Stephanie Brown was seventy-one years old, had a C-List supervillain for a deadbeat father, was best friends with the greatest martial artist to have ever lived, had been Robin, Batgirl, and Batwoman, and still couldn't believe this was her life.
She was sitting in a chair in the middle of Wayne Manor's main library, watching as Tim set up a whiteboard in the middle of the room while ignoring Damian's snarky commentary. Barbara was sitting in the corner at a nearby table, working on something on her laptop (knowing her, she was remotely upgrading her systems for the umpteenth time in the last two weeks), while Jason and Cass were helping Alfred with some of the laundry. Jason had taken one look at his room, then at Cass's, and then at Damian's, and loudly declared they were heading to the mall to go shopping next weekend. And of course Stephanie, being Stephanie, was tagging along because she had better taste than every man in the Wayne family combined.
Bruce and Dick were downstairs, waiting in the foyer. It was quickly decided that they would be best at easing Clark and Diana into the situation. Not that there was any easy way to explain to those two that their best friend and his family had all come back in time after their deaths and that there were now a bunch of children they didn't know who knew all about them, but hey, points for trying, right? The life of a superhero was never boring, that was for sure.
All those years ago, when she finally had it with her father's crimes and put together a ramshack costume to 'spoil' his plans, Stephanie had never expected that this was where she would end up. Growing up as some poor kid from the Narrows, Wayne Manor was like some huge enchanted castle behind a golden gate that she would never dare to believe she would ever step inside. Now she knew the place like the back of her hand, knew every nook and cranny as well as the family that lived there. Was practically part of the family herself. She had attended their weddings, funerals, births, and was a godmother to many of their children. She had fought muggers and drug dealers, rapists and mob bosses, demons and aliens and gods and everything in between. She had been a teacher, an aunt, a mother, and a grandmother all at once. She had done it all.
And now here she was in the past, about to do it all again.
Yeah, Stephanie still couldn't believe this was her life.
But she wouldn't change it for the world.
When Clark and Diana entered the room, it occurred to Stephanie how unchanged they remained over the years. She wasn't as close to them as many of the others were, particularly Dick and Jason, who both had worked with them when they were each respectively Batman, but she figured she knew them well enough. So she could see how Clark looked practically identical to the man they had buried after that final war with Darkseid, how Diana looked every bit as regal as the woman who had been finally forced to leave Wonder Woman behind to her younger sister to become Queen of the Amazons. In this world where everything came out of a picture from Stephanie's past, they were timeless. She didn't quite know what to make of it.
They gave everyone a cursory look but practically zeroed in on Jason the moment they saw him. Once Bruce confirmed it was, indeed, Jason, they were both quick to smother him with hugs, ones that he happily returned. After that, they greeted Tim and Babs, and then were introduced one-by-one to everyone else. Stephanie plastered on a sunny smile when they got to her, giving a small wave. "Hi, I'm Stephanie Brown!" she told them, holding out her hand.
Clark returned the smile with that soft, warm one of his own that he so often used as Superman. "Hello Stephanie, I'm Clark Kent," he said back, shaking her hand.
"And I am Diana Prince," Diana followed him up, also giving Stephanie's hand a shake.
After her was Damian, and she could practically pinpoint the exact moment the two superheroes registered the munchkin's appearance. As one, Clark and Diana turned to Bruce and gave him flat, unimpressed looks, which he awkwardly tried to ignore. Stephanie tried to stifle her snicker, and most definitely failed.
"It's nice to meet all of you," Clark said to them after the greetings were done. He then turned to Bruce in confusion. "But I need to ask, Bruce — why are Diana and I here?"
And just like that, the tension in the room ramped up several notches. The moment of truth had arrived.
Bruce inhaled a deep breath, and held out his arm. "Diana, I need you tie the lasso around my forearm. And then I need you two to ask me the questions that are on the paper Tim is about to give you."
Clark and Diana stared at him. And then at the rest of them. "They know?"
"They do. I didn't exactly tell them, it's just, well — you'll see, soon."
