When Jason died, I wrote a letter to Stephanie. We rarely talked. But, I figured she'd want to know. I poured everything on that paper. I needed a way of letting it out, and she had become that for me. Barbara was just not someone who understood. Tim and Damian were so caught up in their rivalry that they didn't feel the way I felt. Bruce was, as always, gone. He didn't hang around when the tears fell.
Stephanie was the little sister I never quite had, but always hoped for. When I first met the girl, she was chatty, and kind. She laughed at my jokes, tossed around a few of her own, and brought the sass Barbara couldn't quite handle. Tim was head over feet for the girl, but it still ended, don't ask me why; the details are still a bit foggy.
Stephanie had this habit of annoying the crap out of Damian, which I, of course, found hilarious. The little pest, unfortunately, was not as excited when she appeared. They gave each other the most obnoxious nicknames, and she was especially horrible. She'd usually start with a solid "hey short-stack!" or "what's up, demon-spawn?" But, the comebacks quickly dissolved into "you're such an assbutt!" It was hard to watch, really.
Damian, being the suck-up... excuse me, I said genius, right? Being that as it may, the so-called 'assbutt' was always quick on his heels. While Steph floundered over her responses, he merely smirked and abandoned ship. "Goodbye, bimbo. I sincerely hope Tim learns to stop dragging trash into the house one of these days. Until next time!"
Never did she outgrow her affection for Tim, despite their bickering and constantly glaring contests, she still held a torch for the idiot. If only Tim would get off his ass and realize what was in front of him.
Jason's death was so quick and silent. No one knew it was happening until it was finished. One minute he was rolling his eyes at the weekly Wayne Family Dinner, the next, he was bloodied and broken on a hospital bed the next town over. If only he hadn't been downtown Gotham that night. If only the local criminals hadn't decided he looked too formal and out of place. If only he hadn't tried to fight his way out of it.
The murder weapon was a crow bar, they said.
He never saw it coming, they said. Surrounded. Outnumbered, they said. It was all luck that he'd even survived the first blow to the head.
Yeah right, luck, I thought. As if luck had it that he'd lived long enough to throw a punch. Luck would be hanging on long enough to reach the hospital. Luck would be living at all.
The coma was a surprise. The near-immediate death was an even bigger one. There was a pause where he might survive. Then there was frantic chaos and finally there was silence. The beeping was almost seconds after we arrived, all looking a bit shady and sleep-ridden. Imagine the hospitals shock to find four members of the infamous Wayne family in their lobby, looking like a hurricane had just blown them in.
Tim and Damian could never stop arguing about who was closer to Jason, who saw him more often, who knew more about him. They made the funeral and the burial miserable. I spoke. Barbara had to hold my hand for the majority of the evening. It was hard to get through without Jason's cynical one-liners about how the guy was a dick anyway. He deserved it, really. But Jason didn't deserve it. He may have been a complete asshole, and as pessimistic as they come, but he loved his family, and beneath it all, he was an incredible man. He deserved to find happiness after the hell he survived.
Not many people knew the sharp blond leading the chorus at the funeral, but I knew her. I smiled at her, and we made eye contact, understanding the matching grief we found in each others eyes. Stephanie caught my eye after the service as well, collecting my free hand to squeeze it, comforting me in passing.
She was there even when she wasn't.
Stephanie was the caring mother we never had. She doted on us when Barbara was out of town. She cooked when Alfred had a sick day. She was always somewhere nearby, and I never really understood how much I needed her until after the death.
So, I wrote Stephanie. I poured my heart into three pages of cursive handwriting. I told her that Jason was my favorite person to talk to, because he was so brutally honest. I told her that I never appreciate him enough. I told her how much I missed my very first brother.
Stephanie never wrote back, but the day she received the letter, I opened the door to find her in tears. She hugged me tight and whispered sweet words about understanding.
"Dick, what do you want for dinner?" She asked. "Pizza, okay? I'm not cooking. We're gunna go grab a movie and spend a night in." I might have nodded, at some point I stopped caring what happened, I was too torn apart with grief.
Damian and Bruce were out visiting Talia. I was lucky, usually they invited her over, but with my outright hatred for the woman, Alfred had known to advise Bruce to think otherwise. Tim was with his friends for the evening, he never called, but usually Kon would send a text my way at around midnight: "Tim is with me. Don't worry."
Steph tugged at my hand, pulling me toward her flamboyantly purple car, never did I find out how she managed a purple car.
She brought the obnoxious thing home a few weeks after her and Tim's first break-up, they were off-and-on for a few months that year. "Look at my new baby!" She exclaimed to the bored Wayne clan. I was the first to get a ride, maybe because I was so blatant about claiming shotgun. She gave me a tour of the neighborhood I'd grown up in, "look see, Dickie-bird! That's the mailbox we hit when we were playing baseball last year! And that's the tree Mrs. Kent banned us from climbing! And that's-"
We pulled up to the pizza parlor about five minutes early, and they forced us to wait. "Five minute! No pizza for five minute!" The ethnic chef had exclaimed as his daughter quietly shooed us into a booth near the window. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "he's really grumpy today."
We stopped at a RedBox on the way home, because Stephanie claimed "they have the very best movies!" Even as I grumped about how "that's because they've put every other place out of business." The movie of choice was some superhero movie called Avengers or something. I never did like Marvel.
"The pizza was too spicy," Stephanie announced as she popped the movie into the DVD player and cuddled against my side. "But, this movie will put all of our worries to bed." And ironically, it did. Stephanie fell asleep first, her blond head dropped against my shoulder just as the green one transformed. I followed not long after, dreaming of pretty girls with pizza and movie dates.
It was not a date though, I knew. We were far from loving each other in that sense. Barbara would always be my favorite bed-partner, and of course I love her as well. And I'm not just saying this because she's looking over my shoulder. Stephanie's affection for Tim could not be outgrown so easily, either. But, we grew into the most comfortable of friendships.
It started as meaningless as sad stories, purple cars, and pizza dates, but it was enough.
It became home.