#I think it's interesting that Steph got fired from Robin for disobeying an order

[vibrantstarfire]

Something about steph and self-image? Very vague I know but you always have good insights to how characters view themselves and I think Steph is fascinating ! 💜💜

ooo, good one! i actually have an additional fic for you aside from the one i'm writing now! i'm currently more interested in her view of herself as a person and hero -- but on my old account, i wrote a fic about body image. it's a little dated but i think you might like it as well! https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849309

but here's the fic prompt answer:

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It’s a while before Stephanie goes back to the cave after… everything.

After she died. After she “died.” 

After the gang war, and Leslie sort-of kidnapping her so she could heal far, far away from Gotham. After being away from the sickness its heart, getting to decide whether she wanted to go back after she was clean. 

Stephanie had. 

And now she was back. And the cave was exactly the way it’d looked when she was Robin. 

Exactly. 

As in – Jason Todd’s Robin suit was still hung up as a memorial. And Stephanie’s is just back in storage somewhere. 

The way she sees it, it’s all the more proof she’s the biggest fuck-up the cave has ever seen. Maybe even a bigger fuck-up than that weirdo who took over as Batman a few years ago and turned Batman bloodthirsty. 

But unlike him, Batman knew Stephanie sucked from the get-go. 

Which is like, the problem. She was the ultimate fuck-up Robin, and she doesn’t even get credit for it. She’s just swept under the rug, and there’s no part about Stephanie that was supposed to go down easy. 

Stephanie stands there, in her shiny new Batgirl costume, and can’t help but stare at Jason’s trophy case. At the plaque. Guess the non-fuck-ups get trophy cases. Or maybe they're just reserved for the real Robins.

Everyone acts like they’re supposed to learn from Jason’s mistakes, because he died in costume and it’d be such a tragedy for Batman to lose another soldier. Which is kind of fucked up, in Stephanie’s unprofessional opinion. But from what little Stephanie has gleaned from Tim and Batman, Jason Todd wasn’t even that much of a fuck-up! He didn’t get in over his head intentionally. He just wanted to know the truth about his mom, and got stuck in a shitty situation. How was he supposed to know the Joker would be in Ethiopia? That was a crazy one-in-a-million chance! 

Stephanie’s the real fuck-up Robin and she should be remembered as such! She innovated in ways that proved there was truly no limit to how bad a person could mess up. Except, everything she did as Robin, right up to the end, was entirely by the book. She followed orders, she did everything she was supposed to do. She stepped exactly half a toe out of line, something that she knew for a fact the other Robins did all the time. Especially Tim. She used her judgment, used her brain – and everything had gone fine. 

And then she’d been fired. Just like that. 

It’s infuriating. She’s heard about all the ways Tim and the first two Robins deliberately disobeyed. Tim got the gig specifically by ignoring Batman’s instructions! It wasn’t fair that the one time she improvised – which still led to a decent outcome! – she got sacked for it. Tim would’ve gotten benched, maybe. But because B already knew Stephanie was the fuck-up of all fuck-ups, everything she ever did wrong needed a triple dose punishment. 

It wasn’t fair. 

She wasn’t supposed to just be forgotten. She’d died, too, hadn’t she? However briefly? 

But then, even if it was brief, they thought it’d been for good. And he still…

There wasn't even a trace of her here.

Whatever. It was short. Like what, two, three months? Jason had been Robin for almost three years. So he got the trophy case. And she got the storage room. 

Because she’s a fuck-up. And fuck-ups don’t deserve memorials. They’re not even worth the cautionary tale. They’re only worth a tired, hand-sliding-down-the-face, ‘What did you do this time, Stephanie?’ 

So no memorial case for her. Whatever. it’s not like any of the others could even learn from her mistakes anyway. Not like Batman was just itching to hire more girl Robins, so why did it matter that she was Ms. Teen Pregnancy PSA? They couldn’t learn from it. Maybe they’d use a condom or something, but if Dick or Tim got someone pregnant, Batman would probably have just congratulated them. Yes, you’ve done your duty, you’ve put more batlings into the world. I’m so proud of you boys. 

