Spoiler Alert

Glancing up from his drink, Remy looked at the woman next to him. Well, it was not the strangest question he had ever gotten from a lady in a bar, but it also was not one he had ever been asked before. “Um, non, I–” he began, then paused as he reached into his pocket and grasped a wire. Ah, right. He had been attempting to lift a phone a few days back, but had only come up with the person’s earbuds instead. Clearly he had just forgotten to get rid of them. “Hey, you in luck, chere!” He fished the earbuds out. “Will dese do?”

Though he admired her dedication to getting her work done–something he would never do–Remy could not help thinking the bar was not really a conducive environment for that. “You do lots o’ work in places like dis?” he inquired, taking another sip of his drink, “I mean, I ain’t exactly one for quiet an’ calm, but I t'ink even I’d be hard-pressed t’ actually accomplish anyt'ing here.”

Stephanie beamed as the man pulled out a pair for her. “Yes! Thank you so much.” She took the earbuds from the man and began to plug them in. Without music, Steph couldn’t focus on anything, much less some boring homework. 

His question was definitely a fair one, but Steph always found that she focused well in chaos. It made her feel less alone than if she simply sat in her apartment, or at a small table in the corner of the library. But that answer was a little too deep to give a random man she encountered at a bar. “I work well in chaos,” she responded, giving a slight shrug before a smile. “And I get free food here. So it’s a win-win for me.” 

     sitting on that response, arthur then just shrugged a little bit, then took another swig of his drink, unable to help himself from being too nosey. ❝ college – free food… those pretty much go hand in hand, i’m told. ❞ not that he really understood. he more or less took up the family business. and other ventures.

       trying to be friendly, but not too much so that it would come off as obviously creepy, he just asks simply, ❝ so, what are you studying? ❞ that was a fair game thing to ask, seeing that she was not exactly trying to hide that she was working towards something, either.

Stephanie couldn’t help but give a small snort at his statement. “Yeah, you would hope it’s a joke but it’s not even funny how true it is,” she agreed as she pulled up the discussion board. Hell, it was half the reason she had gotten a job serving - a free meal was worth a lot to someone who was struggling to put herself through college. 

“I’m a nursing student.” The question wasn’t too far intrusive, especially given the context leading up to it. “But this discussion board thing is for my last gen ed, Media Literacy. Which is basically common sense and one of the dumbest classes I’ve taken, but it’s online and super easy, so...” She finished off with a shrug. 

‘Why do I need headphones, I already have this,’ she said as she raised her phone before making an ‘oh’ face, ‘Right, those things that don’t fall out. No, I don’t have them. But do they really not hear poor? I’ve heard that a few times and I have no clue if that’s a joke or not and at this point I’m too scared to google it’

“Oh!” Steph said as the girl responded via her phone. Her whole original question had completely left her mind. She couldn’t help but laugh at her question, responding, “No no, it’s definitely a joke. Like, ‘I’m so rich I can’t even hear you’ kind of thing. Do you sign? I can sign if it’s easier for you.” Stephanie’s hands flew up, signing with her, “I’m Stephanie, by the way.” 

“Good.” he answered glad to see that she was doing school work and not only vigilant, he thought about offering her an scholarship on behalf of Wayne enterprise, and he would have done it if he wasn’t so sure she would declined, he knew that if he wanted to help her he would had to do so she wouldn’t know he was helping. “Is cold here.” he said noticing her arms crossed, she needed to dress better for the weather. “We can talk another time if you want.” He offered, or maybe she wouldn’t want to talk at all

Steph narrowed her eyes slightly at his offer. Her past with Bruce was definitely a complicated one. She was used to him criticizing her, telling her that she wasn’t good enough to be Robin or Batgirl, and so she became Spoiler. But there were also times when he praised her grit and determination. Steph couldn’t decipher which mood he might be in right now, and realistically, well, he’s the Batman and there could be a time where she needed to be in his favor. “I can talk now,” she responded.

RUBY && STEPHANIE

Ruby sat reading on her tablet, her mother had just sent her some information on people HYDRA knew to be around New York. Even if the blond girl did not have a mission right now, general Hale did not allow her not to be on top of things. It had always been her mother’s plan to make Ruby the new head of HYDRA. Perhaps that might not happen now, but Ruby still had hoped that it one day might happen. Hopes she did not tell anyone, not even herself.  –– next to her came a blond girl too, and she was loud. Disturbed the peace that had been around Ruby for the last twenty minutes. 

Even so, at the question that got asked; Ruby reached down into her bag and held up a pair of apple headphones. Music happened to be one of those things that Ruby always needed, so the young assassin never went anywhere without at least two pair of them. She held them out, offering them to the girl who seemed to be around her age. 

Steph was slightly taken aback at how the girl didn’t give her a verbal response. In a way, it reminded her of Cass. Cass. Okay, that thought hurt. She missed her best friend goddammit, she hadn’t seen her in what felt like forever. Still, Stephanie was used to speaking for two people. 

