Work Text:
“Don’t lean forward Robin. Try to rotate your whole body in one motion when you go to land a hit.”
When Batman had mentioned combat training all those months ago she never thought she’d actually be here.
“Straighten your feet, you want stability when you throw a punch.”
Batman had sent her a signal right after curfew at the academy had started for the night. This time, Mia was luckily in her room and didn’t have to explain the tiny beeping coming from the calling device to anyone around. Half an hour later, a black car was waiting outside in front of the academy’s living quarters. Not the Batmobile, but Mia could recognize Mr. Wayne's butler in the car window from the first time she visited the cave. She contemplated calling Olive before she left to tell her the news, but decided she’d tell her all about it later. She’d have more to talk about that way. Reaching far under her bed, she pulled out her Robin suit, stuffing it in her backpack along with her brand new glitter pens and her detective notebook.
Batman never told her what job he had for her until they met face to face. She always had to be prepared for anything. So all of her other case solving supplies stayed put in her bright yellow backpack.
She slung the backpack over her shoulder and snuck out the door, careful to not let anyone see or hear her.
Training wasn’t going exactly like how she pictured it in her head. Mia was thrilled that Batman was serious about letting her join in on more official hero business (that’s what this training meant right?) but training had turned out to be a slower process than she expected it to be. She knew that stuff like hand positioning, feet placement, and balancing her body weight were all important, of course. But she really wanted to get to the part where she could start learning how to kick some butt.
Mia was new to this hero thing but she wouldn’t call herself a newbie. She could throw a decent punch albeit not a very graceful one, or one that wouldn’t leave her knuckles bruised the next day. But she could scale the side of her living quarters in under a minute without a grapple. She counted! And she had been doing some sparring practice with Katherine on the weekends. So she was hoping Batman would have sped up her training a little bit since she already had some skills under her belt.
But she’s starting to learn Batman doesn't count her mediocre fighting skills as experience.
Her wish was granted after over an hour of the pure basics. when Batman had wheeled out an old worn out punching bag and started teaching her how to throw a proper punch. It took awhile to get the motion down, the proper way of doing it being completely unfamiliar to how she was doing it before. Her hands were killing her and she couldn’t get her stance quite right but she was definitely making progress. This was the first step towards actual crime fighting!
Mia threw her whole body into the next punch, practicing the motions Batman had taught her. And for the first time that night the force of her hit wasn’t being thrown back at her. She hit the bag, her punch making a clean snapping sound, the bag rocking back and forth. She looked up at Batman, impressed with herself. “Good job Robin. Same thing agai-” he was cut off by a buzz in his ear.
He turned away from the training area, tapping his ear to answer the com device.
“Red Robin report,” Batman said, switching to the voice he spoke in when he was giving her case information. Mia guessed it was his patrol voice, aka his big scary Batman voice. She could faintly hear another voice on the other side of the com before Batman walked off to one of the cave's computers and the voice slowly went out of range. The detective in her wanted to follow and find out what’s so important, but she stayed put.
She didn’t realize until now just how huge the batcave was. Everywhere she looked there was a new doorway or platform that led to somewhere else. And everywhere there wasn’t a new area, there was some sort of item on display. It was an impressive collection, some she recognized, some she didn’t. But the thing she was interested in the most was the different suits all kept in tall glass display cases. There were tons of versions of Batman’s suits lined up in one area, the Batgirl suits sat in another area. And scattered throughout the cave were the Robin suits.
Mia looked around the cave and counted. 1… 2… 3… 4… four Robin suits. So four Robin’s had come before her? She knew there had been more than one, since Robin couldn’t stay the same age forever, and she’d met the current and former Robin but she never knew exactly how many there were. Maybe one day she’d get to help train a new Robin herself.
When Batman returned minutes later, he was in full uniform holding the cowl in his hand. “I’ll be back soon Mia. Keep practicing what you’ve learned tonight, I’ll be back to take you home to the academy when I return.” He walked off quickly to the garage area of the cave before she could respond.
