"We were lucky."

"I wouldn't call what happened lucky, Jason," Bruce rebutted tiredly.

"Maybe not," Jason conceded, "But I can't think of anything else to call it. It was so easy to say in the moment, to believe that we could find another way, but in hindsight — I'm not sure we could have. Not without crossing at least some lines. And now…" he shrugged, helpless.

"…Are you willing to kill her now? To save Cass?"

"No," Jason replied instantly, "In this case, that wouldn't solve the issue. If anything, it would make the situation worse. All the people after Dragon and Shiva will come after me instead. And I…I can't put that guilt on Cass. She'll think it's her fault, even when it isn't."

Bruce pursed his lips. He could accept that, but there was something more to Jason's statement that they needed to talk about. "You said 'in this case'."

Jason deliberately didn't respond to that. He just closed his eyes instead.

"Jason…do you still believe in killing?"

The warehouse was silent again. Bruce waited for his son's answer, while trying to sort through his own feelings. If Jason said yes, then how would he react? Would he reject his son for that? Should he?

"…yes and no," Jason finally answered, "As the Red Hood, I thought it was the only way to make an impact but something happened to change my mind. However, I still believe there are times when killing is necessary."

"Jason—"

"Bruce, I know you don't agree. That you — along with most heroes — believe in rehabilitation. Back then I would've derided you for being naive, but now, I admire you for still having so much optimism," Jason looked jaded, "Optimism I wish I still had."

"Some people don't change, Bruce. They can't or they just won't. And usually, we can just keep those people under lock and key and that's enough to satisfy everyone. But sometimes…sometimes we can't. Sometimes that's not enough. And sometimes they do things that are unforgivable. And they won't stop doing those things and—" His son was hyperventilating now.

Bruce rolled over, and placed a hand on Jason's shoulder. Gradually, his son began to calm down, breathing normally.

"…Some villains need to be put down Bruce. They do," Jason sighed again, "But I don't do it. Not anymore. I keep giving them chances, because I want them to prove me wrong." I want them to prove you right.

Bruce exhaled. "You killed people. As the Red Hood."

"I did."

"…Do you regret any of it?"

"That's more complicated. The people I killed were the scum of the Earth, and I can't really find it in myself to regret the fact that they weren't around anymore to harm more people," Jason sat up, his father following him, "But, in hindsight, I probably could've stopped them another way besides killing. And I do regret that I didn't try to find another way. That's honestly how I've felt about every kill I've made until I stopped for good. Except one."

"One?"

"That one…I don't regret. And if I had to do it all over again, I would. In my timeline — and in this one."

Oh. Well, that one was easy to figure out, "Jason, about the Joker—"

Laughter.

Pure, mirthless, laughter.

Jason laughed and laughed and kept laughing until he was crying. And Bruce — Bruce could do nothing but stare.

"You think it's the Joker! Of course you think it's the Joker!" The laughter subsided into something sad, "God, I wish it was him. I would give up just about anything for it to be him."

"Jason?"

"Bruce, the Joker is probably the one kill I regret the most."

Bruce's mouth fell open, completely agape. "Wha—? Jason, he killed you! How—Why—?"

His son looked like he wanted to answer, but couldn't. Jason just looked away, as if speaking any more than he already had would be a betrayal. The father was still stunned, and couldn't muster up the will to prod his son open. Not with that sorrow enveloping him like a cloak.

"Jason…" God, how he was going to focus on patrol tonight?

"…Can we go home now?" He sounded so young. Younger than he had since had gotten home with his brother and sister in tow.

"Sure, Jason." Bruce swallowed. "Sure."

They don't talk about it again. Even though Bruce desperately wants to, they still don't. Jason isn't ready to talk about it, and Bruce, showing how much he loved his son, didn't press him further. The answers would come one day, he was certain.

Even so, even with that new anomaly between them, the tension from their conflict over Cass' training had eased away. That was reflected in the behavior of everyone else, who were noticeably more relaxed around both of them and no longer afraid to mention the other in one's hearing. Plus the reinstatement of Alfred's baking privileges, which had begun to taper off the longer they stayed mad at each other.

Cass continued training under Dragon. Jason didn't ask for details, but she looked satisfied every time he came to pick her up for speech therapy, so he guessed things were going well. She even started speaking a bit more — not quite full sentences yet, but still more words. There were still long stretches of silence, but it was progress.

