After trying (and failing) to cheer Damian up or see if she can reduce the friction between him and Tim, Stephanie goes to the back room. To check on Lucius – and Oracle.
Babs is so lucky to have missed the petty sniping earlier. Really, Stephanie should look into some spooky computer lady getup for herself.
Stephanie creaks open the door and slips through. Lucius is sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, rubbing his face. His shoulders are hunched over and he looks tired.
Not like she blames him.
On a big computer screen on the wall is a picture of Barbara's Oracle avatar – the computer-lady mask.
"I've finished briefing Mr. Fox with the information we currently have," Oracle says. "He's pretty sure this is related to Tam."
And it is. At least Stephanie thinks it is. Tim saying Ra's Al Ghul has Tam, an assassin coming here to Gotham for her dad –
And the instant that Lucius finds out, he's going to insist they get Tam back, regardless of if it leaves him unprotected. What decent father wouldn't?
"It might be," Stephanie says. "We're still investigating. Don't worry, uh, Mr. Fox," she says, using the slightly more respectful title, since Oracle did. "We're professionals."
Lucius looks up from his hands at Stephanie. "I heard you arguing in the other room. Not any specific words, but – raised voices."
Ouch. "Uh, that's just what happens when a lot of strong personalities clash," Stephanie says, with a mental note to self – check sound-proofing before arguing. But she wasn't the one adding fuel to the fire there.
"I need to call home," Lucius says.
Dang, Damian really called it, didn't he? But at least Oracle should have a way where the call would be impossible to trace.
"My family is going to be worried sick," Lucius continues. "With Tam missing, now me – please."
"We can arrange that," Oracle says. The computerized tone of her modified voice probably makes it come off less reassuring than she wanted it to. "We can get a call that can't be traced."
"Yeah, this isn't like, a kidnapping or anything," Stephanie says.
Lucius frowns. "... I didn't think it was."
Great, now she just put that idea in his head.
"I mean if you wanted to you could walk out right now. But it would be a bad idea. There's a really dangerous man after you." Stephanie shuts herself up before she has a foot, meet mouth moment.
"I know big companies make a lot of enemies, but why me?" Lucius asks. And then he immediately adds, "Why my daughter?"
"I really wish I had an answer to that," Stephanie says. "But we'll get one, I promise."
She doesn't know how to answer his question – even though they already know who has Tam, they don't know why. He deserves to know, but she doesn't know how to summarize the League of Shadows situation quickly. And... well, the more she says, the more freaked out he'll be, the more insistent he'll be on them going after Tam right away. And while they do need to do that, she can't imagine Tam would be super happy to come home to a dead dad.
"Do you need anything?" Stephanie asks, mostly because she feels like she has to. "Like, food or water or – "
"Just a phone. Please."
"I'll dial the number on my computer," Oracle says. "What caller ID do you want it to read?"
"My cell. Call my wife," Lucius says, and says her number.
"I'll get off the line once the call starts and rejoin once it ends," Oracle says. "To give you privacy."
"Thank you."
There's a beeping noise and the call starts and Stephanie leaves. She can only hear the first thing he says: "Tanya, I'm so so sorry for the lack of warning, but a situation with the company came up – "
Probably not wanting to worry her.
When Stephanie leaves, everyone's sort of already formed cliques – Dick talking to Damian on one end of the room, Cass talking to Tim on the other. Tim and Cass are whispering and Stephanie goes up to them.
They each turn to look at her. Cass at least attempts a smile. Tim doesn't.
Touche. Stephanie really wishes she knew how much of his anger was just stereotypical bitter-ex stuff, how much was feeling like she was only trying to check up on him earlier because Dick asked her to (he didn't), and how much was general disapproval of her decisions.
"Hey, you said you didn't want to see me in the Spoiler outfit again," Stephanie says. Trying to lighten the air with a joke.
Tim doesn't respond.
"Not even a 'how you been'?" Stephanie asks.
"How you been?" Tim repeats. He doesn't even sound angry and sarcastic, like she was expecting – he might even be genuinely interested.
