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It started with a sticker.
It was a few months into Signal’s career. He was walking his usual patrol route, past the playground, when a little girl ran up to him and tapped him on the leg. “Hey there!” he said cheerfully, bending down to her.
She held up her finger. On it was a black sticker in the shape of Batman’s sign. “For- for you,” she said shyly.
“Oh, wow, really?” he gasped. He gently took it from her, and stuck it on his helmet. “Thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome!” She gave him a gap-toothed smile, then ran back to her parents. He waved to her as he left.
The next few days, it happened again. He got a Nightwing sticker and a Robin sticker. By the third sticker, other kids had started joining in. At the end of the week, his armor was practically covered in stickers. Some of them were bat-themed, but most were generic stickers. There were hearts and stars and fruit and kittens with cheesy puns. Several kids had shyly told him they spent their allowance on stickers, and many others had proudly told him they shoplifted or otherwise obtained their stickers illegally. He accepted all of them with pride.
The only problem was he was running out of room. Plus, the stickers wouldn’t last when he had to clean his armor.
Duke held his helmet in his hands, running his fingers over the stickers. As he considered his dilemma, he spotted one of the blank boards that Tim (and occasionally others) used for red string boards. He… probably didn’t need all of those.
Duke grabbed one of the boards, setting it out on the floor. He got to work, peeling the stickers off his armor and carefully sticking them onto the board in neat rows. Only Robin and Red Robin were in Gotham, and they had already left for patrol when he got out of the shower. Oracle was in the clock tower, so he had the Batcave to himself.
By the time he was done, he still had a good chunk of empty space. He grinned to himself. He imagined he would have more stickers to fill the space next week. He set the board on one of the few empty walls left, then quickly cleaned off his armor from all the sticker residue.
Gotham was not an easy place to grow up. That was a fact. But they were trying their hardest, and clearly it wasn’t all bad. They had hope. Duke was so, so proud he got to be part of that hope. Some heroes wore their battle scars and bloodied hands as marks of honor. The Signal wore his stickers.