Chapter Text
"So…" Charlie said into the comms piece, as he carefully balanced on the edge of a rooftop. "If I do run into Batman, what do I do?"
"You won't," came Mike's short reply.
"Right, right," Charlie agreed quickly. "But what if I do?"
He aimed the grapple gun, eyeballing the distance. The route he'd plotted out only had him grappling across wide distances like this about six times or so, and it never required him to chain more than two swings together. Mike still didn't like his odds. Mike could suck it.
There was some rustling through the comm line. "Red Hood hasn't updated—oh, looks like he has, hang on," Mike said. "Okay. You ignore whatever he says, exit stage right, and then we send Hood a message immediately so he can… I quote, 'enact consequences.'"
"So I run away."
"Pretty much, yes," Mike agreed.
"I miss when the plan was to shoot Batman on sight," Charlie muttered as he sent the grapple flying. It hooked into the masonry across the street, and held tight when he tugged at it. That was promising. "Just run away—have you seen how fast that guy is? How he sneaks up on you? I'll be murdered like an extra in a horror movie."
"You weren't around for when the plan was to shoot Batman on sight," Mike pointed out. "Besides, has a bullet ever stopped him?"
Charlie grumbled in assent as he gave the grapple another tug. "Ugh. Fair. There's no stopping him." He paused. "Actually. How the hell does Hood plan to stop him? What consequences?"
"Hmm," Mike hummed. "That's a good question. I'm sure he has something in mind."
Well, Charlie supposed he was never going to get a more satisfying answer than that. He gripped the grapple firmly, took a deep breath, and leapt off the edge.
Gotham Aquarium had been renovated many times over the course of its history, oftentimes due to direct attacks by one of the rogues. This time, the glass had been reinforced several times over, as shatterproof as it could possibly be. Wayne Enterprises had provided much of the R&D when it came to designing the material. The ventilation had filters that guarded against harmful gasses, pressurization that would limit spread. Cameras glinted in their corners, looped into a security system Bruce himself had contributed to putting together.
Every iteration made things safer, closed vulnerabilities. The impact of the next disaster minimized as much as possible. With enough effort, no one would have to die.
The aquarium was currently empty, opened during its off hours exclusively for Bruce and his entourage: Tim, Duke, Damian, and Cass. A tour guide had joined them due to the promise of extra pay, and was now speaking to Damian in low tones as Cass and Duke conversed before a tank full of jellyfish. The blue light of the screen cast them in a ghostly glow.
Cass had been stressed lately. Everyone was, but her skills made it worse, a feedback loop of anxiety she couldn't escape. Now, though, the tension in her shoulders were relaxing. The trip was good for her. Duke was benefiting as well—he'd been getting restless, trapped at home due to his injury.
Damian… it'd been quite clear that this had started as Damian's idea, although he had been extremely insistent about how this was all Tim's plan. Even now, Bruce sometimes struggled to connect with his youngest, but a request like this he could provide easily.
They'd need to go out on trips more often. They'd barely been here twenty minutes, but Bruce could already see how much this was helping everyone.
He'd done this with Dick, back in the day. Baseball games and zoo trips, all sorts of sightseeing. Even their missions as Batman and Robin now gained a nostalgic quality, fun in retrospect, despite the importance of what they did. Bruce could ask Dick to join them now. He might be a little suspicious to start, but he'd agree eventually. Perhaps this would be good for him, as well.
Jason, on the other hand, had preferred theater, the local plays and—
Inviting Jason wasn't an option. Bruce had lost that chance long ago. He found himself glancing down at his hands, like he expected them to be coated with red. He curled them into fists.
He hadn't killed anyone. Jason himself had insisted as much, and he could still remember Jason, all of four feet tall and puffing his chest out, insisting he wasn't a liar. And Red Hood always spoke with the intent to hurt. Batman killing someone—that was exactly the sort of hypocrisy Hood would have loved, would have refused to let anyone forget.
Bruce could taste copper in the back of his throat, formless with the fog of memory.
Bruce hadn't done it. Batman wouldn't, and couldn't. It was a line he'd never cross.
"B?"
Bruce blinked and looked over his shoulder. Tim. That was right, Bruce hadn't seen him while surveying the room earlier. "Hm?" he asked.
