Polished and straightened out for my headcanon continuity. This is HEAVILY OOC/AU "If she were written for the Rocksteady adaptation of Batman: arkham series" Stephanie Brown, so forgive me and this is no disrespect to the DC classic/main canon of Stephanie Brown.
If you've been reading my JasonxOC fanfics, this is in the same continuity and within Batman: Arkham series, although this is pre-Batman: Arkham Asylum and around Arkham Origins.
Stephanie Brown has a thing for promises. It tells a lot about how people think and feel about what's important to them, and who's important to them.
It had been a long time ago, but she distinctly still remembers how both her mom and dad had their own ways of promising what they ought to do with her.
Mom is lovely. She works herself hard to the bone to keep the two of them living in the run-down apartment in Drescher while keeping a home school teacher hired for her daughter's education. Leslie Thompkins—New Jersey's 'Modern Nightingale'—is a saint. Ms. Thompkins was paid on the first week of Stephanie's classes, but insisted that Stephanie's classes can be free. She even suggested to her mom that Stephanie can enroll in where she works outside of both Gotham's city limits, a non-profit hospital and social organization for the youth and elderly. It sounded too good to be true, but Stephanie's mom felt a stab of distrust and was adamant that her only daughter stay within her mother's sight and proximity.
Leslie Thompkins—who may have had her PhD and MD a long time ago, and is still learning new things about medicine and psychology—understood too much of Mrs. Brown's mental and emotional turmoil of losing her child, despite harmless circumstances. Stephanie knew, however, that Teacher Thompkins is adamant in taking both of them away from Drescher and help her mom start anew. And also, once her mom finally agrees, Stephanie can have real friends! She's had it with having to deal with a bunch of easily-annoyed, old neighbors and their snooty teenage children.
Besides, both her Mom and Teacher Thompkins have promised her. Things will look up...
Dad is a demon. Figuratively, of course, but not even Black Mask notorious-level or even as insanely dangerous as Joker is nowadays, yet back in the day, the Cluemaster—as his criminal codename goes—had held his own. He terrorized Founder's Island and had even been a part of a Gotham syndicate war against the Maronis and the Irish Mob. His gig? He hosts illegal fights: with Bonus Rounds that incorporate a kind of twisted 'Reality TV Competition', where tie-breakers or new blood have to go through a series of 'killer questions' and obstacle courses to prove their worth. Gothamites thought Riddler was bad...but perhaps, the Riddler is more annoying now and has more of a personal vendetta against vigilantes and the GCPD in general. Cluemaster was a cutthroat businessman and butcher. The only family he cared about was the lucrative syndicate he helped co-found.
The Cluemaster's reign of terror ended when he and more than half of his cronies went to jail when someone snitched them from the inside, handing them to the mercy of Commissioner Loeb and Batman. Despite witness protection, however, Stephanie's Mom and a 'member' from Cluemaster's syndicate had been hunted down. Mom had been hunting down her rapist and as she had swore, she wanted justice be served. Unfortunately, they underestimated Cluemaster's connections—and his wrath.
Before they could be delivered to Blackgate, his cronies had destroyed the van that was going to sentence him there and led him to Drescher, to exact revenge on his 'wife' and their traitor. They hunted down the traitor—who lives just a few blocks from the Brown's apartment—dragged him out of his own home and went to abduct both the Browns as well.
Cluemaster didn't care if the little girl was his. All he cared about was having both of them raped and tortured, before being gutted slowly for the 'last show'. He had brought the three of them on the arena, on the outskirts of the Narrows, to be made an example for those who dared Cluemaster and his gang. From here on out, little Stephanie understood the power of promises, as well as how cruel and monstrous a follower of promises can be when they are given the freewill to do whatever they can, so long as it can be approved, so long as it can be feared and admired, so long as they can release their fantasies.
Batman and GCPD could not have saved them before the rape and torture began. Mrs. Brown—or perhaps, she should really be just Ms. Brown, because she had never married the scumbag who raped her(and why should she?)—had been gutted open, from her abdomen down to her left hip, slowly and without care. Cluemaster savored the agonizing, scratchy screams of Stephanie's mother while little Stephanie screamed for her mother's life, begging to have the horrifying show be stopped, while the little girl was pinned down by another woman, nude and debauched with having her way on the little girl for the third time, as a bigger man held her legs wide, taking his time on little Stephanie...