Speaking of progress, Damian's friendship with Jon continued to flourish. They had already scheduled their first play date at the Manor, getting permission from their respective parents and planning out the visit through their calls. Lois had finally relented and gotten Jon his phone, and just like she promised, billed him for it. Jason was happy to pay for it.

However, the greatest hallmark of promise came several weeks later. Months after the school year started, after he subtly nudged his younger brother to befriend one of his classmates, Jason and Cass arrived to pick up a bemused Tim and a grumpy Damian, only to find the former talking with a cheery young girl with blond hair that looked incredibly familiar to Jason.

Stephanie Brown smiled at him and his sister with her wide blue eyes, and the both of them couldn't help but smile back. She was so much younger than Jason last remembered her, but the sunny disposition was still there. Even after everything she went through, Stephanie had never been one to let things get her down.

"You're Jason Wayne!" Stephanie exclaimed in giddy surprise.

"I am," Jason confirmed, then gestured to his sister, "And this is my sister Cassandra Wayne, but you can just call her Cass. And who might you be?"

"This," and Jason was so proud, Tim was giving him the stink eye without actually giving him the stink eye, "is my friend Stephanie Brown. She was a new student here like me, and we hit it off."

"I knew Tim knew you guys thanks to this munchkin," Stephanie gestured to a growling Damian, "picking him up after class everyday, but I didn't know you were this close."

Jason shrugged. "Tim is like a little brother to us. Practically another Wayne himself, really." He visibly ignored the look his younger brother shot him. It was closest they were going to get to saying the truth in public, and Jason wasn't going to waste it. It's not like the rest of Gotham didn't know that Bruce Wayne had been caring for the Drakes' son while the boy's father had been in a coma.

"Can we go now?" Damian interjected. "I'm hungry," he complained.

"Sure, Damian. Get inside," Jason met Stephanie's eyes again. "Want to come with? You know, if your parents are okay with it. I'll drop you off at your house afterward."

Stephanie blinked. "I—" She didn't seem to know what to say. "My parents won't mind," is what she finally settled on.

"Then get in," Jason ordered, shifting his gaze to Tim, "Both of you."

"Bat-Pizza? Seriously?" Stephanie whispered to Tim once they were out of earshot. Jason had taken Cass and Damian to order the food while Tim and Stephanie chose the table. "Can't they buy, like, the entire prize counter fifty times over?"

Tim shrugged. "They can, but that isn't the point. We just like to spend time together, and this place appeals to all of us. The food is decent, as are the games. We don't really compete for prizes anyway, so much as with each other."

"Oh?" And now Stephanie sounded coy.

"Damian says that if I manage to earn more tickets than him by the end of the year, he'll start calling me Timothy instead of Drake." Her friend sounded oddly determined for some reason.

"What about Jason and Cass?"

"Jason isn't much for this kind of stuff. He's usually content to just watch over us at the table while he reads. And Cass…" Tim shook his head. "There's no competing with her. She can easily trounce us both at any game we play. We try to invite her anyway, but she's usually content to just sit with Jason."

Stephanie frowned. That didn't sound particularly fun. Not to mention… "I noticed she doesn't talk a lot." Or at all, for that matter.

"She's naturally shy," Tim explained, then hesitated.

"Tim?"

"Don't tell anyone this, but Cass' parents weren't the best," Tim lowered his voice, looking around to make sure they weren't overheard, "Before she came to live with the Waynes, she didn't know how to read or speak at all. That's why she's not attending school with us — she's going to speech therapy instead."

A look of horror appeared on Stephanie's face. When the three siblings returned with the tokens, utensils and the stand for their food, all three of them noticed Stephanie looking at Cass with a determined look. Before any of them realized it, the younger girl stood up and took Cass by the hand.

"Come on," Stephanie said, "Let's go play a game."

Cass immediately turned to look at Jason, who simply gave her an encouraging smile. Looking back at Stephanie, she gave a shy nod, and allowed herself to be dragged away. As they gradually disappeared into the crowd of screaming children and beleaguered parents, both Jason and Damian cast their gazes towards their brother.

"Good job," Jason praised, handing Tim the empty cup for his soft drink.

Tim smirked back.

"Oof!" Stephanie crashed to the ground, groaning. "How are you so good at this?" she complained, though there was no heat to it.

