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Batgirl. That was her name now.
She perched on her favorite gargoyle and marveled, almost unable to believe it.
It was the most precious gift she could ever have been given, simply because she knew what it had meant to Cassandra. It had been the first name Cass had ever known. It had been everything to her friend. The symbol, the legacy, the meaning of it.
And now, it was hers. Hers to protect, to live up to, to hold as closely and as lovingly as Cass had.
Batgirl had a place. Batgirl belonged . Batgirl had a role in Gotham, in the community, even in the Cave. She had Cass’s blessing, and now she even had Barbara’s, even if her mentor had been concerned and reluctant at first.
It was hers now, in every way that mattered. No one was going to take it away. Batgirl couldn’t be fired, not like Robin. And she was older now besides; too old to be benched. She was an adult, not some scared little kid waiting for the love and approval of a father figure who wasn’t willing to see all of her.
They couldn’t stop her. None of them. Not Tim, not Dick Grayson, not Bruce Wayne when he returned. Not the doubt in the eyes of the GCPD when they saw that she wasn’t the same Batgirl they remembered, not the skeptical looks of the Teen Titans when they spotted her in her new costume.
This was hers now, in every way. She’d made it her own, with a touch of eggplant and a golden logo. She wasn’t Barbara Gordon or Cassandra Cain... She was herself. Batgirl, who had been Robin, who had been Spoiler, who had been a little girl on a rooftop staring up at the stars, waiting for Batman to come and rescue her.
He had never come. Not until she had gone out and fetched him. And by then, it had been too late. She was done waiting.
She saved herself instead.
From the time she was a child, she was always told that she looked so much like her father.
It had been a compliment, at first. She had his jaw, his eyes, his hair. Every part of herself belonged to him. She’d loved being just like him. She wanted to be just like him. And he’d loved it too. He’d carried her in his arms through his laboratory, talked to her about his formulas and chemicals and how they were going to make them rich. He’d ruffled her hair and gave her nicknames and bought her a piano to play.
Then she’d gotten older. She’d seen him punch her mother one morning, and the image of him that she had held in her mind shattered into a thousand pieces.
Mom had been sick for as long as she could remember. It got worse as she got older, as Dad’s temper flared, as she drew the connection between the pill bottles that her mother refilled a little too often, the trips to the hospital, the lies when people asked questions.
When Dad was arrested for the first time, Steph almost believed her mother when she said that things would maybe get better now.
It sometimes did, for a little while. But then Dad would get out of prison or get leave from whatever government taskforce he was a part of this week, and he’d do what he always did, and steal Crystal Brown away from her daughter.
And each time, Steph hated him a little more.
Damian Wayne broke her heart.
It was trite, but it was true, nonetheless. He’d never had a chance to just be a kid, to be normal, to think of a life outside of the capes and cowls and the night-time chases.
He’d studied tactics and strategy and could recite Machiavelli in the original Italian and compare it with Sun Tzu, but he didn’t know what a hula hoop was or what bubblegum tasted like.
Well. She was going to change that.
“What’s the point of all of this?” Damian demanded, lips ringed blue from the popsicle that she had bought him. “What exactly am I supposed to be learning?”
How to have a better life than your parents ever did. How to be happy. How to be a kid . How to know that there’s a future for you, outside of the mask.
“Blue raspberry is a lesson in and of itself,” she said solemnly.
“...Raspberries aren’t blue ,” Damian said, horrified.
“They are in America.”
“You’re lying ,” he accused, but he also looked uncertain.
Steph threw an arm around his shoulders and hugged him against her side.
There was hope for him yet. And if there was hope for him... maybe there was hope for the rest of them.
She was eleven when her dad introduced her to Jim Murray.
Jim Murray was a petty, non-criminal man. He liked beer and chicken wings and spending time at the home of his new best friend, Arthur Brown.
And he also, as it happened, liked his best friend’s daughter. Enough to become her babysitter, when one was needed. Enough to offer to look after her for a week when Arthur wanted to take his wife somewhere secluded to attempt to sober her up. He liked her enough to try and corner her in her bedroom.
Stephanie Brown was eleven years old when she felt it for the first time; the anger. The realization that no one was going to save her. That no one was going to help her. That she was alone, in this house, with a man who was going to hurt her, and there was no one but herself.
She bit him, she screamed, she kicked, she ran. She survived. She was lucky.
It had been building for years, since the moment she had realized what her father really was, since the moment when she’d realized that Batman wasn’t coming, that Superman wasn’t coming, that no one was coming . That the bad things were going to just keep happening, one after another, and there was no one she could depend on, except for herself.
The rage crystalized in her chest that day, becoming something that she could name. It would be years before she would find a way to channel it, to turn it into something useful.
But she would know, years later.
Spoiler was born that day.
Robin was born that day.
Batgirl was born that day.
Wendy Harris was angry in a way that was oh, so familiar.
Angry at the world, angry at the people who had failed her, angry at her father. Grief and anger were one and the same, a brilliant and burning flame that threatened to consume her every waking moment.
