A/N: A year ago, I had an idea for an AU in which Steph died for real but Jason didn't. It returned earlier this year, and when I opened prompts over on Tumblr, an anon asked me to expand that universe. So here it is, for all of your enjoyment!
Stephanie Brown died with a mouth full of blood and her eyes wide open, staring at the locked door, hoping still for a miracle, for a rescue.
She died in a hidden place, still hanging from the ceiling by her wrists, bleeding out from a wound in her stomach, and no one was with her when her heart gave its last beat.
The Black Mask who had killed her had left her behind, taunting her as he closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with her thoughts and her wounds.
She died and it was two days before anyone found her; the police officers breaking down the door as they searched the building. One of them threw up upon seeing her. The other made a desperate call to the Commissioner, which Barbara Gordon overheard. She dropped her coffee mug, ruining a keyboard in the process.
Barbara Gordon was the one to make the calls, to tell Cassandra that her best friend was dead, to tell Tim that his girlfriend was dead, and to tell Bruce that another Robin was dead. Barbara's hands shook as she looked at the photos.
Steph died in her Robin costume and the media seized upon it and ran, stirring up a frenzied storm, something to latch onto in the wake of the gang violence that had shaken Gotham City from top to bottom. Her mother was dragged onto news programs and interviews, her face broadcasted everywhere even as Crystal tried to seek privacy for her grief.
Stephanie Brown died for real; Leslie Thompkins never looked at the girl in her clinic and switched her healing but broken body for that of a dead girl. The body that went into the coffin was the child of Crystal Brown, who broke down and wept, cradling her daughter in her arms when they called her into the police station when she was called to identify her.
The funeral was widely attended; heroes and civilians alike crowding the cemetery to pay their last respects to Robin, but Bruce Wayne stayed at home, watching the funeral on the news. He could not risk anyone making the connection between him and Batman, not when Stephanie had died with those secrets on her tongue, refusing to give up anything to her killer.
Cassandra Cain and Tim Drake attended in disguise, clinging to each other quietly as they cried in the background, both of them unable to actually see the coffin due to the press of the crowd.
Arthur Brown, imprisoned in Blackgate Prison, was forbidden from attending his daughter's funeral.
The grave soon became a regular tourist site, and every reporter and police officer that lived in Gotham and many that lived outside of it combed through Stephanie's past with a fine-toothed comb, trying to see if they could find the Batman; to see if he lurked in the margins of her history, ready to be exposed.
There was nothing to be found.
The Oracle had gotten there first.
Bruce Wayne picked his way out to the grave after the media circus died down, months after the girl had been buried. He stared at the grave with dry eyes—he had done his crying in private, hidden from the rest of the world.
The grave was white marble, with only Stephanie Brown's name and age carved in it. It was simple and undecorated—the Browns were neither religious nor wealthy.
He left a small bouquet of flowers on her grave—lavender for regret, cypress for mourning, blue bells for sorrow. They blended in with the flowers from the other well-wishers, but that didn't matter. He placed the flowers and walked away.
And slowly, but surely, Gotham forgot Stephanie Brown.
Superboy Prime punched the walls between the multi-verse and it brought Stephanie Brown back to life.
It sounds so silly when phrased like that and no one but that Superboy ever knew he was responsible for it, but that is what caused the resurrection.
What happened was this;
Stephanie Brown was dead. But then she was alive, and in a coffin.
Her eyes flew open and her lungs gasped in the stale air. She clawed at the fabric and wood above her, screaming the whole time.
"Bruce!"
"Tim!"
"Cass!"
"Mom!"
"Batman!"
Stephanie Brown dug her way out of her grave and wandered the streets of Gotham with splinters under her nails and her hands a bleeding mess, that a kind woman on a corner bandaged with strips of cloth that were torn from Stephanie's own clothes.
She had been buried in a skirt and a suit jacket, and she stumbled through Gotham wearing those until another sweet soul gave her a warm sweater and jeans, and made her change into them to keep safe from the biting Gotham wind.
When the grave was discovered, the morning after Stephanie Brown's emergence from her coffin, it was quickly filled in, the story covered up. No one wanted to admit to losing the body of Robin—most of them figured that some villain or treasure-hunter had dug up the grave.
None of the Bats ever noticed the disturbance until it was far too late.
Steph stole food and slept in boxes, but she shared whatever she found with others. Some of them viewed her fondly, like a stray cat or dog. Others tried to chase her away, and she usually ran when they did so.
She cried and she sobbed, whispering names and muttering to herself, never looking people in the eye when they spoke to her, and running away whenever the shadow of the Bat came near her.
She didn't know who she was, and she ran away when Talia al Ghul approached her in the darkened alley one night.
