"Look, I just need to vent, okay?" Steph's not in the mood to quip. Or jest. Or tease. Not like usual.

She plops herself down onto her seat, with a heavy sigh. Leaning over, her elbows on the table, her fingers thread through her own blonde locks frustratedly, before she picks up her fork. She wanted to share a meal, and needed a listening ear—so she’s come all the way to her friend’s place. No masks.

"I just… I can't believe Tim didn't even tell me." She begins in a mumble. "As usual… I had to find out on my own."

Deep breath.

"I never got a memorial case. For being Robin."

And Steph knew Jason got one too. She’d seen the memorium display. Barbara explained it to her. He seemed to be treated like he was some problem child, who kept making things everyone else’s problem.

Well… Steph can relate to that.

What really eats at her: Stephanie knew Bruce said to her face, when she was lying on what could have been her death bed at the time: "Was it real? Was I ever really Robin?" She had asked.

"Of course you were." That was his words at the time. But Steph wonders if she heard Bruce correctly. Had his tone was the placating, indulgent sort adults use just to pacify a nagging child? (Who only wanted acceptance.) The tone that makes promises, ones that never hold.

Apparently, when Tim questioned Bruce about it, the answer Tim got? It was probably half-assed. Bruce saying something about how he suspected Stephanie was alive. (Dr. Thompkins helped sneak her out of the country and Steph got the chance to assist her with volunteer work in Africa, her death faked.)

Tim, who totally needed another lie about someone dead in his life. And Steph had to guess he really went through it if her ex later turned to the League of Assassins. That talk with Dıck giving Damian Robin didn’t go well. Then Tim made a series of terrible mistakes he’d fight to remedy, even asking for her help, but by that point the young boy behind Red Robin wasn’t even the same Tim she knew anymore. She recognized the grief everyone he lost in a year—it was in his eyes, glazed over.

The thought that Bruce knew all along that Stephanie was alive, and never bothered to tell her ex about his brutally murdered girlfriend not actually being dead. How shitty is that?

Even then...

Steph had always felt it. And maybe it finally sunk in: Tim never saw her as an equal, did he? She loved him—she could hear in his voice how torn he was during those days she was let go of training by the Birds of Prey. She remembers how he comforted her, sat with her and held her in his arms.

He would acknowledge that the Spoiler wasn't going to stop. But then he held in his anger, held his tongue when it mattered.

She still had to figure out who he was on her own—it was confirmed by the big Bat for her, and she had hoped their relationship would finally start. Tim wasn’t happy about Bruce going ahead and telling Steph in advance.

Even with phone and email contacts, there was the ghosting; Spoiler used to wander blindly on the rooftops hoping she'd even run across him.

It was always about what his mentor thought of him. His duty. She thinks back to those moments he kept telling her to quit, that she wasn't ready. Then he continuously refused to train her. He had an ugly trend of keeping his partners at bay. Even if Steph could accept dating Robin as Spoiler and Steph. But it would never be Steph and Tim.

Typical Tim, withholding info from her. Of course Steph has to be nosy to get anywhere with the Bat and his allies. Or maybe Stephanie’s remembering how that raging, cynical teen with a loudmouth has never seemed to go away. No one other than Dinah really seemed to care about her situation.

Did any of them really care?

An ugly thought takes root: 'he never wanted you to succeed.'

Whether that’s Tim—ever dutiful—or Bruce, comparing Steph so much to Tim during training… “You hit like a girl,” she remembers him criticizing from behind those punching targets.

Stephanie doesn’t know.

A sigh as she picks at her food again.