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She hated him.
She hated him so much it hurt.
That’s why she started as The Spoiler after all. Spoil his plans and show the world that she isn’t him. Will never be him.
She hated how every moment with him was walking on eggshells. Don’t bring up the gameshow, don’t bring up The Batman, don’t bring up how he’s basically a cheap Riddler knockoff.
She finds those last two the most difficult to keep quiet about. After all, it was hard not to discuss The Batman when within a few months of him being released from prison, without fail she would see on the news that the Bat himself had once again foiled one of her father’s plans. How could she while arguing with him not bring up the similarities in the clues of her father and the riddles of the, in her humble opinion, intellectually superior and more professional criminal Riddler.
It always ended badly for her when she did, but she’s never considered herself good at holding her tongue.
Its why she ended up shoved in the closet so many times as a kid. Her and all of Arthur Browns other unwanted shit.
She hated that closet so much.
And she hated him for putting her in there.
Perhaps that’s why sometimes, when her Mom’s too out of it to notice her and Arthur Brown and his shady ‘friends’ that are in the sitting room being so loud, Stephanie hates herself too.
Because she hates him. And she can see the similarities.
The blonde curls that thrash about in rage, the blue eyes that are far too sharp and cold, and the stubborn set of their jaw as they do whatever they can to make the other hurt.
The way that once, in a fit of anger, she chucked the sketch she was working on in that fucking closet just so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. She’d taken the sketch out mere moments later, just long enough for her mind to register what she’d done and set it down on her wobbly desk and cry.
She climbed up to her rooftop that day and wished, like many others, that Batman could take Arthur Brown away again. She wished that when he did Arthur Brown would never come back.
But he did.
He always does.
And when he did come back, she, for the briefest of moments, felt hope. Because according to the overworked doctors of Arkham, Arthur Brown was cured. No more puzzles, no more clues, no more crime.
That was how it was going to be from then on.
That was how it was supposed to be from then on.
She’d never felt more stupid in her life than when she overheard The Cluemaster talking with his minions at the dinner table.
And she’d been made to feel stupid a lot by that man.
Because turns out people don’t change.
The Cluemaster will always be a piece of shit, Batman will never be there to save her, and Stephanie will always be alone.
So perhaps sneaking about Gotham in bright purple and leaving clues to The Cluemaster’s plans wasn’t the most normal of ways to solve her issues, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
And she met Batman out of it.
And she wished she could hate The Batman.
She wished she could hate his condescending words, the cold in his voice as he tells her to go home, the judging eyes of Robin behind The Bat, agreeing with whatever the man said.
But Stephanie can’t hate Batman, because unlike The Cluemaster Batman is nothing like her.
Batman is still and silent as she talks and talks and talks while on a patrol that she cant remember if he asked her to come along on.
Batman is warm when, on a long night that ended with Robin’s head on her shoulder sound asleep on a Gotham rooftop, the man arrives and wraps his cape around his sidekick and asks her if she needs a lift home.
Batman is kind when he, for the first time since she met him, he smiles as he told her she did good in her stealth test. The only time he told her she’s good at something since becoming Robin. Or maybe it’s the only time she’s told she’s good at something ever.
Stephanie knows she’s being irrational, excusing every negative comment, every time he turned his kids against her for reasons she still can’t understand, every secret that proves his lack of trust in her. But Batman isn’t Cluemaster. He doesn’t treat her well sure, but he seems to treat everyone else just fine.
Like that Nightwing guy. He killed the Joker, broke Batman’s big rule. And yeah, he seemed to get in trouble for it, but he was still part of the team afterwards.
But she knows that he stopped training her as Spoiler because he saw the same thing in her that she sees, those parts of her that take too much after Cluemaster. And he knows in the time following Cluemaster’s death all she’ll feel is hate.
She knows why he stopped training her as Robin, she disobeyed orders, it doesn’t matter that Batman was going to die if she didn’t step in, it doesn’t matter if Tim would always excitedly tell her of all the times he would go against orders and still stayed on as Batman’s sidekick.
