Hey I’m feeling emotional about Stephanie being Tim’s home/morality chain/life’s ambition in Tynion’s Detective Comics run again so let’s talk about that a little (or a lot… this is long).

So, Steph is used throughout the Rebirth run as the team member representing the average citizen of Gotham. Therefore, in-story the more Tim puts her on a pedestal and the less he actually involves her directly in his plans, the more we the reader see him loosing his way. We know at the end he’s on the right track because he listens to and responds to Steph’s encouragements and ideas. She’s like…the embodiment of Gotham to Tim, weirdly enough. So bare with me while I try to verbalise it (clumsily. with lots of scans).

This is a one way post and doesn’t really talk about what Tim is to Steph which is a whole other discussion and it’s nearly midnight I need to sleep…another day perhaps.

So in 935 their conversation which reveals them to have returned to their romantic relationship centres around whether Tim truly wants to stay a hero or do something else with his life. Steph says that Tim has the whole world in front of him, and asks what he truly wants. It’s implied by Tim only staring at Steph during their conversation then kissing her that ‘the whole world’ and ‘what he wants’… is her. No I am not reading too much into this silence.

Then a bunch of bad stuff happens, Tim redirects the drones only after Stephanie calls him to let him know they were heading for her, and when she tries to give a last goodbye speech. Which honestly this is just on point for them to have a big dramatic moment only for the other to throw themselves in the way like bitch you thought you were a martyr… anyway. In the flashback of 963 again Steph’s insecurity rears it’s head a little and she asks if Tim really wants her there for all these big plans of his and Tim reaffirms he literally can’t do it without her.

So when you see that adult Steph totally rejected Tim and legit went into hiding from him you’re like… ah. Something went awry here (understatement of the year… Tim shoots Lonnie in the head trying to find her.) And then Steph being Tim’s safety net is again implied in the dialogue between Bruce and Tim in 967:

Which lo and behold who is the first person adult Tim seeks out to silent beg affirmation from?

And one of the ways adult Tim just to throw current Tim off kilter is by using Stephanie as an out from the costume (call back to John Lewis’ run there perhaps). Steph in the next arc is used a the voice box for the ordinary people of Gotham, the one who get manipulated and used by heroes and villains alike, the ones Tim is supposed to be helping. This is why it’s a good thing Tim wants to involve her and says he can’t do it without her. It’s when he starts pushing Steph back and away from what he really wants, things go wonky.

There’s then a shift from “I’m doing this with you” to “I’m doing this for you.”, particularly from 970 onwards, but you can also easily see that future Batman would say this and it is almost said word for word (albeit to Cassandra) by Tim a few issues later. Steph consistently sides with the people on the ground and calls out Tim calling them stupid for being manipulated and thinking himself above them. She nearly has a Padme Amidala moment of “you’re going down a path I can’t follow” but thankfully she drags him back kicking in screaming (however… Star Wars AU Star Wars AU… the whole batfam would be an actual nightmare if they were jedis) . But it has to get worse first.

What I find interesting is that when Stephanie does watch Tim start to have a bit of a breakdown she repeatedly steps back and is like “look I love you but I am not watching you self-combust like this you are loosing your way” and that’s when Tim either loses his temper or in the case just falls to the ground and is has the “I can’t escape my own future” despair moment in 974.

So her leaving is supposed to be the inciting incident of we are hurtling down a bad end here moment and even Bruce is like… Tim and Steph… separated? Not good. And goes to correct that in 979 by calling Steph back to help. She’s the only one who understands Tim and what he actually wants.

So in 981 when Steph the “irrelevant nobody” aka the representation of the average Joe of Gotham aka “help on person at a time” turns up the mere sound of her voice is enough to make everyone stop. She encourages Tim to make the right decision and win the day by remembering you can’t solve crime alone that’s just incredibly self destructive as well as destructive to everyone around you and it doesn’t matter what you call yourself your actions matter more than that. Steph re-centres Tim, but ultimately he makes the right decision on his own, Steph and Ulysses being the good and bad angels on his shoulder (fitting, considering Ulysses was deliberately written as a dark mirror and Steph’s entire arc has been centred around how best to help people).

“We have all the time in the world” is what Steph said to Tim when he came back and after they kissed. She is constantly telling him to slow down and take a breath after they are reunited so this couple with “if you want to come with me…” Tim is involving Steph once more, so we know that he has completed T H E C H A R A C T E R D E V E L O P M E N T of the arc and learned the exact same lesson that Bruce Wayne learns nearly every single arc too: Let the other members of the Batfam help bro it’s not healthy to do this stuff solo.

Anyway the point is Stephanie is Tim’s home, his morality chain, the thing that keeps him focused and the representation of the people of Gotham, of Gotham itself. He can’t get anything productive down without her to the point where even Bruce knowingly sends the two off together because by this point Steph has proven that she can be trusted with this idealistic overly earnest boy. Take Tynion’s Steph from Tynion’s Tim at your own peril.

To conclude…

“You have the whole world in front of you. What do you want?”

*Smooch*

Like bro… that’s romantic as heck.