The traitor is chained and continuously being electrocuted and whipped, their devices cracking against his flesh. He gurgles a moan, having exhausted himself of screaming with all the tools they've already dealt with in the span of an hour.
When Cluemaster and his syndicate were foiled for the last time, it clearly was the last time. Cluemaster himself had intended it to be. Before he lost consciousness from the black-out punch Batman was surely to deliver, he had actually looked at Stephanie...
...his glare was unnerving, as if wrath still boiled in his eyes.
Stephanie knew that look. It was how some of the older kids in the Drescher neighborhood looked at anyone who dared to harass them, while they're supposedly entitled to the harassment and bullying they can do on anyone else. Those kids don't let up the kind of wrathful entitlement they have of whatever they feel like they've earned, whether a small territory in the alleyway, a robbery, vandalism and street unrest...
And this wrath that Cluemaster holds for having his fun and his way of life taken from him, the only thing left in him now is this promise. This promise that he will always be the Cluemaster.
Batman hauls Cluemaster unconscious inside an armored GCPD van—much more so, along with heavily-armed guards—while rescue and medical officers come in to see to it Stephanie and the former member of Cluemaster's syndicate will live another day.
Little Stephanie was surprised that Teacher Thompkins was with the medical team. She hugged the little girl tightly and ensured she was safe. Stephanie could not lift her arms to embrace her old friend back.
She felt...wrong.
She felt as if there were still hands on her arms and legs, preventing her to hug her friend. But Teacher Thompkins is kind and loving, as kind and loving as Mom.
Looking back now, Stephanie was sure that Leslie Thompkins' kindness will be rewarded a thousandfold, when she can no longer serve the social organization, and instead take her in to have her much-deserved peaceful retirement.
Stephanie recalled how her eyes had slowly bore on Mom's body, who was being carefully examined by coroners. They are preparing to have her put on a stretcher and be brought to the morgue—
"Stephanie!" Teacher Thompkins had turned around to get her food for the little girl, only to turn back to an empty seat inside the ambulance.
Stephanie ran to her Mom and pushed aside the coroners. She had to get it—
"Stephanie..." A deep, male voice came to her side. All she can see was the enveloping blackness and his warmth radiating through the intricate armor and cape.
"Here..." With his gloved hand, Batman presents to him her Mom's locket. It had their picture in it; Mom was younger and she had just given birth to tiny Stephanie. Mom always wore it. And up until now, Stephanie is never without it.
"I'm sorry." Batman sounded really sad and she could see it in his mouth and eyes. It was the same as how her Mom would express whenever a toy Stephanie would love to have was too expensive for the blue-collar salary her Mom had. "I'm so sorry."
Stephanie could not remember if she had said anything. But perhaps she had, because Batman responded to her. It must've been along the lines of "You didn't promise us anything. Mom's in a good place, while they're not."
Batman's eyes widened. Well, as wide as it could get inside the helmet and eyeholes. "Yes. You're right. Your mother is proud to have a brave daughter like you."
Stephanie remembers that Batman was leading her away from her Mom's corpse, who was being whisked away to the morgue.
Batman kneels next to Stephanie. "Do you have relatives?"
Stephanie shakes her head. "No. Mom said she had been missing herself for a long time and that she ended up in Gotham to find work. I guess she means she was always alone, until she got me."
Batman nodded, although Stephanie will always remember the look of intrigue in his eyes. Stephanie can now understand that Batman was interested with who her Mom was, because he wanted to give her daughter some kind of closure to this violence. Stephanie is thankful for that.
Batman looks to where the ambulances are and finds Ms. Thompkins standing nervously outside one of them. She had looked petrified in approaching Batman back then. Times have recently changed Teacher Thompkins.
"Is she taking care of you?" Batman inquires, and Stephanie had thought his deep voice went half an octave lighter. To this day, she still thought about that and would laugh at the thought of Batman using a deep, rich but gruff voice to scare criminals, while a softer tone to children.
Stephanie nods. "Yeah. She said she works for a non—uh, none-prophet orphanization...Yeah."
Batman's lips quirks into a smile. Stephanie didn't understand back then that children who tried to use a big and complicated word results to adorableness. Back then, when she saw Batman try to hide the smile after she tried to explain Ms. Thompkins' job, she had pouted and felt embarassed.