She heard the Batmobile roar and the secret exit gate slide upwards. She peaked around the top of the stairs just quick enough to see the car speed off down the tunnel. Once she couldn’t hear the car anymore it took her a second to realize.
She was alone now. In the batcave!
The bat cave even though it was now empty, wasn't very quiet. If Mia closed her eyes, she could focus in on the sounds. She could hear the chirping and squeaking of bats tucked away in the darker sections of the cave, drops of water falling to the floor in the lower section of the cave and the constant soft buzz that came from the massive computer monitor in the centre.
Mia kicked the punching bag hard enough to hear the sound echo loudly throughout the cave. A few bats retreated deeper into the cave at the sound.
She turned around to get back to her training when the sound of an engine speeding down the tunnel caught her attention instead. Was Batman back already? Probably not, it sounded more like a motorcycle than the engine of the Batmobile. Definitely had to be one of the other bats. But who?
The motorcycle clicked off and someone started walking up the stairs. “Don’t mind me Batman I’m just in quick for a gear restock.” Mia jumped at the voice and peaked around the corner. “Hello? Who’s here? Batgirl?”
She hears the person laugh as they reach the top of the stairs. “Not Batgirl, but you're almost right!” she joked.
The person in front of her was dressed in a black and purple uniform with a yellow bat across her chest. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail and her mask was balled up in her hand.
Mia gasps. “I haven’t met you yet! You’re…” she paused for a second, tapping her finger on her cheek trying to remember. “Oh my gosh! You’re Spoiler!” Mia beamed as Stephanie came over to the training mats.
“You’re Maps right?” Steph asked. “Oracle’s told me about you.”
Oracles mentioned her to the other bats before!?
“Yep! Maps or Mia Mizoguchi! Founder of the Gotham academy detective club and Robin in training.”
“Robin in training, hm?” Stephanie paused, looking over at the equipment left on the training mat. “So what’s Batman got you doing?” Steph asked, walking over to a blank section of wall behind her.
“Mostly the basics. Balance, how to properly hold a fist so I don’t break my hand. And right before he left we started learning different types of punches.”
Stephanie pressed a button next to the blank section of wall and out dramatically slid two sides of a cabinet stocked with everything a utility belt could ever need. Mia looked on in awe. Steph turned around. “Batman left you here alone?” she asked Mia.
“Yeah but he said he’d be back soon though, I think he got a call from Red Robin?”
Steph laughed to herself. “Yeah, when Batman says he’ll be back soon he’s usually out all night. Especially if he got a call from Red.”
Mia hopes that’s not the case, as cool as spending the night in the cave would be, she can only stay away from the academy for so long. Olive would come back from her late night reading at the library and notice she was gone. And if she didn’t get back by morning one of the house supervisors would definitely notice her missing, and she really did not want to make up a story for when they would eventually call her parents.
“Sorry I wasn’t in my dorm, Mom and Dad. I was just training with Batman, no big deal.”
Mia watched as Stephanie started grabbing supplies from the cabinet and snapping it into the compartments of her belt. She grabbed a lollipop from a drawer, tore the wrapper off and popped it into her mouth. “Want one?” Steph asked, holding one of the lollipops out without looking, still focused on her task. Mia grabbed the candy and stuffed it in her pocket. “Batman keeps lollipops in his utility belt?” Steph looked back at her. “Oh yeah, he’s got a bunch of stuff in here. I never pack as much as he and Nightwing do but check this out”
Steph pulled open some of the drawers and started listing items. “We got glow in the dark smoke bombs, a bunch of cameras that look like other stuff, bat shaped dog biscuits, explosive batarangs, tons of goodies in here,” Steph said, slamming one of the drawers shut.
“It’s fun to throw in one of the weird ones for missions sometimes but tonight it’s just the basics,” Steph said, snapping closed the last full pouch on her belt.
Mia hoped one day soon that she’d get to do this. She wanted her own belt that she can pick and choose what to fill it with. She wanted her own fancy uniform made just for her. One that could go up on display in its own case one day. When she had all that then it’d really be official. She’d actually be a Robin.
