Chapter Text
For six hours everything was perfect. Six hours where nothing mattered except that Stephanie was alive and home. She’d started to explain what had happened, but every time she tried they had gotten side tracked. None of it seemed important. Stephanie was alive. In the face of that, what else could possibly matter?
Six hours between when Stephanie approached her in the hallway and when she went to bed and left Crystal alone with her thoughts.
Six hours, and then the bubble popped.
Crystal tried to maintain it, explanations would come later, there would be a time to talk about everything. A time that wasn’t now. Now was for focusing on the miracle that was Stephanie and the joy that came with it.
But once she was alone, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from wandering.
Africa. What on earth had Stephanie been doing in Africa for over a year and a half (one year, nine months, twelve days)? She’d said a doctor had been with her, been the one to take her there. What kind of doctor would take a child to a foreign country without a word? And the body- who had she been? Who was the poor girl they’d buried under the name Stephanie Brown? Was her mother out there somewhere, stuck in a purgatory of uncertainties?
Did Batman know? If what Arthur had uncovered was true, that Stephanie had been Robin, then maybe he’d been involved with the whole thing. Was that why he had been so desperate to get his hands on the file, because he knew if they looked to closely all the pieces would fall apart? Had he looked her in the face, knowing her daughter was alive, and not told her? If Crystal hadn’t burned it, had actually taken the time to look inside, would she have known the truth so much sooner?
The questions circled in her head, keeping her locked at the kitchen table, stuck in almost exactly the same position she’d been in when Stephanie had given her a tight hug and headed up to bed. Even her cup was still cradled in her hands despite her not having taken a sip since Stephanie left the room.
She should push herself up, creep up the stairs and peak into Stephanie’s room, just to be sure this was real before heading to bed herself. But if it wasn’t, did she really want the dream to end?
Crystal stayed where she was.
It was only when she heard a small shuffling noise coming from the hall that she even looked up, just as Stephanie stumbled her way into the kitchen. She stopped abruptly in the doorway. “Oh- hey. Sorry, I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”
“I was just thinking about going to bed.” Her eyes scanned over Stephanie, the same way they had all night. Checking again, for any sign this was a trick. Stephanie looked different, thinner and less toned. Her skin was darker, which made the new scars all the more obvious. But it was still her eyes, still the same crocked smile that could make any room feel brighter. The same small line on her forehead from where she’d run into an end table as a baby.
Crystal’s eyes drifted down, away from her face and stopped. The sweatshirt could be excused, the house got chilly at night, but old jeans and battered sneakers? “Are you going out?”
There was the slightest hesitation, before Stephanie shrugged “Just for a walk, I need to clear my head.”
For a walk. At this time of night. Her eyes traced upwards again, following the zipper of the sweatshirt until she was looking back at Stephanie’s face. Fully zipped, no hint of what was hidden underneath. The nagging at the back of her head pulled at her. She should push. Make sure that’s all it was.
“Right.”
It must not have been as convincing as she’d hoped, because Stephanie let out an annoyed sigh. “Mom, it’s just a walk. If I was going out as Spoiler I would have snuck out the window like I used to.”
“Of course, how silly of me.” As if it were a baseless concern. Stephanie had spent the better part of her teens in that costume, more than enough to warrant suspicion.
After a second though Crystal gave in, letting out a breath and relaxing her shoulders. This wasn’t worth a fight, not so soon after everything. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day.”
A good day. An undeniably good day. But an exhausting one as well.
“It’s fine, I get it,” Stephanie shrugged, finally stepping properly into the kitchen. For a moment Crystal thought she was going to take the seat next to her again, but Steph stayed standing. “It must be a lot to take in.”
That was one way to put it. The facts were all still spinning around her head, questions racing to burst out and try and help make sense of the situation. But there would be time for those later. They didn’t matter right now. Her baby was alive, that alone was enough to overwhelm her.
This wasn’t about her though, not really, and that was okay. Stephanie had gone through so much, being back after all of it couldn’t be easy either. Crystal pushed her own feelings down, looking back with a soft comforting smile. “You seem like you’re handling it well.”
“I mean, I knew I was alive the whole time.”
There was the forced nonchalance that Crystal knew all so well, paired with the ‘I don’t want to talk’ shrug. Those were her cues to let it go, but for once Crystal didn’t want to take the out, to fall into the same patterns as before. This was their chance to try again, her chance to be there in the way she’d never been able to before. She wouldn’t let it slip by. “Still, it must be stranger to be back here after so long.”
Another shrug, but the answer didn’t come right away, and when it did Stephanie’s voice was at least a little more genuine. “It was at first, but I-”
“At first?” Crystal sat up, the words prickling their way down her spine. “How long have you been back?”
