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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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1,640
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1/1
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Airing Out The Truth

Summary:

When Tim’s not Robin, Steph tells his parents the truth about why he should be.

Work Text:

Airing Out The Truth 

 

Steph couldn’t believe she was doing this; outing herself as it were.

 

But it had to be done. Tim belonged out there on the streets, flying the less-than-friendly skies…making things safe.

 

Maybe even more than she did.

 

So she knocked on the door, and when Tim’s stepmom answered, she smiled and said, “Um, I know Tim isn’t here, but I really needed to talk to you and Mr. Drake.”

 

Dana seemed a bit nonplussed, but let her in, and within minutes they were all gathered in the living room.

 

“What’s this about, Stephanie?” Jack asked, and if his voice was a bit brusque, outwardly he appeared as polite as ever. Inwardly…well, Steph put it off to his knowing that Tim was out with his friends and worrying that those friends moonlighted wearing capes.

 

If he only knew… But then, that was the whole point. “I’m here because you made Tim quit being Robin.”

 

Jack opened his mouth, probably to deny it, so Steph steamrollered over his bald lies, saying, “And I think you should rescind that order.”

 

“W-what are you talking about?” Dana asked, looking back and forth between Jack and Stephanie. “Tim is…who?”

 

Oh, now this was fantastic. Jack Drake was a real shmuck on top of being a bad father. “Tim is Robin. You know, partner to Batman? Saver of lives in Gotham City?”

 

“Not anymore he isn’t,” Jack said, and Steph swore she could see steam coming out of his ears. His face was already red, nearly the color of the Robin tunic.


“Yeah, because you made him quit. How could you do that?” Steph demanded.


“He’s my son,” Jack said. “And–”

 

Steph’s eyes narrowed. “And you’ve never acted like his father before, so why start now?”

 

Glowering at her, Jack continued, “–and it isn’t safe for him out there, and because I am his father, he’ll do what I tell him.”

 

“Because you blackmailed Batman, not because he thinks it’s the right thing or because he respects you.” Steph felt victory rush through her as that barbed comment hit its mark.

 

“Tim is… And that’s why… And you… Oohhh, Jack, why didn’t you tell me?” Dana demanded, turning to her husband. Confusion and anger and worry and a dozen other things warred for control of her facial expression. “And you…blackmailed someone? How?”

 

“He held a gun on Batman and threatened to expose his secret identity to the world,” Steph supplied.


Dana was not slow on the uptake; she put it together almost as fast as Steph had. “But that…if everyone knew, then that would put everyone in danger, even Tim!” She stared aghast and accusingly at her husband.

 

“That doesn’t matter, I…” Jack opened and closed his mouth, searching for the words to explain himself. Dana’s expression grew even more stormy, and Jack wilted. Having failed to find a way to tell his wife he’d done the right thing, Jack turned on Steph. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

 

“My father is dead, and my mom couldn’t care less.” That last wasn’t entirely true, but ever since her pregnancy, Steph and her mother had been more like casual roommates than parent and child. Steph didn’t need mothering anymore, and even if she had, her mother still didn’t know how.

 

“Now I can’t believe that,” Dana said, turning hard eyes on Stephanie. “Your mother is always very conscientious about letting you know when she has to work late and where she’s going to be when; I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t expect the same from you.”

 

Sometimes Gotham could seem so small; her mother worked for the same hospital as her boyfriend’s mother. Other times Gotham seemed huge; the gulf between her father’s profession and Tim’s was…wider than the Grand Canyon “You know her as a good nurse.” Steph nodded, feeling her face scrunch, trying not to frown. “I remember her as the women who washed down a bottle of pills with a bottle of Jack Daniels everyday, and only rarely remembered to feed me. When I was seven I learned to make myself macaroni and cheese in the microwave before they even invented Easy Mac.”

 

Dana actually looked shocked. Steph almost laughed, but didn’t. Her mother’s checkered past would have been in confidential files, and she wouldn’t have talked about it. “You mean you didn’t know? My mom’s an addict. She’s gotten clean and managed to stay that way for longer that I thought she would, but once an addict, always addicted, right?”

