AN:- Well this was a long time coming wasn't it? I hope it's worth it after all the build up.

Chapter Two:

The heat was immense, even with her supposedly heat resistant suit on. What little logical part of her brain could still work reminded Stephanie that heat resistant didn't do much when the metal of the thing was bending under the heat. She used her grappling hook to get to the top, wishing more than anything that she still had her grapple gun, and wasn't losing that a fun story, but if wishes were horses she'd...

Well she didn't know how to ride a horse, so probably she'd be trampled on, but whatever.

Damian was way ahead of her, already to the top of the Ferris Wheel and trying to break open the carriage with his knives. She finally reached his level and pulled her bo stick off her belt, extending it and jamming it into the side of the carriage where the roof and the wall had separated. With the briefest of pauses she jumped off the car, momentarily putting her whole weight onto the staff and prying the roof up.

A wave of heat and smoke belched out of the car, and she recoiled from it, nearly falling. Damian had dropped back as well, but with a grimace he slipped his breathing mask back on and forced himself forward to look into the cabin. Stephanie dragged herself over as well, already knowing what she would see.

Inside were three twisted husks that used to be people. Bits of someone else had been spread around the walls, and the sickeningly sweet smell of charred meat rose to meet them. Stephanie gagged and turned away while Damian stood and looked to the other cars, "let's go," he growled, suddenly sounding a lot more like Batman.

Nodding, trying to hold in the contents of her stomach, Stephanie found her target, the next car down, where pieces of flaming metal had landed on and in the carriage. As Damian leapt to the car on the opposite side Stephanie jumped down to land on the burning hot roof of hers. Getting her bo stick out again she leaned over and smashed one of the windows, letting smoke come billowing out. Inside there were shouts for help that she couldn't ignore.

Even though it wouldn't matter she forced her face into the usual cheerful grin she would have worn as Batgirl, leaning over the edge of the car and sticking her head through the window to see a young man and woman, the man cradling a toddler, "hello folks I'll be your designated hero for the evening. If you wouldn't mind please coming to the edge of the car."

The man nodded, slowly sliding along the seat until he was at the window. The woman stayed where she was though, and Stephanie guessed she was frozen in fear. She needed to control the situation with the child first though, so she stretched out her hands and nodded to the man, "that's very good, now if you give me your little girl then you can get out as well."

"What about my wife?" He asked.

"I'll be right back for her," Stephanie said, "there's nothing to worry about."

He seemed to be calming somewhat, despite the heat from the burning wreckage on the roof, and handed over the little toddler so Stephanie could quickly pull herself back up. The child was unconscious, and as Stephanie held her ear to the girl's chest she could hear only the faintest of heartbeats. She knew the signs of smoke damage, and on a young baby...

Forcing it out of her head she settled the child against her shoulder and leaned over again, "now you're going to have to climb up here with me," she told the man, extending her free arm, "but don't worry, it's easier than it looks, use me as a ladder." He gripped her arm and clambered out, using her for support a little more than she would have liked, but soon enough he was on top of the car as well.

"Now comes the hard bit," Stephanie said, massaging her shoulder and trying to keep calm, "you're going to need to climb to the next car down, you'll be safe there."

"I can't," the man whimpered, looking out over the long drop.

"You have to," Stephanie grabbed his chin and pointed his head to the side, "you see there? There's a ladder you can use, once you're on the other car you'll both be okay."

"What about my wife?"

"I promise I will get her out but you have to go."

"What if I drop my daughter?"

It was a fair point, but Stephanie was all too aware of the increasing fragility of their own car and the woman still trapped inside it. Reaching the sort of snap decision she was infamous for she grabbed the baby and swung herself onto the ladder, "there," she said, trying not to wobble, "piece of cake."

He followed her out, and she led the way slowly down to the safe car, which had already opened its doors to let them in. She returned the baby to the father and scampered back onto the ladder, climbing as fast as she could. She didn't know how long she'd been up there but the carriage roof was beginning to sag under the weight and the heat and she knew she didn't have much time.

"Alright," she said, sliding herself through the open window and trying to ignore the deep groan which came from the walls and floor. "Now it's time to get you out."

The woman was still sitting in the exact same spot, and Stephanie went over to pull her out if necessary. One look told her the whole story though, and she froze as she saw the long piece of metal which had pierced through the outer wall of the carriage and speared the woman through the back. Even if they could get out then she would bleed to death in minutes, long before the emergency services even arrived.

"I'm not going anywhere," the woman gasped.

"No," Stephanie came closer and sat next to her, pulling her mask up and gripping the woman's hand tightly in her own, "I'm so sorry."

"My baby?"

"Safe, and your husband."