"Good," Stephanie says. "And yourself?"
"I've been busy," Tim says.
"Busy with this Ra's situation?" Stephanie asks.
Cass looks at Tim, who nods.
"Red Robin has a plan," Cass says. "He's going to take down the League from the inside."
oooohhhhh kay. Stephanie was not expecting to hear that.
"Shouldn't this be something D – Nightwing knows about?" Stephanie asks. "I mean, if it's relevant to the mission – "
"He's already got a full plate," Tim says. "He can't – he doesn't need anything else to worry about."
Well, that's probably true at least. But it's not like Cass doesn't have a full plate – they're both being Batman and doing training stuff.
"What about Robin?" Stephanie asks. When she sees Tim's facial expression – one of incredible doubt – she explains, "Okay, I know you don't like him but you want to take down the League, he was in the League for ten years – "
Cass and Tim speak at the same time.
Tim: "I don't know if 'taking down the League' is something Damian would be interested in – "
Cass: "It wouldn't be fair."
Tim and Cass exchange a look.
Cass continues, "Asking him to do it. It wouldn't be fair." She exhales sharply. "He might – he's going to feel responsible. Why Batman tried to keep me away from Cain. The people who raised us – "
She's tripping over her words, but Steph gets the idea. She's worried about Damian.
"You didn't like it when he tried to keep you away from your dad, though," Stephanie points out. "You wanted to solve it yourself."
Stephanie was the same way. Her dad was her responsibility. And she needed to be the one to take him down. It's not like people telling her to stay on the sidelines or let the professionals handle it ever actually worked.
"Yes, but I wasn't ten," Cass says. "Sometimes kids... need to be protected. Even if they don't like it."
Of course. Stephanie didn't get a ton of details about Cass's childhood post-Cain, but she did know that Cass had been homelessly, adultlessly wandering from place to place, never really able to get anyone to help her – unwilling to even ask for help, completely convinced she didn't deserve it. She had no childhood whatsoever. Obviously Cass would want to do for another kid what no one had been able to do for her.
"I still think keeping secrets about this is dumb," Stephanie says, "Especially if it might affect how we go after Deathstroke."
And before they can get further into it, Dick says, "Batman," from his space near the computer terminal in the garage – lots of computer terminals if you want to be able to work with Oracle – and gestures Cass over to him. Damian's a few feet behind Dick, watching intently.
Dick taps on the computer and pulls up Barbara's Oracle face. Barbara immediately gets down to business.
"I've been monitoring security cameras and distress calls in Gotham," Barbara says. "But Deathstroke is pretty good at avoiding them. I think a regular patrol route by some of you might help us check areas he's likely to be in – our zones that don't have good security cameras or bat-installed street cameras – "
"You can't put people on regular patrol routes," Dick says.
"Why not?" asks Damian loudly from behind Dick.
Stephanie has to agree. "Yeah," she says. "Why not? It's not like all of Gotham's crime is going to disappear because some fancy out-of-town mercenary is blowing through. People are still going to need our help!"
"I know that, and Deathstroke knows that, so we have to approach every situation like it might be a trap. I'm not saying we don't save people – I'm just saying we should be cautious," Dick explains.
"You're forgetting that there's another party in play here," Tim says, still across the room from where Dick was, just like Stephanie. He walks closer and says, "The assassins who are coming after League of Shadows assassins."
"Let's just call them assassin-assassins," Stephanie says, following him. "Like Batman was."
"Why do we care?" Damian asks. He has his arms crossed and is lifting his head up slightly in a way where Stephanie can't tell if he's protesting too much. "As far as I'm concerned, if they take out Deathstroke, that resolves our issue with him. If he takes them out, it resolves our issue with them."
"So if someone dies, it's a win-win situation for you?" Tim asks.
"Get off your high horse, Drake; I don't believe for a second you'd shed any tears over assassins."
Dick sighs. He's getting annoyed, Steph can tell. "Can we save it for the enemy?" Dick asks.
"Yes, let's," Barbara says from her computer. "I've been looking at assets in the region. If you think we need any help – "
"I refuse to come bawling for help to some amateur!" Damian says, interrupting her immediately. "This is nothing we can't solve by ourselves!"