Stephanie wondered if Bruce realized how ominous his words sounded. But then again, whenever Bruce got to talking like that, he always sounded ominous. Probably came with all those years of being Batman; even Dick could be pretty terrifying when he was playing the part of being the Bat, and Jason became a whole new level of scary when he took on the mantle.
With great hesitation, Diana took out the Lasso of Truth and wrapped it around Bruce's left forearm. Tim took out the paper and slid it over to Clark, who picked it up and gave it a quick scan. He blanched when he finished. "Bruce—!"
"Please, Clark. It will all make sense soon."
Clark still looked very reluctant, but nonetheless complied. "What is your legal name?"
"Bruce Thomas Wayne."
A deep breath. "How did you die?"
Stephanie saw Diana blanch herself when Clark finished that question. "Bruce—?"
"Approximately five years from this point in the timeline, the fourth Joker murdered me by shooting me pointblank in the head."
A silence fell over the room. Both Clark and Diana were stunned, while the rest of them simply looked everywhere but them, lost in the memories. Stephanie pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, and from the corner of her gaze, she could see Jason closing his own eyes as Cass put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Even to the day of his death, he had never managed to shake off the guilt of accidentally creating the villain that would finally kill Bruce, no matter what everyone else told him. Even though none of them ever blamed him, he still blamed himself.
"Bruce," Clark said, stepping forward and placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Are you a time traveler?"
"…Yes."
Diana inhaled a deep breath in shock. Clark swallowed. "Is everyone else here a time traveler?"
"We believe so. That's why we brought you here. To make sure."
"I see." With that, the Kryptonian cleared his throat. "What is the first thing you remember after your death?"
"Waking up in my bed at the Manor. I originally thought that my death was a dream, until I saw the date on my phone. After doing more research on the Internet, I deduced I was either in an elaborate hallucination or had traveled back in time. Everything that's happened since then has indicated the latter is the truth."
Clark nodded, and Diana carefully removed the lasso off of Bruce's forearm. Then they both pulled Bruce into a group hug. Bruce stiffened at the gesture, but soon enough he began to relax and tentatively return the embrace. The sight warmed Stephanie's soul; Bruce had grown so much since they first met. It was nice to see he wasn't going to let death and time travel make him regress on his progress.
After letting each other go, Bruce gestured to everyone else. "You'll need to do them as well," he said.
Well, Stephanie thought to herself as the two other members of the original Trinity grimaced, this should be fun.
Alfred's death received sad, melancholic looks from both Clark and Diana but not much more reaction than that. As much as Stephanie hated to admit it, Alfred's death was an inevitability of life — much like everyone else, he was never going to live forever, and after everything he had lost by the time the Grim Reaper came, Stephanie knew he wouldn't have wanted to anyway. Outliving your son and three of your grandchildren was enough pain for one lifetime, thank you very much.
Dick's, however, invoked sadness only from Diana. From Clark, it invoked anger. Not at any of them, of course, least of all Dick — no, at Brainiac. And perhaps, Stephanie figured, himself. Brainiac was a Superman rogue; dealing with him had always been the duty and responsibility of the House of El, above all else. The fact that Dick, someone Clark had known since the latter was a child, died to stop a villain that had always been primarily one of Clark's enemies must have hit hard. She wouldn't be surprised if he was feeling the same kind of misplaced guilt as Jason.
Jason's… well…
"How was…" Clark's eyebrows raised. "…your latest death? Jason, how many times have you died?"
Jason cleared his throat awkwardly, ignoring the looks everyone was giving him. "Well, the answer to your first question is lung cancer, at age fifty."
Almost immediately, Clark and Diana adopted somber looks. "Oh, Jason…" Diana put a hand to her mouth, and reached forward to give his cheek an affectionate caress.
The third Batman simply smiled sadly. "Don't be sorry. I lived a good life."
That caused the two heroes to smile back, ever so slightly. "That's good to hear," Clark noted warmly.
