Tag: jason todd

What’s So Amazing That Keeps Us Stargazing

cerusee:

Originally on AO3.

“I don’t have eyes on Spoiler,” Oracle said, crisply.

“When did you lose her?”  Batman asked.

“Ten minutes ago.  I don’t know what’s going on.”  Oracle hesitated.  “I’m not sure, Batman, but I think she might be in distress.”

“Understood.”

***

Bruce followed the real-time trail of breadcrumbs Oracle was assembling for him.  It seemed as arbitrary and as careless as she was, going everywhere and nowhere.

And then it landed there.  On the roof of a hospital.  Spoiler was
there, sitting back against a chimney, the cape pooling around her as
she bent over her knees, head cradled in her hands, her forearms resting
along her thighs.

She was shaking, sobbing, helplessly.

Bruce knelt by her.  “Spoiler?”

“Don’t touch me,” Spoiler managed, her chest heaving.  “Don’t you come near me.”

Bruce stood up and carefully retreated a few feet away.  “Oracle is worried about you.”

Spoiler shook her head violently, and pushed herself upwards,
dragging her mask off her face and wiping her eyes, still sagging back
against the chimney.  “Oracle doesn’t like me.”

“She’s worried about you,” Bruce repeated.

Stephanie straightened her back and tilted her head up, so that she
was looking straight up into oblivion. “You know what I’m starting to
figure out?” she said.  “That worry and love and like aren’t all the same.”

“Spoiler…”

“That girl,” Stephanie said, her voice full of anguish.  “That little girl.”

“She’s going to be all right, Spoiler.”

Stephanie shoved her face into Bruce’s, her bare nose right up against the tip of the thick kevlar cowl.  “She’s not,” Stephanie said, with their faces not an inch apart.  “They cut her foot off, Batman.  She’s never going to be okay.”

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Enter Spoiler

cerusee:

Also on AO3.

There are probably worse ways to make a first impression on Batman,
Steph thought giddily, pressing her wadded up cape against the bullet
graze on Robin’s skull.  The blow had knocked him unconscious, and the
bullet had cut away hair and skin, leaving a long, jagged scrape that
was currently bleeding copiously over her thighs.  She looked down at
her lap and was suddenly reminded of the time when she was thirteen and
she got caught unawares without a tampon or a pad or anything.

A dark and ominous presence dropped down beside her.

“Robin,” Batman said, in a voice that crept in the shadows.  She totally wasn’t intimidated by it, not even a little bit.

“It’s just a graze, it’s not too deep,” Steph said, lifting her cape
from the wound long enough to let him see for himself.  “My, uh, my mom,
she’s a nurse.  I know first aid.  I think he’s just gonna needs
stitches or staples?”

Batman stood, but he kept looking down at Robin, lying in her lap.

“You should go,” Steph blurted.  “You’ve got to catch them, Batman!”

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