I. Superhero
Steph's been Robin for four years now, since Batman took her in after he put her dad in Arkham, and this is the first time she's thought that maybe she isn't supposed to be doing this. The fight itself wasn't difficult, but when the boy they were supposed to be saving pieced together how to destroy the mind control ray before she'd even realized there was a mind control ray, she started to wonder.
Because there's something about the kid, Tim, who is skinny and gawky and makes offhand references to Monty Python every three seconds, that makes her think someone else should be doing this job.
Stephanie hasn't been low on self-esteem in years.
She could kick his ass into next week, which makes her feel a little better, but when he makes that neighbor comment, it's suddenly obvious that he, this fifteen year old nerd, has figured out what nobody else could, and Steph wonders why he hasn't done anything else about it.
Later, she will visit him out of costume and introduce herself as Julia, a new girl in the neighborhood. He'll arch an eyebrow and ask her why she didn't think he'd know she was Stephanie Brown, the newest broken-winged bird that Bruce Wayne has taken in. The look on his face is pointed, and the word "bird" comes out so strongly she wants to cry.
"Why do you care?" she asks.
"It's what I do," he says, and he looks so happy that he's right that Stephanie wants to punch him in his geeky, smirking mouth.
"What do you want from me?"
And he's serious and sincere for once when he answers her with his own question. "How do you get to be able to do this?"
Tim Drake doesn't want money or shiny new equipment or five thousand pounds of chocolate or anything. He doesn't ask to join, but he wants to help. The wideness of his eyes is enough to tell Stephanie that.
She asks for a pen and scribbles down a phone number on a post-it. "You're good with computers, right?"
His eye twitches at the corner, which tells her how little he wants to tell her how good, since she's a superhero and all.
"We're not Superman here, Tim," she answers, and favors him with a grin. His responding smile is small, but genuine. "Call this," Steph says.
"I. Thanks," Tim answers. He shouldn't be thanking her. Oracle will run him through the wringer before she'll trust him to help at all, but another brain at a computer certainly couldn't hurt, right?
Stephanie is a good judge of character.
Which is what she's thinking when she leans in to kiss his cheek.