"Right." Jason cleared his throat again. "As to your second question, three times. The third time was the cancer. First time was, of course, Ethiopia. And as for the second, Ra's al Ghul stabbed me through the heart with his sword after I threw myself in front of Damian to protect him," he admitted casually.
Now that one just got stares. "How did you come back from that?" blurted out the Kryptonian in shock.
"Got selected as the next wielder of the Balance by Death of the Endless, who brought me back to life five minutes later so I could kill Ra's permanently."
And just like that, everyone was staring at him.
"Wow," Jason said, blinking. He glanced down at the lasso wrapped around his forearm. "This thing is really effective."
And on and on it went. By the time they got to Damian, the room was rife with emotion, most of it some combination of sorrow, guilt, and rage. Damian's death, of course, was the saddest of all, if only because of how young he had been and the circumstances surrounding it. The boy had been nothing more than another victim of his grandfather's games in the end, even when said grandfather was long dead. By the time Damian was done with his questioning, Stephanie was already pulling him to her side so she could hug him, and it was telling how heavy the atmosphere was that Damian didn't protest in the least.
"I think that just about confirms things for all of you," Clark said, as Diana rolled her lasso up, placing it back on her hip. "So… what now?"
Bruce sighed, and moved to sit down. "You've probably noticed how I haven't been going out as much these past few weeks, correct?"
The two other heroes exchanged a look. "We have," Diana answered, looking back at Bruce with a speculative expression. "Why?"
A grunt. Then… "I'm retiring as Batman."
Stephanie watched. First was the shock, and then the shouts. Nobody looked honestly surprised to either hero's reaction to the announcement. All of them had been around the block enough times to know how this story was going to go. After allowing Clark and Diana to vent a little, Bruce lifted up a hand. It said how much the two of them still respected him that they gradually began to quiet at the gesture.
"I retired from being Batman about a year or so prior to my death, for personal reasons I'd rather not get into right now," Bruce explained. "What I will say is that being Batman was not conductive to my mental health and I eventually came to the conclusion it was best for me to step away. I do not know when I will return to being Batman, if I ever do. But I do know that as I am now, I cannot hope to be the Batman this city needs."
Or the father this family needs, Stephanie added in her head. Neither Clark or Diana would see it, lacking the necessary context, but everyone else could read between the lines. It had most of them reacting positively. Jason in particular looked very proud of Bruce, as did Alfred.
As for the two heroes outside the family, well, they still looked shocked and hesitant, but hearing those words coming out of Bruce's mouth seemed to settle something in them. To hear Bruce admit, out loud, that he was not only afraid of his mental health, but was willingly stepping down from being Batman in order to do something about it, was strange enough in their timeline, even after everything that had happened leading up to that point. To hear it in this timeline, in what was essentially out of the blue, had to be completely unthinkable — which just reinforced how serious the situation was.
"If that's what you feel is best, Bruce," Diana said after a moment, voice gentle. "Then you have our support. We will need to explain the situation to the rest of the JLA, of course, but I'm sure they'll understand."
Bruce nodded. Clark crossed his arms. "Though, there is one question that needs to be answered: if you are not going to be Batman, who is?"
This initiated another round of looks, this time shared by Bruce, Dick, and Jason, the three "official" Batmen currently in the room. "I have the most experience being Batman," Jason noted, "and I'd be willing to do it. But, well…" He gestured to himself. Stephanie winced; while the Lazarus Pit had cured almost all of the damage Jason's childhood of malnutrition had done to him, he was still a growing teenager right now. He was tall and muscular for his age, but nowhere near enough to pass as Batman.
Which meant there was only one other option left for the role.
"I'll be doing it," Dick decided. Jason glanced sharply at him, and they exchanged another long look. Eventually, however, whatever Jason saw in Dick's expression caused him to back down, and he gave his brother a single nod in agreement.
"Very well," Diana said. "If that is your decision. But what of the Titans? You are their leader; however, if you take up the position of Batman, you will need to be a member of the JLA."