Talia had found her because of a spy, who had seen Robin before, and recognized her even in the grubby girl with vacant eyes and no hint of a smile on her face. He had called Talia, hoping for a reward, and he had gotten it, but it had also saved Stephanie Brown.
Talia looked at the girl and her heart stirred when she saw the barest hint of the autopsy scar beneath the dirty shirt that Steph wore.
She took Stephanie's hand, and led her away from Gotham.
Stephanie would fight, but it was a reflex. She ate when she was given food, she slept when a blanket was placed over her, and she drank when water was nearby. There was no hint of life, no sign of the brilliant young woman she had been. She did not react to photographs or words, only wincing when voices were raised, cowering like a child.
Talia had enough. It was time to fix the broken girl.
She put Stephanie Brown in the Lazarus Pit, but what came out was angry.
She was angry because Timothy Drake had put on the Robin costume less than a day after her death had been discovered.
She was angry because Black Mask was still free and still ruled his criminal empire.
She was angry because it had been five days of torture and two days of death before anyone had found her.
She was angry because it hadn't been Bruce or Cass or Tim who found her.
"You go unavenged," Talia said, before kissing her on the forehead and pushing her to safety.
Steph found it difficult, being alive again.
She had to re-learn her body—it was older now, and both weaker and stronger. There were old injuries that were, in her mind, fresh, that she had to learn to not irritate. She had to learn not to flinch whenever she looked in the mirror.
Talia told her what had happened since she left—how her family had fallen apart, with Bruce sending Tim and Cass away. She told Steph about how Cass had died, and what Deathstroke had done to her. Talia told her about Tim's father; about how the family was scattered and broken.
"How long?" Steph asked, looking at the photograph of Tim in his updated Robin costume. "How long was I dead before he became Robin again?"
"Stephanie—" Talia began, her voice almost a warning.
"How long?"
Talia's lips were thin and she would not meet Steph's eyes. "It was… it was a day."
Steph punched the wall, shoulders shaking as she tried to hold back tears. "You said I'm unavenged. What do you mean?"
And so Talia told her about Black Mask, and Steph managed to hold it in until Talia was gone but then she screamed. She smashed all the furniture in the small hotel room and ripped apart the newspapers and the photographs and she punched the wall until her fists were bloody, and she crumpled and broke on the floor.
Talia gave her money and tools and mentors, gave her the weapons that Steph would need in order to avenge herself, since clearly it was too much to expect anyone else to do that for her. Stephanie Brown travelled Europe and learned everything that she had never wanted to know, filling her mind with the sort of things that her father would have killed to learn.
She killed her first man when he put his hand on her knee after a long day of training, and slowly began to inch it upwards.
She reacted without thinking, acting on sheer instinct to defend herself.
Afterwards, she stared down at the corpse, dead at her feet, his neck at an awkward angle after she had snapped it, and she felt nothing except a vague feeling of satisfaction that his hands weren't on her anymore.
She burned down the house that they had been staying at, and walked away, not looking back.
He was not the last of her mentors to make a pass at her, and he was also not the last that she would kill.
Talia reprimanded her for killing her teachers a few times, but Steph would just shrug, and tell Talia, "They were creeps." She thought about the kids in crates in Germany, about the bruised and bloody face of her teacher's wife in Hungary, and she shrugged again. And Talia would smile at her, proud, and Steph knew that she didn't really mind.
In the mountains of Switzerland, she met Damian for the first time. The boy was eight years old, spoiled rotten, and absolutely convinced that his father was the greatest thing that ever lived.
"You were Robin?" He seemed almost in awe, while at the same time he sneered at her. She wanted to laugh at him. He took himself so seriously; carried himself with the air of superiority that all the al Ghuls had. But on Talia and Ra's it was terrifying and awe-inspiring. On an eight year old it was hilarious.
Still, Steph sparred with him a few times and gave him a few tips on his knife technique that she had picked up from one of her Russian trainers. He didn't try to stab her, which Talia informed her was a compliment, and meant that he liked her.
"I'm going to Gotham," she told Talia in Paris. They sat on the balcony of an expensive hotel room, staring out over the famous Parisian skyline. Champagne cooled in a bucket of ice between them. The remains of an excellent meal stayed on fine porcelain.
Steph had cropped her hair short into a pixie-cut, and had taken to wearing long sleeves and high necks to hide most of her scars. Her face was relatively unscathed-a small scar marked her eyebrow and her nose had one across the bridge where it had been broken once—but the rest of her still bore heavy marks from her time as Robin; from her time under Black Mask's tools. She hid them, because someone might realize what her scars said. Someone might realize that the Y that started at her collarbones and met at her diaphragm, plunging down to her naval was something sinister and fatal in nature.
"Will you kill him?" Talia said, taking a sip from her drink. There was an obvious tenseness to her; Steph knew that Talia still cared deeply for Bruce, despite everything that the man had done.