And the other Robins didn’t have evil dads, she was pretty sure, so why would they need to learn how hard it was to let your dad get arrested instead of killing him in cold blood? They wouldn’t need any kind of Attempted Fratricide Redemption course. 

It’s just-

Every bad choice she’d made, she learned from, and she’d made the right choice in the end.

Well. Right up until the biggest fuck-up of them all. 

A lot of people had died. All because she’d tried to prove herself. That she was good enough. That she was still worth something after she’d been fired. She'd been wrong and so many people were in graves because of her hubris. And now she was alive and they weren't.

Stephanie closed her eyes a moment.

Maybe she'd been fired for a reason. Maybe he'd got a premonition that she'd be capable of cataclysmic fuck-ups, so B had just chosen to fire her early.

Because it was different, for her. The others had been benched before, and sure, Dick had been fired pretty unceremoniously too, but he’d had the Titans, and another name, and gear, and…

No one had ever been just one-and-done fired like that. Not in such a short turnaround. 

In hindsight, it was so obvious that she’d been nothing more than a placeholder for Tim at best, and a ‘look what you made me do’ at worst. Because Tim had been right there with Batman telling Stephanie to quit back when she started. She’d hoped that Tim had genuinely changed his  mind, but… She was just there to lure him back out. She’d just been there to keep the mantle warm.

And when she got fired, to Batman, that was it. He didn’t care about her, which meant no second chances. Not like the other Robins got. Because again, she was the fuck-up, and she didn’t deserve second or third or fifteenth chances like all the rest seemed to get. She didn’t get to use her own judgment in the field because no one trusted her.

They don’t support her because she’s a huge fuck-up. One big walking hazard sign. 

No one should’ve been surprised when she managed to start a gang war, and got captured and tortured, and died from her injuries.

But unlike Jason, who gets a whole trophy case, Stephanie didn’t even die in the Robin colors. 

She died as Spoiler. No relation to Batman. 

She wasn’t missed, she wasn’t remembered. She’s not even a goddamn lesson, because what is there to tell? “Don’t hire fuck-ups?” That doesn’t need a fucking plaque. 

Or-

Or maybe it does. Fuck it.

Stephanie finally takes a step back from Robin II’s memorial case, and gives it a two-fingered salute. “I know you weren’t a fuck-up,” she tells him. “And believe me, I’d know. Don’t worry, kid. I’ll make sure you’re not totally alone here.” 

And with that, she’s got a mission. She’s supposed to be in the cave for a supply run for Babs. Because apparently Babs is in the business of working miracles, and… After Cass gave Stephanie the suit, Babs…

Well. Stephanie isn’t entirely sure why Babs hasn’t tried to chase her off yet. Stephanie also isn’t entirely sure why Cass let her be Batgirl. But the point is, Babs hasn’t successfully discouraged Stephanie yet. She’s even been willing to work with her, give her supplies. Give her access to the Batcave again. Stephanie won’t abuse that trust, she'll finish the task Babs gave her, but she’s never been very good at following the rules to a T. And even when she did as Robin, it still wasn’t enough, so maybe it’s just a cosmic fuck-up thing. 

Stephanie finds the old costumes, stowed away, clean and neatly pressed.

Hers is among them. She’s only a little surprised – she’d half wondered if B would’ve burned it in a new no-girls-allowed campaign. (Stephanie tries not to think too hard about how and why Cass is the exception.)

She unfolds it, looks at it properly for the first time since wearing it. The red and green and yellow of it all. The skirt. The headband.

She has half a mind to take it with her. 

Instead, she sighs through her nose, and pulls out a sticky note. It’s no memorial plaque, but it’ll do. 

A good fuck-up, she thinks morbidly, and almost writes it when the sharpie hits the post-it note. It lingers for long enough that it forms a dark, swelling dot. But the others would probably kill her if they ever found it. Disrespecting the properly-dead, and all. 

