to chase bad guys, why was he going after Rudy? He was just Rudy!
Batman was Steph’s hero. He was the coolest person Steph had ever met in her life, one of the only real men she had ever seen.
Despite all of this, Steph did not hesitate when she threw a second brick at Batman.
Amazingly enough, it landed.
Although the brick only clipped him, Batman still stumbled a bit. Steph wondered for the first time if fully hitting somebody with a brick might actually kill them, and she found herself abruptly thankful that the night was somewhat windy. He turned around again, glaring absolute fucking murder at her, but Steph didn’t care. Rudy was making a break for it, finding another path out, and he quickly disappeared into the alleys between the shipping containers.
Steph stood on the shipping container, frozen. She had really done a great job. She had made sure everybody she cared about was out of there - she didn’t even see Dad in the rubble. She had totally saved Batman’s life. Rudy was home scot free. This was great. Why was Batman glaring at her.
Time for some damage control. Steph remembered all the times Mom lectured her about politeness as a kid, which she had given up on after about age eight. Mom didn’t try very hard at the parenting thing.
Steph cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Sorry I threw a brick at you!”
Batman’s eyes narrowed.
Steph abruptly started sweating. “You’re welcome?”
For the first time, Batman spoke. He sounded like Jacob’s Great-Uncle Ty, who was like eighty and smoked five packs a day. “Who are you.”
Shit. Shit, what was her codename again? Oh, yeah! “I’m Spoiler!” Steph called, feeling like an idiot. “I’m a - a vigilante !”
Batman’s eyes narrowed further. He exuded cold hatred. Steph sweated harder.
“Get down here.”
Steph got down there.
Standing in front of Batman in decent lighting was really different from barely catching glimpses of him. Turns out he was way scarier when he was just this dark blob that was totally whaling on dudes. For the first time, he really did look like a dude in super fucking sick bat costume.
“That costume’s hella fly,” Steph said, flexing her impressive ability to make friends as hard as physically possible. “Like, who’s your tailor?”
Batman squinted again. This time she somehow got the vibe it was in confusion.
“Are you with the Falcones?”
For such a cool dude Batman sure asked dumb questions. “If I was with the Falcones why would I help out that Maroni guy?”
Batman paused a beat too long. Finally, he said, “I received intel that this deal was between the Russians and the Falcones.”
“Well, so did I.” Steph looked around the courtyard, propping her hands on her hips. “But something’s fishy around here and it’s not just the ocean.”
As Batman squinted further at her in total confusion, Steph stepped away from him and bent down over one of the groaning dudes Batman had taken down like Rolf kicking Kev’s ass for the five hundredth time. She turned him over and wasn’t surprised at what she saw.
It was totally that bum Ricky. He was Rudy and Vlad’s age. More importantly, he was Maroni . Totally new blood, but Rudy had told her that they had been officially welcomed around the same time - just a couple months ago.
Steph straightened and checked on another guy. Giuseppe. Maroni. Jonathan - he had just moved to Gotham, he was like thirty, but he was definitely Maroni. This whole half of the courtyard had been Maroni - and none of them were local or well-established. Kids and out of towners. People at the fringes, thrown to the bats.
When she ran over to the other half, severely trying Batman’s non-existent patience, she saw that they were actually Falcone.
“The Falcones weren’t stealing from the Russians,” Stephanie muttered. “They were stealing from the Maronis .”
But Batman just stared at her, unimpressed. He had moved to stand over the Maroni guy she had been looking at, trying to see what she saw. “None of these men are known affiliates of the Maroni mob. Were you hired by the -”
“Will you focus?” Steph said impatiently, interrupting Gotham’s Dark Avenger mid-sentence. “They’re all scrubs on purpose. Guys you wouldn’t recognize. But why would the Maronis use no-name dudes and pretend to be the Russians?” Steph rubbed her chin thoughtfully, feeling uncomfortably like she was in English class for the first time in a week. “This is a big step for both of them. Maronis being all sneaky like this...Falcones setting up a dumb trap trying to take you out of the picture…”
“How do you -”
“Focus, dude!” Steph’s eyes widened, and she slammed her fist into her palm. “This has to be the first step of a mob war! The Maronis must have wanted to be sneaky and hit the Falcones bad. That’s why they made a whole show of it - while they wouldn’t take the heat. The Falcones are getting ready for it too - oh, man, this is so bad . This is awful! Batman, what do we -”
“We are not doing anything.”
