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"You think he's right, don't you?!"
"Yes."
"He's not your dad. You know that, right? He never will be."
"I know. Still... friends?"
"Friends don't turn their backs on each other."
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"INTRUDER ALERT."
You know who it is even before you look at the monitor. Spoiler doesn’t say anything this time. Doesn’t even look into the camera. She just stands, fidgeting.
Some people are harder to read than others. Batman is almost impossible, at times. He’s rigid, trained. Most of the time you have to focus on the smallest things — tiny muscles tightening or releasing, weight shifting so subtly. Signals even he can’t control. Sometimes he goes so stiff and still that even you can’t read him.
Spoiler is like an open book. Like the ones Oracle gave you to practice with, that have large text and illustrations. Her body shows her every thought in bright, loud detail. Her excitement, her passion. Frequently her anger, insecurity, fear.
Right now it’s hunched shoulders, arms tight to her body. Furrowed brows and downturned lips. Downturned eyes, too; out of the camera’s view, she’s scuffing the floor with her shoe.
Finally, she takes a deep breath — it only shudders a little — and looks right into the camera. She makes a try at faking a smile, but it fails somewhere in the middle. “Hey, BG. You sleeping again?” She doesn’t shout. “I guess I’ll, uh. Come back later. You know, if you want.”
She’s poised to run away, already turning away from the camera. You open the door.
“Oh! Uh, guess you weren’t asleep after all, huh? I, um. I…”
You want to throw your arms around her. Instead, you just say “Hi.”
She smiles, shakily. “Hey.” She steps into the room and sits down on a bench. You stand.
“I just,” she begins. “I’m sorry about what I said last time. I mean, I’m not sorry for being upset, ‘cause I still am, but—” Spoiler bites the inside of her cheek. “I miss you.”
“I’m... sorry, too. I didn’t mean it like…” You shuffle your feet a little, understanding Spoiler’s expression in the camera.
Spoiler’s eyes widen. Her shoulders relax and her head lifts, slightly. Surprise, relief, but also caution. “You mean, you don’t agree with Batman after all? You do think I'm... I'm good enough?”
You shake your head, and she collapses, again. Betrayal, anger, humiliation, sorrow. “Oh.”
“But... I think you can learn.”
She looks up and says nothing. She wants you to keep talking, before she decides.
“I have... genetic…" You struggle for a moment. “I’m suited to this. Naturally. And I was trained very, very young. You’re still... new, and not so natural. Your father was... a thinker, mostly. Cain is a fighter. You aren’t skilled enough yet.” You take a deep breath. Talking this much, for this long, is hard. It makes you nervous. “But you can learn. I... can help you, teach you how. If you want, I mean,” you add hastily.
She's looking at you, considering. She's still wary, but also relieved. “You already tried to train me. So did Batman.”
“You stopped coming. And you and Batman are... different. He doesn’t... he isn’t good with people who are different from him.”
“You think you could do better?”
“I— yes.”
A long, silent moment. She considers. You watch, and know her answer long before she tips her head back and laughs.
You smile, relieved.
--------
You decide to begin immediately. You're already dressed for training — you always are, none of the very few outfits you own are unsuited for fighting in. Spoiler has to change. You look away.
You spar. You don't go slow or easy. You never have. It wouldn't help her. She barely lands a hit on you, as usual.
You can tell when she starts getting frustrated, and then angry. Anger makes mistakes. Her hits come faster and harder, but also less precise. You block them easily.
Finally she lunges at you, trying to pin you to the ground. You dodge and nudge her hip. She overbalances, flailing. As she falls you turn her so she lands face up, and pin her down.
Spoiler thrashes, snarling, until the rage runs out of her and she goes still, out of breath. She looks up at you and you've barely broken a sweat, but something about that look makes your breath catch. You can see her stress, and her anger, and her tiredness and…
You are suddenly very aware of her between your knees, under you. Your hands on her forearms. Her face, close.
You roll off and lay on the ground beside her, not touching. She lies still, too. You hear her breathing slow as she catches her breath, you sense her muscles relaxing and her heart slowing down. You feel her take your hand, sweat slick between your palms, and you squeeze back. You would be content just to lie there for a long while, feeling her hand in yours, listening to the sound of her living body beside you.
You let go of her hand and stand up. She follows suit.
"So, same time tomorrow?" she asks. She's not as good at reading people as you are, but she's better at reacting to them.
"Yes."
You look away when she changes again, and wave, a little shyly, as she leaves.