"I don't know," Steph whispered honestly, staring out at the setting sun. "If he tries to stop me... maybe."
Talia reached over and squeezed Steph's hand. Her hands were uncovered because Steph trusted Talia, but normally she covered them with sturdy black gloves. Her hands were a mess of scars, especially around her finger-tips. Clawing her way out of her coffin had done significant damage; damage that the Lazarus Pit had not deemed worthy of healing. Several of them were still at funny angles from where the Black Mask had broken each of them in turn with a hammer.
"You will have your vengeance, Stephanie," Talia promised.
Steph boarded a flight to Gotham the next day.
She picked the Red Hood as her alias because of its connections, because of its meaning to Bruce. She picked it because of the Joker, who had 'killed' Jason Todd (even if the other Robin had really survived, and had merely been hiding with Leslie Thompkins).
She made herself a helmet of red metal, with a filter for her voice and for the air that she breathed. She wore a leather jacket and a Kevlar vest and combat boots, and then when she looked in the mirror, she was confident that they wouldn't realize who she was until it was too late.
She exchanged her batarangs for guns and tricks for knives, and strapped them to her belt.
She watched Gotham carefully, relearning everything. She had pages upon pages of reports from Talia's spies to go through, and she read them all diligently, taking notes as she went. She stayed in her secluded apartment and memorized the Oracle's network and Bruce's patrol routes, learned that Cass was off on a special mission in Hong Kong with Jason Todd, who had returned to Gotham the previous year, learned that Dick Grayson was having troubles in Bludhaven, and learned that Tim Drake was on two superhero teams. She read up on the Birds of Prey roster, and memorized lists of all of the minor vigilantes in Gotham.
She looked at all of the notes on Black Mask's empire, and she saw red.
After she calmed down she went through all of the financial estimations that Talia had assembled for her. Talia had promised Steph money and support, but Steph didn't want to be dependent on Talia forever. Bruce might be able to trace the money, and that wouldn't be good. She had plans, and Bruce figuring everything out too early would ruin it.
She perched on rooftops and planted listening devices, getting a lay of the land. She memorized patrol routes and learned the things that the spies hadn't thought worth telling; what were the times when the prostitutes were out, what street corners dealt with ordinary drugs, and which of them dealt out the ones that gave superpowers and Scarecrow's creations. She bought the things that she would need, and laid out her plan.
She sent out a message to several drug lords—Mask's underlings, all of them, scumbags who had probably toasted her death and bought her murderer rounds to celebrate—telling them to meet in a warehouse that night, and then went hunting.
She cut off the heads of their lieutenants and placed them in a bag.
"That took me two hours," she told them as she stood on the balcony above them, smirking beneath the safety of her helmet, the AK-47 still warm in her hands. "You wanna see what I can get done in a whole evening?"
Tim looked older, Steph observed. The last of his baby-fat was gone, revealing a sleekly handsome nineteen year old. The cuts of his suits were better now, hiding the fact that beneath it all was the same nerd she had once dated.
She watched him through the scope of her sniper rifle, listening to the meaningless discussions happening below. She had never been a fan of the elite before, and now, she just looked at them and she saw the backs of the less fortunate beneath their feet, saw the blood that was attached to their precious gems.
It was odd, seeing Tim. Seeing that old reminder of her old life. It made her fingers itch to pick up a phone and call her mother—to go to that new house in Central City that Steph knew only from photographs and to fall into her mother's arms.
But she couldn't. Because she knew what would happen next; she knew that her mother would try to calm her down, try to stop her from her vengeance. Her mother would talk about forgiveness and peace, try to steer her away from the path that she walked.
Steph had chosen this road, and she had to walk it to the end. She could not afford the doubts that her mother would try to seed in her, nor the time that would be lost, nor the phone calls to Bruce Wayne that would doubtlessly follow any such visit.
That need to avoid the attention was the only reason Arthur Brown still lived. She didn't want them drawing that connection. Not yet, at least.
When the Riddler attacked it was almost a welcome distraction from her own thoughts.
But then she saw Tim become Robin, and rage filled her, flooding her vision with red. She disassembled her sniper rifle, not wanting to risk that she would give in to the urge to put a bullet between Tim Drake's bright blue eyes.
Her hands shook as she went through the familiar motions, and she went to take care of the shipment that was arriving at the docks that night. Bruce would be there, she was sure of that.
They were just thugs; ordinary, not-that-bright thugs, who just did what they were told. Oracle whispered names into his ear, criminal histories, and previous employers. "Who are you working for?"
Ordinary criminals didn't just happen to hijack a truck with Amazo as the cargo. Coincidences like that were so few and far between that Bruce had long since learned that it was better to ignore the possibility.