Tim groans deeply, then says, "Damian's right."
"Again," Damian says, a little smugly.
"I mean, Rose was with the Titans – "
"Rose?" Damian asks.
"Deathstroke's daughter," Dick says. "He gave her his powers – or close enough – and planted kryptonite in her head and told her to kill Superman."
Damian's eyes widen slightly in awe. "He trusted her to kill Superman?"
Stephanie turns away so Damian can't see her wince because... well, that being the take-away is so not the point.
Dick must think so too, because he sounds pretty serious all of a sudden. "Damian, it's a carcinogenic xenomineral he put right next to her brain. He wasn't winning father-of-the-year awards. She left."
Cass shakes her head. "No Rose. She wants to kill Deathstroke."
"That's what I was trying to say," Tim says, a little annoyed.
"Dinah would be here the instant I asked her to," Barbara says. "She wouldn't kill anybody."
Dick looks pensive, like he's considering it, but Stephanie can already see Tim shaking his head. And she's got to wonder if this has something to do with whatever he's working on with his secret undercover mission and how much he's even telling Cass the truth –
And she just wants to tell him to stop trying to do everything by himself, stop trying to pick just the worst parts of Batman to emulate –
But that would be kicking him when he's down.
"Nightwing and I can take Deathstroke," Cass says. "The rest of you can stay here – "
"I'm helping," Tim says. "I've fought him before – "
"No," Cass says quickly.
Which... Stephanie will confess she wasn't really expecting. She knows that when they were teenagers, Cass often treated her like an obstacle or like she might get hurt, but she didn't think it ever happened with Tim.
Cass glowers at Tim, and to Stephanie's surprise, he nods grudgingly.
Okay, something is going on that Stephanie doesn't know about. And she's going to find out.
"I refuse to hide like a coward," Damian says to Cass and Dick. "You've both worked with me. You know I'm competent."
"Let's try to deploy people logically," Barbara says. "Rather than emotionally. Nightwing, Batman, you're each confident enough in your ability to survive against Deathstroke until help arrives, right?"
"Definitely," Cass says.
"I see where you're going with this," Dick says. "You want us split up. One of us on bodyguard duty here, the other one actively searching for Deathstroke."
"Deathstroke probably won't find this place. But if he does and no one but Lucius is here, it'd be really, really bad," Barbara says.
"Okay, so one of you will be out there and the other will be sitting on his or her ass in here," Damian says. "So who's going to protect the helpless, sniveling masses of Gotham?"
Oh, that's so pretentious. Stephanie has to suppress an eye-roll, so they don't get into it. "If you're going to insist on Nightwing or Batman being in here anyway," Stephanie says, hoping to appeal to the logic Barbara said they should be using, "It'd be a waste of manpower for Red Robin, Robin, and me to all be sitting around."
"She's going to say it's too risky for us to go in the field, watch," Damian says.
There's a pause on Barbara's end.
Stephanie's going to kill Barbara if Damian's right. Because, well... How much more can she be asked to prove herself?
She's not a kid, but she's also not an idiot. She knows it'd be really unlikely for her to win against Deathstroke in a straight up fight, but she also hopes Barbara would assume she'd have a plan – some way to get out – if they did stumble across him.
"Well take that cool flying Batmobile," Stephanie says. "We can easily be anywhere quickly, and easily escape from Deathstroke, and we're not going to be idiots about the whole thing. But come on, Oracle. We got in this gig to save people, you can't say we should be hiding because there's a scary bad guy out right about now. There might always be a scary bad guy out that we don't know about."
"Listen to Brown; she's being logical for once," Damian says.
"... If you encounter Deathstroke on your regular patrol, lure him back to Batman or Nightwing – whoever is out – and take him down," Barbara says finally. "The three of you – "
"Three of us?" Tim asks.
"You can work together, can't you?"
"Of course we can; I'm no amateur!" Damian says.
"I'm, uh, good with that too," Stephanie says. A bit hesitantly, because she knows she'll wind up playing mediator as the one outside the grudge.
