Stephanie doesn't mind being the stupid one. Really, she doesn't.
She supposes it's not that strange that they see her as such, they are all geniuses after all and she is not. She fulfills a different role, one that Richard used to fill, but he is busy with his own life and isn't around enough anymore.
She's the one who makes sure they don't fall too far. Don't isolate themselves to much from the real world, don't push themselves to hard. She makes them all smile and she knows not many people can do that.
The other tease her off course, and she lets them make fun of her denseness and laughs at herself, because she knows that they need time to be the cruel and selfish ones, even if they don't realize it.
It doesn't hurt. Really it doesn't. Not when Barbara jokingly calls her an idiot, not when Tim sighs when he has to explain something to her other and other again. It doesn't. She knows it doesn't.
She also knows that they take her for granted, and a small cruel part of her wonders how they would react if she suddenly disappeared. But then she hears them laugh at something she said and all those thoughts disappear because only she can do that.
They let their guard down because they underestimate her, think that she can't see beyond the obvious or read between the lines.
But Stephanie watches. She watches and never says a word because that's not her job. Because then they would start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, she was more intelligent than she let on. Then they wouldn't trust her anymore because she is the outsider and Bruce taught them better than to trust someone like her.
So she asks them to explain things she perfectly understands, asks them to repeat their words when she heard them the first time.
She purposely answers questions wrong, and in school keeps her grades low enough as to not draw attention.
No, Stephanie really doesn't mind being the stupid one. She doesn't mind because she knows, even though they don't realize it, they need her, and there is nothing Stephanie ever wanted more than to be needed.
Then later, she is lying on the cold concrete floor of a warehouse being beaten again, and again, and again by the black mask. She lies there and she waits. She waits for them to rescue her. Waits while thinking that they won't abandoned her, they can't!
But they don't come.
She wonders if they ever really cared for her in the first place as she drags her bruised and broken body to the hospital. Stephanie isn't stupid. She knows she's going to die.
In her last moments she asks Bruce if she ever truly was Robin, if it ever even meant anything.
He says yes, and the only thing Stephanie Brown can think of right before she dies, is how much of a liar Bruce Wayne really is.
Just a little one shot I wrote because I couldn't get it out of my head. I usually don't publish them, but I kinda like this one so what the hell.
I really like Stephanie Brown as a character, but I always thought there was something more. This is just my interpretation of the character.