"Look, we just boosted the truck—"
Amazo had been activated, and so Bruce distracted himself from that interrogation as he fought the robot. Dick arrived to assist, and Bruce grunted to Babs in thanks, even if he said nothing to Dick out loud.
"The Red Hood! We're working for the Red Hood!"
The name was as familiar as the look that Dick sent him. Another Joker copycat, another imitator that would probably incur the wrath of Gotham's Clown Prince before long.
"We don't have any choice. She's got—" Three shots went off in quick succession, and all three thugs died there and then.
The sniper was a good one, and quick to pack up. The rifle was slung across her back as soon as they were taken care of, and she ran across the rooftops. Bruce gave chase.
She set fires instead of shooting him. She taunted him with things that she shouldn't know. Her helmet gleamed, almost like a mirror.
"She's good," Dick said, as they dodged the bullets.
"Yes, she's putting on quite a show," Bruce said, watching her carefully, recording her movements so that he could analyze them later.
She knew the city like the back of her hand. She had everything planned out, a careful map of what he would do. She led him right to where she wanted him, and she laughed as she made her escape with a bomb and a train and a motorcycle.
"Not bad, old man! Not bad!"
"You're going to the big gala with the Falcone boy tomorrow, right?" Steph looked at Tina, tilting her head to one side.
Tina was gorgeous, with a fine boned face beneath pale white skin. Tina was the higher class of prostitute, had been for years, long before she had entered under the Red Hood's protection. She'd gone out with gangsters and mobsters and politicians alike, and usually came out of it without a single bruise, but Tina was also clever, and she knew that the Red Hood looking out for her was a good thing, especially given that everybody was so jumpy in this latest gang war.
Steph examined Tina closely. Tina's hair was a thick, wavy gold, and she was about Steph's height.
Bringing the prostitutes in under her protection had been one of the first things that Steph had done as Red Hood. Not all of them were hers, but most of them were by now. And even the ones who weren't were fairly fond of her ever since she'd strung up a couple of Johns who liked to pay in bruises instead of cash.
"I got you a present," Steph said, stretching out her hands.
Offices were risky when she was hiding from both the Bat and the Mask, but she had a couple sequestered around the city. This one was the one she kept on the East End; sequestered in the heart of an office building, with no windows and a fake name on the lease. Steph walked in here with a long brunette wig and kept her helmet in her bag until she arrived. Very few people knew about this place; Tina was probably about the fifth.
The space was cramped and small, and stunk like hell, but it was secure and anonymous, and that was what mattered. She had swept for bugs, and found no sign that the Oracle or Batman had found it. They probably would soon, but that was good. She had more where this one came from.
"Aw, Red, you shouldn't have," Tina said, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes. Flirting was a part of Tina's charm, but Steph knew it was all a part of her game.
Steph grinned, gesturing to the garment bag hanging from the door. "Take a look," she said grandly.
Tina unzipped it slowly, her eyes widening as she went. "Fuck, Red, how much did this cost you?"
"I got a discount," Steph said, grinning widely beneath her helmet, even though Tina couldn't see it. "Don't you worry about that. Just make sure you do the rounds with it. And don't tell people who gave it to you."
"Scout's honor," Tina said, fingering the expensive fabric.
The dress was purple and almost floor length, with a slit down the side that allowed Tina to show the prerequisite amount of leg. The back was laced up, and it led into the crowning glory of the dress.
The hood.
The resemblance to the Spoiler was almost uncanny, particularly with the long blonde tresses. Steph had provided the seamstress with photos as reference, just to be sure that everything was right.
At the gala, when Bruce Wayne saw that dress, there was a moment when he froze, emotions flickering across his face. When Tina pulled the hood down, revealing soft blonde curls, he froze again. He hid it quickly, and plowed through the night with his usual social grace, but Stephanie Brown, watching from the security cameras, saw it and smiled.
Black Mask had sent people to kill the Red Hood. Bruce interfered, and fought alongside her.
She was… good. There was a confidence to her movements. She struck with certainty and grace, fast and lethal. Her fighting style was polished and precise, but also chaotic.
"I've got to say," she told him, breathing heavily in a quick break. "It's great watching you work. You move pretty fast for a geezer—"
One of them had gotten back on his feet, and was firing, blue energy emerging from his single mechanical eye. "Look out!" She shoved him out of the way, taking the energy blast directly in the chest.
"Why?" Bruce asked her after they had disabled the cyclops.
"I don't want you dead, Bats," there was a note of humor in her voice. "I'm just doing your job more effectively."
"You're a crime lord."
She shrugged carelessly. "You can't stop crime. You can reign it in, though. Make sure that people don't get hurt."
"You've been slaughtering your way through the Black Mask's organization."