Diana had a point, Stephanie was forced to admit. Nightwing was an important member of the superhero community, trusted by practically every hero in the world. But Batman was a symbol; several legal and not-so-legal authorities feared and trusted Batman, and that reputation extended to the rest of the JLA. It was one thing when the original Batman had died and/or was presumed dead; it was another when he just up and vanished and Nightwing suddenly took his place. People were going to ask questions, some of which they weren't going to be ready to answer — if they ever did.
The most expedient thing to do was just leave the Batman mantle empty and let Dick remain Nightwing, have him act as a liaison for the Titans and a part-time member of the JLA. The problem with that, however, is that Gotham could not handle not having a Batman around. That had been proven when Bruce was thought dead for the first time; the entire city descended into chaos without a Batman jumping from rooftop to rooftop, striking fear into the heart of its criminal element. Even if they somehow got Gotham to the point that it could reliably police itself without Batman, it wouldn't last for long; Jason had tried, and the dear Joker at the time had shown him what she thought of that.
"We'll figure something out," Dick finally said, breaking Stephanie out of her thoughts. "I'll need to talk to them about it before making a final decision; perhaps we can figure out a compromise. But either way, I'm going to be Batman. It's what the city needs."
It was a profound statement that had a profound effect on all of them. Stephanie saw the way Jason's hand curled up into a tight fist, the way Cass fidgeted just so. How Tim looked away, how Damian pursed his lips. Alfred looking down at the ground, Barbara's glasses flashing ever so slightly, even Bruce's near invisible grimace, Stephanie saw it all.
Dick was right, after all. It's what the city needed.
The thing is, whatever Gotham needed, was rarely ever good for them.
Their two visitors stayed for lunch, and after that, they found themselves in one of the larger entertainment rooms, discussing the future. They tried to keep the knowledge shared from the purview of their family only, because they figured Clark and Diana didn't want to know the future of anyone else's family, especially their owns. Stephanie couldn't blame them — a lot of it wasn't very pretty.
"So, you were killed by the fourth Joker," Clark asked, nodding towards his best friend. Bruce winced, but nonetheless nodded back. "Okay, then let me ask this: how is it that there have been four Jokers and we haven't noticed yet?"
"Well, actually, at this point in the timeline we should only be on Joker #2," Jason explained, cutting in before Bruce could say a word. "And as for how we didn't notice, it's because the newest Joker always managed to replace the former one almost immediately after their deaths."
Diana blinked. "Deaths?"
"The Jokers are suffering under some kind of curse, for lack of a better word. Every time a Joker dies, a citizen of Gotham goes mad and ends up taking their place as the new Joker. In our timeline, we made it up to six—"
"Eight," Stephanie found herself correcting alongside Cass and Babs.
Jason's jaw went slightly ajar. "Eight?" He asked in what would be best described as abject horror.
"Six figured out the curse and after being defeated and captured by Terry one too many times, committed suicide to spite him," Stephanie explained. "Seven barely lasted a year before dying in a random car accident after his first breakout. By the time I died, we had Eight incarcerated in the new maximum security JL facility built on Mars." Which had been happily gifted to Earth for resettlement by M'gann after her death.
"She was still there when I died," Cass added, in a vain attempt to comfort her brother.
It didn't work. Jason's only response to that was to just groan and bury his face in his hands. Cass pulled him into a side hug, patting his shoulder with all the sympathy in the world. It would've made for a hilarious sight, had it not been for the subject matter. Despite their titles, Jokers were never a laughing matter.
"Who's Terry?"
Stephanie stiffened. As did Babs. Cass simply looked towards Damian knowingly.
It was framed as an innocent question. But coming from a Bat, every question was anything but. Stephanie would know, being a Bat herself and all.
Oh, but Damian tried, and it was kind of him. It was his way of trying to move on from the subject of the Joker, because that was one villain that should never be spoken of in polite company, should never be spoken of at all if it could be helped. But Stephanie was an observant young (old) woman, and she could see the curious glint in the young man-child's eyes, along with a hint of suspicion. Even when they're all like this, they can't help but keep some secrets from each other, and this was no different.