"I think I know which one." Batman nods to her and stands up, then offers his right hand to walk her back to Teacher Thompkins. "Hannelore's Social and Medical Facility. You'll be in safe hands, Stephanie."
Stephanie could not agree with him more than she does now, clutching a bouquet of baby's breath and callalilies—her Mom's favorites, apparently, after recovering one of Mom's journals, and much of their old stuff from Drescher and greedy 'antique' auctioneers—to her chest.
She had been seven when that horrible nightmare had happened to her, her mother and that unsung hero, who wanted the Cluemaster dead—or at the very least, have him pay for all his crimes. Commissioner Loeb should thank her mom and the snitch for finally putting Cluemaster behind bars; if it weren't for that case, Commissioner Loeb wouldn't be in his office for long and his corruption may have been put to question earlier on. Hell, he really should thank his own office for a job well done within the Witness Protection Program, because they must've plotted Cluemaster's release to make the 'final show', only so that GCPD can win back the public's opinion. It sure lasted well enough, until Loeb's 'death penalty' by the Black Mask.
Life had progressed into something she could definitely say is normal and safe. Yet, she feels as if life had cheated her mother out of the potential things that could've transpired if she was still alive. Sometimes, Stephanie wondered if her own mother had a hand in sabotaging her own life for the sake of her daughter. She must've also sworn that she would never have to let her daughter know her own tragic story, until perhaps Stephanie was fifty years old, while her mother is finally on retirement.
Fat chance that one, mom.
If her mother was ashamed of letting her daughter know that Emily Crossdell—renamed Crystal Brown by human traffickers—was among the missing children in Tampa, Florida, reported back in 1988; and that Crystal had been made to work severely for illegal porn, abused multiple times and had literally crawled out of hell to try to lose her captors by changing her appearance and not even calling her parents that she was alive, for fear that her family would be raided by these traffickers...
...then she had lucked out of truly knowing and trusting her own daughter.
Stephanie loves her Mom and hated that there were days when her PTSD kicks in. As a child, she was helpless on how she was going to calm her mother down, with hugging resulting to more tears. It took at least one of the snooty kids in the third floor—who had heard her Mom crying and had decided to take action—and Leslie Thompkins to give her Mom assurance that she's fine, and they both will be when they join the Hannelore Social Facility, and that Ms. Thompkins herself will see to it that the both of them can get a better future. If her mother was alive now, and if she felt ashamed for being so reckless as to hunt down her rapist and report his activities to the police, Stephanie would've wholeheartedly said that she was proud of her mom for what she did.
Stephanie lays down the bouquet on the gravestone and whispered a "hey, Mom".
She had stopped crying at her Mom's gravestone at age ten. It was earlier that time that Batman had personally given Leslie Thompkins the information about Crystal Brown/Emily Crossdell and the events of her Mom's rape from the Cluemaster.
Teacher Thompkins did her best to gently tell little Stephanie about how Emily, during her regular hour that Novermber night in Otisburg, was attacked by Cluemaster and his cronies. The diner she works in as custodian was raided and the managers, who tried to deescalate the whole thing by giving their money, were brutally murdered on their restaurant's floor. Police were called only after Cluemaster and his gang have cleared. Emily was abducted and tortured by Cluemaster himself. He raped her until she blacked out from the punches and the drugs, only to wake up to find out she was dropped on the streets of the Cauldron in Bleake Island. People had simply thought she was a drunk prostitute and did not even help her when she made her way to GCPD to report the matter.
Little Stephanie, young as she was back then, was successful in piecing together the puzzle. She does have recollections of her Mom suddenly bursting into tears or shaking in fear in their bedroom as little Stephanie hugs her mom, telling her she's there and will always protect her. It was arbitrary, but Stephanie began to see the pattern: whenever November rolled in, her mom was quieter, more fearful of going out to work and would cry herself to sleep, a sleep that would only be for two hours, until the alarm will sound and Crystal, or should she say, Emily, routinely takes her custodian uniform and kiss Stephanie a good morning, before heading out to work.
Teacher Thompkins then began to elaborate to her how her Mom and the traitor—who turned out to be a sanitations worker—had plotted in finding and reporting Cluemaster to the police.
And it had made sense.