Stephanie shifted slightly, glancing past her towards the back door, and for a split second Crystal thought she was going to bolt rather than answer. She didn’t, but she also didn’t answer.
“Stephanie.”
“Just a few weeks!” It came out fast, reassuring. As if a few weeks was a reasonable amount of time. As if a single day would have been a reasonable amount of time to be back in Gotham without coming home.
“A few weeks? What on earth were you doing?” What could have possibly been more important?
“I had to take care of some stuff.” Another shrug, a movement that was getting increasingly frustrating. This wasn’t some small detail to be shrugged off and ignored.
“This has to do with all those things your father dug up, doesn’t it?”
The realization slammed into Crystal, suddenly obvious and overpowering. What else could it be?
“What? What does dad have to do with anything?”
“You’re getting wrapped up in all of it again! Even after everything that happened, you’re still going out there.” Maybe not tonight, but it was suddenly so clear. Spoiler. That’s what this was about, what it was always about. No matter how far it seemed like they came, how many times Stephanie had assured her she was done with it, they always ended up back here.
To her credit, Stephanie didn’t sound dismissive anymore, “It’s not like that.”
In the past the added edge to Stephanie’s voice might have been enough to make Crystal back down and avoid the fight. Not this time. She couldn’t- wouldn’t- look away again. “Then what is it like?”
“There were some things I had to fix, they were my responsibility.”
It was the same as always. Always running off to try and fix some problem or help a stranger without ever stopping to think about the ripple effects. As if it was Stephanie’s responsibility to somehow balance scales she hadn't had any part in tipping them over. Crystal wanted to scream that she was a child, that it wasn’t her responsibility to fix anything. To repeat it over and over until it finally managed to stick.
Instead what came out was “And that was more important than coming home?”
“No, but I needed to take care of all of that first, just in case-”
Stephanie trailed off, attention back on Crystal for just a moment, before she was looking away again. There was a moment of nostalgia, Steph merging for just a moment with the tiny child version of herself, checking to see if her mother had caught her mistake before looking away to not seem suspicious. Back than it had made her smile. Now it brought a sinking certainty to what Stephanie had been about to say.
“In case what?”
“I wasn’t going to come home and give you hope if it wasn’t going to last.”
The words were almost exactly what Crystal had expected, but they sent ice through her all the same. “You thought it would be better to run off and get yourself killed without ever telling me?”
“Obviously that wasn’t he goal,” Stephanie countered. Her voice was still infuriating calm, relaxed, as if they were discussing nothing more important than a failed test. “But if it did happen, I wasn’t going to make you deal with it again.”
So it had been for Crystal’s benefit. Old arguments circled through her head. How many times had Stephanie said something along those lines? That all of this was for Crystal, that she was trying to help her, make sure she was safe. But Crystal hadn’t asked for this. She hadn’t asked to be coddled or protected, especially not by the one person in the world who she should be responsible for, not the other way around.
“If you don’t want to put me through it again, then the best thing you can do is stop! You’ve already died for this, you’ve done enough.”
“Technically I didn’t die.”
That was to much.
“You did to me.” Crystal refused to look away, even as Stephanie flinched slightly at the comment, attention suddenly on the ground. It was almost enough to make her relent, to push herself up and cross the kitchen to comfort her, or at the very least to sigh and let the topic dorp. But she couldn’t. Not this time. “I didn’t know it was fake. Did you even think about that before running off to Africa?”
“I wasn’t exactly in a position to think about anything.” There was a hardness to the statement, a frustration that finally broke the nonchalant attitude Stephanie had seemed so intent on. “Leslie says I agreed, but I don’t remember it. I woke up in Africa with no idea what had happened or why I was there.”
“And once you had, it never occurred to you to let me know you were okay?”
“It was weeks before I could even think clearly.”
“Weeks are better than months.” Months of drifting through a haze, failing to move. The first weeks had been the worst, yes, but the pain had never gone completely. A constant ache that was always waiting around the corner to grab her when she least expected it.
Anger was setting in, and not wanting to drive it at Stephanie, Crystal sent it spiraling at the only other element she could. “And what about the doctor you were with? What kind of woman takes a teenager halfway around the world and doesn’t tell her mother anything?”
“She was trying to help me.” The defensiveness set Crystal on edge. What had this woman done to deserve it? Ghosted Stephanie away from everyone who knew and cared about her? “After everything that happened she thought it would be best. I need time to heal and re-evaluate.”
“And after all that re-evaluating you decided to go back to doing exactly the same thing as before?” That struck at a terror that Crystal hadn’t even known was there, something she’d never truly considered. It was one thing when Stephanie was responding to what was around her, trying to stop Arthur or under Batman’s spell, but she’d had time to sit and think, and had still decided this was what she wanted to do. It wasn’t just a reaction, it was a choice.
