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Every morning she wakes up and puts on herself like a well-worn jacket. Every morning Stephanie Brown rises as if for war.
Steph chose her name when she was sixteen. Shape the word in your mouth: stef-an-ee. She was given a different name when she was born but she didn’t keep it. Stephanie Brown has kept very few of the things she was given at birth. Stephanie Brown is a self-made woman.
She keeps her blonde curls, even though they make her look like her father. She decides these can be hers, even if they’re Arthur Brown’s, too. Some things she can’t let him keep all to himself. Like her sharp-toothed smile. Like her cold brown eyes. She keeps those. She loses the name, though, and the gender on her birth certificate. Self-made woman. She shapes herself out of clay.
She’s sixteen. Mom is off the wagon and Dad’s back from jail. All she’s got are a skateboard she paid for, a bike she stole, and her neighbor’s hand-me-down girl's clothes.
Robin calls her father Arthur Brown Sr. because she’s supposed to be Junior, but later she quietly tells him her name. Somehow, if Robin called her Junior, that would be one step too far.
“Okay, Stephanie,” Robin replies easily, like he isn’t the first person to ever call her that.
“Look, Boy Wonder,” she snipes. “I know you think you’re the shit ‘cause you were raised in fuckin’ Bristol, but some of us are trying to do good, here.”
Robin throws his hands in the air. “Steph,” he says, “what do you think I’m doing here if I’m not trying to do good?”
“Spoiler,” she hisses, even though hearing someone call her Steph out loud sends a thrill down her spine. “Jesus, Robin, it’s called a secret identity for a reason.”
“Fine,” he spits. “Spoiler. I’m not trying to- I just don’t want you to get killed. It’s not a joke, this job.”
She rolls her eyes. “No shit, boy detective,” she bites. “I didn’t put on a mask for fun. Don’t you remember why I started being the Spoiler?”
“You’re not the only one with a shitty home life, Spoiler,” Robin tells her coldly. “You don’t have to act like you’re special.”
“Oh, is your dad a D-list villain, too?” She rolls her eyes, even though he can’t see it. “No, your dad never went up against Batman and did time in Arkham and your dad-figure runs around fighting rogues dressed like a fuckin’ winged mammal.”
Robin huffs. “Fine,” he says. “I know- I know it’s different. We’re different. But- I don’t know, Spoiler, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m older than you , Rob,” she reminds him. “I can take care of myself.”
They’re sitting on a roof somewhere downtown, far from the Brown apartment, far from Bristol where Robin allegedly grew up. Steph’s got her legs dangling over the edge and she’s kicking them back and forth, running her fingers over the shitty fabric she used to sew her costume—her uniform. Robin has a fancy hardcore suit he wears that Steph’s sure is reinforced and bulletproof. All she’s got is some thrift-store tights and cheap purple fabric and the hood from her favorite sweatshirt stitched on top.
Robin kicks her ankle with his. Stephanie kicks him back. If he were someone else—if she were someone else—maybe this would be flirting. Maybe they could be something. But she doesn’t even know his real name and he keeps trying to stop her from roaming the streets at night so it isn’t worth thinking about his jaw, his stupid hair, his nice-fitting suit.
“Hey,” he says. “Race you to Crime Alley?”
“Will Batman be there?” Steph asks dubiously.
Robin shrugs. “Maybe. But won’t it be fun?”
She pretends to think about it, then launches herself off the roof. Robin shouts indignantly but she knows he’ll be right behind her.
Stephanie thinks about how two years ago she sat on top of a roof and thought about jumping off in a completely different way. Stephanie thinks about how a year ago she sat on top of a roof and thought about her body hitting the ground. Well. Not her body. Not really.
Now she swings between buildings and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her chest because she’s alive. Stephanie Brown exists outside of her own head. Even if Batman and Robin don’t believe in her, they can’t deny that she’s there.
“I’m trans, too,” Robin blurts out one night.
Stephanie almost misses her line. “What?”