"If you're thinking about casework, you need to stop," Tim said, voice just a touch too intentionally casual. He'd always been good at that, pulling Bruce out of his thoughts when they started to spiral. "Remember. Alfred's orders. This is father-son bonding time and you are doing zero bonding."
Bruce took a breath, then nodded genially. "Of course. What sort of… bonding activity do you have in mind?"
Tim waved a piece of paper in his face. "Scavenger hunt. Nobody wants to do it with me, so you're my victim now. Let's go."
He grabbed Bruce's hand, and pulled him along, off into the maze of blue-lit halls.
Jason: The situation was complicated. I've talked to Dick, and we've sorted it out now.
Donna: good to hear. im holding you to it
Donna: i see you typing
Donna: spit it out
Jason: Promise me you'll actually answer the question.
Donna: well you have to tell me what it is now
Jason: Do you happen to know if Rayner's planetside right now?
Donna: bad timing he just left for oa two days ago
Donna: but also HA. KNEW IT
Isabel couldn't remember the last time she had baked. She wasn't too good at it—she had a tendency to leave things in the oven too long—but with Liam keeping an eye on things she was sure she wouldn't mess things up too badly. She dumped another ball of cookie dough on the tray. Liam was across the kitchen, frowning down at the pot he had simmering on the stove.
"What are you making?" she asked.
"Stew."
"What kind?"
He shrugged. "Dumping all the leftovers in one pot. It's mostly beef and tomatoes, I guess."
"Right, right," Isabel said, her attention returning to the cookies. "Jason made that all the time, back in the day. Some of those combinations feel like they shouldn't have tasted nearly as good as they did."
"The secret's just to dump more spices in if it tastes bad."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Isabel managed to position another two cookies on the tray before she was glancing up again. Liam was still focused on the stew. "How is he, anyway? Did he talk to you?"
Liam offered a shrug that seemed noticeably stiffer, though it could also be the chronic pain acting up. "He's… he apologized, yes." He paused, and said the words in a deliberate, delicate way that did little to soften them. "For committing suicide in my basement."
Isabel winced.
"It's frustrating," Liam said, stirring with renewed intensity. "It's—I need to remember that this is a good thing, that he's acknowledging that he was suicidal, instead of continuing with that stupid repetitive denial about how it was 'the most reasonable course of action to test his immortality.' You can't fix a problem if you pretend it isn't there. And it seems like he's trying to get better, that he's self-aware enough to actually take care of himself, but—" He cut himself off, setting the wooden spoon and settling in a chair with a sigh. "I don't know. This recent death. He won't explain it at all, and I'm just… afraid it's happening again."
Right, that's where Jason was now. In the basement, insistent that it was his responsibility to clean up his own mess. Essence had gone down to check on him, but Isabel had been pulled away to work on the cookies. The fact Essence hadn't come back upstairs was… probably a good sign? "It's hard," Isabel agreed, "When you're angry at someone for their self-destructive behaviors. Can't exactly take it out on anyone without making things worse."
Liam nodded, leaning his head back against the chair as he rubbed his eyes. "I care about him. I want him to be okay, but… yes, exactly. Every time I tried to talk to him I got so furious and it just ended with him ignoring me entirely. This time, he won't tell me anything besides that it was 'necessary' and he 'wasn't suicidal there' so I don't need to worry about him, like that doesn't make me worry more."
"He called me," Isabel said quietly, the cookies forgotten. "I… I don't think he wanted to die. He said he was going to ask for help and everything and—I just, I don't know. I don't know what happened, but I know he was trying."
"So Gotham got him killed again," Liam sighed. "Batman got him killed, probably, and that's why he's so goddamn tight-lipped about the details. And it'll keep happening, until one day he doesn't come back."
"He's here now," Isabel offered. "That's what matters, right?"
Liam took a breath, pulled himself to his feet, and returned to the stove. "Sure. Then what?"
"He could get out. You managed to get out."
"Yes, because I don't keep going back."
"If you do not practice your skills, you will lose them."
Jason sighed, stretching out his exhale for a full fifteen seconds. "I am well aware of that, E. I am not going to spar with you in Liam's basement. He would kill us."
"Liam would much prefer if you stopped dying."
Jason was sprawled, stomach down on the floor of the basement. After some consideration, he rolled over onto his back. Essence was standing above him, glaring down with her arms crossed. He raised one hand in a middle finger and drew the electrolarnyx away from his throat with the other, tucking it away safely into a padded pocket.
