When she finally managed to get the nylon based purple fabric over her legs the first thing that she notices is that the texture is not dissimilar to bagged cottage cheese. Every single inch of her body is packed like a sausage into the Spoiler costume and she is almost certain that she was not that small in high school.
I mean, she was pregnant at one point for god's sake, there's no way that she is bigger now.
Staring at herself in the mirror she shakes her head at herself, taking every inch of her face and sighing at the acknowledgment that the test of time has begun to change many aspects of her appearance.
She pulled the mask over her face and says goodbye to Stephanie Brown for one night, just one night.
"You brought me here for a drug deal." Stephanie's voice cut the air, her shoulder shoving into Jason's to taunt him about the regularity of drug deals in Gotham.
"Multiple drug deals, at least five." He retorted, returning her shouldering.
The two kneeled to peak just over the edge of the roof, close enough together that their combined body heat made the back of Stephanie's neck thick with sweat.
"Okay but drug deals in Gotham are as normal as an ice-cream truck in summer." Stephanie retorted.
"They are slowly retiring ice cream trucks, just so you know, it's way more cost effective for parents to buy ice cream from the store so… I guess they, like your argument, could be considered redundant."
Stephanie snorted, rolling back from her heels to plop on her butt. "It's crack, that's like the shitty Halloween candy of drugs."
"But what is it cut with?" He offered her a line. "You gotta remember, it's hard to find a crack dealer who is selling one hundred percent crack."
"Chalkboard dust, pixie sticks, sugar, baking soda. Depends on how dumb the customer is."
"Tim would tell you that none of those things should be ingested."
His reply earned him the pleasure of watching Stephanie try to hold back a rather large laugh.
When she could finally squeeze it out between snorts she asked, "And you?"
"Well I already chase my crack with chalk dust so, it's just a normal Friday night in the life of the Red Hood."
Her resulting laugh ended up with the drug dealer's head turning up to the rooftop and him nervously shoving his sold wares into the customer's pocket.
He began to rush the transaction so he could leave.
Jason grabbed Stephanie's hand and pulled her to the edge again.
"I think we need to just do it, now preferably."
She nodded to him, shoving her fist into her mouth to save herself from another laugh. Jason shook his head at her and with a presumed smile leaped from the roof to the fire escape and gestured for her to do the same.
Following suit, Stephanie leaped from the rooftop to the fire escape, landing on her feet perfectly. She immediately regretted this choice as the sharp pain shot up her knees, Jason jerked his head back to the drug dealer who seemed to be arguing about payment.
"You think you'll be able to keep up?" He asked as she groaned in pain.
She nodded to him and he immediately hopped over the guardrails of the fire escape into the night.
Her eyes widened at the height of the drop, at least two stories and she considered taking the stairs.
By then he would be completely out of sight.
She took in a nervous breath and climbed onto the guardrail, staring at the darkness below her.
Would it kill Gotham to buy more street lights?
She gripped her cape until her fingernails dug through her gloves into her palm, all the air seemed to leave her.
One second a safety rail was there to ground her to her normal life, the next second the air was there to aid in her flight.
Everything moved quickly and slowly at the same time, her body personally feeling like it remained in the air for decades but the wind feeling like the breeze of a hurricane.
She clenched her eyes shut without realizing it and fell to the ground on her shoulder, recovering quickly from the fall.
Her throat burned with the fire from the air that dived into her lungs, but her mind was burning with a rush of pride.
She remembered for a moment why she did it in the first place, the appeal beyond strong moral obligations that allowed her to blind herself to the potential emotional trauma that her mother would endure. She turned to Jason with a blind smile hidden by her black mask, having shaky legs like she donned when she was younger.
He stood by the garbage bins, she convinced herself that if she could see it there would be a smile returning hers in secret.
She walked beside him as he strode with confidence towards the drug dealer, the man unaware of their presence.
Her mind was elsewhere as Jason grabbed the man who was walking away from his clientele.
His fist connected with the man's face as he caught him unaware.
She's twenty-one again, barely able to see through her swollen eyes. There's no feeling but the hollowness in her lungs and all she can see of herself is stained bandages covering every portion of her body.