Stephanie closes her eyes, and thinks about what the version of her who died on the operating table, however briefly, would have wanted to read.

…Fuck Black Mask, I hope he dies. Take care of my mom. Was I ever good enough? 

Not quite punchy enough. 

Spoiler Alert! She finally writes. She dies at the end. :) 

She re-folds the uniform, then sets it back in its place, note tucked slightly under the fold of the collar. 

There. Not much of a good soldier. But for now, it’ll do. 

[our-happygirl500-fan]

You know the whole Baterang to the throat thing that causes a lot of discussion in the fandom? I think Bruce might not have been aiming for the throat

It ricochets

This point in comics Bruce has been through a ringer Steph's died, Barbara and Jim have left, Leslie betrayed him and he's had to send Cass and Tim away and now Jason is back but for revenge so Bruce isn’t at his best and I think Bruce threw the Baterang in a moment of panic and either over or undershot which ended up with well that.

This moment causes a lot of debate but I don't see it as “Bruce harming Jason to save the joker” the way a lot of fics paint it I see it more as he'd been aiming for Jason's arm or something to disarm him but overshot and it’s kind of like a symbolism of their relationship. 

 Which is basically Bruce takes an action to stop Jason from going down a path that he thinks will end up hurting Jason, but ends up hurting Jason in the long-run.

Like when he discussed taking away robin from Jason (because he thought Jason needed time to deal with issues that were becoming more prevalent) which only ended up making Jason feel insecure about his position in the Wayne household, contributing to why he so desperately pursued a stable parental relationship in his biological mother.

Bruce knows that if he gives in and kills the Joker he'll never stop killing we've seen timelines that prove that and I think Bruce also thinks the same of Jason that if Jason kills the Joker he won't stop at all so it’s not that he’s saving the Joker but that he’s trying to save Jason but Bruce ultimately misunderstands Jason’s needs and winds up hurting him.

Bruce is trying to save Jason from what he sees as a downwards spiral, but he ends up hurting him not just emotionally, but physically, and in the most extreme way possible. It's like an even darker echo of how trying to bench him as Robin led to his death.

Bruce has spent YEARS haunted by the memory of Jason’s death his death fundamentally changed Bruce's entire character Alfred said that Jason's death affected Bruce more than his own parents death.

In Underworld Unleashed it's revealed that his greatest desire is to have Jason back, in Hush he talks about how he wanted to put Jason in the Lazarus Pit and how he believes Jason knew he always loved him, and in As The Crow Flies we learn that his greatest fear is Jason coming back as an enemy and then in Under the Red Hood he gets Jason back (his greatest desire) but as an antagonist (his greatest fear) and moreover his belief that Jason 'knew' he loved him is WRONG.

Jason's insecurities from before his death combined with the perceived betrayal of Bruce not avenging him have led Jason to the point where he genuinely believes Bruce doesn't care, and in Jason's eyes, killing the joker is the only way Bruce can prove that he does but instead, in that moment, Bruce's attempt to diffuse the situation backfires.

Bruce misunderstands what Jason needs in that moment like he misunderstood what Jason needed at the start of Death in the Family it's just the ultimate representation of their constant emotional feedback loop. They trap themselves in a cycle of fighting because Jason can't read how Bruce really feels and Bruce can't read what Jason really needs and in that moment both those things are true, with Jason not seeing that Bruce truly cares anymore, and Bruce not knowing how to properly deescalate the situation and show Jason that he still cares.

It's extremely easy to read the batatrang throw as purposeful even though I wholly believe it was accidental but if that moment was explored more, I'm positive that Jason would believe it wasn't an accident, and would view it as proof of his already held view that Bruce doesn't love him anymore after all, that could have killed him, symbolically disowning him in the most extreme way possible.

Heck in Jason's appearance in Green Arrow (2001) Bruce had thought Jason might have died again! Before Jason turned up to mess with Mia.