Essence kicked him, a light jab in his side. "You are not nearly as much of a comedic genius as you believe yourself to be. This conversation isn't over." She tried to keep her voice stern, but she couldn't stop the smile leaking into it. Jason counted it as a victory.
His muscles were aching in a way that meant he knew he would wake up horrifically sore tomorrow. Renovating the basement—removing bloodstained carpet while very carefully not thinking about its origins—had been exhausting work. Worthwhile, but exhausting, and Essence didn't seem particularly interested in helping.
"You need to put in the work if you want to help," Essence was saying. "I need to make sure you're actually ready to take down the Untitled before I let you near another one. You're out of practice. I doubt you even remember how to access the astral plane."
Jason tried it right then and there, but being a floppy mess of limbs on the thin carpet padding of an uncomfortably hard floor wasn't great for his concentration. He closed his eyes and presented Essence with another middle finger, signing, "Not here. Not now."
"Then we will find a time and place to train. And prior to that, you will not be following me around while I hunt them."
Jason managed to make his sigh last a full twenty seconds this time. He deserved a prize for his impressive breath control. He fumbled for the electrolarnyx, realized he didn't actually turn it off before tucking it away, and mourned its battery life. Eventually, he managed to press it against his throat. "It truly wounds me how you would leave me to languish. Fine, fine, you can teleport away to your life of glorious adventure. Without me."
She kicked him again.
"Ow." After some thought, he cracked an eye open. "Actually. Speaking of teleportation."
Essence narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. Rude. "What about it?"
"Okay let's say. I… do your terrible training exercises." They weren't that bad, just repetitive and boring and basic, things Jason already knew how to do. His fundamentals were fine. "Can I ask a favor? A teensy little one. Shouldn't be any trouble at—hm, actually, can you travel to Oa?"
"Where is that?"
"Center of the universe."
"I fear I'm limited to Earth," Essence said. Unfortunate. She opened her mouth again, brow still pinched, and Jason politely asked the universe to ensure she would focus on the whole training thing instead of the… "Why do you want to go to Oa?"
It seemed the universe hated him, then.
By the time Isabel and Liam came down the stairs, Essence had Jason prone on the ground, one hand twisted behind his back as she straddled his hips. When Jason twisted his head to look at them, they seemed oddly subdued—which did not promise great things about whatever conversation happened upstairs—but it could've just been him seeing things.
"What the hell is going on?"
Jason glanced up at Essence, as far as the awkward angle could allow. He steadily continued to stubbornly not tap out, but he did wriggle an arm free so he could secure the electrolarnyx to his throat. "Told you he'd hate us for sparring in his basement."
"That is not what you said, and this is not a spar," Essence said coldly. She shifted his grip to force his head forward again. "This is an interrogation. Who is it?"
"There isn't an anybody in this," Jason said, taking advantage the adjustment in position to lever her off his body and scramble upwards. "Christ, a guy can't ask an innocent question these days without getting jumped anymore."
"Essence?" Isabel asked, delicately.
Essence glanced over at her, then snapped her focus back over to Jason before he could make his escape. "Someone here is hiding secrets, again."
"Jason?"
It took Jason a few tense seconds for him to respond to the prompt for his perspective. "I asked her if she could teleport to Oa. She asked why. It escalated."
"Into a fight?" Liam asked.
"That's normal for them," Isabel said. "You said Oa?"
"She was bullying me," Jason protested. "She knows I'm out of practice and she attacked me anyway."
Essence crossed her arms stubbornly. "I was getting you back into practice."
"Oa's the Green Lantern place, right?" Isabel asked. "You knew one of them, didn't you? The one you were messing with back when we were doing that whole demon hunting road trip?"
"That doesn't have anything to do with anything." Jason said, defensively.
"He definitely has a crush," Essence announced.
"I do not have a crush," Jason responded immediately, whirling on her. "He has a crush on me. Confirmed. By outside sources. I just want to… talk to him about it."
"You don't need to be embarrassed about liking men," Liam commented, from where he was leaning against the wall. The bastard was grinning way too widely. "Attitudes were different back in my day, but even then, I—"
"Oh my god," Jason said. "I don't have a crush. And I'm not having this conversation with both my exes in the room. Shut up."
