It was strange to be in the Manor without the old man, but not as strange it could have been; Terry and Bruce hadn't spent much time up there even when he'd been alive, so Terry didn't have the memories of Bruce that he had when in the Cave or on patrol. And the Manor had always been empty, and creepy in its emptiness, so that hadn't changed. The only thing truly different was that that small portion of the manor which was taken up by Bruce (it always seemed like he took up more space than he really did, which was maybe some special Bat-trick and maybe just Bruce being Bruce) was now empty. There wasn't even a lot he could do in terms of packing up Bruce's old possessions because the guy only used four rooms in the whole Manor and at some point somebody who wasn't Bruce (Bruce's handwriting was blocky all-caps, only neat because it was more efficient that way, but this handwriting was graceful, like whoever had written in it had practiced for years to get the perfect handwriting) had packed up all sorts of things that, presumably, Bruce didn't use but wanted to keep. Or the mysterious packer had wanted him to keep, and that was an intriguing thought because if somebody had made Bruce keep things he hadn't wanted to keep, for years, that somebody must have an amazing force of personality and Terry wanted to meet them. Only, he didn't think he'd ever have the opportunity, because some of the boxes were labeled in the same handwriting but it was shaky, like the writer hadn't been able to keep their hand steady. And the possessor of the handwriting didn't strike him as somebody who'd leave them like that if they possibly could fix it.
The gate bell rang, and he was glad the Manor was so wired for an old house, because it meant that there was a security console in every room and he didn't have to go traipsing over half the Manor to see that the woman from the group of four at the funeral was at the gate in a minivan.
"Go away," he said through the intercom, but instead of taking him at his word (of course she didn't listen to him, she was one of them, whoever they were, and trained by Bruce) she turned the van off and got out, carrying a canister. Then she flipped over the gate, and it was weird to see her do that because she looked like his mom except older. And Terry thought Ace would attack her (he sometimes still growled at Terry, even), but she must have had something that kept him from doing that (did the guy with the cane, who he now knew was Richard Grayson because he'd done a face recognition on the images on the security tapes, have it too? Terry wondered belatedly) because he just followed on her heels until she reached the Manor and he opened the door.
"You're not going to attack me too, are you?" he asked a little apprehensively. Sure, she looked like a soccer mom, but she moved like the others, and he'd already had one fight with a member of her little clan. And two fights that were clearly about Bruce.
She laughed like it was the most amusing thing she'd heard in ages, until tears were streaming down her face and she was leaning on the door jamb. "The others might do that, but fighting is the last thing I want to do. I came to bring you cookies." She held out the canister like it was a peace offering, and maybe it was. He decided to treat it as one, because no matter how she moved, everything about her screamed "Mom" to Terry. Not his mom, but somebody's.
"Let's go to the kitchen," he said, and she stepped inside. And it was obvious that she knew her way around the Manor, because she led the way to the kitchen and knew where to find the platters, just like the commissioner did (Bruce was helpless in the kitchen, for all that he'd lived in the Manor for his whole life; he didn't even use the dishes because he couldn't find them, instead preferring to burn microwavable food, and how Bruce had managed that every time was beyond Terry but he had). And she dumped cookies out on the platter, just like the commissioner always did when she felt in the mood to talk (which, okay, wasn't that often, but it was often enough to establish a pattern), but her cookies were homemade, not the store-bought gourmet cookies the commissioner always apologized for but which had nothing wrong with them as far as Terry could tell. And then he took a bite of one of the cookies and he knew why the commissioner always apologized even though she always bought the best commercially available cookies, because really in a competition between these cookies and those there was no contest. And he almost gets lost in the sheer ecstasy of eating these cookies, but discipline had always been Bruce's watchword, so he forces himself to ask (politely, because those cookies were so wonderful and he couldn't force himself to do it any other way even if he wanted to). "I'm sorry, but who are you?"
She smiles, and it's half at the question and half at the memories eating the cookies raises in her. "Stephanie Brown," she said, and the handshake was dry and firm and more than a bit crumby with remnants of cookies. "Call me Steph. I used to be Spoiler. And the fourth Robin."
"The fourth…you mean the four of you…?" and it wasn't a coherent question in anybody's terms, but it was close enough, and she smiled and nodded, and he knew why they moved the way they did, and why Grayson had beaten him so easily. "Wow." And he thought somebody who'd been around back then would have been more amazed, more impressed, but he'd only heard about them vaguely, secondhand, and after they'd been gone for decades. And he knew that Steph could see that, but she didn't seem to care. He tries to think of something to say. "You didn't seem as upset as the others were." He looked up, panicked, because that wasn't what he'd meant to say. "Um. No offense?"
"None taken," she said, but she tore into her cookie like she had something against it. "Bruce was never as close to me as he was to the others." She looked down and gave this sad little smile. "At least Tim's was a compliment, sort of," she muttered, and Terry knew he wasn't supposed to hear that so he pretended he hadn't. "He only hired me because he wanted Tim to return. And partly because he wanted an excuse to make me stop being Spoiler."
"Bruce had…issues," Terry admitted, and it was easier than he'd thought to speak ill of the dead, because it wasn't really speaking ill of him- Bruce's issues were what he loved the most about him, what he missed with every passing second.
"Issues?" Steph said incredulously. "Newsweek doesn't have as many issues as Bruce did." And he had to laugh, because it was true, even if he did feel bad laughing about a dead man. But maybe that's what wakes were invented for, so that you could remember even the amusing things about the deceased without feeling guilty about it. So they shared stories from both ends of his life, and by the time the cookies were all gone (it took a while, even with how good the cookies were, because there were so many of them) Terry's stomach hurt from laughing so long and so hard. And when twilight fell, he didn't have to say anything because Steph gave him a hug and her phone number ("Not that it isn't in the computer, but I want you to know you can call me any time.") and went back over the fence. Terry went down to the Cave and suited up.
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