Stephanie Brown

If Steph was honest with herself, she didn't really have a reason to be doing this any more. Her father was dead, and ever since she'd learned that Batman had only allowed her to be Robin as a last-ditch attempt to get Tim to return and had quit, she'd been working alone, which wasn't nearly as fun. If she was honest with herself, when she graduated from high school Spoiler would be no more. Heh. Unless some delusional teenager decided to resurrect a third-string heroine. But Steph was going to be out of the business. Maybe she'd even be able to help out a few kids in situations like hers had been. Anything was possible.

***

Social work was exhausting, and simultaneously discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging, because there were so many children who remained in bad situations, so many people who couldn't or wouldn't be helped. But on the other hand, they were helping some people. Not enough, never enough, but some. And that was enough of a boost to keep her coming in day after day, to keep her spirits high enough to at least pretend to be happy. She was halfway glad she'd had experience in exercises in futility, as she watched her coworkers become discouraged and quit, only to be replaced by fresh, idealistic new faces who were worn down all too soon and did the same.

Some of the kids, though, she could help. And so one by one she picked up the kids nobody else could understand, the children of the costumed villains. And sure, she had her share of trouble. She might have gotten custody easily enough with the contacts she had and the strings she was willing to pull if it meant possible happiness for anybody, but raising children is never a walk in the park, not even when it's taken over by Poison Ivy. And some of them were metas, and even with three other former Robins willing and able to lend a hand, a non-meta raising metas was a precarious proposition at the best of times. But she managed, and soon she had her own family, or rather they had each other. And she raised them as best as she could (which was pretty good, if she could say so herself. Often she did.), and sent them off to college and into the world.

She knew the disguised members of the heroing community who visited weren't there to see a third-string ex-heroine and one time Robin, but her kids never did anything worse than what other kids and teenagers did. Eventually the heroes stopped visiting except when she requested one of them to come and help teach one of the kids about their powers. They continued as they had always done.