During the time she was daydreaming, Spoiler had put her mask back on and flipped her hood up. Mia didn’t know she was staring till Spoiler asked her a question. “Hey, why don’t you come on patrol with me?” Steph asked.
The question caught Mia off guard so much that she jumped in surprise. “Wait, seriously?!”
“Yeah sure, why not? It’s a pretty lax night for crime so far and you need some experience right?”
That was very true; she did need experience. She didn’t think Batman would approve, but he let the last few times he’d caught her sneaking off campus for the sake of one of her own cases slide. And it would be actually impossible for Mia to decline the chance to go out on an official patrol with a real Gotham hero.
“If you’re really a hundred percent sure I can come along, then yes! Of course I want to go,” she said, trying to keep her composure.
“You got a suit?”
Mia looked around the room and sprinted to the other side of the training mat. Sliding to a stop she reached for her backpack. She rummaged through it for a second before pulling out the top to her Robin suit and raising it above her head to show Stephanie. “Got it!”
Steph smiled back at her, giving a thumbs up.
“Oh by the way, Maps.”
“Yeah?” Mia asked, walking back over to Stephanie.
“You told me your name earlier so I'm going to tell you mine. Stephanie. Stephanie Brown,” she said proudly.
“Are you sure you're allowed to tell me your name, Stephanie?”
“Are you sure you were allowed to tell me yours, Mia?”
Mia looked embarrassed at that realization. Yes, Mr. Wayne told her his identity, but she never asked if she was allowed to give it out to others while on Robin business.
“Plus, if you’re one of us, you get to know my name no matter what Batman has to say about it.” Steph said smiling back at her.
Oh. So she probably wasn’t supposed to tell Spoiler her name. Well, it’s too late now.
Steph walked over to the bat computer and Mia followed behind her. The screen glowed green as she clicked around on the monitor. Mia thought it was funny that such a big screen was still controlled by a normal sized keyboard and mouse. But she guessed that it made sense that it wouldn’t be very efficient if they were scaled to the same size.
She looked up at the screen. Spoiler had clicked into a menu labeled patrol report where she clicked on her name. “Normally I could do this from my com but since we’re here, this is how I log how long I’ve been on patrol for and what I’ve done while I was out. This time we’ll just leave out that I’m bringing you along,” she said as she clicked out of the log and closed the folder.
“Alright suit up! Let’s get going. Robin.”
——🍊——
Okay so this wasn’t Steph’s brightest idea and she knew that. She also knew that Bruce was definitely going to give her an earful about her essentially kidnapping the newest Robin for a late night patrol. But in her defence, he clearly wasn’t prioritizing her training tonight considering he left her in the cave all by herself. She was just doing what Batman wouldn’t.
And to her at least, the best way to get experience as a street hero was to actually be out on the streets. She’d be safe about it, of course, picking the safer of her two main patrol routes. The one that attracted the more business based side of crime and less of the putting-your-life-on-the-line combat heavy kind. And since Gotham was all but dead for crime tonight, Spoiler’s plan for the new Robin was as safe as it could get.
She decided they’d do a quick circle of her section of the east end. Getting around the area efficiently did require a lot of rooftop hopping. She didn’t know how good Maps would be at that but if she struggled, she guessed it would be a good teaching moment. Walking through the alleys was an option, but Steph liked to avoid the gross Gotham alleyways unless it was absolutely necessary.
When they got to the first set of hop-able rooftops, Stephanie stayed close behind Maps to catch her if she fell. But after she jumped her fifth rooftop without any problem, she realized she didn’t have to, the kid was a natural at this. She picked up her pace catching up so they could jump side by side.
Stephanie had never gotten the chance to make an impression on a new member of the bats before, especially not another Robin. She was pretty far down the line in the list of Robin’s there had been. And Damian had rarely entertained her help back when she was Batgirl. But something about Maps reminded her of her younger self. Sneaking into the batcave in her homemade Robin costume, eager to prove she could be the next Robin. She was also reminded of how having that sense of eagerness went as well. She didn’t want to let something like that happen again.