There was a scoff from Stephanie, her arms crossed over her chest in the most definite teenager way possible, “You’re going to lecture me about falling into old habits?”
Crystal froze, the implication slowly sinking in. Fear and shame started to take root, crawling through her as she looked back at Stephanie and saw the knowledge in her eyes. The anger and disdain that already seemed to radiate off of her even without a conformation.
“Yeah, don’t think I missed the cans in the recycling. Do you have a few pill bottles somewhere to go with them?”
The words stung in a way nothing else had. Crystal wanted to argue, excuses lined up on her tongue. A friend had come over and brought themself something to drink, or she’d picked them up on a walk and tossed them when she got home. But one look at Stephanie and they died before making it out. She couldn’t lie to her about this, not after everything.
“I thought you were dead.” Was the only defense she managed. It hadn’t seemed like it mattered anymore. There wasn’t anyone there to care, no one’s life to ruin but her own, and sobriety was the trade off for dulling the pain even the smallest amount than it had been worth it. A night she didn’t remember was one less night alone. One less night full of regrets and anger and having to face the next day. And it had been easy to reason it away as the lesser of two evils, alcohol had never been her main problem. If she was drunk,well, at least she hadn’t gotten high.
It was the wrong thing to say. As soon as it had escaped, the look on Stephanie’s face warped into a scowl. Her voice shook, barely holding back the anger boiling underneath. “No.”
Crystal opened her mouth, but Stephanie cut her off. “No. You do not get to put that on me. I screwed up, but I am not responsible for how you decided to handle it.”
“You were dead.” Couldn’t she understand that? It hadn’t been hypothetical or temporary, it had been real. “I’m sorry I didn’t handle it perfectly.”
“But I had to handle being tortured to death perfectly?”
The frustration was starting to creep in again. The shame was still there, but if anything it fueled it, giving her something to be defensive about. “You didn’t have to handle it perfectly, but you should have handled it here.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Crystal had seen the body, had read the autopsy and seen those awful photos Arthur had leaked to the news. It would have taken months if not years of recovery, but they would have figured it out. One way or another, Crystal would have found a way to make it work, to make sure she had everything she-
“Because it was my fault.”
Her thoughts stopped short. “What?”
“The gang war,” Stephanie’s voice was still frustrated, but not quite as intense. “It started because of me. I organized a meeting which turned into a shoot out and started the whole thing.”
“Why would you do that?” Crystal’s brain was spinning, trying to fill in the gaps with what she already knew, but that wasn’t much. Was this when Stephanie was Robin? It must have been, but then why wasn’t Batman there?
“Does it matter?”
Of course it mattered. Intent always mattered. Steph was impulsive, but she was also clever. To clever for her own good sometimes, but clever none the less. If she’d set up some meeting than she must have had a reason, a good one, even if she hadn’t fully thought it through.
Stephanie was still talking though, and as firmly as Crystal held her resolve, she wasn’t going to stop her when she was finally getting some sort of answer. “I did, and Gotham still hasn’t recovered. Buildings are still destroyed, the underworld is still a mess. Over a hundred people died. Because of me.”
When it was clear Stephanie was done, Crystal took a breath. Then she released it, trying to let out any remaining anger or frustration she had. That wasn’t what was needed right now. “Do you think I care about any of that?”
Would Crystal have been happy about it? Probably not, but there was nothing in the world that Steph could ever do that would make her unwelcome. Nothing that would mean she couldn’t come home. Didn’t she know that?
Stephanie stiffened. Her hands clenched at her sides, and when she spoke her voice was hard again. Though there was a slight shake to it, a crack waiting to break open. “I’m sorry okay? I’m sorry I didn’t call or think to drop a note before I was whisked away. Add it to my list of fuck ups.”
The words were barely out before Stephanie was moving. Crystal pushed herself up, but the door slammed before she’d even fully risen out of her seat. Her body was humming, telling her to move, to follow. Explain, reassure, help ease whatever was causing the cracks. That was what a mother was supposed to do.
Because that had been going so well so far. All she had seemed to do was make it worse, poke at things she wasn’t supposed to until the situation wasn’t fixable. Crystal stopped, half in the kitchen half in the hall, watching the front door. Silently willing it to swing open, for Stephanie to burst back through with some other furious point she’d forgotten to make before storming out.
The door didn’t open.
Crystal took a few steps towards it, but as her hand reached the handle she stopped. This was silly. Stephanie would be long gone by now, and even if she wasn’t, she wanted space. The least Crystal could do was give it to her. There would be time to talk later, when they had both calmed down. They would figure this out, they always did.
Sighing, Crystal turned and finally started to make her way up the stairs.