He's not the only one. They're all curious. Dick was giving Jason an expectant look, while Bruce, Clark and Diana had each turned their attention to him. Tim was observing the proceedings with that sharp, cool gaze that never ceased to catch anything and everything that it fell upon. Even Alfred, the one person other than the four of them that knew Jason had managed to have a child (even if Jason wasn't quite ready to acknowledge it himself at the time) couldn't keep the interest off his face.
Jason, for his part, just slowly raised head, not giving off a hint of panic or anxiety. He was expecting this, Stephanie thought. Or maybe he just knew he couldn't avoid it forever, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Terry," he said, "is my son. My eldest son, in fact."
There's a beat, and then revelation that Jason had a son got a decidedly mixed reaction. Pure elation from Clark and Diana, but only them. Everyone else who hadn't had the joy of meeting Terry or the rest of Jason's children was happy as well, of course, but there was a certain bittersweetness from them too. After all, they had been too dead to meet Jason's son.
"How many?" Bruce asked, clasping his hands in his lap. For those who knew him, really knew him, they could sense both the eagerness and desperation in equal measure. It was always there, when it came to Jason.
A quirk of a fond smile. "Five," Jason answered, leaning back against the back of the couch he was sitting on. "Three girls, two boys. Four adopted, one biological. But they're all mine regardless. Terry's my middle child, the third eldest overall."
"Mine as well," Cass claimed. "They may have been adopted by you, Jason, but I raised them alongside you. I love them as much as you do."
"Of course," and Jason said that as if it wasn't a question, as if it was obvious, with no small amount of gratitude and adoration for his sister. "I couldn't have done any of it without you, Cass. Or either of you, for that matter." He gave Stephanie and Babs a glance as he said that last statement, and despite it all, Stephanie found herself smiling.
"Tell us about them." That one came from Dick, and it wasn't so much as a statement as a command. Stephanie couldn't help shooting him a look at that, as did Babs, while both Jason and Cass frowned.
Nonetheless, Jason complied, and the frown was soon replaced by a nostalgic expression. "My eldest's name is Carrie Anne Kelley-Wayne. We met after I saved her from being mugged while she was selling girl scout cookies. When we met again, she was dressed up as Robin and trying to fight off a bunch of thugs with a slingshot on her own. I helped her out, and when I asked her what she was doing, she told me I inspired her."
"And you let her tag with you as Robin after that?" Dick asked, trying not to sound accusatory and completely utterly failing. Stephanie wondered what that was about.
Jason barked out a bitter laugh, startling everyone. "Hell no! I told her to stop and go home. But unfortunately she had neglectful, traveling businesspeople for parents and way too much free range. Nothing I said or did kept her away. Eventually, I was about ready to call CPS on her parents, and then…" He trailed off, suddenly looking far away. Lost in memories, no doubt.
"And then?" Dick prompted, no longer so accusatory but still keen to know.
"The fifth Joker happened," his younger brother admitted. "And she saved my life."
There was a moment of silence. They all knew what that meant.
"That's when I knew there was no longer any fighting it. She was going to do it, with or without me. So I accepted her as my Robin and trained her. And when her parents died when she was sixteen, I adopted her and officially made her my daughter." Jason's smile curled up, fond and tired. "My sweet, sweet Carrie. She saved me. More than anyone else, she saved me."
And suddenly all the accusation and suspicion was gone. Dick looked guilty and ashamed, while everyone else some mixture of lost and happy, sad and grateful. Alfred, for his part, looked pleased. He was only one of that part of the group who had gotten to meet Carrie at all, and Stephanie wondered if Jason ever knew he tended to refer to the girl as his great-grandchild whenever the younger man was out of earshot. Carrie had been Jason's from the moment he first saw her, and it took until the very moment he couldn't deny it anymore for him to accept it, when Carrie needed him most.
"After she finished her tenure as Robin at seventeen, the three of us," Babs gestured to Cass, Stephanie, and herself, "took over her training and made her the next Batgirl."