They leaped through another street or so before settling on a rooftop that gave them a good vantage point of some of the usually more high activity areas. But still, it was suspiciously quiet. The typical hotspots for activity on her patrol route were ghost towns tonight. Which either meant she got lucky and all the henchmen decided to take a night off, or more realistically, all the bad guys were away planning something she’d have to deal with later. Steph guessed the latter.
For patrol areas that weren’t home to very much violent crime, the job was to sit and wait for something to happen. This was one of Stephanie’s favourite parts of the job, you wouldn’t believe the type of conversations you heard on a Gotham rooftop when someone thought nobody was listening. Her and Tim used to keep a log of their favourite conversations they overheard back in his Robin days.
She looked over at her mini sidekick for the night, who was currently hunched over and laser focused on writing something down in her notebook. “What'cha writing Robin?”
Mia snapped her head up. “Oh! just some notes in my Robin journal! Batman likes when I report on everything I’ve learned,” she said, turning her notebook around to proudly show off her notes.
“Can I take a look?” Steph asked.
“Sure! It’s nothing much yet, but I wanna get the start of the night down before we get into some more serious crime fighting.”
She took the notebook and started reading.
Official Robin Adventure Journal
May 19th:
Today’s original objective of starting my combat training with Batman has changed to something much more exciting. My first actual patrol! Spoiler, an ally of Batman, has taken me on a journey to the rooftops of Gothams east end. My hope is that this is the first patrol of many-
The journal reminded Stephanie exactly of the one she used to keep herself. Batman had encouraged her when she first started as Robin to keep, as he called it, a “war journal” to track her progress as Robin. Which was something she was doing ages before Batman had ever told her to. And looking at how far into the book this entry was she guessed the same was true for Maps too.
“Wow, this is exactly like the patrol diary I used to keep. Only mine was a lot more purple.”
“Do you still have one?” Maps asked.
“Yep! I usually forget it over at Batgirl's place though, but I’ve filled up tons of notebooks over the years, though it’s sorta nice to look back at where I started.”
“You think I’ll get to meet Batgirl? I met Oracle when she was Batgirl but I haven’t met the one dressed in all black.”
“If Batman doesn’t introduce you to Batgirl, I will. Trust me, she’d love to meet you.”
If Mia wasn’t literally out on patrol right now, that news would have been the most exciting thing she’d been told tonight.
Their conversation was cut off when Stephanie heard heavy footsteps on the street below, followed by the ping of metal dropping to the floor. “Robin look!” Steph half-whispered, giving Mia a nudge.
Down on the street below was a man trying and failing to pick the locked door of a small local art gallery. The man was clearly not very skilled at this. It was still a wonder to Stephanie why any sort of amateur would try to break into an expensive place like that, in Gotham of all places. Especially when a Bat is never too far behind any would-be criminal. Case in point, both of them watching him drop his lock pick on the ground for a third time as he swore under his breath.
“Are we gonna go down there and confront him?” Maps asked.
“Hm, we could but this guy looks like a runner, not a fighter. I’ve got something else we can try,” Stephanie reached into her belt and pulled out a small black disk shaped device and handed it to Maps.
She examined it, flipping it over trying to figure out what she was just handed. “What is it?”
“A little test gadget Red Robin gifted me. It's supposed to scan the area wherever you throw it and play a high pitched sound till the person detected is far enough away.”
Maps tried handing the device back to Spoiler but she grabbed her hand and stopped her. “All yours, Robin,” Steph smiled at her, nudging her head to point down to the street below. She could tell Mia was trying to stay quiet but she could see the excitement in her eyes. “Thank you, Spoiler!” she whispered.
The disk clacked onto the pavement below right by the would-be robber's feet. Right on cue, a high pitched beeping started to ring through the street. The man, just as Stephanie guessed, bolted down the street leaving behind his tools still stuck in the doors lock. The device is louder than expected, she couldn't hear it very well but she could tell Robin was bent over laughing. Steph felt proud, maybe she wasn't half bad at this mentor thing.