Robin swings himself up onto a rooftop, and Steph joins him, still gaping. “I’m trans,” he says again. “I just- wanted to tell you.”
Steph yanks her mask down and hood back so he can see her impressive stare. “So I can’t know your name but I can know that you’re fuckin’ trans?”
“Solidarity!” Robin protests. “I wanted to- I don’t know, relate?” His argument slowly loses ground. “Don’t you- I don’t know.”
“God, Rob- wait. Do not tell me.”
“What?”
“Do not tell me that you actually changed your name to Robin.”
“I didn’t!” Robin says immediately, but Stephanie’s already doubled over, wheezing. “Spoiler, oh my God. I didn’t change my name to Robin. I’m not that- stop laughing!”
“I cannot,” she says between breaths. “Rich people are insane.”
“My name isn’t Robin!” Robin shouts.
Stephanie says gleefully, “You realize you’ve backed yourself into a corner. The only way you can convince me that you didn’t name yourself Robin is if you tell me your actual name.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Robin pouts, and his domino allows her to see his impressively dramatic frown. “Spoiler.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she relents. “I mean- I don’t know what to do when someone comes out to you.” She pauses, then steps closer to Robin and takes his hands in hers. She looks at him very seriously, leans forward like she’s going to kiss him—and doesn’t she remember that, kissing him—and says, mouth inches from his, “I love you no matter what pronouns you use, Rob.”
He sputters and jumps back indignantly while Stephanie howls, hands on her knees, tears in her eyes. “Fucking- Spoiler,” he hisses again, but she just keeps laughing at him, because sometimes rich boys need to be taken down a peg. Most times.
“C’mon,” she says finally. “We still have patrol. That you interrupted.”
“I was trying to open up,” Robin says sadly. “To show how we’re not so different, really. I can’t believe you.”
“Better luck next time, Boy Wonder,” Stephanie says with a grin. And then they’re off again, swinging through Gotham.
Later, she thinks about it. Robin being trans like her. Something in her protests—there’s no one like her. No one.
Next time they patrol together Steph turns off her comms and asks Robin if he’s willing to share his rack with her which makes him almost miss his line.
Batgirl doesn’t talk. She signs, but she’s not very good at it, either. It makes Steph feel less guilty that she chose to take Spanish instead of ASL in school. She starts looking up YouTube videos on it anyway, because sign language is a good skill to have as a vigilante.
Batgirl doesn’t talk but sometimes she laughs, and the sound thrills Stephanie. She doesn’t know why. The first time she sees Batgirl without her mask thrills her too. Cassandra. A name chosen with as much care as Steph’s own.
Babs mentions it offhand, once, that she suggested the name. Suggested, not gave, because Babs would never give someone a name. She knows more than anyone that you have to choose your name—your title—for yourself. You have to make it your own. When Stephanie’s ready, Oracle scrubs all mentions of her old name—medical records, report cards, licenses, debit cards—and replaces them with her new one.
Cassandra doesn’t shape Stephanie’s name in her mouth but she spells it with her fingers, slowly at first then faster, then she forgoes the letters and makes a sign for simplicity.
“What does it mean?” Steph asks her one day, up on a rooftop. She’s signing as she talks, which means she’s talking slow as she remembers the signs. She copies the sign-name Cass gave her.
Cass finger-spells S-P-O-I-L-E-R, and then shows Stephanie the sign for it. Stephanie’s sign is the same, but instead of her right hand sitting on her left, it starts by her ear and flicks out. “Like your c-u-r-l-y hair,” Cass signs. “But you.”
Steph, smiling, shows her the sign for curly. They both have their cowls off because it’s nearing morning anyway and most of Gotham’s nightlife has turned in. Hesitantly, Cass smiles back. She always smiles like she doesn’t know how.
“Choose your name?” Cass signs.
“Yes,” Steph replies. “My old name was… not mine.”
Cassandra nods like she understands. And, well, maybe she does.
To the Spoiler goes the victory, she thinks, and tries to make herself believe it.