Cass, standing next to her and not even slightly out of breath, simply gave an awkward smile. What Stephanie didn't know was that DDR had been one of the first games taught to her the first time her family came here. With her skills, it was quickly determined that none of them, not even Dick or Jason, stood a chance at beating her.

"New game then!" Stephanie announced, quickly getting back to her feet. She began walking towards the row of skeeball machines, only stopping when she realized that Cass wasn't following her. The other girl was simply just standing there, as if Stephanie was some sort of conundrum she couldn't make out.

Thinking quick, Stephanie threw out a taunt. "Unless you're scared," she said cockily.

Cass tilted her head, her expression remaining the same. Nonetheless, she began following Stephanie to the skeeball machines, where Tim and Damian were (angrily, in the case of the latter) competing over who could get the highest score.

"Damn you, Drake!" A nearby mother wore a scandalized look at his language. "Curse you and your longer arms and more easily developed upper body strength!"

"Hey guys!" Stephanie greeted them, Cass close behind her. "Mind if we join in?"

"Brown," the youngest of the four hissed.

At the beginning of the school year, Damian made as much as an effort as possible to pretend that he didn't know Tim. Tim hadn't thought too much about it at the time, considering that he was still trying to get used to Damian in general at the Manor. Everyone else in the school knew, however, that Tim had stayed with Bruce Wayne while his parents were…indisposed. Inevitably, that caused problems.

The Waynes were the family of Gotham. Even when there was only one of them around, their name had carried more weight than any other in the entire city. This held especially true in Gotham Academy. Dick Grayson and Jason Todd had both gotten a cold reception until they had the Wayne name, and suddenly they were the most popular people in the student body. While Dick had played it off with his natural charm, Jason wasn't one for bullshit and pointedly only talked to people that were only interested in him and not his name.

So, when Tim Drake entered Gotham Academy, it caused a lot of problems. The Waynes had been more of a subject of interest than ever before. Not only had Bruce Wayne adopted a new child (a girl, to boot), he had recently learned and revealed that he had a biological child. If either of those things hadn't caused enough headlines, Jason Wayne's miraculous return from the dead with a tale unbelievable enough to make soap operas look tame certainly had. Now everyone wanted a piece of the Waynes, and were willing to do anything to get it.

Of course, they went after Damian first. But not only was Damian seven, he was a terrifying seven. With a glare that could make grown men cower and a sharp tongue that cut even the strongest exteriors, people flocked away from him in droves by the end of the first week. That left Tim as their only other avenue for information, and soon everyone was besetting him in place of the younger boy. Tim may have had a higher threshold for bullshit than Damian, but he was equally cautious, and even more adept at seeing through the sugary compliments and prying words. It wasn't long before he started avoiding people too.

That's how he had come to befriend Stephanie Brown. As a scholarship student, and a new one at that, there was a bit of berth between her and the other students. She wasn't bullied (Gotham Academy pointedly had a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, courtesy of Bruce Wayne's continued patronage) but she did have a hard time really befriending anyone. People were nice, but not particularly social with her.

Stephanie, however, was one of the few people not ragging Tim about the Waynes. Combined with Jason's suggestion to befriend her (along with the many oblique mentions he made about her whenever he talked about the future), Tim had decided that he would sit with her at lunch and work with her in whatever classes they had. With Stephanie's consent, of course.

Thus began a beautiful friendship. The two bonded easily, Stephanie with her naturally sunny disposition and pop culture references was able to gradually bring Tim out of his shell, including his dry sense of humor and near-effortless brilliance. They studied together, ate together, did just about everything together — at school, at least. There were rumors about their relationship being more, but both of them paid them no mind. They were friends, nothing more.

And thus, because they were friends, Stephanie inevitably met Damian Wayne for real. Damian's attempts to pretend he didn't know Tim fell apart the moment he realized that his fellow students were needling him for information on his family. The boy furiously confronted his secret older brother during one of the day's breaks, while he was hanging out with Stephanie. Naturally, he believed Stephanie to be one of the leeches.

This offended the older girl. That had led to an argument; the first of many. Neither of them had been blind to how lonely Damian was at school, even if the child couldn't admit it. While they didn't share a lunch block, they did share breaks, and lacking any other friends and rather uncaring of their school reputation, they decided they would spend it with him — whether he liked it or not.

That led to talks about where Tim and Damian went after school. Which led to here.

"I'm hearing no protests…" Stephanie sang.

Tim sighed. "Nobody is stopping you two, Steph."

