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"Ready?" Jason's shark-like grin was evident, even though he was wearing his helmet. Stephanie nodded, grinning back. She pulled on her cowl, finger gunning herself in the mirror.
This was it. This was a whole months’ worth of preparation for hopefully the greatest prank the Bats play on Gotham - as well as their family. Only Jason, Barbara and herself were in on it. Stephanie was delighted.
Barbara had finally managed to finish coding a program she made specifically for this prank a week ago, but Jason was off planet with the Outlaws then. They pushed it back to the day after he returned, only to find out that Bruce, The Batman himself, came down with a minor cold. That itself was hilarious, but oh, so frustrating after weeks of planning. Finally, they were ready. Bruce, Tim, Damian and the rest of Gotham wouldn’t know what hits them. Unfortunately Dick was in Blud, but Steph was confident he would fall for it too. The trio knew Cass would play along despite being miffed that she missed the whole spectacle.
When Steph looked up, she saw Jason waiting, grapple gun in hand. Steph thought he looked great, actually, in her colors. Rather than making a whole new helmet, Jason took one of his older helmets and let Stephanie paint it purple. He wasn’t changing his entire outfit for this prank, but he did get a whole new shirt with a purple bat on the chest and he let Steph bedazzle some of his guns with press-on gems. His vest was a cool silver color to match the purple. He looked great.
Stephanie, on the other hand, looked so badass that she was genuinely considering switching colors. Jason agreed with her. Her cape and suit was red and black and the utility belt was made of brown leather. She also stole one of Jason's smallest pairs of Doc Martens, replacing the laces with bright red ribbon. Her mask was black with a little red flower hand-stitched to it that she pretended not to notice Jason doing while she was painting his helmet. The cape also had little bats sewn into the inside of the hood that she also pretended not to notice.
She grabbed her own grapple, hooking it to her belt.
"O?" She asked, hand on comm.
"You two ready?" Barbara asked over the comms. Jason huffed a laugh.
"Been ready. Tail Light's been checkin' herself out in the mirror for too long."
"Excuse you, I look fantastic. Also, yup, we're ready."
"Operation R&P is a go."
~~
It took a comically long time for one of the Bats to notice the difference. Steph and Jason were already trending on Twitter with the hashtag #PurpleandRed??? as well as #WHATTHEFUCK.
Tim was the first to notice.
"Uh, Spoiler?" His voice sounded hesitant over the comms. Jason and Steph were planning on sticking together for patrol for at least the first hour, but Jason had split off to help a teen get home about ten minutes ago. Right now, Steph was wandering Chinatown. She ignored Tim, since he didn't sound like he was dying or anything. She leaped over an AC unit, flinging herself into a hand spring. Obviously the resident acrobat was Dick but Steph had a gymnastics phase, what can she say?
"Spoiler!" Tim asked again. She frowned;
"You okay, babe?"
"What's with the red, dude?" He asked. She could see him in the distance and took a few bounds before deploying her grapple towards him;
"What do you mean? Did something happen?"
"Yeah! Why's your outfit red?"
"...Because it's always been red? Are you okay?" She landed in front of him, reaching out to touch his forehead. He batted her hand away.
"Spoiler. Why. Are you red? Purple is your favorite color. You've always been purple."
"Dude, are you feeling okay? Like, for real? It's always been red. And, why do you keep calling me 'Spoiler'? My name's Tail Light." She bit her lip to keep from laughing outright.
"No it hasn't?! You've always been purple. That's your favorite color. I have a photo of your suit last week and it's purple!"
Steph made a show of looking around them before leaning in closer.
"Tim, did you get dosed with something?" She made her voice sound genuinely concerned, pressing her gloved hand to his forehead.
"No! I'm not dosed with anything! You are! Look, see your outfit's always been pur-" Tim trailed off. Stephanie peered at his phone screen.
"See? I've always been red. I think you should go back to the cave, you might be getting sick or something."
Stephanie started tugging on Tim's elbow.
"...Yes! The cave! I have printed photos of you!"
"That's a lil' creepy, Timbit," came Jason's voice over the comms. Tim sputtered while Steph continued to lead him back to the cave.