"I promise, regardless of our history, I want the best for you in your dating life," Isabel started, but the entire conversation had provided sufficient distraction for Jason to circumvent Essence and make his escape up the stairs.
He could always just wait for Rayner to get back planetside and break into his apartment.
Just to talk.
F: guess who got caught kissing on a rooftop
F: [hyperlink]
C: ???????
C: dude. no way
M: Yep that's the boss alright
C: there is actually no way
F: diversity win! one of earth's 25 green lanterns is gay!
M: Probably not gay. That one's snogged at least one woman on camera
F: diversity win! one of earth's 25 green lanterns is bisexual!
C: this cant be real
M: Now why the hell is hood in NYC. Is he cheating on us with a bigger and better city? Is Gotham not good enough? Was Nightwing forsaking us not enough??
F: tbf after nw moved to blud it
F: actually i'm gonna stop there
M: Good choice
F: y'know charlie if the boss can bag a green lantern your chances can't be that bad with spoiler
M: I fear I have bad news about who she's been caught kissing
C: this is the final straw im quitting my job forever
C: FOXTROT BULLYING ME IS TEH FINAL STRAW NOT THE SPOILER KISSING THING**
F: nice save. lol.
The manor looked like it always did—open and looming, haunted and benign all in one. Dick let Alfred take his coat as he looked across the expanse of the foyer, with its polished tile flooring leading to the grand spiral staircase. He traded the typical pleasantries, then excused himself to wander up the staircase.
Back when Dick had been a kid, the manor seemed impossibly big. He'd count the rooms and lose track, having to start over from one. Now, the eight bedrooms seemed… a surprisingly manageable number. It didn't take any time at all to locate Duke's.
He knocked once, before his nerves could get to him, then called, "Hey, it's Dick. Can I come in?"
Silence, then the door cracked open. Duke eyed him. "Hey, didn't realize you were in Gotham." He stepped back, opening the door and stepping back into his room.
Dick followed, eyes flickering over the walls as he absently said, "It was pretty last minute. I'm just stopping by for the day."
The space was clean, neat beyond various textbooks and papers that spanned a disorganized desk. A stack of rolled up posters sat next to a roll of blue painter's tape. Duke perched himself on the bed, gesturing to the desk chair. Dick dutifully pulled it out and sat down.
"So—"
"Is there—"
Their voices overlapped before they cut themselves off, and Duke cracked a smile. "I'm guessing there's something you wanted to talk about?"
"Yeah," Dick admitted, rocking back in the chair. He stopped himself before the legs could lift off the ground "I wanted to apologize."
Duke blinked. "For?"
Dick gestured vaguely, "For everything from—I guess it's a month ago, now. The… argument we had. I want to say I was just worried, but I was definitely also treating you like a kid who didn't know what you were doing. You were completely right—you're a capable vigilante. You can make your own decisions about who you want to work with, and I shouldn't have… said what I said."
"Right," Duke said. He clicked the T with a sharp little noise before his face settled into contemplation. "Honestly I was—man. Look, I was just having a bad day, and I blew up at you because you were the closest target. I should be the one apologizing for that. And besides, you were right, y'know? You probably could have presented your case better, but you were absolutely right that I didn't—don't—know a lot of the nuance and history surrounding," — he swept his arm out vaguely — "this entire family, I guess. I appreciate that you wanted to fill me in."
Dick shook his head. "All of that stuff has been resolved for years. I shouldn't have dredged it up at all."
"And I shouldn't have gone on that whole you're not my brother spiel. So we were both a little in the wrong, and right about some things. Are you good with calling it even?"
Dick smiled. "Yeah. That sounds good." He paused to take a deep breath before he continued. "Also, I… don't remember exactly what you said, but it was something about working solo. If you want more backup, that's something Babs could arrange, I'm sure—"
Duke shook his head. "Nah. I'm okay. My whole point there was, y'know, if you can trust me to work alone, trust me in my other decisions. And if you got that, then we're good."
Dick nodded, but his eyes found their way to Duke's collarbone. He'd only heard about the injury, hadn't seen it, but he could still imagine how the bandages would've looked, speckled with blood from a wound buried far too deep.
"I'm all healed," Duke said, pulling down the collar of his shirt. "Just a scar now, and I still have my full range of motion."
"You still got hurt," Dick murmured. "It's not safe."