Damian grumbled as Stephanie happily dragged Cass to the two open machines next to Tim. On an unspoken word, all four entered their tokens at the same time. Balls rolled down the openings, and Stephanie picked one up, tongue sticking out of her mouth. She didn't have the chance to visit places like this often, but skeeball was an easy game to master. It was just a matter of the way you flicked your wrist, applying just enough force to get the ball up there while at the same time aiming for the center.

When she was done, she had an appreciably high score — higher than Tim's, in fact. Still nothing compared Cass', though.

"One day, I'm going to beat you at something," she vowed to the other girl. Cass smiled awkwardly at her again, which Stephanie inwardly counted as a victory.

Unlike Damian, who was once again crowing about 'unfair advantages' and shouting at them to 'savor' their 'dwindling youthful adulthood'. Stephanie was seriously beginning to wonder how a seven year old had that kind of vocabulary. Before she could ask, Jason appeared, announcing the food was here. Without even thinking, Stephanie linked one arm with Cass and the other with Tim and started marching the three of them towards the table.

If Cass' arm fit itself a little more snuggly in, she didn't say anything.

Stephanie's home was located in the Narrows. It wasn't Crime Alley, but it was close enough that Jason pointedly refused to park it anywhere else except right in front of her building. Why he would want to park at all was lost on her, until she saw Cass step outside and give her a hug.

"Thank you," the Asian girl said clumsily, "I had…fun."

"So did I." Stephanie happily admitted. "We should do this again sometime."

"We can?"

"If you want."

Cass smiled.

"Stephanie Brown. Daughter of Arthur Brown, aka the supervillain Cluemaster, who is currently serving five year-long sentence in Blackgate Penitentiary for armed robbery." Bruce whirled around in his chair to face his son. "How exactly does his teenage daughter end up a vigilante?"

"Easy," Jason answered, blocking a kick from Tim, "Having a supervillain for a father, even a C-Lister, is hardly conductive to a healthy environment for raising children. Especially when said father has no interest in reforming and was hardly ever around while her mother struggled through her drug addiction to support their daughter."

"Let me guess," Tim grunted as he kept trying to land a hit on his older brother, "When Daddy got out of his latest sentence and seemed to posed to continue on with his crimes, Steph decided she would try and stop him herself—oof!" He landed hard on the ground. Jason held out his hand to help him sit up, which Tim gratefully took.

"Got it in one. Within weeks of his release, she made her own costume. It was purple, though she—and you for that matter, Tim—insisted it was 'eggplant'," Jason chuckled nostalgically, "At least, that's what you said when you two showed it to me the first time. I didn't really get to know Steph until she was already Batgirl. But before she was Batgirl, she was Spoiler."

"Spoiler?" Bruce asked skeptically. "That's an interesting name."

Jason hummed in agreement. "According to her, it was because she was 'spoiling' her father's plans," he explained, "Even after Arthur was sent back to jail, however, she continued on as a vigilante. She wanted to be a hero, you see, and she wasn't going to let anything stop her."

Bruce nodded along as Tim got up to get a sip of water. "So how did I mess up with her?"

Tim nearly choked on his water. Jason was unphased. "You never really gave her a fair chance, Bruce," idly, he slapped his younger brother on the back, helping the water go down the right pipe, "She didn't have as much natural talent as the rest of us, but she did have talent. She would've never gotten as far as she did otherwise. Instead, you put her down when you weren't manipulating her to test Tim's devotion to being Robin."

His younger brother nearly choked again. "Wait, what?"

"I don't really know the full details — you three never liked to talk about it — but from what I understand, it was because Tim's dad found out he was Robin and…didn't take it well." Jason winced. "He made Tim quit. Stephanie ended up filling in for him as Robin for a couple months, but you never really treated her as you did the rest of us, and then you fired her; apparently, the reason you took her on was so Tim would be convinced to take Robin back from her because she wasn't ready for the job. When he didn't bite, you didn't need her any longer. The situation deteriorated from there, a gang war erupted, she was tortured and thought to be killed. Tim came back, though your relationship was strained for a while because of what happened. Steph, meanwhile, had her death faked by Leslie and sent to Africa to heal. You didn't take it well when you found out, Tim." He added that last part almost as an afterthought.

Now both Bruce and Tim were staring at him in horror. "And you still want her around us?" The girl sounded better off having never met either of them.

