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In the chaos of it all - returning to Gotham, getting back into the ass-kicking game, revealing herself to Tim and Bruce and her mom - she could be forgiven for not realizing that Leslie had made her way back as well.
Leslie. Dr. Thompkins. She owed that woman her life. She didn't owe her anything else.
There were a lot of other things that had slipped at first, honestly. Coming back to life had been a pain in the ass. Figuring out where she fit with the Bats, with Bruce guiltily letting her work with them in a way he never had before and Tim still mad about the fake-death thing and Cass and Babs and Dick so distant, is still a pain in the ass. It had already taken a dozen awkward conversations to work out half of what had gone down since she'd ditched Gotham for Africa. It would probably take a dozen more before she could call herself a Bat with any kind of certainty.
She knows enough now, though. She knows the sheer number of ways that Dr. Thompkins had lied - to her, to everyone. She knows, with a certainty that feels like a wound through her stomach, that Spoiler has to finish this in one way or another.
Spoiler. Not Stephanie. After all that had went down, she can't be sure that she can be Stephanie with Dr. Thompkins ever again.
Dr. Thompkins is staying late at the free clinic in Park Row, as per usual. If she hadn't known better, she'd have said that nothing had changed over the past year, at least not for the doctor. No one who looked at her would have thought that she'd spent almost a year travelling around various refugee camps, leading a would-be ghost around for what Steph had thought was her own safety.
Maybe it had been for her own safety. She probably would have had to leave Gotham for a bit after, y'know, all that. That didn't justify the rest of the mess.
"Heyo, Dr. Thompkins," Stephanie says after she jimmies the window open and slips inside. Leslie jumps, twisting around in her desk chair. She's got her hand over her mouth, eyes wide like someone in an old-timey horror movie until she realizes who it is. Beneath her blank gray mask, Spoiler can't help but crack a grin.
Maybe after this she'll ditch the mask. Villains had always been thrown off their game when they saw a teenage girl grinning at them like they weren't shit.
"Stephanie!" Dr. Thompkins says. Her hand moves from her mouth to her chest. "Stephanie, what are you doing here? God, you almost gave me a heart attack." Stephanie snorts.
"I thought we should talk," Stephanie says. "I mean, it's been a while, hasn't it?"
"You left for Gotham," Dr. Thompkins says. "I didn't know- I thought this was where you might end up, but I had hoped I was wrong."
"Nope," Stephanie says, popping the "p" slightly just to be obnoxious. Leslie's eyes narrow. "I thought I'd been away long enough. Y'know, heat dying down and people coming back to life and all that." Her shithead dad, who remained a shithead even after dying and un-dying. Red Hood, who Tim had reluctantly admitted was Robin 2.0, zombie edition after the first time he'd shot at them both. As she said, she'd missed a lot.
"You shouldn't have come here," Leslie says. Spoiler tilts her head, her unasked question clear. "You can come to me for help, you can always come to me for help, but Gotham is dangerous."
"Gotham is Gotham," Stephanie says. "I wouldn't want to do this anywhere else. I know you don't get that-"
"How can you say that?" Leslie says. "After everything that - that horrible man did to you, how can you want to keep-"
"Because this is mine," Stephanie says. "Spoiler, Batgirl, even Robin. Batman tried to stop me before, Oracle tried to get me to join her behind the scenes after I came back, but there's nothing else I'd rather be. After everything that went down, I'm more certain of that than ever." She laughs, a small, only half-amused thing that flops dead on the floor between them. "Seriously, Lee, I out-stubborned Batman. Do you really think you can do better than that?"
"I tried," Leslie says. "God help me, I tried."
"Well," Stephanie says, shrugging, "it didn't work. Water under the bridge now, I guess."
"You should still-" Steph holds up a hand, stopping Dr. Thompkins in her tracks. They'll go around in circles like this for ages if she lets them, they'd done it often enough while Stephanie was recovering. This isn't about Leslie's hatred of vigilantes in general and Robin in particular. This is about everything else.
"You know, I trusted you," Stephanie says. "I thought you would tell them. Him, at least." She can't tell whether Dr. Thompkins can't look her in the eye due to the mask or guilt.
It might be both. It's probably both.
"I just want to know what the point of it was," says Spoiler.
"You could have died," Dr. Thompkins says. "You came... you came so close to dying."
"You think I don't know that?" Spoiler says. "This isn't about what happened. Been there, done that, have the scars to prove it. I'm done with this... this constant going over of how it all went down."
She isn't, not really. She gets nightmares. Whenever there's a new mission involving the ever-present gangs of Gotham she can feel Spoiler slipping away. That was why she'd infiltrated Penguin's bullshit before revealing herself to Bruce and Tim; she had to prove that she could push past it, that she could still fight.
Nothing would ever be the same again, but she'd known that already. She's working on it. They're all working on it, and she's so fucking grateful for that.
"Are you even listening to yourself? 'How it all went down'? Stephanie, Batman almost got you killed," Dr. Thompkins says. "He didn't deserve to brush your pain aside the way he always does."
"You don't get it," Spoiler says. "You don't get it at all." Sure, it had been his plan that had ended up with her getting tortured. His plan, her decision to steal that plan and let it rip, his decision to fire her like an asshole, her decision to put up with him when he was not at his best. They'd been over this, her and Bruce. Well, her more than Bruce. But still. Shit could be fucked without fucking lying about another dead Robin.
She hadn't understood that before either. Because none of the Bats knew how to talk, but whatever. Again, it was over and done with, as far as it was possible for that to be.
"If he wants to get himself killed, fine," Dr. Thompkins says. "I've done my best, but you're right - trying to outlast Batman's stubbornness is a fool's errand. But I can't stand how he pulls you kids into his - his stupid crusade for vengeance." This time Spoiler actually does laugh.
"Seriously? Look, you might have a point with the others," Spoiler says. "You'd probably know better than I do. I didn't even know about Jason until Red Hood tried to shoot me in the face. But, look, I became Spoiler all on my own. Batman tried to get me to quit, he was a complete asshole about everything to get me to quit, but I'm still here. I'm not giving it up." She laughs again. "And if you think this is just about vengeance, for either of us, you have another thing coming."
"You're just a child," Dr. Thompkins says. "This whole thing - so-called superheroes, vigilantes - it's all a childish fantasy. He's indulged in it long enough. It's already hurt too many, killed too many. He can't keep recruiting children for his - his fucking temper tantrum."
"I'm not saying I don't get your perspective," Spoiler says. "Hell, if I wasn't already in it, I might say that you're right. I wasn't ready when I first started as Spoiler. He was right when he said that I was too untrained. Dick move to try to push me out half the time and act like an actual mentor the other half, but... whatever." Stephanie takes a deep breath. She can't babble, not now. She has to make Dr. Thompkins understand or at least back the fuck off. "That's not the point, though."
"And what is the point?" Dr. Thompkins grumbles.
"You can't stop me. You couldn't stop me then, and you sure as hell can't stop me now," Spoiler says. "More importantly, you lied. You betrayed my trust; you forced Robin and Batman and Oracle and Batgirl to mourn me."
"I just wanted him to understand-"
"You seriously don't think that Batman understands grief?" Spoiler shakes her head. "Don't contact me. Don't try to stop me. And if I'm ever in a position like that again-"
"You don't have to keep-"
"Shut it, Doc." Spoiler feels her hamstrings tense, ready to flip backwards out the window. "Don't expect me to trust you. Not again, not ever."
She flips, engages the grapple, and swings away. There's nothing more that either Steph or Dr. Thompkins can say to each other.