 

Jack cleared his throat. “I still don’t see what that has to do with–”

 

Steph interrupted him, trying to keep control. “That’s my mother. My father is – was – the Cluemaster. He tried to pull off the Riddler’s shtick and failed most of the time.”

 

“And you decided to become a superhero?” Now Jack looked surprised.

 

Steph smiled at him, showing lots of teeth. “Kids don’t always follow in their parents footsteps. I don’t seem Tim traipsing off all over the world leaving you guys home alone.”

 

Jack flushed and started to rise from his chair. “Young lady, I’ve just about enough of this–“

 

“And I’ve had just about enough of you pretending to be a good father!” Steph shouted him down. Control, control, she told herself, and lowered her voice as Jack lowered himself back down to his seat. “I know about men pretending to be good fathers, all the while convincing themselves that doing what they want is what’s best for their family. Men who are never there except when they want to be, and think because their kid isn’t out in the streets killing people that they aren’t internalizing all their problems. Men who think they have the right to control someone they don’t even know, just because they provided the sperm.”

 

Jack shook his head helplessly. “That’s not…”

 

“What you intended to do?” Steph asked. “So what? It’s what you did. Tim was Robin for four years, Mr. Drake. Four. Years.” Her mother had known about her after less than two. Granted, there had been extenuating circumstances, but still. Her mother hadn’t known because her mother had been either high or drunk or both; Jack and Dana just weren’t there. “And you were never around enough to know. He gets a black eye from some thug and you believe him when he tells you he tried out for football practice, because you don’t know him well enough to know that his school doesn’t even have a football team!”

 

“I…” Jack’s face seemed frozen in an expression of shock. Dana was almost crying.

 

Steph tried to feel bad for them, especially Dana, but all she felt was empty. Drained of emotion. “Look, I know you think you’re doing what’s best for Tim. Trying to give him a normal life. But Tim hasn’t had a normal life since he saw Nightwing’s parents die. And you’ve removed him from the community where all his friends are. His support, the people who keep him from going nuts.”

 

“But…but what about Ives?” Dana asked, plainly grasping at straws. “Or that Bernard boy?”

 

Steph nodded. “Yeah, there’s them. Unlike me, they don’t know that Tim was Robin. And they’re the only two ‘civilian’ friends Tim has.”

 

“What about you?” Jack asked, finally finding his voice.

 

This time Steph did laugh. “Mr. Drake, I’ve been a superhero for as long as Tim has.” Well, maybe a little less time, but she was making up for it now. Unfortunately.

 

Aghast once more, Jack demanded, “And your mother lets you do…that?”

 

Not bothering to hide her scorn, Steph looked him in the eye. “She lost the right to tell me what to do when I started paying the bills because she was too out of it to know what day it was.” She’d been able to forge both of her parent’s signatures by the time she was twelve. The wonder wasn’t that she’d become Spoiler, but that she hadn’t become a part-time forger; the money would certainly be better.

 

And again, the shock on both their faces was priceless. Had they honestly lived so long in their suburban upper-class life that they’d forgotten this was Gotham, and shit happened to everyone?

 

Steph shook her head and rose to her feet, turning towards to the door. “Look,” she said, pausing in the doorway to face them one last time. “I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t have blackmail information on you, after all.” Except for the emotional kind, of course. She let her lips twist into a wryness she didn’t feel at that thought. “But I can tell you this. The boy who you think lives upstairs? The one who goes to sleep every night at ten and gets his homework done the night it’s assigned and turns in perfect A papers and has no teenage angst. He isn’t who you think he is.” She let that soak in for a moment, before continuing, voice unswayed by the emotions bubbling beneath her skin, “He isn’t a boy. He doesn’t go to sleep at ten; he’s been living on four hours sleep a night for as many years. He was making those straight As even while being Robin five nights a week. You don’t know him at all, and you don’t know what he needs. What he needs isn’t in this house, it’s out there.” Steph jabbed a finger at the window. “And the longer you keep him from it, the more he’s going to slip away. And sooner or later, you’ll lose any chance you had of getting to know him.”

 

Jack and Dana Drake sat silently in the living room of their comfortable suburban home, listening to the echo of the slamming door. Both of them unable to come up with a rebuttal for the scathing words of one teenage girl…when those words were the truth.