"As a companion, yes. As a vigilante — well, there's no sign of her being Spoiler yet, but if it happens, then yes, I still want her with us," Jason sighed, "She's a friend, guys. To me, to you Tim, to Damian and especially to Cass."

Bruce frowned. "They were close?"

"BFFs. One of the reasons why Cass had no issues giving up Batgirl to her. Cass was even the godmother to Steph's children, after she retired as Batwoman."

"Is that why you wanted them to meet?" Tim asked in a sudden bout of realization.

"Yes," Jason said bluntly, no remorse in his tone, "Cass needs friends, and nobody got her to open up like Steph did. Well, besides you." He nodded towards Tim.

Tim blinked, then looked away, blushing.

"Steph was good for all of us, really. She wasn't exceptional — not by our standards — but she was bright regardless. And, well, she grounded us," Jason rubbed the back of his head, "Face it, none of us had normal childhoods. Bruce, you were raised by your butler and had sole access to one of the biggest fortunes in the world for all your life. Dick is a former circus brat. I was born and raised in the middle of Gotham's worst neighborhood and lived on the streets for a while. Damian and Cass go without saying. Even you, Tim, had absurdly neglectful parents and have been in and out of boarding schools for years."

"But her? Even with her C-List villain father and druggie mother, Steph's childhood was rather tame, if a bit depressing. She lived a normal life in a normal neighborhood. It gave her a perspective we lacked, helped us keep our feet planted on the ground. She reminded us that we weren't saving numbers, but people. And I'll be honest — that's something all of us, even Dick, tended to forget."

Bruce's frown deepened. Tim looked up. "So…"

"Keep her close," Jason clasped a hand on his brother's shoulder, "Which won't be too hard, right? I mean, you two are already friends and hang out with each other at school everyday."

Tim looked at him suspiciously but nodded nonetheless. Bruce gave a non-committal hum. "I want to meet her myself, eventually. Make my own judgment, if that's alright with you."

"That's fine," Jason agreed, "I think she might surprise you."

"Steph and I were more than just friends, weren't we?"

"And of course you figure that out," Jason massaged his temples.

After training, Jason had dragged Tim upstairs to his room for some rest and relaxation. It was his brother's rare night off, and they were going to use it by playing some video games. While the technology laughably primitive compared to the games he got for Terry and Matty when they were kids, it was good for killing time and for bonding, so when Tim eagerly held up a copy of Super Smash Bros., Jason could hardly refuse, could he?

Of course, since Jason was out of practice, he lost several times before he got a hang of things again and started giving Tim a decent challenge. Oh, the woes of being old.

"Jason…" Tim set his controller aside and crossed his arms.

"She was, Tim," Jason swallowed, sighing as he dropped his own controller into his lap, "You had a lot of girls interested in you, Boy Wonder, but she was the only one who ever really stood a chance. If things had gone down differently, there's no doubt in my mind you two would've walked down the aisle somewhere down the line."

"But we didn't."

"But you didn't," his older brother agreed, "It takes more than just love to have a healthy relationship, Tim. Any relationship really, not just romantic. As much as you two loved each other, so much had happened between you two that neither of you were sure if you could make it work again. So you both decided just to remain friends."

Jason leaned back against the headboard of his bed, looking up to the ceiling. "If I'm going to be honest with you, though, I think that if there's anything Steph regretted after you died, as that the two of you didn't make the effort to try anyway."

"She moved on, though," Tim pointed out.

"She did," Jason conceded, "But does that really make it any better?"

Tim pursed his lips. "I guess not."

Jason turned to look at him, really look at him. His younger brother's shoulders were hunched over, and he looked conflicted. "You know, it doesn't have to mean anything."

"You say that, but you and I both know it doesn't work that way," Tim observed.

"Not always. But in this case — Tim, this was another life, with another you. Whether it happens again, whether it goes somewhere, that's up to you and her. Not me or anyone else."

"Then why tell me?"

Jason huffed. "Because I know that even if you hadn't asked, it would've bogged you down anyway. Just like Bruce and Dick."

Tim smirked. "Them too?"

"What can I say?" Jason said, miming the words with his hands. "Us Wayne men had complicated love lives that screwed us over more than once. I might as well make things easier on us for all of us."

"Yeah," Tim leaned back so he was laying down next to his brother, eyes also on the ceiling, "that figures."