About thirty seconds went by and the disk was still beeping. Stephanie thought that probably shouldn't be happening. Robin cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “ISN'T IT SUPPOSED TO TURN OFF BY NOW?”
Steph yelled back, “YES. YES IT SHOULD HAVE.”
This was the last time she volunteered to test out a new gadget for Tim. She slid down the side of the building to go deal with the annoying little disk. Her first thought was to throw it as hard as she could onto the ground. This does nothing. Neither does stomping on it. Steph even tried prying it apart with the tip of a batarang to cut the wires on the inside, but of course, Tim made the thing indestructible. Cause why wouldn’t he?
She was trying to think of another way she could get this thing to shut up before it woke up the entire neighbourhood when she heard a faint shout.
“Spoiler! Throw it in the harbour!” Maps yelled from up on the roof, pointing to the other end of the street. That’s right, they were right down the street from the Gotham harbour!
Stephanie sprinted down the street and chucked the disk into the harbour. The disk did not stop beeping even when it hit the water, it just got quieter and quieter until it reached the bottom and she couldn't hear it anymore. Weren’t these gadgets supposed to be stealthy?
If Steph hadn’t learned to pick up on it, she wouldn’t have noticed Mia appear silently behind her. Wow, that kid is gonna be a natural at this she silently thought. Steph sighed, “Let’s never try that again.” She turns back from the harbour, apartment windows that weren’t lit a minute ago were suddenly on. “We should probably get out here.”
Mia notices the same thing she just did. “Agreed.”
——🍊——
They settled again a few blocks away on the rooftop of a street corner. Gotham had still decided to be on its best behaviour tonight (on the one night she could have used as a teaching moment). But it didn’t take long to find something her and Robin could do. Steph had pulled out her grapple hook and had started teaching Mia the steps of how to hook and swing the rope the proper way, so that she could climb buildings quicker than the way she was doing it now.
Normally, she’d use a grapple gun, but knowing how to use the normal rope and grapple was still an important skill to have. And one Steph still had to use if something ever happened to her gun on patrol.
“This way the next time you sneak out to patrol on your own you can actually get up a building quicker and safer,” Stephanie said as she pointed to a pole down below.
The two of them were currently taking turns to see who could hook the grapple onto one of the rusty old telephone poles across the street. “How do you know I do solo patrols?” Maps asked, swinging the hook and falling just short of the chosen pole. She sighed in defeat and lured the rope back in.
“Because you can leap over rooftops like it’s no issue, you can scale up and down the side of a three story building and you already have a suit made even though Batman hasn’t allowed you to patrol before.”
“I could just be a parkour enthusiast, you never know.”
“And the suit?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m a fan of traffic light inspired clothing,” Maps joked, handing the grapple back to Spoiler.
Maps pointed to a poll further away from the rest of the others and Stephanie stepped back to take her turn. She quickly swung the hook around and seconds later it latched tightly onto the chosen pole. Using the rope really wasn’t much different from the grapple gun, only a little less efficient. She was starting to take notice that she didn’t even need to think about where to aim anymore, the task is so familiar to her now that she could do it without thinking. She wondered when that happened, when so many of her skills became second nature.
Mia flopped back onto the pavement of the roof. “Ugh, you haven’t missed a single throw. You're supposed to be teaching me, not flexing on me.”
Steph jokingly put her hand to her chest and gasped, “I am teaching you! And I'd like to think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. You’ve hit that pole at least two out of the last seven times you’ve thrown it. You are, you are, I promise.”
Maps sat up from her flopping. Steph handed her back the grapple, this time with the rope neatly wrapped around the hook. “Here, yours to keep. Another tool for your backpack.”
Maps smiled and put the rope and hook in her away in her bag. “Seriously though, thank you for taking me out tonight Spoiler. Training with Batman is awesome but with how careful he is with the jobs he gives me, part of me didn’t think I’d be out here for a while. Or ever.”
That was something different between the two of them that Stephanie had noticed. While Bruce wanted to get her out on patrol as soon as he could when she was given the job, Bruce was slow with Maps. Oracle had mentioned Maps to her months ago and she had only just started training. Batman usually liked to get anyone new prepared for the type of work they do immediately and yet this was Mia’s first time out, and Steph had to ignore the rules to make it happen.