"And when I retired, I made her Batwoman," Stephanie finished. "And what a fine Batwoman she was. Better than Kate and I both."
"'Was'?" Jason asked. There was a line of fear to his voice.
Cass vanquished it, as she was always wont to do with Jason. "Retirement. Wanted to focus more on the diner," she explained. "Gave the mantle to Helena instead."
The tension in Jason's shoulders drained away upon hearing that. "Good," sounding pleased and proud. "That's good to hear."
"Helena?"
And just like that, the tension ratcheted up again. Oh, Stephanie thought, resisting the urge to run away from the room, won't this be fun?
Jason closed his eyes. "My second child, and second eldest daughter. My Robin after Carrie," and ever so slowly, he opened his eyes, settling his gaze directly on Bruce. "Helena Magdalene Kyle-Wayne."
It was never going to go over well.
But even so, Stephanie could have lived the rest of her life without ever having to see the sheer heartbreak on Bruce's face once Helena's full name registered. Or the similar agony on Alfred's when he realized the same. Dick didn't fall into the same level of anguish as the former two, but his expression settled into something sad, and he was doing everything he could not to look at anyone else. Next to him, Damian simply closed his eyes and curled into himself, like he was trying to hide himself away from the entire world. And Tim…
There was sadness, yes. Pain. But no surprise.
(The answer to the question they never quite voiced out loud.)
"I take it that name means something to you," Diana said, noticing everyone's reactions, much like Stephanie. Both Clark and her wouldn't know, of course.
"The real name of Catwoman is Selina Kyle," Jason replied tiredly.
It was all the explanation they needed. They weren't idiots. It didn't take long to connect the dots. "Oh, Bruce…" Clark glanced at his best friend in sympathy.
"When?" Bruce asked instead, because he needed to know, and really, who could blame him?
Jason smirked mirthlessly, and looked towards Tim. "Why don't you ask Timbo instead? He's the one who hid them after your death."
While Damian and Dick both gave Tim sharp looks upon hearing that, Tim himself didn't look particularly surprised Jason had figured him out. Or that the rest of them had, for that matter. "How did you know it was me?"
Babs scoffed, and gave him an unimpressed look. "Tim, the only people who could have hid them from the rest of the Family are you or myself. And trust me — if I had gotten so much as a hint that Selina was in trouble, I would've told Jason and the others immediately. The only person it could've been was you." And by the time this all went down, you were dead, was what went unsaid. Dead, and unable to warn them all, and it was Selina that ended up paying the price.
The third Robin gave that statement some thought, and then shrugged. "That's true, I guess." He sighed, and then turned to Bruce. "Helena was conceived about one month before your death. Selina, of course, didn't find out until after you were dead. She wasn't in a good place at the time, and your death… well, it seemed that and the pregnancy pushed her over the edge. Not only did she decide she wanted to retire, she decided she wanted to make a clean break entirely. Raise her child away from all this, this world of superheroes and supervillains."
"So she asked for your help," Bruce surmised, grim.
Tim nodded, looking tired. "She fenced all her remaining goods, then had me help her make a false identity for herself, far from Gotham. Made me promise that I'd never tell the others the real reason why she left, so that way no one would ever connect her or her child to her previous life. You both had too many enemies to risk it." He glanced at Jason. "I guess it didn't work."
"You should've convinced her to leave the country instead, Tim," Jason told him, leaning back further into his head and putting up his arms behind his head. "He would've never found them then."
"'He'?" Bruce narrowed his eyes.
Jason met his gaze evenly, before turning to Clark and Diana. "About a year before Bruce died, the fourth Joker invaded Arkham and slaughtered every supervillain inside, practically destroying the entirety of our original Rogues Gallery overnight. The only villains spared that fate besides the Joker himself were Poison Ivy, Catwoman, the Penguin, and Black Mask. Since Joker did this to ensure he could finally have Batman to himself, this led to a massive decrease in super-crime for Gotham for the next decade or so. In exchange, however, that led to a massive increase in organized crime instead, which eventually culminated in a gang war between Penguin and Black Mask that ended in the latter's death. That should've been the end of it."