"The guy's a bastard and a monster who gets his kicks out of torturing people," she snapped. "No one was willing to touch him because he was so powerful, so yeah, I'm shaving him down a size or two!"
"You say you're helping people, but there are ways to do that other than what you're doing!"
"What? Your way?" She laughed at him. "I don't know if you haven't noticed, old man, but your way doesn't work! You've been at it for years, and what have we seen?" She stretched out her arms. "A city declared no man's land, a revolving door system in Arkham, a bunch of dead kids, and gang war after gang war after gang war!"
"You're creating another one with your actions!"
"At least I'm containing the crossfire, unlike you Bruce!"
He froze, eyes wide behind the cowl. He looked at her with an assessing gaze, trying to see if he knew her from somewhere.
She was five feet and eight inches, and every inch of her was corded with muscle. There wasn't any part of her skin visible, she bristled with weapons from head to toe, and he knew there was a voice-changer inside of her helmet.
She could be anyone.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the Red Hood," she said, all mirth gone from her voice. Her body language radiated hostility.
"How do you know these things?"
"That's the real mystery, isn't it?" She stuck her hands in her pockets. He was certain she was grinning at him underneath the helmet. "I'm not going to tell you. That'll spoil the fun. You're a detective, aren't you? How hard can it be to find one girl?"
She dropped a smoke canister after that, and disappeared into the night.
She dropped into the Batcave, her feet landing lightly against the floor.
She looked around slowly, her eyes landing on everything that had changed since the days that she had spent there. The cars were sleeker, and there were more of them. There were more motorcycles—all reds and blacks, no sign at all of her old purple bike. The lights that blinked on the computer were different. There were additions to the collection—new villains had arisen, after all, giving Batman more things to collect in his trophy hall.
She walked up to the glass case, and pressed a gloved hand against it, leaning so close that her nose nearly touched the clear, highly polished surface.
She looked at it almost hungrily, taking it in, searching through it. She was cataloguing, in her mind, comparing each part of the costume to the one that she had once worn, trying to see if Bruce had remembered her in this little way. But the mask was Jason Todd's, the cape was Jason Todd's, the tunic was Jason Todd's. There was no hint, no indication that there had been another Robin who had died wearing the uniform. She pulled away, clenching her fists at her side.
She went to the costumes next, the old versions of the Nightwing costume and the original Batgirl outfit. Dick Grayson's Robin was there, as were older versions of the Batman costume.
There was no hint of purple amongst them. There was no Spoiler, no female Robin.
She had been in the Cave since her return to Gotham; she had known there would be nothing there.
But it hadn't stopped her from hoping.
She activated her radio, listening in on the Bats. The Oracle was still fending of the Calculator's attack—she was busy, too busy to notice that the security in the Batcave was being looped. Tim was out of town with the Titans, Cassandra was still abroad, with Jason at her side (the former Robin was apparently avoiding Gotham, and had been since his return), Dick was in Bludhaven, Bruce was hunting down Two-Face, and Alfred was in a meeting with Lucius Fox.
The Manor was empty.
She had time.
Stephanie went over to her bag, which lay where she'd left it right below her entrance and pulled out a brick.
She shattered the glass, scattering the pieces of the costume all over the cave. She stepped on the glass, crunching it beneath her combat boots as she strode towards the computer.
From her bag she produced a can of red spray-paint, and she stood on the chair as she painted the words onto the monitor in bright, huge letters.
THAT'S ALL THE CLUES YOU GET
They stood and they stared, looking around at the Cave.
"Clues? What does she mean by clues?"
"It means her endgame-whatever that is, is about to begin," Bruce said grimly.
"She broke into the Batcave. How?" Tim addressed this to Oracle, who was listening in over their communicators.
"I don't know," Babs growled. "She looped the feed, but I don't know for how long or how she did it..."
"Keep looking," Bruce commanded, and Babs let out a snarl in response before going quiet, except for the clacking of her keyboard.
"Why smash the case? What is she trying to tell us?"
"She's the Red Hood. The Joker killed Jason. Could be a connection," Dick offered, bending down to examine the footprints visible in the glass.
"She took the mask," Tim noticed, taking a quick mental catalogue of the pieces. "Why would she do that?"
Bruce frowned, but didn't say anything. Tim could almost see his mind going in a thousand directions at once, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.
"Found what she used to break the case," Dick called out, fishing a sturdy red brick out of the base of the memorial case. "Looks like I found our final clue, too."
Tim took it from Dick, frowning. Taped to the brick was a USB drive, with a note written on it.
Come and find me.
"We have a closed system we can check this on safely, right?" Dick handed the drive to Bruce, who placed it in a port that was a different color from the rest of the USB ports on the computer.
"Oracle, be ready," Bruce said grimly.
"On it," Babs said, voice tense.
