A week after her trip to Metropolis, Stephanie was hard at work in her kitchen alongside Barbara, assembling lasagnas. "Which one of these is supposed to be the meatless one again?" Barbara asked.
"Crap, I don't know… the one on the left, I think? Lent is a pain."
"How did we get outnumbered?" Barbara asked as Stephanie spooned hot tomatoes and lentils onto a layer of pasta. "The closest thing we used to have to a devout member back in the day was a crazed French übermensch."
"It's all Cassie's fault, at least the not eating meat on Fridays part," Stephanie said, then attending to a pot of minced beef and sausage. "Cassie discovers Catholicism. Then Tim rediscovers Catholicism. Then we have kids and we end up raising them the same way. I try and go along with it so the kids don't feel weird, but I've done my own thing a few times now. One time we were picking up some fast food and Robin about lost it when I unwrapped my cheeseburger and she was stuck with some fish-wich."
"Sounds about right," Barbara said, chuckling and shaking her head. "How were things with your dad?"
"Standard. Completely standard. I let me guard down a little, I start thinking it might all go well, and then he says something about neo-Nazis or being in the Suicide Squad or something. I think I really want to be able to trust him again, but I still just don't know if I can. He's done too many insane things with his life. Bad insane. Not like us, insane."
"… Speaking of which, Steph, I had something I've been meaning to give you." Barbara rolled over to Stephanie's kitchen table and began rooting through her laptop bag. "I wanted to figure out the right time to give it to you… but I guess I just figured the sooner the better, all things considered." In her hands was a manila folder.
"What is it Babs?" Stephanie asked, stepping away from the lasagnas as Barbara let out of heavy exhale.
"I need to preface this a little… I don't even know if you'll want this information. If you don't, it doesn't matter to me. You can just disregard it. Dick said you might not want it to begin with and maybe he's right, but I think that should be your decision."
"Babs? You're starting to creep me out here."
"You know I still do some work for the police, right? Hack a system when it needs hacking, trace back illicit purchases when they need to be backtracked, that kind of stuff?"
"Right, right."
"I've used some of my tech for some more personal reasons before." With that, Barbara opened the folder, revealing a photo of a thirteen year old girl with bright blond hair and a pair of butterfly-styled glasses. "Do you have any idea who this is?"
Stephanie leaned in to get a closer look. "Um, I don't think so."
"Her name is Jodie Miller. She lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She was adopted from Gotham Central hospital thirteen years ago, immediately after she was born."
As the words slipped past her lips, Barbara could see Stephanie begin to tremble, her pupils dilating as the realization struck her. "Oh my God."
Barbara turned to the next image, depicting her holding a piece of cardboard that had been written on with black marker. The message was a simple statement regarding where she had been born, the date, the year and to share the photo. "She's looking for you, if you have any interest in finding her."
"… I'll be right back," Stephanie said. She went to a role of paper towels next to the oven, ripping one off and dabbing her eyes. "I didn't think I'd ever really have to think about this."
"Dick made some good points when we talked about it. If I'm just really stressing you out, I'm sorry," Barbara said. "I don't even know if this is something you've thought much about—"
"Are you kidding?" Stephanie said. "I've thought about it all the time. I just didn't ever think I'd actually find this out… I… I have to find her."
Barbara leaned back, a smile coming across her face. "I figured that would be your answer."
Laughing and fighting tears at the same time, Stephanie asked, "Any chance I could hug you, you magnificent mastermind you?"
"I can abide that."
After the short embrace and a long sigh, Stephanie stepped back over to her lasagnas. "You found my long-lost daughter, Tim actually had it in him to try and put Dick back in his life, it's like our wonderfully dysfunctional family is finally piecing itself back together."
"Your son and my daughter sought vigilante justice on the playground the other day, less we forget about that," Barbara said. "And we're still out a Damian. Brat never answers his phone."
Still laughing, Stephanie just shook her head. "I can take the good with the bad right now… what even happened between Dick and Tim? I've asked Tim plenty of times and he's never really answered me. One day they're the brothers Robin and nothing could have separated them. The next they just seemed to hate one another."
From Stephanie's position tending to dinner, Barbara was relieved she couldn't see the worried look that briefly overtook her face. "If Dick never told me and Tim never told you, I suppose neither of us are ever going to know."
…
True to their hopes, the family was united in the Drake household for the first time in years. After the five along with Sadie had shouted and hollered for Robin and Sarah in their second-grade soccer league and Oscar with the fifth graders. Though the words between Dick and Tim seemed forced, their wives seemed sure they were enjoying one another's company. As they ate and drank that night, it was as if a calm had fallen upon them.
"So then Robin tells me, again, that the stupid beard makes me look like a supervillain," Tim said.
"Tim Babyfaced Drake couldn't look like a supervillain if he was wearing an unnecessary eyepatch and had a mechanical hand," Dick said with a laugh.
"You hear what your Uncle says, Robin?" Tim asked. "Your dad is not now, nor will he ever be, a bad guy."
"You're too boring to be a super bad guy anyway." As Robin said it, Sadie laughed so hard she nearly choked on her wine, Cassandra going in to slap her on the back a few times.
"I'm fine! I'm fine!" She insisted. "Wow Tim, you really let your girl get a mouth on her."
"Mom would bump me with her chair if I ever called her boring," Sarah said.
"Only because lying is strictly forbidden in our house." This time it was Cassandra who choked up halfway through her drink.
"I am glad to see everyone," she began, still hacking and wiping her mouth with a napkin. "But would enjoy it more if talking to you all was not so dangerous."
More laughing was had, more drinks were poured and more lasagna was eaten. When the meal came to an end, every glass was refilled, be it with wine or grape juice, as Tim raised his in a toast.
"To my brother, whom I have spent too long away from, and to family, without whom I'd just be a very tired man who apparently looks like a supervillain."
As the glasses came together and talking resumed, two figures, dressed in enough black to serve as camouflage, looked down from a nearby hill, a set of binoculars staring directly into the dining room. The taller of the two passed the goggles off to his companion. His dark brown hair was trimmed short and he wore a single-piece bodysuit, decorations of a deep gold color adorning his collar. His hand was to a headset, "Yes sir, it's definitely them, exactly as the reports said."
His companion returned the binoculars to his hands. Her own short head of hair was slicked back, shades of blue running through it. She dressed in a leather jacket and bore a number of piercings in her nose and lips. "You'd think he'd have moved by now. Security's gotta be masterful at that place after what happened… I mean, it'd have to be, right? Drake's supposed to be one of the smart ones."
"Is it time yet to engage them?" The taller one asked.
"No. Not yet. They have seen our purpose but they must embrace our motives. We must meet them on even ground, if they are ever to see it my way. They are family to me. To us. Keep your eyes tight on them, Nighthawk. If all goes well, we will not need to force them to join our crusade. After all, they joined me once, didn't they?"