Tim looks at Cass. Stephanie really wishes she knew whatever they said. "Okay," Tim says.
"We have to go back to the bunker to get the Batmobile," Damian says. "I'm driving."
Stephanie doesn't fight him on it – she doesn't even know how to drive a flying Batmobile, especially if it has unique controls. Also she can never wind up fighting with Damian in a way that doesn't feel petty.
"Wait, Red Robin," Dick says. "We need to talk."
Tim sighs. "Go ahead."
While Dick and Tim are stepping aside, and Damian's desperately trying to eavesdrop – Steph assumes – Stephanie asks Cass, "What's going on with Tim?"
"What do you mean?" Cass asks.
"Don't give me that."
Cass sighs. "He said it was nothing."
Which means it wasn't nothing.
"Please," Cass says in response to – well, Stephanie assumes her body language, since she didn't say anything. "You would want the same. Not sharing your secrets."
Ugh, she would. "Fine," Stephanie says. "But I don't have to like it."
Cass puts a hand on her shoulder.
… It's a little harder to feel bad like that.
"We'll make our way to the Batcav – er, Bunker – on foot," Tim says, walking back after what Stephanie assumes was a short conversation with Dick. "Don't let yourself get spotted."
"I wasn't born yesterday," Damian says.
Stephanie bites back the obvious joke – Could have fooled me – because she knows Damian won't appreciate it.
The trip over, via grapple-gun and running, is... unremarkable. Tim's a little slower than she was expecting. She keeps expecting him to – she doesn't know, competitively race Damian or something? – but he's trailing behind the two of them. Watching their backs?
Damian doesn't like it. He keeps glancing back at Tim. And yeah, at least part of this is probably Stephanie's fault – if she let him know someone who didn't seem to hate him would be willing to attack him when he's not expecting it, of course he'd be on the look-out for Tim doing that as well.
"You know, you don't have to worry," Stephanie says when they're paused on a rooftop, waiting for Tim to finish swinging up to them. "Tim considers himself a professional. Like you. He's not going to do anything – "
Damian makes a noise of visceral disgust. "You think I was worried about Drake?"
… How's she supposed to answer that when he obviously was?
"Worried he'd fall and hurt himself, maybe," he continues.
Stephanie sighs.
Eventually, they all get to the Bat-bunker. The basement underneath the penthouse Dick, Damian, and Alfred lived in. Alfred's already there. Of course. He probably wanted to be involved.
"Pennyworth, what are you doing here?" Damian asks.
"Preparing to assist you, should the need arise," Alfred says, quickly glancing over all three of them – Tim, Damian, Stephanie.
"The need shouldn't arise," Damian says. "We're just here for the Batmobile. And we already have one bossy person who can't fight on comms; we don't need another."
Stephanie frowns slightly. "Barbara can fight."
Damian doesn't respond.
Stephanie tries to change the topic. "Looks like Cass graduated to the adults table," Stephanie says as she walks over to the Batmobile. "But we're not invited."
Tim frowns.
"I can guess what you're thinking," she says. "You should be out there with her. And I should be stuck with the ten year old."
"It's supposed to be based on skill, Brown!" Damian says. He opens up the Batmobile and sits in the driver's seat. "You two should both stay behind and I should be with Grayson and Cain."
Stephanie hops in the back-seat of the Batmobile, forcing Tim to sit in the front next to Damian. While she knows Damian would prefer it if neither of them were behind him, she's guessing it would be worse if it was Tim.
Tim takes shotgun, fastens his seatbelt, and crosses his arms. "I'm sure it's nothing," he says gruffly. "Dick said he respected me as an equal."
Damian scoffs. "Tt. Maybe that was just to spare your feelings."
Tim looks Damian up and down, and Stephanie's sure he's checking him for weapons, or aggressive body language, or something. "If that were really a concern," he says, "Things would have played out a lot differently."
"Tell us about these so called 'assassin-assassins' of yours," Damian says as he starts the Batmobile.