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Spoiler comes back the next day, and the next. Sometimes you spar. Sometimes you show her how to move. You explain, in halting sentences, the workings of muscles and tissues, and how they can be used in your favor or against you. She nods along, encouraging — you're doing fine, she understands — and stops you every now and then to ask for clarification.
People tend to talk for you, to make assumptions. Batman and Oracle both do it, in different directions, each of them always a little right and a little wrong and you stuck in the middle, not sure which way to go. Spoiler doesn't. She never puts words in your mouth. When she listens, it's your voice she hears.
At night, you patrol. Spoiler wants to come with you. You tell her no. She's not ready yet. Still a liability. Once she tries to follow you. You knock her out and take her back to your cave. She sulks.
Several weeks pass but sparring still frustrates her. She improves every day. You don’t realize that she can’t see it until she gives up on trying to hit you and punches a wall instead. The pain jars her anger into shame — “sheepishness” — and while you tend to her bloodied knuckles you decide that you have to be the one to tell her what she can’t see.
It’s difficult to talk and fight at the same time, like trying to hold two conversations at the same time in different languages, but you still manage to let her know when she does well. At first Spoiler reacts to the praise like she’s been given something that doesn’t belong to her and she doesn’t know what to do about it, but she stops getting angry during matches, starts to have fun. She still loses but they aren’t effortless victories for you, anymore.
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Sometimes she convinces you to take a break from training, pulls you out into the daylight. On these days, Spoiler trains you. She takes you shopping for clothes you don't need and can't comfortably fight in, but she says they look good on you. Often, you agree. You try lots of new foods, you visit arcades and a bowling alley, once. She shows you how to use the debit card Batman gave you. It's too much money for you to use alone, but she refuses your clumsy offers to share.
She teaches you new words. The spoken ones are mostly things you shouldn't repeat in front of Batman or Oracle. The written ones, she points out on signs and storefronts and teaches you to recognize by shape: blocky and primary-colored fast food logos, 'open', 'closed', and 'sale'.
You also learn about the particular slump of her shoulders when she wants something she can't afford. You memorize the angry, protective arch of her arm around you when someone catcalls from across the street. You study the way her muscles stretch to accommodate the specific smile that comes from eating something delicious.
You learn about all the little motions she makes that have little place on a rooftop or in the cave, all the expressions that would be hidden by her hood. You learn about Stephanie, the girl who becomes Spoiler. Your best friend.
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One day she brings over a stack of DVDs and curses at the overlarge computer terminal until it agrees to play one. Your small bed is dragged up to the terminal. You both stretch out on it, chins propped on the shared pillow, sides pressed together under the blanket.
Stephanie talks a lot, even during movies. She commentates and howls with laughter at her favorite jokes. Whenever there are songs she sings along, off-key and mumbling through forgotten lyrics.
You find that the tone of her voice has become almost as familiar as the shape of her shoulders, the motions of her arms. You can clearly envision her expression without taking your eyes off the screen, but you also discover that you don't need an image to know, to understand. She's like a book that's been read so many times the rhymes have been committed to memory, like the scenes she doesn't talk through but mouths along with every line of dialogue.
Her hair tickles your jaw. The line of her is warm beside you, her curves softer than yours, her hip a hard ridge.
She slides an arm across your back, never pausing in her commentary, too casually for thoughtlessness. You hear the way her words come so slightly more quickly than before, feel the faint tremble to her hand resting on your waist.
"Stephanie?" You interrupt her.
She turns, mid-word, mouth still slightly open and inquisitive, a nervous edge to the slant of her brows. Her eyes fix on yours, and you lean over and up, laying your mouth against hers.
You've never kissed anybody before. This is a language more foreign to you than the words you sometimes still struggle with. You don't know what any of it means; the shape of her lips, the heat of her skin. When you hesitantly adjust so that you fit together more comfortably, she moves too, and suddenly you understand.
You draw back, breathing harder and face more flushed than it's ever become while training. Stephanie stares at you with too-blue eyes and her mouth slightly swollen and shaped like surprise. She smiles, and then laughs, a blush rising in her own cheeks, and pulls you over to lay another kiss on your mouth, brief and gentle and sweet.
"Cass," she murmurs.
You smile, and move even closer.
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Several weeks later, Cass finally invites you out to patrol with her. You smile when she takes your hand to lead you out of the cave; laugh every time she catches you during a fierce game of rooftop tag; positively crow when you finally catch her. You make the same sound after you knock down the leader of the group of burglars the two of you were chasing.
You turn toward Cass, wondering, hoping that your grin is bright enough to shine through the mask. You know it must be because when she smiles back you see it in her face, her legs her fingertips, glowing bright and warm as the sun.