Weeks later, during the same weekend that Damian had scheduled a play date with Jon, Cass asked Stephanie if she wanted to stay over at the Manor for the weekend. They were eating out at a new restaurant that had opened up in the nicer part of town, and despite Stephanie's protests, the five of them went there to celebrate her acing a test she had been studying hard for.

"I'll have to finish my homework Sunday night, but sure. My mom won't mind," Stephanie took a sip of her drink, "You're going to have to pick me up, though."

"No problem. I'll pick you up after I pick up Jon from the airport," Jason said, taking a bite of his pasta.

"Jon?"

"Jon Kent. He's a friend of Damian's from Kansas."

Stephanie blinked. She looked at Damian, who was politely taking bites of his salad, occasionally primly wiping away his mouth with a series of pats around her mouth. "Kansas?"

"Jon's parents are Clark Kent and Lois Lane — you know, the journalists from the Daily Planet. They've been friends of our family for years, ever since Clark met Bruce at baseball game in Metropolis back when Dick was a kid."

"Oh," Stephanie said, sounding far more understanding. "That makes more sense. So," and now her tone sounded much more sly, "what's he like?"

"What do you mean?" Tim asked, taking a bite of his pizza. Jason has lifted the restriction on his diet just for this lunch, and he was taking full advantage of it.

"I mean, if this one is a small, yapping chihuahua," She jabbed her thumb towards Damian, who only stopped himself from launching himself at her at the sight of Jason's warning glare, "what's Jon like?"

"Golden retriever," Jason and Tim answered simultaneously.

"Puppy," Cass added for good measure.

"And now I'm confused again," Stephanie said, taking another look at Damian, who was pointedly glaring at her with murder in his eyes.

Jason shrugged. "You'll understand when you meet him. Jon's family is…special."

"How?"

He smirked. "Let's just say they bring out the best in people, and leave it at that."

"Now remember Jon — no using your powers when Stephanie is around," Jason warned the young boy as they rounded the corner towards the direction of their last visitor's house.

"Got it," the boy nodded seriously.

Next to him, Damian crossed his arms. "Are we really going to have Brown stay over at our house? She's a civilian."

"Technically, Damian, you're a civilian," Jason pointed out, eyes still on the road, "As is Jon, Cass, and even myself."

"Father says you already have a suit and weapons. Not to mention, you're fully trained, even more so than Drake."

"And yet I haven't gone patrolling yet."

"But you could."

"That's irrelevant to the discussion. Fact of the matter is, I have not established a new vigilante identity since my return, ergo, I am currently a civilian."

"Tt," Damian scoffed and looked away, surrendering the argument.

A few minutes later, Jason arrived in front of the Brown home, where Stephanie was waiting for them with a packed bag for her overnight stay. She waved at him as he pulled into the drive way, parking the car and going outside to put the bag in the back.

"Where's Cass?"

"At home," Jason answered automatically, hauling the bag up easily and carrying it to the trunk, "Quick question, though — do you want to sleep in her room or in a guest room?"

"Her room," Stephanie quickly decided after some thinking.

"Okay. I'll text Alfred so he can get some spare blankets and pillows ready."

"Alfred?"

"Our butler and caretaker."

"Right." Even after all this time, she still wasn't quite used to her friends being so rich. "So Tim's not going to be there?"

"No," Jason shook his head. "Tim doesn't come over on the weekends. He has a…thing, out of town. He's really committed to it."

Stephanie hummed but said nothing. She opened the passenger door and adopted a smile when she saw the two boys in the back seat. "And who might you be?"

Jon smiled shyly at her. "I'm Jon Kent!" He greeted her, "And you must be Stephanie!"

"Oh? You've heard of me?"

"Jason and Damian talked a lot about you on the way here."

Stephanie eyed Damian, who pouted. "Well, I hope a lot of it was nice."

"It was! Damian said you're really smart and stuff and that things are a lot louder when you're around which is his way of saying that he likes you—"

"JON!" The other boy screeched. An argument soon followed.

Jason sighed. "No fighting!" He ordered, and the bickering ceased near instantly.

Stephanie shot Damian a quick smile, which turned his face red and caused him to look away, out of the window. She shifted her expression towards Jason, who shrugged. A minute later, they were out of the driveway and on their way towards the Manor.

"Whoa," Stephanie couldn't help but say in awe. She had seen pictures of Wayne Manor — who in Gotham hadn't? — but nothing could compare to the real thing. The towering, wide-spanning, graystone building bespoke centuries of history, and Stephanie felt like she was defiling it just by daring to lay her eyes on it. She doubted the Waynes ever expected white trash like her to walk their halls.