"Stephanie wants us to go on a regular patrol," Tim says, stepping around the question.
"We'll multitask," Stephanie says. "I mean, we should at least know who we might be on the lookout for. Oracle doesn't want us engaging Deathstroke, that doesn't mean we can't engage some other loser."
"These people are dangerous, Steph," Tim says.
Like she doesn't know that.
"Are you all making power plays by being overprotective?" Damian asks. "Because it doesn't make you look good. It just makes it seem as if you're insecure about the people you work with."
Tim looks between Stephanie and Damian, and Stephanie knows what he's going to say. He is insecure about working with the two of them.
Of course, he doesn't say it that way. He just says, "Give me a reason not to be."
"Your issues aren't my problem!"
"Professional, that's the motto," Stephanie says.
Tim sighs, and Damian says tt.
Damian flicks a button on the screen, and a radio starts up. "It's a channel Grayson and Gordon made," he explains. "If there are any major emergencies in the city – reported by anyone, GCPD, news, hospitals – we'll hear about it here."
"Oracle always did like the Big Sister approach to intel," Stephanie says.
Damian grunts. "'Big Sister'?"
"Um, it's a dumb reference."
"You're full of them. Memorizing the inanities of American popular culture doesn't make you witty."
"That's technically British, but whatever."
The channel Damian opened interrupts more potential arguing. "Dispatch, officer down!" a very panicked sounding man says. "Multiple officers down. Neal and 7th. Multiple armed combatants with, uh, swords and ninja – "
Then there's just a scream and he gets cut off.
Damian turns the Batmobile to head there immediately.
"Looks like you got your wish, Brown," Damian says. "The assassin-assassins are out."
Stephanie swallows. "Yeah, not how I wanted it to happen."
"This doesn't make sense," Tim says. "Each of them was working alone..."
"I'll be sure to beat the information about their change of plans out of them when I see them," Damian says.
"Be careful," Tim says. "We don't know what we're walking into."
"I'll tell Grayson you relayed an obligatory warning," Damian says. "That is what he was asking you about, wasn't it?"
Tim scowls.
It fortunately doesn't take long for them to all get there. Damian pauses the vehicle, putting it in some kind of hover-mode, and immediately takes a grapple out and starts rappelling down.
Tim and Stephanie do the same. They all needed to have been here 10 minutes ago.
As Stephanie rappels down, she takes in the scene:
Mentally counting: Eight, nine, ten people, dressed in all black, wearing some tacky balaclavas or ninja masks or whatever. Most of them are holding swords, but there are two guys with guns. Everyone takes out a batarang (okay, well Tim takes out his weird throwing disk things) and throws them at the two guys with guns, who immediately are shoved back and drop their guns under the barrage of blows.
Stephanie lands right in front of two guys with swords, but her momentum is all wrong – she can't just barrel into them. Tim clips past the assassin in front of him, elbowing them in the chin with his right elbow as he goes past them. Stephanie can't see where Damian is; he's 180 degrees behind her now that she's turned to face her two assassins.
Use your advantages; don't let them use theirs. Super easy in theory.
Stephanie runs up to assassin number one, who is holding his sword up, stabbing at her waist height – of course he's using his reach. She spins past him, turning the attempted skewer into a glancing blow, and stands at his back, blocking assassin number two's view of her temporarily.
Number one is already reaching for a small knife, evening the playing field, as his other hand draws his sword up above her head. But that's not what's on Stephanie's mind. She punches at the guy's stomach, more as a distraction than anything else, grabs a grapple line attached to her grapple gun, redirects the knife as he swings and steps in (away from the sword), and while that's going on, swings the grapple line around his ankle.
She's sure he didn't notice, and she stays sure as she sprints away from him. Throws a batarang as she's running at assassin two's sword, just throwing off their aim for a second, duck behind them –
Right. Now she's behind number two.
She retracts the grapple, dragging poor number one by his ankle, right into his partner. The two assassins collide and in their confusion, Stephanie kicks their weapons out of their hands and ties them up.