Bruce opened the file.
"It's locked," Dick said, drumming his fingers on the desk.
"What's the password then?" Tim said, frowning. "Babs, can you hack it?"
"It's a verbal code. So… yes, but it'll take time."
Tim picked up the note, looking at it for another moment.
"I know this handwriting," Tim said quietly.
Dick and Bruce turned to face him.
"How?" Bruce demanded.
"Someone's… someone's been writing on my newspaper for the past few days," Tim said, staring at the tiny slip of paper. "Just silly things. 'Snape kills Dumbledore,' 'It was his sled,' 'He sees dead people'; that sort of thing. Plot twists. I didn't think anything of it."
"Not plot twists." Bruce's shoulders suddenly had gone tense, his face pale beneath his cowl.
"Bruce?" Tim and Dick both stared at their mentor, concerned.
"Not plot twists. Spoilers." Bruce turned and pressed the record button on the computer. "You are Stephanie Brown."
"Bruce!" Tim said. "You don't—"
"Passcode accepted." The folder opened, displaying a map of the city, with a specific location circled in bright purple.
Stephanie Brown's childhood home.
It had taken a great deal of convincing to get Dick and Tim not to accompany him. Stephanie Brown, or whoever was pretending to be her, was dangerous, and Bruce didn't want to risk anyone else. It was highly probably that he was walking into a trap.
Besides, someone needed to check on Crystal and Arthur Brown. Dick was dispatched to visit Blackgate, where the former Cluemaster was imprisoned, while Tim took the Batplane to Central, where Crystal Brown resided now.
The door to the apartment was unlocked. Bruce didn't see anything on thermal viewing, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. The Red Hood had already proved that she could circumvent most of his technology when she had broken into the Cave.
The apartment was still technically owned by Crystal Brown, but she hadn't visited this place since the media frenzy over Stephanie's death had died down. Despite that, everything was freshly cleaned, no sign of dust anywhere.
He pushed open the door to Steph's old room, wondering what he would see.
On the bed was a bright purple quilt, and a simple two-way radio.
"Hello Bruce," the radio crackled. Her voice was different now, with the scrambler that was attached to her helmet removed.
"Stephanie."
She laughed—it was the same laugh that she had given while wearing the Robin costume, how had he not noticed earlier?
"Took you long enough," she goaded. "What did it take, the outright hints?"
"I thought you were dead," he replied, looking out of the window, trying to see if she was nearby.
"I was." There was a jagged, raw edge to her voice. "I was dead, but then I wasn't. And I come back and I find out that not only is my murderer free, but that he's even more powerful than before. That he killed me and you just… let him be!"
"No one was certain that it was him!" Bruce winced even as he said those words. "No prosecutor could touch him, there wasn't the evidence—"
"World's greatest detective, huh? He attacked my mother."
"Stephanie—" Bruce winced, remembering.
"No. I'm done talking with you. The endgame is starting now, and I don't care what you do. It's not about you anymore."
"Bruce!" Babs activated his communicator, sounding frantic. "The Red Hood just attacked the Black Mask's limousine and kidnapped him! It's all over the police scanners, it's made national news too!"
"Stephanie. What did you do?" Bruce stared at the photograph of Stephanie on the wall. She had her arms wrapped around Cass, smiling widely. They were at a fair—there was a carousal in the background, and there were the remains of cotton-candy around Cass's mouth. It must have been taken only months before she had died. She looked so young.
"Five days, Bruce," Stephanie's voice was low. "He had me for five days. Did you even notice I was missing? Did you even look?"
"Stephanie—"
"He's getting what I owe him," Stephanie said flatly. "Five days of hell. Then I kill him. Let's see if you can at least manage to find him, shall we?"
She hung up.
The Black Mask woke up, and Steph sat across the room from him, watching.
"What—" He jerked his head up, but he couldn't move, tied to the chair as he was. His eyes narrowed as they landed on her. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, bitch? You're dead, you know that right?"
"I thought you said that after I stole your guns, and after I blew up your headquarters, and after I killed your guards," she said, tilting her head to one side. "Guess you're not as good at this whole thing as you thought you were."
He growled at her. "What do you want?"
"Payback," Steph said quietly. She removed her helmet, wondering for a second if he wouldn't recognize her. Just in case, she was wearing a wig to make her hair seem longer. She didn't know what she'd do if he didn't realize it was her—she might not have the patience to make it the five days that she'd promised herself and Bruce.
He stared at her, and she was sure that she heard the fear in his voice. "I killed you." She smiled.
"Yeah, you did." She got to her feet, pulling out her knife. "Guess someone thought I wasn't done, though." She smirked at him, lazy and slow. "So. Let's find out how good of a teacher you were, shall we?"
