Despite the symbol on her chest that she's fought tooth and eggplant painted nails for Stephanie Brown isn't one of them. She isn't a Bat. Not truly at least. (Maybe that's why her and Jason get along so well.)
It's not because she's not an orphan like Dick and Jason are. Because Tim had parents to begin with. Barbara has a father still which is miracle considering he' the Commissioner of GCPD. (Steph doesn't know if Barbara's mother alive. She hasn't asked because while sometimes - most of the time - she doesn't have a brain to mouth filter, that's only worse when she's angry or upset, she's knows that family is touchy subjects for all them.) Damian's father is the goddamn Batman himself.
It's not because she's not been adopted by Bruce because apparently (Steph had learnt this when she accidentally overheard Dick's drunken voicemail to Barbara.) Dick hadn't been adopted until several years after his big fight with Bruce that made him move to Bludhaven and become Nightwing. Barbara wasn't adopted either but she was still one of them.
It doesn't matter that she did "die." Jason Todd (the Robin before Tim and the first dead Robin that was an example of listen to Batman exactly, to the freakin letter or something bad, really bad, could happen to you) had died and Bruce had mourned him.
...In his violent not dealing with my unhealthy bottled emotions way (to the point that Tim had to step in and that's how her ex became the third Robin). Jason Todd's Robin suit had an memorial case while her Robin suit had nada with a capital n. Tim had told her (more like ranted to her) it was because Bruce knew she was alive this whole time ("and he never told me!" Tim finishes with a yell). Steph at the time had to bite her bottom lip hard. Her peach lip gloss and blood stained her two front teeth from how hard she had bitten down on her innocent bottom lip that didn't deserve her anger.
Bruce had.
Maybe he did know that she had faked her death (Greatest detective in world title that only Sherlock shared with him but Sherlock wasn't real. Just a character from some books that BCC had made into an awesome tv series.) but after finding out Jason was in fact alive (and the Red Hood that apparently was too much of Game of Thrones fan because WOW decapitated heads. Seriously who does that these days?) you know what Bruce never did? He never got rid of the memorial.
And it hurts.
More than she will ever admit. Maybe she didn't "die" like Jason but was everything Black Mask put her through meant nothing? Especially when one factors in the fact Jason had came back alive and kept it a secret (just like she had) yet Bruce (who Steph had nicknamed, in the safety of her own mind, the greatest hypocrite in the world) still kept the memorial.
And while it hurts (that she isn't good enough after everything) she doesn't let her become bitter towards Jason when she finally meets the infamous Red Hood. It helps that they had much (as in scary much) in common.
A/N: I own nothing. This is crossposted on archiveofourown.