A quick glance around confirms Damian and Tim are on the opposite side of the battlefield as she is, but at least they'll protect each other – hopefully. Damian's stolen a sword from one of the assassins he was fighting and is now using it to inflict non-lethal but painful looking damage on his opponents.
"They aren't whatever imbeciles Dr – Red Robin was mentioning!" Damian shouts. "These idiots are League of Shadows!"
And yet again Stephanie feels like there's something going on in this whole ordeal that she doesn't know about.
The two other guys on her side of the field are approaching her cautiously. She guesses they don't want to be comically tied together. Tough.
Well, Stephanie's not an idiot. She's not just about to charge at two guys with swords after they've seen how she avoided the first one. She takes out a batarang –
a freeze-arang, she loves those things –
And throws it right at the feet of one of the assassins. Then another one (regular batarang this time) right at his head.
As he's losing his balance, he slips on the newly-created ice.
"I should do Batgirl slapstick," Stephanie says. Mostly to herself.
"Don't torture us," Barbara says.
Right. Oracle's always on comms and watching when Batgirl fights.
The other assassin (number four, Stephanie guesses) raises his sword. Stephanie throws two batarangs at him and says, "Catch!"
The guy steps out of the way, but that's fine. She just wanted him distracted while she was crossing the distance between them.
She'll take out the slippy-slidey assassin first, anyway, since he's already off balance. As he stands up, she runs up and knees him to the teeth. His head snaps back, he hits the ground, and Stephanie's pretty sure he's unconscious.
Stephanie turns on number four. She doesn't have time for this. She throws the batarang so it will go behind his head and hit him when she's halfway over to him. He runs up, starts to swing his sword, the thing nails him in the back of the head –
(called it!)
– and he pitches right into her uppercut.
Stephanie turns to check on Tim and Damian. They're well... not doing as well as she thought they would be, and she's wondering why –
But then she sees it. Tim is hunched over, Damian's at his back, and the two of them are fending off assassins. Damian slices his stolen sword quickly at one of the assassin's knees, the guy buckles, and Damian strikes him in his head with the hilt of the sword on his way down.
Then he spins around, going to the other side of Tim and attacking the assassin who was attacking Tim. Tim steps back a foot, he looks off balance –
– he's injured. Or drugged. Stephanie runs up to him and catches him as he's falling. He's trying to stay on his feet – his legs are shaking – and holding onto her hand.
This is wrong. Stephanie looks for the site of the injury, but she can't see any. He doesn't have a scratch on him; as far as she could tell, none of the assassins even touched him.
Damian finishes dispatching the final assassin and spins around to glower at Tim. "What is your problem?!" he snaps.
"Robin, he's injured," Stephanie says. "Get the Batmobile."
Robin nods quickly – at least he's not fighting her on that – and shoots his grapple up to the Batmobile he'd set on hover. As he's leaving, Stephanie can see a Gotham police officer coming up from behind cover.
"Thank you, Bat...person," the man says. His hands look bloody. Putting pressure on a wound?
"What happened here?" Stephanie asks. "Why did they attack you?"
"I think we stumbled into their hideout," the officer says. "We got calls about a suspicious person in the area – they're – "
"They're professional killers," Damian says, hopping out of the Batmobile as he lands it. "You're lucky to be alive." Then, to Stephanie: "Get Red Robin in the backseat."
"Grab any evidence you can; we need to know what the League was up to!" Stephanie says as she starts directing Tim to the Batmobile and she pulls him up and leans him on the back seat.
She just doesn't know how he could get so bad so fast.
"Were they using poison darts or something?" she asks.
Tim shakes his head. "Get – get the tunic off."
Stephanie has to figure out how to get his weird chest-belt thing off first. Tim hits the logo – the bird head – and twists and it snaps off.
"What's Ra's doing?" Tim asks.
"Don't worry about that right now. Damian's collecting evidence," Stephanie says. Even though she knows that won't make Tim worry any less.
"Take him to the Batbunker," Barbara says over comms. "I've told Alfred to get the antipoison out – "
"I'm not poisoned; I'm not an idiot; I didn't go mess with League business without antipoisons," Tim says.