“Thank you,” she breathed, taking the headphones and plugging them into her computer. “I swear, I’m not normally this scatter-brained, but I left mine in my gym bag yesterday and completely forgot to put them in my normal bag. Anyways, you’re a total lifesaver and I owe you a great debt.” 

     day drinking wasn’t something anyone would put past arthur. hell, he was a king now, right? why not – it wasn’t like he was honestly causing trouble. but the more the world weighed on his mind, the more he tried to find recluse in the anonymity of hanging out with ordinary people. 

     he took notice of the young women setting up next to him, but he didn’t think much more about it, continuing to just people watch the rest of the crowd at the bar that early evening. until she started talking, then took a moment to realize she was speaking at him. what about again? something something – oh, headphones? ❝ sorry, i don’t… ❞ arching a brow though, he wondered how on earth, even with headphones, could she possibly be able to concentrate in a place like this. ❝ not to be like, that guy, but wouldn’t a library be a better place to do all that? ❞

Steph was already pulling up the discussion board post as she rambled, and felt herself deflate as her only hope and savior let her down. To be fair, it was a risk to put all of her hope into a random man at the sports bar she worked at, but Stephanie Brown was nothing if not full of hope. 

The man’s comment, however, managed to pull a small face from Steph before she realized that he had a genuine point to the not-average-viewer. “Yeah, it would,” she agreed. “But, I just got off work, the library is far away, and I get a free meal after my shift. Soo... crowded sports bar it is.” 

Everyone was moving to New York, he should be surprise seeing that Spoiler was there as well but deep down he was, it had a while since they last saw each other and he was glad that she seemed to be doing her own thing, he knew how this city could use another vigilanty and since he had help train her he knew she was good.

 “Is nice to see you again.” he answered. “Is been a while.” He made his best not to sound like he was judging her since he was, he always felt like he could have done more for her and maybe now he would finally be able to do so. “How have you been?”

Stephanie wanted to be confident. She wanted to show Bruce that she was prospering both as a civilian but also as Spoiler. She wanted to throw the fact that she didn't need Bruce to be either of those things in his face. But she couldn’t. At least he was being civil (so far), so she could extend him the same courtesy. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, not returning the first sentiment. Her arms were crossed, half defensively but also because dammit it’s cold outside and she kicked at a pebble near her foot. “I’ve been alright. Going to school, keeping up with the extracurriculars.” She wanted to ask how everyone else was - Cass, Tim, Barbara - but that would chip away at her cool exterior faster than anything else.

Looking at her he was surprised with her question, he didn’t expected someone to ask for a headphone, luckly he had one, he was using to pretend he was speaking on his phone when he was a ctually speaking to Venom so people wouldn’t look at him like he was the crazy guy speaking with himself.

“Sure I have one.” He said reaching toward his pocket and grabbing the headphones for her.What’s a discussion board, Eddie ignored Venom speaking to him. “What is this discussion board about it?

Stephanie’s body visibly relaxed as the stranger not only wasn’t put off by her random question, but actually had the means to help her work on her homework. “Thank you, so, so much,” she replied, taking the headphones from him and plugging them into her computer. 

As she was pulling up her Spotify and the discussion board, she answered, “It’s so dumb. It’s for my last gen ed, which is Media Literacy. The question is ‘How does the media in all of its various forms influence us on a day-to-day basis?’ Which, like, the answer is so obvious that I don’t even know how to type it up. And all this on top of being finally admitted into the nursing program...” Stephanie massaged her temples just thinking about all the crap she had to do. “But hey, sorry, you didn’t ask for my life story. Thank you for letting me use these.”

Laura wasn’t too sure what to do, she was almost certain that she was going to end up in trouble. She didn’t have anyone to help though, but she knew that she couldn’t just watch - it wasn’t right. She knew that much at least. No - she couldn’t just stand and watch. So instead she got involved - and now the person she had helped had run off and left Laura with the man who had tried to hurt them, Laura’s hand bore the mans blood on her fist - he was unconscious on the ground with a bloody nose. She hadn’t made her claws appear even. The man was weak - that was clear.

But she was going to get into trouble if she just stood here, but already she had been noticed by someone - she heard them approaching. 

“He is a bad man.” She spoke simply.

The sounds of a mugging drew Spoiler to an alleyway, but the figure in front of her showed that she wasn’t the first one there. The girl was younger than she was, but with everything that was already crazy in New York, Steph couldn’t say she was surprised. The girl was strong enough to knock him out in one punch, which Stephanie was definitely impressed by, but she also didn’t seem to know what to do next. 

“Yeah,” Steph agreed, speaking slowly and consciously. She had no idea who this girl was, what side she fought for, or anything even about her. She didn’t think the girl was necessarily a bad guy, but Steph would’ve been dump to not be cautious around her. For now, she should just figure out as much as she could. “So what are you gonna do next?”

So with NYU’s impressive nursing program and a need to go back to the basics, Stephanie had given the mantle of Batgirl back to Cass, whether she wanted to don it once more or pass it on to someone worthy wasn’t her concern. With Barbara’s help, she updated her Spoiler outfit and said sayonara to the place she once called home. 

Go figure, of course, when everything started following her. First, it was her memories. Then it was some of Gotham’s everyday villains. And finally, Batman himself finally followed. So much for that new start, Stephanie thought bitterly as she saw the familiar outline across the rooftop. So far, she had done pretty well of avoiding any confrontation whatsoever with the bats, and she had originally wanted to keep it that way. But Bruce Wayne’s influence was not so easily avoided, and her fight-or-flight sense was shifting from the latter to the former. 

“So,” Spoiler began, her voice as nonchalant as possible. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

“Okay, so I know the answer is probably ‘No’ because this is a really weird request in this kind of environment, but do you have any kind of headphones I could borrow? I just got off my shift, and this discussion board post is due at midnight and your girl is really struggling already,” Stephanie rambled to the person next to her.