How had she ended up here? When that letter from the Wayne Foundation came in, bequeathing her a scholarship she was certain she didn't qualify for her, everything since then had felt like a dream that was about to crash any moment. She didn't dare say no, her mother refused to let her even think about passing up such an amazing opportunity. Even more so when a representative arrived and revealed that they would be covering all her schooling expenses, including giving her an unlimited bus pass that would never expire (something Stephanie had only ever heard rumors about) and vouchers for her uniform.

Naturally, the rest of the neighborhood heard and Stephanie was beset by people she had barely spoken to who were all hoping to get an in with Gotham Academy elite. She had even ended up breaking up with her boyfriend Dean over it, when he tried to convince her to use the opportunity to find some marks to con money out of. It seemed that was the kick she finally needed to see the sleaze in him that everyone else saw.

Maybe that's why she gravitated to Tim so easily during those first few weeks. Gotham Academy wasn't as terrible as she would imagined it to be — television seemed to really exaggerate how screwed up private schools were — but she still fell lost. She was an outsider, she knew, even for scholarship students. Not even they were quite as impoverished as she was…or had a supervillain father, even if no one quite knew about that.

Tim was an outsider too, even if he was a different kind of outsider. The Drakes were a rich family, if not quite as well-known or established as those that typically attended Gotham Academy. However, they became the talk of the town when Bruce Wayne publicly took in their son after their unfortunate encounter with the Obeah Man. The death of Janet Drake, the coma of Jack Drake, and Bruce Wayne caring for another child after the tragic death of his second son (who later turned out to be alive) established Tim Drake's initially minimal media presence into minor celebrity status.

And yet, despite all that fame, Tim was a genuinely nice person. A little stressed and more tired than someone of his background would suggest, but generally just a swell guy. When he appeared in front of her that day in biology class, bedraggled and all but pleading to be her partner for the rest of the semester, she didn't have the heart to say no. It proved to be a great decision; Tim was funny and smart and kind enough to help her out on her homework. He also came with Damian Wayne, who was adorable in a hilarious kind of way. Arrogant and snobby, but deep down (really deep down), he was good kid too.

She hadn't cared for all the family drama surrounding them. She had enough on her plate to bother with all of that. They were just…good. And so were Damian's siblings. Jason was reserved, but he was nothing but polite to her, along with being a great listener and a fountain of good advice. Cass was the same — quiet, shy, but sweet. Stephanie didn't know much about her past, but Tim implied enough, and to think someone, let alone her own parents, would treat her so horribly that she was only learning to speak and read now…Well, Arthur Brown was a bastard, but even he would've never been so cruel.

Here and now, however, Stephanie was suddenly reminded of how different their worlds were. She was from a low middle-class, borderline poor neighborhood with a C-list villain father and an overworked, junkie mother. They were the children of the richest, most powerful man in the city. The scions of the very height of American aristocracy. For the first time since she began walking Gotham Academy's hallowed halls, she felt intimidated.

"Hey," Stephanie was ripped out of her thoughts by Jason, who was shooting her a sympathetic look. "It's alright. It's not as scary as it looks."

"What makes you think I'm scared?"

"Easy," Jason smiled, "I felt the same when I first came here. Crime Alley street rat, remember?"

Oh, right. Before Jason Todd was adopted by Bruce Wayne, he was just another orphan kid trying to survive Park Row. He probably had an even worse childhood than she did. She could only imagine the immense culture shock he felt, going from less-than-dirt poor to the second son of a billionaire.

"You'll get used to it."

"I will?" Stephanie asked, a little dazed.

Jason's smile widened. "You will."

Stephanie's here! I thought it fitting I would introduce her after the flashback, and she's going to a big supporting character from here on out. Will she become a vigilante again? Wait and see.

And as for the Joker…surprised you, didn't I? The mystery surrounding the Joker thickens, and you'll find out the answer eventually. There's a reason why I've deliberately avoided mentioning him, why Jason hasn't talked about him, and this is why. There's more to Jason and the Joker that meets the eye.

Everything is building to a climax. What that climax is, I'll leave you to decide. I will tell you this though — there will be at least one more flashback arc, probably some time around Chapter 30. What that flashback is about, I'll leave you to guess.

Next chapter: Stephanie continues to bond with the Waynes.