"Then what did happen?" Stephanie asks. But when she gets Tim's armored tunic off, she sees.
A fresh-looking scar, right along the left side of his rib cage, stitches torn, bleeding badly.
His tunic wasn't cut, so...
"You went into combat injured?!" Stephanie asks. "I beg to differ; you are an idiot!"
Tim scowls. "I had to know for sure – "
"Know what for sure?"
"If you weren't interrupting me – "
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Damian asks as he climbs into the driver's seat, taking a look at Tim in the back. "How'd Drake get hurt? Did you get fed up with him and stab him?"
"It's so not the time! Just drive us home!" Stephanie says.
Stephanie's guessing the vast amount of blood coming out of Tim's body is making him even less charitable than usual to Damian, because he says, "What the hell is your problem with me?"
"My problem?" Damian asks. Fortunately he's driving as he fights, so Tim's medical care isn't getting delayed. "You're the one who has a problem with me!"
"You tried to kill me!"
"It was months ago; get over it!"
Stephanie cringes. Oh boy, she really wish she was anywhere but here. But she's just using the emergency gauze from her belt to try to stop Tim's bleeding.
"You may have fooled Dick and Stephanie and even Cass somehow – " Tim cringes as he leans slightly forward – "but you haven't fooled me!"
"You're just jealous that I'm the blood son!"
"I'm jealous?!" Tim asks.
Fortunately (again) the ride is short enough that Damian's already landing. He's immediately trying to stand up, to get away from Tim and Stephanie in the back seat and Steph can't blame him.
Tim adds, "You're just bitter that I'm yet another person Bruce picked over you!"
Stephanie cringes. She gets that temptation; heck she was the one rubbing Bruce's training in Damian's face their first Batgirl-Robin team-up. But she can still recognize – when she's not in the middle of the argument – that it's a dick move.
Damian leans towards the two of them from his perch on the open Batmobile's driver seat, body language aggressive. "That's not true; Father wanted me to be Robin!"
Rather than angry, Tim just looks confused.
"He did!" Damian says.
"... What are you talking about? I thought Dick wanted you to be Robin." Tim says.
In the background, Stephanie hears the footsteps of someone arriving – a glance confirms it's Alfred – but she's pretty sure no one is paying attention.
A lot of the aggression has seeped out of Damian's stance and now he's just shrunken slightly back.
"Oh look, Alfred's here," Stephanie says. And is promptly ignored.
"Father wrote me a letter," Damian says. "He wanted me to be Robin."
Tim still looks confused. Stephanie won't lie: she is too. Because she just thought that Damian had got the impression his dad wanted him to be Robin – she didn't realize it was actually there in writing. As far as she knew – well, Bruce didn't talk to her about Damian –
And he must not have talked to Tim about him either, because Tim, still seeming baffled rather than angry, says, "Damian, listen to me. I was Robin. He would have told me if he was going to replace me. There was no letter."
"That's a lie," Damian says, and holds his stolen sword out to Tim's neck.
Okay, so back to angry.
Damian looks down at Alfred, who's still waiting for them, stretcher out. "That's a lie," he says to Alfred.
And something must have happened; Alfred's face must have betrayed something, because Damian suddenly becomes very very quiet –
Uncharacteristically quiet –
and he hops down and rushes right past Alfred –
Stephanie starts pulling Tim out of the Batmobile. She's got to do something.
"Damian, wait!" Stephanie says.
He doesn't wait. He grabs something out of his locker – Stephanie thinks it's a sword –
– and goes straight to the elevator.
Stephanie sets Tim on the stretcher Alfred laid out for him. "Do you need any help?" she asks.
"Just in getting him to the requisite area. After that I should be fine." Alfred looks down at Tim and adds, "So should you, Master Timothy."
"Awesome," Tim says halfheartedly. He seems kind of bored, for someone who's bleeding all over the place.
"Do you know what's going on with Damian?" Stephanie asks as they're moving Tim over to where Alfred keeps his medical supplies.
"I have no idea what he was talking about," Tim volunteers.
"Unfortunately," Alfred says. "I do."