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The cave filled with her panting breaths and the sound of her fist colliding again and again and again with a punching bag. Sweat dripped down her skin, falling like rain to the ground of the Batcave, making the already humid air feel oppressive. Steph kept going anyway.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.
She yelled out as she punched the bag again, wincing when she heard the distinct sound of it ripping at the top. She punched it once more before stomping to the sidelines, sitting down with a huff. She didn't bother opening her water bottle, instead just slamming her head into her hands and pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes to convince herself out of crying.
She'd been Robin too. She'd been Robin too. She wasn't Bruce's Robin, not really, but she had worn the damn colors. She understood the weight of the legacy, and maybe she'd been shit at it, but Bruce hadn't exactly given her a fair chance, either. She'd worked harder for Bruce's trust than Damian had, that was certain.
Steph wasn't mad that Bruce took Tim back. He deserved it, god knew that; he'd gone halfway across the world to save him because of a hunch. And really, she shouldn't be mad that she hadn't been asked to come back. She faked her death. She left. She betrayed his trust in more ways than one. She was Batgirl now, for god's sake, and Batgirl always had a penchant for not quite listening to Bruce.
But Robin did too, and she was Robin first.
She loved Babs and Cass. She loved the opportunities they had given her, loved the training and community she had found with them. Black Bat and Oracle and Batgirl, or Batgirl and Oracle and Spoiler, it didn't matter; they were a team, and she was damn proud of them. They did good, and they were allied with the Justice League even if they weren't official members, and they had their legacy in Gotham.
But part of her would always be Robin.
Seventy-two days was a downright pathetic amount of time, and she knew that. Two and a half months in the colors—the shortest run of any of them by far—and then she'd gone and died. She was little more than a whisper in Gotham, teenagers telling stories of the lone girl wonder who Black Mask had gone after and killed. She figured she had Babs to thank for the fact that her Robin run hadn't been spun into some misogynistic bullshit, but even Babs couldn't preserve her legacy beyond that.
At least Jason had the stories of the Underbelly. At least he was known as the Robin of Crime Alley. Robin II had been almost as short-lived as Robin IV, his legacy as Red Hood better documented and better known, but he had reshaped who and what Robin was. He had turned it into a legacy.
After she "died", Tim just stepped back into the suit. She wasn't even one of Bruce's regrets. She was just a stain on the legacy.
She heard footsteps and immediately raised her head, grabbing her water bottle and a towel and trying to make it look like she had been stretching or punching air or something instead of sitting there feeling sorry for herself. She had proved Bruce wrong, she had proved Tim wrong, she had proved her father wrong; she was more powerful than anyone anticipated, and she was able to use that to her advantage. She was powerful. She was a damn good hero. She would not let her grief over a title bring her down.
But it was Tim. And as much as she loved and hated and missed him, and as much as he loved and hated and missed her, the truth had always come out far too easily between them. Neither of them were able to hide anything from the other for long, for better or for worse.
"Spar with me," she said, trying to beat him to the punch.
"What did you do?" He looked up at her with a quirked eyebrow and a slight smirk, and she resisted the urge to deck him then and there, everything bubbling to the surface all at once.
"Nothing recent," she settled on, moving to the sparring ring, leaving behind her ripped punching bag and sweaty towel and mostly-full water bottle. "I just want to punch you."
Tim snorted, but he put his own water bottle down on the side and stood across from her. She barely waited for him to meet her eyes before she was lunging into a spin-kick Cass had taught her, fluid and lethal and angry about things she had no right to be angry about, and things she shouldn't take out on Tim regardless.
But Tim met her in stride, just as he always did. He blocked the kick and met it with a punch that Steph limbo'd under; she did a back-handspring, aiming for Tim's chin as she did and smirking to herself when she heard his mouth click shut in time with pressure against her foot.
He was on her quickly, a feint and then a punch, but she blocked both and retaliated. It was a familiar dance, sparring with Tim; they had fought so many times, it was easy to forget they were enemies almost as often as they were friends. They knew each others moves and tendencies and holes and compensations.
They had both gotten to be tighter, stronger fighters in the year Tim spent abroad. He ducked under Steph's elbow. She jumped over his low kick. Forearm block, kick to the chest, acrobatic dodge turned into attack taught by Dick Grayson at some point or another over the years. Tim jumped with a League move, and Steph retaliated with a Cain special. It was normal. It was easy.
"Robin!"
They jumped apart, and Steph prepared herself for a reprimand for half a second before remembering that she hadn't earned that privilege. She wasn't Robin. She was just Steph.
Tim gave her a glance before scurrying off to do whatever Batman needed. Steph shouldn't have cared. She should have gone out and checked what the problem was, and maybe joined up with Tim and Damian and Bruce on the field. She should have checked in with Oracle, seen if there was something else she should be taking care of.
She didn't do any of that. Instead, she turned back to her punching bag. She ignored the pain in her throat as she heard Bruce's steady, "this-is-our-mission" voice ringing from the Batcomputer. She wasn't Robin. That meant she didn't have to listen to him, especially when he was instructing something stupid.
It didn't mean it didn't sting.