There had been calls that her Mom was not at work, or those days when she was home earlier than schedule. At that same night of the attack, when they got a call from a man—who was the sanitations worker—who was warning Crystal that Cluemaster had found them and will be there to do God knows what, her Mom had rushed to pack them their belongings, confusing and scaring Stephanie so much, she skipped dinner. She had called a taxi while she carried Stephanie's school things, but a burst of rapid gunfire had made her Mom panic and frozen, on all fours, to the floor. Stephanie did her best to wake her Mom out of her panicked trance, but the door bursting open and the ear-splitting sound of gunfire on their neighbors' doors had made Stephanie scream for her life, and her mother suddenly springing to carry her out of the window, and into the fire escape, making a futile chance to get her child away, but—
"...And the rest is as you know." Teacher Thompkins had gently held her hands throughout the elaboration of what happened. There were tears pricking the corner of her eyes. Batman, as ridiculous as he looks sitting in the floral-patterned couch of Ms. Thompkins' office, remained respectfully silent. "I'm...I'm so sorry, Stephanie. You must be...deeply sad for everything."
"Mom and Mr. Jibbs did their best." She didn't know where the stoicism came when she had said those words. Only now did she understood where and it hurt to remember. "They deserve to be in jail now."
Batman's shoulders seem to have squared before standing slowly from the couch, like a graceful, black shadow.
"And there they will stay." His voice seemed to shake the room, especially with the assertiveness found in his timber. "I'll make sure of it."
Ms. Thompkins, who, along with the rest of the Hannelore staff, had been reluctant to invite the then-new vigilante; but when he had announced he was here with information regarding Emily Crossdell, a.k.a. Crystal Brown, they had let him in without a second thought. Now, though, Ms. Thompkins' discomposure in having a Wanted Man in their premises was returning. "Won't the police also make sure of it? What with Mr. Gordon becoming a new commissioner..."
"We can all be assured that GCPD is definitely heading to better management." His stoic and monotonuous voice was all there was to affirm that Batman is also depending on the police. "Thank you for letting me personally give the information. I...know how it is to lose love ones. It's a tragedy..."
His eyes bore at little Stephanie and there was empathy in his eyes. Stephanie believes him.
"I...I'm proud to see you have grown, Stephanie." His voice is similar to how her Mom used to praise her with her improving grades. She usually praised Stephanie with tears in her eyes. Batman had no tears, but it was so clear in his eyes and his voice. "Very proud."
"Me, too." She had said. This had taken Batman aback. "You saved us. You saved Mr. Jibbs. I'm sure he'll be fine."
In hindsight, Stephanie was too innocent to realize that Mr. Jibbs' injuries was so much for his body, that he had become a tetraplegic. Mr. Jibbs was never the same, but with treatment, therapy and socialization within Hannelore's superior facility and overall passionate staff, Mr. Jibbs was more than a different man.
Batman smiles. He must not smile a lot, because she could see how he was trying to hold back in curling his lips wider. But Stephanie beamed up at him and Batman couldn't resist but to truly grin back.
Without another word, Batman left the facilty. Surprisingly though, he had courteously left the premises through the actual doors.
After the meeting with the vigilante, Teacher Thompkins had held Stephanie's hand all throughout the walk towards the garden cemetery and towards her Mom's gravestone. On her other hand, Teacher Thompkins brought with her a bouquet of baby's breath and callalilies. Stephanie began to cry as they approach the gravestone closer.
When she was face-to-face with the letters of her Mom's name, Stephanie whispered, "I promise I'll always be stronger than yesterday. I'll always be stronger than anyone who dared to harm anybody. I will never back down, Mom. This, I swear."
She had sworn differently back then, but because she visited her gravestone as much as possible—which is almost everyday—Stephanie began to form the promise, the oath that defined her morals, her attitude. And over the years, she can definitely say that she had done pretty well in keeping her friends safe and assured of her companionship.
And her secret vigilantism.
She places the bouquet here, the same place Teacher Thompkins had taught her to place years ago, and out of habit, right under the deathdate of her Mom's passing.
"Don't worry, Mom." Stephanie continued whispering. "I made sure to visit you before I head off to college next week. I still got a lotta packing."