"Good." The woman was in deep shock, and probably hadn't even really registered that she was dying. Stephanie knew that feeling. "Good."

She didn't know what to say or do. She had never been in the position before, of someone who needed help in the worst way, but anything she did would only make it worse. Above her the roof bent dangerously and the metal of the joist creaked.

"I'm sorry," she said again, standing and going back to the window. She needed to look back though, to try and tell the woman how sorry she was, and how helpless she felt. But her time was up, and the carriage roof collapsed, shaking the whole car and throwing her out of the window.

For one glorious second she was weightless. But gravity was her ever present companion. Gravity and death. And right now they seemed to be working in harmony.

Stephanie flung out her grappling hook and felt it catch on something, the sudden shock jerking her back to the present where she was speeding down to the centre of the Ferris Wheel. A strut appeared in front of her and she braced for impact. Pain lanced through her shoulder blade and side as she cracked against the metal and she thought for a moment something was broken. Her grip on the rope loosened and she went skidding down to a horizontal bar, draping over it gratefully. Her vision went fuzzy and she decided to close her eyes, just for a second.

She woke with someone pawing at her mask. She lashed out only to find her clumsy blows blocked and a harsh voice hissing at her, "stop it; you want your face all over the news?"

Of course it was the little psycho, putting her mask back in place for her. She tried to sit and winced as the injuries came back to her. Below them the flashing lights of emergency services vehicles blared, and there were people shouting into megaphones.

"We need to go," Damian said, "before my father finds out about this."

"Too late," said a voice from above them. Damian twisted and Stephanie was able to see past him to where Nightwing had alighted on a beam above them. "Nice work by the way Damian, I saw the last of it as I was coming in."

Damian waved him off, "does father know?"

"Of course he does. Explosion at the fair? Joker costumes? Spoiler back in Gotham?" He paused to smile at Stephanie, but she was long immune to that famous charm. "And of course someone wearing the Robin costume on the burning Ferris Wheel."

"Where is he?"

"Back at the cave, which is where I'm taking both of you now."

"What if I don't want to go?" Stephanie asked, hoisting herself up and massaging her aching stomach.

"Could you stop me?"

"Just try me."

"You're not normally so hostile."

"Well a woman died right next to me about a minute ago so I'm feeling pretty unsociable."

Nightwing shut up, which was a small improvement. Stephanie felt bad though, so it all evened out at just south of neutral. "Please come back to the cave," Nightwing said, "if nothing else so little Damian can have some moral support."

"I don't need the sort of support she offers," the Boy Wonder growled.

"Alright I'll come," Stephanie said, "but I'm not staying. It's a cave for bats remember? And I think it's been made very clear where I am on that front."

Nightwing didn't have an answer to that either.

"Why did you bring her here?"

Stephanie had gotten very good at eavesdropping over the years. Once upon a time she had even been able to sneak up on Batman himself. Which made listening in to the shouting from the other end of the cave a piece of cake. She was trying to stretch out her spine from where she had landed on the metal of the roller coaster, at the same time ignoring the fact that she had blood on her hands, and not the metaphorical kind. An examination of her gloves on the way back to the cave had revealed spatters of human blood, probably from one of the people she had tried to drag from the fire.

"Why did you send her away?" Damian was asking, his voice calm and cold as always.

I didn't know you cared, even her thoughts came out in that dry sarcastic tone nowadays. She needed to recapture her essence, her Stephanie-ness, her Pollyannaism.

"I sent her away because she was a liability in Gotham City." Ouch. Bruce probably knew that she was listening in as well. She wouldn't put it past him. "You said it yourself. Dozens of times from what Dick tells me."

"And so just because you don't approve of her brand of crime fighting, you send her away?" There was emotion creeping into Damian's voice now, and it wasn't anger, it sounded more like hurt. "Like you shunned Jason? Or sent Cassandra away? And how you can never be sure of Catwoman?"

"Do you have a question?"

"How long until you decide I'm not worth the effort?"

Stephanie stopped, releasing her stretch and turning her head towards the two. Anyone could have heard the desperation in the boy's voice. For all the times he tried, sometimes Damian Wayne failed his father's strict code. That didn't make him any less of a crimefighter, at least not in Stephanie's book, but Batman had sent people away for far less than his son had done. It had to eat at him sometimes, the same way her own past tried to catch her.

There was silence in the cave, thick and heavy and smothering. She wondered whether it would be possible to sneak out unnoticed, but with Bruce and Damian and Alfred all somewhere in the area she knew her chances were less than zero. She was surprised when a moment later a shadow fell over her, and she turned to find herself staring at the symbol of a bat.

"Why did you come back?" He asked.