Her mother sits beside the hospital bed, her eyes cast down at a crossword.
She licked her lips and tried to will a sound out of her body, an empty wind escaping her lips.
Her mother's eyes darted up from the crossword, widening as they made contact with Stephanie again.
Jason accidentally shoves the man over to her; her hand connects with the man's cheek.
Her eyes become more alert as she feels the pain in her hand like she had punched a glass coffee table.
The man struggles to get away, without a thought she struggles to pin him down with her forearm as he attempts to pull at her mask and somehow throw her off pace.
She struggles and pulls his arms above his head.
Her mother chokes down sobs as she reaches for her, the bandaged child who somehow survived the collapse of a building.
She pulls her deep into her arms and Stephanie can hear the deep inhale of her mother, unknowing of the women's attempts to memorize every aspect of the child she had thought she'd lost.
She tried to find the words to reassure her mother, anything to tell her that she was still alive, that she was sorry.
Her mother pulls away finally, staring at her daughter's face like an astronomer trying to memorize the patterns of stars. Thick tears cascaded down Krystal Brown's face as she pulled her daughter's forehead to her lips and left a wet kiss. She gave the girl a good squeeze before finally releasing her.
"Jesus," her mother manages to struggle out of her mouth. She smiles at her child, cradling Stephanie's cheek tenderly in her hand.
Stephanie offers up a weak smile upon her chapped and cracked lips.
Overcome with emotion once more, Krystal gathers her up in her arms and grips her like a sailor lost at sea grips a life vest. "I thought you were done, I thought you were gone…"
"Mom…" Stephanie wheezed out.
"I don't know what I would do without you, I can't imagine what it would be like." Krystal buried her head in her daughter's bruised shoulder.
"Spoiler, come on, calm down, no need to pin him down," Jason stepped forward to get closer to the girl. "At least take him to the wall, it's less frightening."
Her head raised to make eye contact with him, she nodded and slowly got off the man.
Jason easily forced the man upwards and against the wall. He shoved a forceful hand into one of the pockets.
Out ofit he drew a zip lock bag filled with a white clumpy substance.
Krystal finally allowed her daughter to be released, gathering her face up in her hands once more and to get a good look at her.
"Stephanie Brown, you scared the living shit out of me." The woman admitted to her. She turned her child's face from side to side to inspect it further, even though as a nurse she likely knew the extent of Stephanie injuries better than Stephanie did.
"That's my job." Stephanie joked.
"Stephanie Brown," her mother says with a tone of exasperation.
"Mom."
She knew it was coming, the speech about how this couldn't keep going on, how she needed to try to live a normal life. Krystal Brown had lost the semblance of a man that she had married, did she deserve to lose her daughter's life as well? Didn't she know that by continuing this game with the law she was showing Arthur that he had still an effect in her life, that she was still hurt and thought lesser of herself? The more mature thing would be to go home and live a normal life, show him that he did not own her legacy.
But with a tone of a woman aged twenty-five years older, with a woman who had lost much of the family that she still had, Krystal brown stated something that shook Stephanie to the core. "I'm so proud of you."
And with her mother's resignation to her future in the ground, Stephanie Brown finally decided to hang up the cloak.
Pining the man with his elbow, Jason tasted the substance underneath his mask before sighing and dropping the man.
"What's wrong?" Stephanie questioned.
"He's been hyping this god damn crack, selling it to anyone who looks like a user and…"
"What?"
The man looked wide-eyed to the ground when he finally returned to full contact with it before finally stating the issue. "It's stevia."
"You have to be fucking kidding me!" Jason groaned, leaning against the wall.
"Okay, in all fairness, it's rich kids…," The crook admitted, gathering his knees to his chest. "You don't want rich kids on drugs, those are the kids who can afford to overdose."
"Red Hood, you—" Stephanie began.
"I know!" Jason interrupted.
"You pulled me out here for Stevia?" Stephanie continued.
"I did not think it was Stevia, I didn't think that, okay?" Jason muttered. "I thought of an epidemic of dead junkies."
Her laughter filled the air.