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Stephanie remembers ever detail about that moment. They never really leave her. The cold wind whipping by, freezing the tears sliding down her cheeks, but doing little to cool the inferno pumping through her blood. The weight of the chain in her hands as she pulled them tighter around her dad's throat. The whacka-whacka sound of the helicopter blades. Batman yelling at her to stop. Then the quite gagging noise from Cluemaster, the only indication of his imminent death. A crushed windpipe is a horrible way to go.
(Some days Steph thinks she was planing on letting him go. Others that she wanted to pull tighter. Never does she feel pity when she remembers him grabbing at his throat desperate for air.)
Batman grabbed her seconds later. She didn't resist. Couldn't resist really. The fire that had been burning through her veins moments ago had turned to ice. All the anger, the hate was gone. She was numb. What comes next was a bit of a daze. She remembers getting shoved into a cop car. She remembers the cell, somehow isolated despite the usually overcrowded stations. She gets a lawyer sent from the city, who says she can't get in touch with Stephanie's mom. That shocks her a lot less than she thinks it should. Her lawyer tells her that the DA wants to make the whole thing quick and easy. She pleads guilty, gets eighteen months in jail, and is on probation until she's in her twenties. It's an easy call to make. She's guilty, no reason to fight about it.
(She thinks she should have been locked away longer, but her dad was a C-list crook. No one is sad to see him go.)
Juvie is an odd experience for Stephanie. She spends the first few months totally out of it. It's like living in a fog. She doesn't try to make friends or attach herself to people the way she used to. Not many pay her any mind. She's just another kid from Crime Alley. She's one of seven just in her cell block.
(Steph remembers once dreaming about beating the odds. Of not being like her father. Sometimes it makes her want to laugh. Sometimes it makes her want to cry.)
Less than three months since she gets locked up she's told she has a call. Her first since she arrived. At first she thinks it's her mom, finally remembering she has a daughter. She's sort of right. It's Gotham General, her mom had taken a bottle and a half of Vicodin, then went to sleep. She never woke up. The doctors don't think it was an accident. First she goes cold again. Then the anger comes back. Bone deep and so hot that it feels like she's going to burn up from the inside out.
(She can't say who she's mad at. Her mom, for leaving her. Her dad, for pushing her to the pills in the first place. Herself, for giving her mom a reason to want give up.)
This time the anger doesn't go away. It stays with her, an itch under her skin. It winds her up like a jack-in-the-box, or a cat ready to pounce. To her it feels like the world is holding its breath, just before a big storm. All calms however must come to an end. Steph doesn't know who the girl was or even what happened to piss her off. It starts with a few cruel words, nothing she can't ignore, but the first shove manages to shatter the dam. It takes three guards to pull her off. The other girl is a bloody mess. For the moment the itch has stopped, her blood cools. It doesn't last long, but any relief is better than none. Word spreads fast, and the others look at her differently now. They avoid her, worried that they might be the next to set her off.
("Did you hear about that one" they whisper when she passes. "Girl is totally crazy. Heard she killed her own dad. That she took on the Batman. Hardcore bitch.")
By the time she gets out her caseworker has her set up in a group home only a few blocks from her old house. She even knows a few of the kids that live there. She's there barely a week before the anger resurfaces. The itch under her skin. Gotham is filthy. Rotten to the core. She can feel it all around her. Lot's of kids in the the neighborhood have the same story she does, thug for a dad, junkie for a mom. Trapped with no way out.
(The youngest kids swap stories about Batman saving them the way other kids their age would talk about Santa. Steph thinks about the times she used to have the same stories. Then she remembers an eggplant cloak and the feel of daddy choking to death. She doesn't have the heart to tell them that Batman can't save them, not from daddy and not from themselves.)
Then comes the sickness, and then the quakes. Like the Earth itself is trying to rid itself of the ugly scar called Gotham. The first few days are madness and hell, but when it's over Steph steps into the ruins with all her limbs and only a few scratches. She decides to put herself to use in one of the few safe stations in the city. Mostly it's stitching up cuts from the new jagged corners of their world.
(Mom always said she had a talent for sewing.)
The anger has only gotten worse when the world fell. Everyday some new shell shocked survivor wanders into their little oasis with a new horror story about the terror brought by the gangs no longer bound by a fear of the law. The boiling in her blood is so bad that she can't ever sleep. Within days she's wandering the streets at night. Not ignorant of the danger, but unconcerned. One night she hears a scream as she passes a crumbling apartment. Most people would convince themselves to rush on by. She is not most people. Grabbing a brick she rushes toward the sound. A couple of thugs have a girl around her age cornered, her top in tatters. Steph's blood boils over. The first of the hoods gets the brick across the back of his head. He falls to the ground like a puppet without strings. His buddy rounds on her. He goes to shout, but catches a brick to the face instead. As he lies on ground bleeding the girl rushes past, too consumed by fear and shame to feel much gratitude. Steph doesn't mind. All she can feel is hate. The same hate she used to feel for her dad now focused on the bleeding man. Only now it's harder, sharper. The heat of her anger has a cold edge to it. Without really thinking about what she is doing she grips the brick harder and brings it down on the man's face. Over, and over, and over again. She breaths in battery acid as she looks down at the ruins that once was a man's face. How long has she been here? Hours? Days? A Lifetime? She can't say. She's in a daze when she finally wanders back to the shelter.
(She sleeps like a baby.)
The next day the anger has faded, the itch has been scratched. The relief is only temporary. Within days the anger is back, stronger than ever. Now though she knows what she needs to do to stop it. On some level Steph knows what she's doing is a terrible monstrous thing, but these are terrible monstrous times. Beasts walk the ruins of Gotham's streets. She's careful, follows the stories the wide eyed survivors tell her. She gets good at tracking, hunting, the criminals that now act fearlessly. Hunts them and hurts them and makes sure they stop, forever.
(Prison never was able to hold dad for long.)
Soon stories spread. Gotham is a city of myths. Their heroes aren't cheered through the streets. They get passed around in hushed whispers. Stephanie one of Gotham's daughters through and through. She understands the power of superstition. Spoiler is dead and buried. She puts together a new costume, and makes it to strike fear into the hearts of those she fights. People rescued offer her gifts. Most simply offer her information or help hide her from those looking to get their own vengeance. Others offer more tangible gifts. An old man with a talent for metalworking builds her a new mask and a bladed gauntlet to fight with. A retired boxer shows her a few techniques. A chemist cooks up a smokescreen to hide her actions. Slowly a legend is born.
(Stephanie always liked playing dress up. It was nice to pretend she was someone else when she was growing up.)
In time Batman is able to drag his city back from the no man's land it had become. In time lives return to normal. Except for Steph's. No one goes looking for Stephanie Brown, and she never makes a point to change that. Let the world think she's dead. It's close enough to the truth. Stephanie Brown is a ghost now. A Phantasm, and she has a lot of work ahead of her.
(Gotham City, your angel of death awaits.)