At some point Batman had gotten way too close to her. Steph was abruptly reminded that Batman was huge, all muscly and tall and imposing. It was cool from far away, but it wasn’t nearly as awesome when he was using it to loom down on her and try to scare her.
It mostly just pissed her off. Cool dudes didn’t have to get all up in your face and act tough just to shut you up. Cool dudes earned your respect, they didn’t demand it. It wasn’t effortless confidence - it was just posturing.
Batman hadn’t needed to posture before. He had to be...off-balance or something.
Off-balance. He hadn’t known any of this. He would have flapped away into the night not knowing anything weird had happened if Steph hadn’t been here. He could have died . Steph could have died too, but at least she had common sense!
Steph realized, in a moment of supreme horror, that her hero was stupid.
Another very terrible realization crept down Steph’s neck, like someone had cracked an egg on her head. It wasn’t an idea or a plan or a well-thought out conclusion. She just knew it, like she knew that the diner on 49th was full of roaches and to lock your doors at night.
Batman was totally gonna get himself killed without her .
“I do not work with anybody.” Batman didn’t so much speak as grind out his sentences, like he had dumped a bunch of rocks in a bag and shook it real hard. “I do not work with high schoolers. Go home. Do not involve yourself in this business or my business again.”
Okay. Steph’s mom had taught her only around three things (the other two things were “Finish high school or you’re dead to me” and “Never vote Republican”), but the most important thing was that no rando talked to Steph like that. He had not earned the bitchiness.
“Excuse me?” Steph decried, propping her hands on her hips. “What would your mom say if she heard you talking to a lady like that?”
Batman twitched.
“That’s a hell of a way to thank the girl who helped you, you know,” Steph continued, well on her way to working herself up to a rampage. “You could be dead if it weren’t for me. I cracked this whole case wide open and all I get is a ‘go home’? You’re practically useless without me!”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Well, I highly doubt you’re a polite man! Who raised you!” Batman twitched again. “Look, I know stuff you don’t know. I’m a real who’s-who of Gotham. And you’re good at punching and stuff. I can totally help you. I’m, like, morally obligated to help you. Do you have any idea how I would feel if Batman got capped on my watch? My friends would never talk to me again. I’d be totally uncool -”
Something shattered and splintered, and the courtyard descended into darkness. Steph jumped and cursed, realizing way too late that the spotlight must have shattered. Or that somebody must have shattered it. She fumbled for her flashlight, but by the time she finally clicked it on Batman was gone.
Steph was left standing alone among a mass of unconscious mobsters, three crates of Uzis, and the shattered remnants of whatever fragile peace Gotham once had.
But even though it took an hour to get home, even though she shoved her baggy jeans and flannel over her bodysuit and body armor so she could creep into her apartment, Steph couldn’t fall asleep that night.
She lay awake in bed at night - the clock turning to four, to five, to six - as her heart drummed a war-song deep in her chest.
Steph stared at the popcorn ceiling, flashes of headlights skimming through her window, and thought of beautiful things - of being tall and strong, of everybody knowing how tough and cool you were. Of commanding respect and attention. Of being able to save everybody - all of your friends and all your enemies too. Of being able to make sure that nothing bad happened to anybody, not ever again. Not even to yourself.
If Steph could do that, she could get out of here. She could graduate high school and get a cool job doing - doing - she’d know what her cool job would be. Her husband would make a bunch of money, but she wouldn’t stay home. Steph would be a hero, and she could make sure that none of her friend’s dads and uncles ever fought again, and she’d go to college…
Batman was stupid, but he could do it. Why couldn’t Steph?
Why couldn’t Steph...