It made Steph ache to see it.
Barbara saw herself in Wendy Harris. But Steph saw another girl entirely.
“I don’t want to be defined by my past anymore, you know?” Wendy said, the scrapbook across her lap showing the face of a brother that Steph would never get to meet.
Steph got it. She really did.
As Spoiler, people knew her as the girl who had nearly destroyed Gotham. The one who had been murdered by Black Mask, her autopsy photos analyzed on the six o’clock news and splashed all over the newspapers. And her tenure as Robin was so brief that she was fairly certain Damian hadn’t even been aware of it until she had mentioned it.
But Batgirl... that was new. A clean slate.
“Kind of my thing, but I’m willing to share. It isn’t easy, you know. Starting new.”
But worth it. Absolutely worth it.
She sewed her first costume out of a bolt of fabric on-sale at the craft store, using her mother’s sewing machine. She stole a construction worker’s belt from a worksite and filled the pouches with marbles and thumbtacks and anything else she could think of. But those were just for show. Her real tool; her most important tool, was her mind .
She had to scale buildings, send mysterious letters, post ads in the paper. She had to rig up listening equipment and ensure that in every way possible, her father could not find out that it was her who was doing it.
Of course, no plan survived first contact with the enemy.
The enemy, in this case, being an overzealous Robin managing to demask her while she was running away.
She felt bad about the brick, though.
Robin was long nights of training and bruised knuckles. It was Batman’s reprimands in her ears and Alfred’s wary eyes. It was hard work and no reward and it was short and awful and lonely .
She had been Robin for seventy-one days. Three weeks of that were spent waiting at home for Batman to call. Batman, who hadn’t even trusted her with his name, who hadn’t taught her what she needed to know in order to not screw up, failing a test that was rigged against her.
And then he’d fired her. Three weeks of silence and agony, only for that.
But Robin was also rooftop tag with Cass as the dynamic duo. It was a high neck for her costume so that she could be safe from a serial killer. It was gruff hands on her shoulders, and a promise to teach her to be better. A vow, on a deathbed.
She had been Robin. She’d been a part of the legend. Even if it was just for a little while.
Bruce had told Cass to give her Batgirl.
She found this out, months after his return, after a slip of the tongue in a conversation with Alfred, a cup of tea pressed to her mouth.
Bruce Wayne . The man who didn’t trust anyone, who had ignored her and fired her by turn, who…He had trusted her with this. He had agreed, with Cass, with Babs, that she deserved this.
She lowered the cup, and stared at Bruce.
Bruce didn’t look at her.
It wasn’t an apology.
But it was enough.
Cassandra Cain had taught her how to fight.
The greatest fighter in the world had taken her into the ring with her, in exchange for a few reading lessons and a friendship that Steph treasured more than anything.
“Get faster.”
“Punch harder.”
“Be patient.”
“Don’t hold back.”
Each pearl of wisdom, Steph clutched to her chest. She was never going to be the fighter that Cass was, and that was okay. But she wasn’t hopeless . Not if Cassandra Cain thought that she was worth something.
What she saw, Steph didn’t know. Maybe she’d never know.
But Cass had faith in her. As a hero, as a fighter, as a friend.
Steph wasn’t going to let her down.
College was different from highschool, but Batgirl was different from Spoiler.
Spoiler stayed in Gotham, and only met other heroes if Robin or Batman introduced her to them. Batgirl got to team up with Supergirl all on her own.
Steph adored Kara. She was funny and clever and strong, was excited by all of the little things, things that Steph sometimes took for granted. Ice cream, movie theater popcorn with too much butter, 3D movies, the excitement of a superhero team up.
She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been, despite everything. Cass and Tim were out of town, handling their own things… she’d missed having company her own age. Someone who understood .
Kara had been through things that Steph could never understand; the loss of her entire planet, a new culture, a new world . She was stronger than anyone else that Steph had ever met and could shoot lasers out of her eyes.
But somehow, she was also one of the most relatable people that Steph had ever met.
“Next time you start to feel alone and don’t have any criminals to hero yourself at, give me a call,” Kara said, the remnants of a pillow fight around them and Dracula’s dust still under Steph’s fingernails.
Steph felt herself smiling.
The first Batgirl costume she wore was Cass’s. It was unfamiliar and strange, meant for her best friend, who was shorter than her and had different tastes.
Wearing it felt like she was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Like she was trying to be Cass’s Batgirl, rather than putting her own stamp on it.
Babs helped her make the new suit. It was odd, having the lower part of her face exposed. She’d spent so long with Spoiler’s full face mask. More covering than Robin’s domino though, she supposed.
Bulletproof fabric, a flame proof cape, sensors, infrared capabilities, and pockets of gadgets that Steph could take days going through and still be learning new functions. Later, Bruce would give her batarangs uniquely her own; ones to mix and match, allowing her to adapt to the situation and the environment.
Hers .
No one else’s.