It was then that his eyes went wide, as he finally noticed that on the table she'd been sitting on were all the same torture implements that he'd used on her. "Don't worry," she promised him, still smiling as she began to circle him slowly, like a shark moving in on a kill. "We'll save the drill for later."
Bruce made the call to Cassandra.
"What?"
Cassandra watched all the videos, and Bruce silently hoped that she would tell him he was wrong, that the body language lied. No one could hide from Cass.
Cass whispered, voice almost too quiet to hear, "Her. It's… it's her."
"Can you get here? You might be able to reach her. Get her to stop." Get her to come home, he didn't say, but he knew Cass understood what he meant.
Cass made a noise, clearly trying to think. "Will take a little while. Jason can finish the mission on his own." There was a pause. "Tim can't—"
"He'll try. But I'm not sure it will work."
"But I will?"
"I hope so."
Cass was quiet for a long time. Bruce imagined her expression, distant and thoughtful and heartbroken all rolled into one. "She's killed a lot."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because she's angry."
Cass let out a noise that was halfway between a snarl and a sob. "I'll be there in three days."
Bruce pinched his nose with the hand not holding the phone. "I'll see you then."
She left the Black Mask to deal with the fact that Bruce had called in reinforcements.
"Steph!" She whipped around and fired three shots in perfect succession.
Tim Drake wore the Robin costume, ducking behind a chimney.
"Well, if it isn't the Boy Wonder," she said.
"Steph, please, we can talk about this—"
"Like hell we can," she snapped. "You were glad when I died, weren't you? You didn't have to tell me that you were going to take Robin back, you just got to grab it up the minute they found me."
"Steph, it wasn't like that, if you would just listen—"
"I don't want to listen, because it's not about you. This is between me and Mask."
"You can't just kill him—"
"Why not?" Steph asked, voice quiet and deadly. "It's not like anyone stopped him from killing me."
"That's not—" She fired again, four shots this time. He avoided them by returning to the safety of the chimney.
She ran while he hid, managing to lose him in the twists and turns of Gotham's alleys. And when she was done she called Talia.
"I need a favor."
"What is it?"
"I need Tim and Dick out of the city. Can you stir up some trouble for the Titans?"
"Hmm. Shiva has been rather antsy lately. I'll see what I can scrape up. How is the Mask?"
"He's resting right now."
"Not for long, I hope."
"Of course not."
"I will say hello to Damian for you."
"I'll bring him a souvenir," Steph promised.
"Do try to not hurt them, Stephanie."
"I'll do my best, as long as they stay out of my way."
"That's all I ask." Talia hung up.
She had played it smart. Bruce searched high and low, going to every place associated with Stephanie Brown or the Red Hood and finding nothing.
Stephanie had tucked him away in the outskirts of the city, in a condemned building that she'd bought with a shell company of a shell company of a shell company. It was day three. If she had been telling the truth, the Black Mask had two days left to live. Cass would be arriving in twelve hours.
He didn't assume anything. He still had no concrete proof that this was Stephanie Brown, truly resurrected. Alfred had quietly excavated her grave, and uncovered that there was, indeed, no body in the coffin. He had pulled fingerprints from the radio, but they could have been planted or old—it wasn't like Stephanie had never owned radios before.
But in the pit of his stomach he knew the truth. This was Stephanie Brown, alive and angry and vicious, armed to the teeth and fully intent on torturing the Black Mask to death. His greatest failure had returned from the grave, and she hated him with every fiber of her being.
She was waiting for him behind the door, gun raised. He must have triggered an alarm when he had landed on the roof. "So you can find a murderer held captive, but you couldn't find me?"
"Stephanie."
"Don't you dare pretend otherwise!" She fired the gun, and Bruce went low, under the trail of bullets, but she charged him, tackling him back onto the rooftop. He grabbed her and threw her over him, sending her crashing onto the concrete of the roof.
"I won't let you kill the Mask," he snarled as they both got to their feet.
"Why? He's more important than me? Let me guess, you left him alone as part of some grand master-plan to end crime in Gotham," Steph mocked him. "You already tried that Bruce! It got me killed! It got Orpheus killed!"
"We don't kill," he said, and the two of them began to circle each other slowly.
"I was never really one of you though," Steph said. "You made that clear enough! Did you even wait an hour before I was dead before giving Tim back the costume? Or did you just give it to him even as someone told you the news?"
"Tim—"
"If it had been him the Black Mask took, would you have found him? Would the Black Mask still be ruling Gotham?" She charged him again, taking wild, uncontrolled swipes at him with the large curved knife she carried. "Did you send the Mask a thank-you note, for getting rid of me so you didn't have to?"
She was angry, practically shaking as she attacked him. Her attacks were off-center and crude. Bruce grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to the ground, cracking her helmet.