She isn’t Tim.
She was never going to be as good as Tim.
It doesn’t matter that Batman told her differently when training her as Spoiler. Told her she had the potential to be as good as Tim.
As Robin he made it clear she’d lost that.
So she wished she could hate him. But she knows really its not a problem with him. After all Tim, Cass, the Birds of Prey, they all agree with him.
So the problem is her.
And she can’t really blame them for thinking that.
After all people don’t change, and so she will always be Arthur Browns daughter.
So she resigns herself to that hatred. She accepted it as Gotham burned around her, because of her. She deserved it as Black Mask hurts her, makes her bleed, kills her. And as Batman stood over her body she felt it leave her along with her spirit as the Bat whispered soothing words, reassuring her as she died that she wasn’t a joke, that she really was Robin.
And as she died she wished she could believe him.
It was through her recovery that she realised that of all the things she could hate, Gotham was never one of them.
After all it isn’t the city’s fault for the actions of its citizens. Gotham didn’t make the Joker, the Riddler, The Batman.
It’s the circumstances.
It’s the ever present feeling of being taken advantage of by those with power.
It’s the constant lack of control.
It’s the way those in power seem to do everything they can to teach those under them to hate.
So she cant find it in herself to hate Gotham, in a strange way she misses it.
She misses the people who despite everything, despite growing up in a city designed to hate, keep going and find little pockets of love among the gas attacks and poisoned water supplies.
She always wanted to be like those people.
So she goes home. She goes back to the city she never hated where she knows she’ll see the man she wished she could hate.
At least the only time she’ll see Arthur Brown is in the mirror.
She doesn’t expect a warm welcome.
She doesn’t get a warm welcome.
She’s used to it.
But then things happen she isn’t used to.
Batman is gone.
She somehow gets approval from Cass in the form of a suit and a title. Batgirl.
Oracle’s harsh words and disapproving tone somehow lead to amusement and pride as, despite Stephanie being herself, Barbara begins to accept her as Batgirl.
The unease the new Batman has over her and her, well everything, changes as she works with the new Robin and saves the Bat. Dick seems to show a sense of pride, acceptance from one Robin to another.
Even the new Robin, harsh as his words are, seems to warm up to her. Allowing her to show him how to be a kid, as she promises Damian that no one will know he had fun.
She’s almost overwhelmed by the positive attention. It’s something she doesn’t know she’ll ever get used to, but as time goes on, she finds herself less and less thinking of her father. Of that hatred deep in her soul.
By the time she sees Batman again she hasn’t thought about it in a while. And as he stands before her, she’s ready. She’s proven herself to Cass, Barbara, Dick, Damian, even Tim. She can prove herself to Bruce too.
Perhaps the slap was a bit much, but in her defence, she thought he was dead.
And she enjoyed it.
So she talks, she defends her right as Batgirl.
Its only after she realises that he accepted her anyway.
Its only once he says that that he promises to do better.
And all at once it comes crashing down on her that he’s changed.
Because he isn’t a man she wishes she could hate. She can be angry at him sure.
Above all things Bruce Wayne is an asshole.
But he’s not an asshole she wants to hate.
And later that night when she looks in the mirror she doesn’t see her Father’s angry, blonde curls. She sees hair that bounces when she laughs and moves with her to the gentle notes of the piano she plays.
Her eyes are no longer cold and harsh, but light and carefree. Blue like the sky rather than frozen like ice.
Her jaw is still stubbornly set, but more often than not the arguments are less fierce, hot, angry words designed to hurt. Instead she finds herself arguing in competition for front seat in the Batmobile. And no, it doesn’t matter that she could ride in her own car. She’s older, she gets front seat rights before Damian.
She find’s it strange, looking in the mirror. Seeing someone she recognises, but she would never in a million years think could be her.
Seeing living proof in herself that people can change. And she finds that the hate in her soul is gone.
Now all she feels is hope.