Duke laughed, but it was playful. "Well, I sure hope you're not realizing that just now." Dick's lips twitched in shared amusement, but Duke quickly sobered. "That time—it wasn't because of anything I was doing. Caught in the crossfire of someone else's fight. It happens. It's not safe, it never is, so if I'm risking my life just by living it—yeah, I'll put myself in more danger, if it means helping people. It's worth it."
Dick's smile this time was soft. "Yeah. It is."
They fell into silence, anticipatory but comfortable. Duke abruptly pulled a Rubik's cube out of seemingly thin air, scrambling it. He'd scrambled and solved it two times over, Dick content to watch, when he said. "So."
"Yeah?" Dick prompted.
"If, say, theoretically," Duke continued, his words punctuated by the twisting of the cube, "You were planning to stay in Gotham for the rest of today, how would you feel about joining me and my friends, for a few rounds of Blood on the Clocktower?" His eyes snapped up. "We need more people. Desperately. Dre might not be able to show tonight, and if we don't get to play I will lose my mind."
Dick snorted. "Haven't heard of it. Is it a game?"
Duke nodded, dropping the cube on his bed as he stood, clapping his hands together. "It's a board game, yes! Let me explain the rules—you'll love it. Or you won't, but we'll never find out of we never try."
Much later, after approximately twenty minutes of Duke explaining multiple different mechanics so Dick would understand why a particular scenario was funny—he still didn't quite get it—Duke said absently, "I'm gonna have to introduce you. Dick Grayson, yes, that Dick Grayson, no, you're not allowed to laugh—"
Dick snorted.
Duke looked at him. "Man. I guess you are technically my brother, aren't you? Crazy that I was yelling so much about how you weren't, in that fight."
"You're still only being fostered by Bruce, right?" Dick asked. "I don't know if the parent relationship is transitive in that case. And, well, you were right. We haven't spent that much time together. There's not much of the sibling… emotional bond. So… I don't know if we're brothers." He smiled hesitantly. "I'd like to be your friend, though."
Duke laughed. "Friends. Yeah, sounds good."
Tim: btw steph wants to talk to u. told me to give you her number
Tim: (XXX) XXX-XXXX
Jason: Okay.
Steph pressed the buzzer at the entrance to the apartment complex, and the door silently clicked open a second later. She stepped into the building, awkwardly navigating the door with the two cups in her hand, and wrapped her arms closer around herself when the AC blasted her with a practically wintry chill.
She picked her way up the stairs—after glancing at the elevator and deciding not the trust it—counting until she reached the fourth floor.
Room 408 looked exactly like every other door in the hall. She balanced the drinks in one arm and checked her text messages again, in case the number had changed sometime between this and the last twenty times she had checked.
Before she could knock, the door opened.
Jason had on a sweater and scarf, a look swaddled in so many soft fabrics that he seemed… surprisingly innocuous? Like he belonged in a coffee shop, tucked into the corner with his laptop and a steaming mug, instead of out on the street beating muggers up.
"Hi," Steph said.
He waved her into the apartment, closing the door behind her. The place was small, but much more well-furnished than the one other safehouse of his that she'd seen, like someone was actually living in it. There was an entire bookcase against one wall, stuffed so full that some books were left in a stack on the floor next to it. She could see a pair of dirty bowls in the sink, matched with two forks and mugs.
"Hey, you wanted to talk?" Jason adjusted the scarf slightly as he spoke, leaning against the kitchenette's counter. Steph blinking in surprise at the mechanical tone of his voice before she remembered.
Steph shrugged slightly, then held out one of the drinks to him. "Not talk, exactly. Just to hang out? I got you," — she wiggled it at him slightly — "spiced hot chocolate."
It was the closest thing to 'spiced hot cocoa' that the coffee shop she'd wandered into had. Steph had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out if the two were the same thing.
Jason accepted it easily, taking a sip. His mouth curved into a half-smile. "It's good."
Steph nodded, sipping at her own coffee. She'd need the energy, for patrol later. "That's good." She took another sip before continuing. "Uh, full disclosure, I guess. I asked one of your… uh. Goons? Employees?" Jason shrugged, and she took it as a prompt to continue. "About you. Your preferences and stuff. Which was probably pretty invasive of me, so, sorry about that."
Jason nodded, in a way that left it very ambiguous whether he was accepting the apology or not.