She sighs. Besides packing, there was a lot of tragic things going on in with her best friend, Felixa Lowe. She had wanted to bring her along, so her friend can apply for the same college as she is. In the end, Felixa was determined about following her dream and had jumped on a culinary arts scholarship on the same college her father attended within the Atlantic County. For now, she, her older brother, Crimson, and mother are staying with relatives in California after having been told of horrific news about Catricia, Felixa's sister. Their father would be staying to help investigators.
Stephanie, on the other hand, was going to Ocean County to pursue art photography. She figured it's close enough to be in Bludhaven and Gotham, but at the same time, an opportunity to spread her 'reputation'.
Stephanie sighs. "It's been years, Mom. A lot has happened. Heh, sorry...I keep saying that every time I come visit you."
Stephanie began to elaborate how the middle-to-high school band she was a part of was going to have to be put in hiatus since all of the members are going to different colleges and universities. It's indefinite when they'll reunite, as a band and as friends, but Stephanie is determined to juggle schoolwork and personal time. She wished that they could've at least finished their second EP, but because of time constraints, everything is put in indefinite hiatus. "And I don't like it, Mom."
Stephanie was always sure about how she felt. Right now, she feels emotionally sick and helpless, not unlike how she felt whenever her Mom cried and little Stephanie had to calm her down. Now though, she can honestly admit at how much work it is to calm down friends with varying degrees of mental and emotional issues. Including herself.
"Things are changing so quickly. I've anticipated this for a long time, ever since I made great friends within the Children's Ward in Hannelore and then moving on to a special middle school, together with Felixa and Addison, then steadily making so many friends that, I guess, I lost a rational side in me...that there are things that won't be forever, that we were going to need to adapt to things, or even lose people in the process..."
Stephanie really did have a thing for promises. "We promised we'd still communicate and plan things, so we can stay in touch and get updated, and stuff...so why do I feel like that's not gonna happen?"
For the first time in years, since she was ten, Stephanie broke into tears. "I'm sorry I'm bothering you, Mom. I just don't want to say goodbye yet."
With only her black handkerchief, she wipes the snot off her nose and the tears in her eyes. "God! Why did bad things have to happen before Senioritis had to kick in? I mean, there was Addison's mom who was moved to another prison because she wanted to kill her own son...then Felixa's sister had been reported dead. Her body was found in a forest near Bludhaven's city limits, prompting for her family to move to California for now. Then there's the unfinished EP, just waiting for us to get it done, you know? I wanted to show them a new beat..."
Stephanie sniffles as she wipes streaks of tears, then weakly laughs. "But I guess you're probably angrier at me for what I'm doing secretly. When I met Lonnie, I had already been determined to find a way...find a way to change things, so people won't be hurt by assholes like Cluemaster...Is that so wrong, mom?"
A dry laugh escapes her lips as both her hands become fists. "I'm doing my best to find out who's behind Felixa's sister's death...I'm doing my best to keep the dirtier streets and neighbors clean, because Batman and his posh sidekicks don't bother enough...I'm doing my best to make sure kids don't get taken advantaged of because of sick adults...I'm doing my best to lead these two lives simultaenously, because Lonnie's concern is out of depth!"
Stephanie shakes her head and covers her face, realizing her voice raising in an angry volume.
She turns towards the whole entire cemetery of Hannelore, to distract herself and calm down before her wrath gets the better of her again...
There are a bunch of equipment and workers moving around the other gravestones; two people are carrying a large egg-shaped 'pod' that they intend to place to the freshly-dug burial site. Soon enough, it would be her Mom's turn to have her remains exhumed and will possibly be made into manure for a new tree. Stephanie had requested that Mom's gravestone should at least have a flower bed for all the baby's breaths and callalilies, and Teacher Thompkins positively reacted to the idea.
Perhaps, in her next visit in November, Crystal Brown's gravestone would have been placed next to a newly-planted tree sapling, surrounded by baby's breaths and callalilies...
"I'm so sorry, Mom. I'm not mad at you. But I don't know who to turn to sometimes..." She laughs weakly again. "I...I wish that I didn't have to suddenly come here to find sad catharsis about my double life and my friends' lives."
Serenely, Stephanie smiles and places her fingers on her Mom's name. "I promise. On Halloween break, I'll be here. I...I promise it'll be a happier reunion."
And with that, Stephanie prays and says goodbye. She finds herself reluctantly leaving, but gradually she manages to exit the cemetery with new promises.