"But it wasn't," Stephanie found herself speaking, almost unconsciously picking up where Jason left off. As always, her heart clenched when she heard Black Mask's name. Even decades later, the scars remained. "Black Mask had a son: Richard Sionis, or Ricky Sionis as he liked to be called. After lying in wait for the next decade, building up contacts around the country, he was finally ready to go and try and take back Gotham. Made his grand debut by murdering the Penguin and put us all on notice while he began consolidating power. And that required some… special help."
Dick's expression darkened. "Let me guess: he wanted Selina to work for him."
Stephanie nodded. "He wanted something stolen, something high-end, and even after all these years, she was still considered the best. We don't know how he tracked her down, but he did, and he made her an offer. Selina refused, but unfortunately Ricky didn't like that, and he did something that apparently spooked her enough to flee the west coast and head directly back to Gotham in hopes of getting our protection."
"But Ricky already had a foothold here in Gotham," Babs continued next, crossing her arms. "He had people waiting for her when she arrived. When Selina realized that, she had Helena and her separate, and told Helena to go to Wayne Manor, to find Jason. To tell him that 'Cat' had sent her to him. And Helena — well, even before she was training to be a vigilante, she was a resourceful girl."
"She damn near gave me a heart attack when I opened the Manor's front door and saw her for the first time," Jason reminisced, a bitter laugh escaping him. "Sopping wet from all the rain, looking like a bedraggled cat, and even then she still looked just like you." He directed the last comment towards Damian. The younger boy's expression nearly crumbled when he heard that, and while he wasn't crying just yet, there was a certain shiny sheen to his eyes that showed how he really felt.
"Jason brought her inside immediately, had Carrie dry her off while he made her hot chocolate and contacted the rest of us to find Selina. By the time we did, we were already too late," Cass finished solemnly, her eyes on Bruce. "She was already gone."
Bruce's face fell, and this time he didn't dare try to hide his tears. Nor did Alfred or even Damian. After losing so much family, the young man would've loved to have another sibling with him, but never under those circumstances, Stephanie knew. Dick seemed to echo the rest of his family's pain, but it was lined with anger; the man had always been protective of family, even family he had never gotten the chance to meet. Only Tim seemed to be in control of his emotions, but Stephanie knew him well enough to see all the tension winding up inside him. No doubt he was already planning on tracking Roman Sionis's movements, probably trying to figure out how the man had managed to hide a son from them in all the time they had known him.
"Once Helena's paternity was confirmed, I adopted her into the family. Selina didn't have anything specifically outlined for her remains in her will, in both her true identity and her false one, so we opted to have her buried next to you, Bruce, so Helena could visit her whenever she wanted."
"And Sionis?"
At that, Jason's grin grew downright feral. "It took several months and some help from Bertinelli, but eventually, we got him. We crushed his burgeoning empire, got him slammed with so many RICO charges it'd make Lex Luthor's head spin, and dumped him in the most secure facility in the country. He was still rotting there when I died."
"And a few years after that, he got killed in a prison riot," Babs added, satisfaction seeping from every pore.
Stephanie smiled darkly at those words, and watched once more everyone's reactions. Neither Dick nor Tim looked outright pleased, but they did seem content by dear Ricky's fate, as did Clark and Diana. Completely unlike Alfred and Damian, who didn't bother to hide their own satisfaction, much like Babs. And Bruce… well, he simply closed his eyes, and gave one final nod.
"Good."
And that, Stephanie guessed, was that.
What a rollercoaster of emotions that was, huh? Helena's story was always going to hit the family hard. There was no easy way to tell it. And to think — we'll be getting Terry and Matty's story next chapter, and that's probably going to be harder for everyone to hear, though more because of the anger than the pain.
Once we're through with the story of the kids, however, we'll be moving on to the fun stuff! I've got some ideas for this story to help differentiate it from ODAT, though obviously that requires some plotting out. Not to worry though — that's all part of the fun.
Next chapter: The not-quite odyssey of Tim Drake.