Steph pushed on. "And I'm also sorry about the other time where I just barged into your safehouse. That was kind of messed up to do without you knowing."
"You were bleeding out," Jason offered. "And you didn't know."
"In the same situation I'd probably do the same thing, again," Steph admitted. "But I still feel bad about it, so. Yeah."
"Well, I'm glad you're self aware enough to know that." Jason was smiling, still relaxed against the counter, so Steph took it as a good thing. He glanced between her and the nearest chair. "You can sit, by the way."
She realized that she had, indeed, been standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchenette, and dutifully sat down. "Right, thanks." She took a breath. "Also, and, you don't have to do this if you don't want to—obviously—but if you could tell that goon slash employee that I talked to that I wanted to apologize to him also, that'd be great. I think hunting him down to tell him myself would probably be… not a great idea."
Jason tilted his head, expression thoughtful. "What did you do?"
Steph winced. "Asked about you. Like, beyond the preferences question, on the day you… blew up, I was trying to get him to tell you where you were. Because we were getting along before then, and… I didn't talk to him with the intent of manipulating him to turn him against you, but that was… pretty much what happened. And I shouldn't have done that."
Another ambiguous nod. "I'll pass the message along."
The silence lasted just long enough for Steph to realize that she'd never actually specified who she'd been talking to. Which meant that he knew, already. Before she could ponder it too long, he was speaking again. "That's a lot of preplanned apologizing for someone who just wanted to hang out."
Steph felt herself flush, but when she looked up at him he looked more amused than anything. She found herself smiling in response. "Yeah, well—yeah. I had some things I wanted to tell you, but other than that, I did also want to do the hanging out."
"Why's that?"
His tone was so difficult to judge, but his expression was open and curious enough that Steph felt okay pressing on. "I don't know. I guess I don't really know you at all? Like, as a person, despite how often you work with Tim and Babs and the whole… history. And I'd like to get to know you better, past secondhand stories and rumors. If you're okay with that."
She sipped some more coffee. It was curiosity, she supposed, and a desire to atone for… something. Everything she apologized for. Maybe something else. She felt like she was supposed to know him, but she didn't. Jason still hadn't responded, so she continued. "Megan Croft, also. I was working on her case, y'know? The kidnapping. According to her, you saved her twice over and… you've never mentioned it."
"I don't save people because I'm expecting credit or gratitude."
"Sure," Steph agreed quickly. "But you deserve it. So… thank you."
Jason shrugged, sipping his drink in a way that shielded his face. After he put it down, he said. "Okay, so. Hanging out. What did you have in mind?"
That… was a very good question. Steph had come here with a list of things she wanted to say, and a longer list of questions that she had very sternly told herself she couldn't ask. The blurry photo in a tabloid magazine that looked suspiciously like Jason kissing one Kyle Rayner. Exactly what the whole deal was, with the alleged fire swords Megan had excitedly described.
…Exactly how he tolerated dealing with her and the rest of the flock, when the distrust everyone held for him would have caused Steph to snap long ago, if it'd been directed at her.
"You don't have a TV in here," she noted instead.
"I like to read," Jason responded.
"I know." She gestured towards the bookcase. "I used my amazing detective skills to figure that one out already."
He snorted in response. "Ah yes, of course. My apologies for underestimating you."
Steph leaned back to study the books, though she wasn't close enough to see any of the titles. "Do you have any recs—hang on, more important question." She leaned forward, and his focus immediately lasered in on her. "I've heard from a little bird that you don't listen to music, now this is odd to me, because I don't think it's possible to go through life without listening to—"
"That little bird is a liar and I'm firing him," Jason declared. He pushed away from the counter, dumping his empty cup in the trash can as he walked past it. He started to pace, moving with dramatic sweeping gestures belied by the way he seemed to be barely holding back a laugh. "I can't believe he's been spreading this sort of slander about me. Have you listened to Lacuna Coil? Let me introduce you to Lacuna Coil."
"I've heard of them, but I don't know if I've ever listened to any of their stuff," Steph offered. "Also, please don't fire him?"
Jason paused mid-pace, then pulled out a phone. His eyes were bright with excitement, so vibrant with energy that just existing next to him felt like it was waking her up far more than the coffee had. "Alright, Stephanie, I'll forgive him for this transgression this one time. Now, let me show you what you've been missing out on."
She grinned. "I can't wait."