Of course they took care of the physical photos first. Those took the longest. Barbara's program recolored any photos and videos of the Red Hood and Spoiler into the Purple Hood and Tail Light, as well as edited every mention of Red Hood and Spoiler, changing the names. Luckily for them, the nickname Jason received from the Alley Kids, 'Papa Hood', didn't have to be changed and Steph didn't have a nickname from the general public, so it wasn't too hard to change. Barbara also used her resources at the library to change any paper copies of newspapers and Selina helped break into people's houses and exchange the old newspapers. Her only condition to help was to let her steal something from the manor (with Alfred's knowledge, of course). The trio readily agreed, automatically offering their own house keys to her as if she didn't have her own and wasn't a literal cat burglar.
When Jason came into view, Tim actually stopped in his tracks.
"Why are you purple?" He demanded. Jason cocked his head;
"Why wouldn't I be purple?"
"Because you're the Red Hood?"
"No..? I'm the Purple Hood? I've always been?"
"No?!" Tim sounded a touch hysterical. Stephanie almost felt bad.
For all of two seconds. Then she remembered the Mouse-Lollipop-Backpack incident and did not feel bad one bit.
"Hood, I think he got dosed with something," she said solemnly. Jason nodded.
"I'll take 'em back to the cave for ya. Heard sumthin' was happenin' in the Bowery, so watch up. Be back soon!" Jason plucked Tim up in his arms and grappled again, ignoring Tim's protests. Stephanie's smile was borderline feral.
"Tail Light to Oracle," she said into her comm.
"How's it going?" Barbara teased, as if she hadn't had all of their cowl footages pulled up on her monitors.
" Goin' good. Do y'know if the others have seen anything yet?" She asked, pulling out her grapple again.
"Not to my knowledge, no. And Hood was right, I'm seeing some weird activity in the Bowery. Do you mind heading over there?"
"Kay! Be there in a sec!"
~~
Turns out, Batman and Robin beat her there, already engaged with a gang of some kind. She dropped down between Robin and one of the guys, bo staff intercepting both the guy's knife and Robin's sword. Robin shot her a heated glare before twisting his face up in confusion. Before he could say anything, she twirled away, elbowing someone in the back and kicking another in the side.
The fight was over rather quickly.
"Spoiler. Why are you red?" Batman grunted, tucking the Batarang in his hand back in one of his belt pockets. Steph tilted her head, the picture of innocence.
"Why's everyone calling me Spoiler? You guys know my name's Tail Light. And B, I've literally always been red. Have you been dosed with something?" She marched up to Bruce, gently smacking her hand on his forehead. He brushed her hand off, looking at her strangely.
"I have not been dosed with anything." It seemed like he was going to say something else, so Steph cut him off;
"Are you positive? Red Robin was also adamant he wasn't dosed with anything but Hood had to carry him back to the cave.
Maybe she was fudging a few minor, itty bitty details, but what Bruce didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
"Is he okay?" Bruce grunted. That was his concerned grunt. Steph really hammed it up now, blinking a few times before answering;
"I- I mean, I don't know. He was insistent on me being purple but I rarely wear purple. I don't know why he's so adamant on me being called Spoiler too. I don't know where that came from."
The strange look was back but Steph was already turning at the sound of a new voice.
"Need any help? Looks like y'all did a good job," Jason called from the top of a building. Steph shook her head exaggeratedly, giving his double thumbs up. Jason returned the thumbs up before Steph noticed the new addition to his outfit. It seemed like he had laced his current boots with lavender ribbon, copying her. She didn't mind at all.
"Though, I think B might have been dosed with something." She did her best get-down-here-right-now face at him, grinning at the show-y jump he did off the building. He landed, cool as a cucumber, next to her.
"Both the Replacement and B? Should I be looking at the drug trades?" He sounded like he was frowning but Steph knew he was amused.
Robin was uncharacteristically quiet as they turned to Bruce.
"Let's get you to the cave, B," Jason said grasping the man's shoulder. Steph and Damian waited in silence for them to get out of earshot before Damian turned to her.
"I want in," He declared.
Two weeks later, Robin was now Sparrow, sporting a white and grey suit.