"I didn't know," he growled. He grabbed her gun from her belt and threw it to the side, wincing mentally as it skidded off the concrete but didn't fire.
"World's greatest detective," she snarled up at him. She twisted out from underneath him and leapt back up. They stood across from each other, staring, waiting for the other to make the first move.
"I don't want to fight you, Stephanie."
"Then let me finish him," she cried, throwing her hands into the air. "He's a monster! He laughed as he killed me, he wore Orpheus's face! He tortures people because he likes it and he kills for fun, and you let him go!" She pulled off her helmet, and Bruce stared as he saw her face for the first time in years.
She looked so much older. Dark circles lined her dark blue eyes, her cheeks were hollow and her skin was sallow, as if she hadn't slept in a week. Her hair was short, now, a messy pixie cut that was kept out of her eyes with a heavy application of gel.
"Just walk away," she begged. "Keep your precious fucking conscious clean. Just let me kill him."
Bruce just looked at her. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
She outright flinched at that. "What?"
"You're right. I failed you. I lost you in the fighting, and then I thought you were with Orpheus. I thought you were safe. I didn't realize the Mask had you until it was too late. I was looking for you, I promise you that. You were my Robin, and you died on my watch. It was my fault."
"You let him walk!" Fury contorted her face, making it even harder to recognize the girl she had been.
"The lawyers couldn't keep him; nothing could stick to him."
"You're so full of shit," Steph hissed, the desperation of earlier gone. She was angry again. "You just didn't care. He tried to kill everybody in my life. He tried to kill my mother!"
"I couldn't—"
"Like hell you couldn't!" Steph yelled. "I trusted you, I believed in you. But I see now what you are. You're weak and pathetic; you play favorites and stack us up against each other, telling us that we're not as good, that we'll never be as good. We're just pawns to you, not partners or children." She spat on the ground, and Bruce saw that she was bleeding in the mouth from where he's thrown her to the ground earlier. "But it's not about you. It's about him." She pointed downwards, where Bruce knew the Mask was. "So walk away, Bruce. Just let me finish what I crawled out of my fucking grave to do."
"I can't do that." He wanted to. God he wanted to. He wanted to let her go down those stairs and put a bullet in the Black Mask's brain, and then come home. But he couldn't do that.
Steph bared her teeth at him. "Fine." She threw throwing stars at him, but Bruce threw an explosive into the air, throwing them off-course. He darted for the door—he needed to get the Black Mask out of there, and fast.
Stephanie followed him, firing shots from her gun. He hit her hand with a batarang, forcing her to drop it. She tackled him from behind, putting a knife to his throat and struggling to break through the armored layers of his cowl.
Bruce slammed backwards, forcing her to hit her head against the concrete wall. She let go of him, eyes glassy as he continued to run towards the Mask. He knew she would have played it smart, would have left contingencies in place in case he beat her. But he didn't need to beat her. He just needed to stop her.
The Black Mask was unconscious, bound to a chair and bleeding profusely, but not yet fatally. Stephanie had clearly intended to keep her promise of retribution—many of the cuts and bruises echoed those that Bruce had seen in the autopsy report.
"No!" Steph kicked Bruce in the chest, trying to keep him away from the Mask. "You don't have the right, you bastard!"
Bruce had had enough. He grabbed her unprotected head and slammed it against the wall. He grabbed her arm and twisted, just enough to dislocate it.
"You say you want to be better than me, but you're just another criminal. Just like your father," he snarled. "You're just hurting people to get what you want."
She fell to the ground, her forehead bleeding. "Fuck you," she whispered, her breathing labored.
"You need help, Stephanie." He turned back to Mask, looking for the knots in the ropes that bound him to the chair. "Oracle, get the police here. We'll need medical."
"No," Steph gasped, drawing Bruce's attention back to her. "You don't… you don't get to save him. Not when you didn't even try to save me." With her good hand she reached into her jacket and pulled out a detonator.
"No!" Bruce lunged, but she pressed the button before he could reach her.
There was no countdown, no chance to disarm the bomb. The explosion rocked the whole building, sending dust and rocks everywhere. Bruce threw his cape over his head to protect himself, lifting his arms up to catch whatever might fall on him.
The Mask was trapped under a large piece of the ceiling, but he was alive, and stable as far as Bruce could tell. Barbara was screaming in his ears, but he ignored her, frantically pushing through the rubble. He couldn't find Stephanie.
"Bruce, are you alright? Please, answer me!"
"Check the cameras," Bruce snapped. "See if you can see her."
"Bruce—"
"Find her. She's injured. She'll need help."
"Bruce, she just tried to kill you!"
"Do it."
Bruce stood amongst the rubble and stared at the small patch of blood on the concrete that had belonged to Stephanie Brown, and tried not to feel like he had failed her again.