The thing that's tragic about Jason that actually leads to a lot of his own suffering is that Jason doesn't really know what a healthy relationship looks like so I'm not sure when his actual 'last straw' would be.

Jason is the kind of person who sees love and acceptance as entirely circumstantial. He believes he must /earn/ love and acceptance, i.e. by being Robin, rather than it being inherently given.

A huge piece of understanding Robin Jason is understanding how much he lacked proper support systems back then. School was his only connection to his kids his age, and he didn't benefit much from that connection, his life was essentially: manor, school, Robin, repeat.

Jason loved school, but his school life was also pretty depressing. Jason kept to himself, he didn't have the time to participate in extracurriculars even when he wanted to and his peers didn't view him very positively. Jason was also really isolated from the rest of the hero community, there was his stint with the Titans, but it was pretty brief. He was also penpals with Kid Devil, but for the most part, he just had Batman.

The lack of support is actually one of the reasons I give for Jason and Steph dying in universe since they were the two Robins without support systems outside of Gotham. When Bruce was a jerk Dick and Tim could be like 'fine I'm going to go hang out with the Teen Titans or Young Justice' but Jason and Steph could only be like 'oh no' plus Bruce would deliberately try to take away Steph's support systems that she did have multiple times like when he ordered Cass to stop training with Steph.

But that's besides the point, I wouldn't be surprised if Jason confused being Robin with being accepted in the manor so when Bruce threatened to take away Robin from him, he might've seen it as his only proper support system being taken away from him, his world felt rocked back into instability once again.

When you look at it like that, it's very easy to understand why Jason sought out his biological mother. He had a hope that Sheila would offer him that stability once more, and that he'd get support and trust and unconditional love.

And that’s what make it all the more heartbreaking to me he came to this woman seeking love and gave her his greatest secret and she repaid him with a horrific death.  Jason’s death is one of the saddest to me because there’s no high stakes 'he died saving the world stuff' he’s just a kid who wanted a mom and got killed for it.

DC’s habit of taking away who he was is so detrimental to his backstory as the Red Hood because the transformation from someone who tried being kind and who did give it their all being killed for it and coming back like ‘no more’ is so much more interesting than ‘we always knew this would happen’.

Robin disobeying orders is nothing new. If that was the core of why Jason died, then any Robin disobeying orders should never be put in a positive light, but often it is. Jason (and Steph) were just the ones unlucky enough to emerge dead and judged for it instead of alive and praised for it.

Jason died because he was a child who just wanted to be safe and loved.

So many times Robin disobeying orders saved lives it’s nothing new and Jason had a pretty solid reason, the story of Jason Todd should be portrayed as the tragedy not make him some warning sign.

This is why I always hated the victim blaming after Jason & Steph's deaths because they died doing what if it had been Tim or Dick a Robin would be praised for, like take Steph for example we've seen constant stories of Bruce firing Robin, them going off on their own & Bruce realising he's wrong & taking them back but when Steph goes off on her own she dies the only reason Jason & Steph died is that the writers forced them to fail where they would have allowed the others to succeed.

But anyway back to my point the thing about Jason feeling like he had to earn love is why he was initially so hung up on the idea of Bruce 'replacing' him when he came back to life, he viewed Tim being robin as Bruce /transferring/ his love for Jason to another person, rather than seeing that Bruce could love Tim while still loving and missing him.

The reason Jason sought out his mother after Bruce benched him as Robin was that he viewed Bruce benching him as Bruce rejecting him and latched onto the idea of finding someone, i.e. a birth mother, who is supposed to give /unconditional love/.

The fact that his birth mother REJECTED HIM and then played a hand in his murder undoubtedly affected his attitude when he came back, if even his mother didn't want him, and then Bruce let the joker live and replaced him, then, in Jason's eyes, OF COURSE Bruce doesn't care and as mentioned previously Jason didn't really have any friends in school or the hero community, believing that the only real close personal connection in your live, someone you spent all your time with, had forgotten about you and rejected you is bound to mess a person up.