“Yeah, it’s important stuff and you’ve got a good teacher, but I know Batman can be a jerk about training sometimes. Especially when you're up to be Robin. I hope he’s not gonna work you too hard, it can get pretty brutal,” Steph was quiet for a second. “But I think he was tougher on me than the others back when I had the job though, so I’m not the best person to hear it from.”
“Wait, you were Robin? I thought there were only four?” Mia asked.
Her time as Robin wasn’t really something she brought up often, but was always something that existed in the back of her mind. Thinking about her Robin days always left her with a mix of hurt and bittersweet pride. For her, being Robin at first was a dream. It was proof that Batman saw her as an equal and not just a problem to deal with. But in reality, being Robin ended up as a constant trial of trying to prove herself worthy and still always falling flat in Batman's eyes.
One slip up and it was all over for her. Batman had fired her and had told her to leave the hero life behind. She still had her Robin suit balled up and collecting dust in a drawer from where she angrily threw it the night she was fired.
“Not for very long, but it still counts to me.”
“How come?” Mia asked. now putting all her attention on what Stephanie had to say.
“Red Robin had just quit the job and I gave Batman the idea that I could be his next Robin. He didn’t tell me no but he didn’t make any part of it easy, he gave me one condition. If I disobeyed him once I was out.”
“But that’s so unfair! I don’t listen to Batman all the time and he still gives me a chance.”
Stephanie can see that her story is making Maps upset, but it’s important to her not to downplay her time as Robin. She told people that she was the screw up in all of this for years. It was something she really did believe back then, but she knows now that her choices during and after her time as Robin aren’t something she should all put on herself. Even if she was the one that went through with them.
“Yes, but the difference is Batman trusts you. His trust wasn’t something I was given back then. Disobeying an order was enough for him to fire me, but if his trust is something you have, Batman will give you the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. I’m glad Batman trusts you, Robin.”
It took a long time for Steph to let go of the idea of needing Batman’s trust. For a while she had let the idea of proving herself to him consume her. She had forgotten why she became Spoiler in the first place, and if she hadn’t stepped away from the life for a while she wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken her to realize she didn’t need his trust at all.
She looked down at her sidekick, who was staring off into space frowning. She didn’t want her own experience to discourage her, Mia had so much potential to be an incredible Robin. She knew Batman thought so too.
“Don’t give up, okay? Tonight is all the proof I need to know you’re gonna do an amazing job. And when you graduate to full-time vigilante, me and you will go kick butt together all the time!”
And then, all of the sudden, the energy on the rooftop shifts. Someone was behind them.
“Robin,” she didn’t need to turn around to know who was on the rooftop behind them. Batman had noticed his Robin was gone and figured out where they were. She had been so focused on retelling her traumatic backstory that she hadn’t picked up on when exactly he started lurking behind them. Had he heard Steph call him a jerk? She secretly hoped so.
Mia turned around. “Batman! Sorry I left the cave but-” she was cut off by Batman’s deep voice.
“It’s all right, Robin. Let’s just get you back where you need to be,” Mia glanced back at Spoiler who gave her a small smile that silently said ‘it’s okay’. Mia got up and walked towards the side of the roof where Batman stood, and then shimmied her way down the side of the building, walking towards the Batmobile parked at the end of the street. It was just her and Batman now.
Batman stared back at her. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking and it’s impossible to know how much he heard. Before he got the chance to turn she spoke. “Just make sure you give her the chance she deserves Batman.”
He doesn’t say anything, he doesn't nod or grunt either, he just stood in silence for a second longer before turning around and climbing down the roof.
She knew he had heard her and he knew why she said it, Stephanie knew that. She just hoped he actually listened.
She looked down at the street and saw the Batmobile speed off. She got up to leave, but before she could on the ground next to her, she saw a torn piece of lined notebook paper, she picked it up.
Scribbled quickly on the paper is a note;
See you next time, Spoiler!
-Robin.