"I felt like it," she said with a false cheer, "Gotham is my home after all, and I never got to finish college. I quite liked the idea of that last semester at Gotham U."

"I told you to remain in London," he very rarely sounded disappointed, or angry. He always kept his tone level, whether he was dispensing a harsh reprimand or a word of congratulations. Not that she had ever heard too many of the latter.

She shrugged at his statement, "you sent me to London to spoil things, but the Spoiler isn't under Batman's control. She's not under anyone's control."

"Disobeying orders has gotten you in trouble before," he reminded her, as if she needed it, "it almost got you killed, or have you forgotten? Is it too much for me to expect you to follow my orders?"

She laughed, and even to her ears it sounded harsh, "was it too much?" She dragged her hood off her head and pulled her mask off, "seventy one days and you fire me for disobeying you? I suppose that was similar to how you fired Dick the first time he didn't do as you asked, or when you fired Tim because he kept on talking to me? Or how Damian gets fired every time he doesn't do exactly what you ask him to?"

"When they disobeyed orders it didn't get them tortured and killed."

Emotions she hadn't allowed herself to feel for years rose to the surface faster than she could shut them down, "and Jason? He disobeyed orders, and it got him murdered by the Joker. It earned him a suit in the Batcave. Tim told me when he first joined you you were still so tense because of Jason's death. Did you mourn me at all?"

"I always suspected there was something wrong about your apparent death."

"And that was the justification you needed to strike me from your history forever?" She balled her fist, knowing it wouldn't do her any good. "Was I ever anything more than a pawn to make Tim come back to you?"

"I told you…"

"You told me on a death bed you never thought was real," her rage felt so intense she couldn't even shout anymore, "why should any of it have been real?"

"I want you to leave."

"Leave the cave? Or leave Gotham?"

"I want you back in Europe where I ordered you to stay."

"Well I'm sorry Bruce," she yanked her mask back on, not caring that it wasn't sitting right, "I'm just going to have to spoil your plans as well."

She tried to march past, but he was between her and the exit, "don't make this difficult Stephanie," he growled, "I know who you are."

"If you want me to stop you're going to have to make me."

He regarded her in silence, then stepped aside and allowed her to pass. She marched out of the cave entrance and broke into a run, not stopping until she was at the outskirts of the city, sinking to the side of the road and drawing deep gasping breaths as the adrenaline rushed through her.

"That wasn't fun," someone drawled from behind her.

"Go away Dick," she said quietly.

"I could do that, or I can stay and bug you some more."

She stood and started to march down to the slums, but he kept pace easily. "What do you want?" She said as she walked.

"Bruce sent me to follow you."

"I'm not going anywhere but home."

"And where is home now?"

"Like I'd tell any of you."

"You know Bruce already knows."

"Well then maybe he'll just start telling everyone, like he did with Tim's identity."

"That's not fair."

"Why can't you see it?" She asked, stopping and rounding on Dick, "he's insane. I didn't even know it before. Over in England they've got someone like him, he's called Knight and he's just so normal. Like all the time. He goes out with friends; he treats Squire like she's an actual person."

"And I'm sure that works in England, but this is Gotham. It's dark and twisted and cruel."

"Well maybe Batman is becoming too much like his city," she growled, starting to march again.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"What made you come back?"

"You used to be the detective, you figure it out."

"If you're trying to convince people you've grown up then you shouldn't go around acting like a child."

"Maybe if you wanted people to think you'd grown up you wouldn't have gone backwards." She snapped.

"And what does that mean?"

"You, Barbara, everyone's going back to the way they were. So why shouldn't I? I'm Spoiler, I spoil things."

"So it's Barbara," Nightwing said softly, "now I understand."

"No," Stephanie chose an alley at random and ducked into it, "you don't."

AN:- I had everything after they were back in the cave, but no way to get there. There are characterisation/continuity notes regarding this chapter.

Obviously so far DC's premise has been that Stephanie never existed. My premise is that she's simply being sidelined by a group of people who don't appreciate her enough (wait, am I talking about Didio or Bruce Wayne?) With something like Barbara's being cured happening, Stephanie would have heard, so not being told, and just seeing Barbara retake Batgirl's mantle without any warning, would be hard.

The rant in the Batcave. I'm not yet coming down on one side or the other of Bruce's characterisation. Right now it's just Stephanie and Damian, and what they believe or feel him to be. Batman is not necessarily the jerk he appears in this chapter, or he might be, it all depends on where I decide to go next.

Nightwing. I wasn't intending to put him in originally, but I wanted someone who might just be fun enough to be around Stephanie. Others you should expect to see: Barbara, Batwoman, Renee Montoya as the Question.

Well. See you in a year when I finally get chapter 3 written!