#hamilbat

Mary uncorks the wine bottle on the coffee table and gives a generous pour into the two stemless glasses. It’s a rosè, which is the perfect drink for a casual conversation. It’s light, airy, and has absolutely no chance of worms or poison in the bottom.

Sophie eyes her glass a moment before picking it up anyway. “Honestly?” She chuckles. “I have less questions now.”

“Really?” Mary settles back into the couch. “Because I won’t judge you if you do. It’s a lot to take in.” Mary’d wanted to rip the suit right off of Ryan the first time that she saw Ryan in it. Granted, at the time, they’d still been trying to find Kate, and a stranger was wearing Mary’s sister’s secret vigilante costume.

Sophie swirls her glass. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still processing the Ryan Wilder of it all, but… well, it all makes sense now.” She leans forward, her elbows finding the tops of her knees as she pitches towards Mary. “Before last week, I couldn’t understand why Ryan was suddenly everywhere. Sure, she worked at the bar, but then you were roommates out of nowhere. You went from zero to….” Sophie snorts into her wine glass.

Mary laughs too, but she doesn’t quite get why. It’s like they’re playing Never Have I Ever all over again. “Zero to what? I want in on the joke.”

Sophie shakes her head though. Her eyebrows pull together like she’s still puzzling something. Then she gives in, and her voice still has a hint of that humor as she finishes, “Zero to U-haul.” Mary chokes on the air in her lungs. Sophie raises her glass in a silent toast. “So, the Batwoman thing — makes a lot more sense than you suddenly having a girlfriend.”

Mary’s cheeks flush. Leave it to the lesbian to assume Mary’s hiding her sexuality. “A secret girlfriend is much more your speed.” Wait, is that rude? “Uh, no offense.”

Sophie takes a swig of wine. “None taken. You’re right. So, tell me more about working with Ryan.”

Mary smiles. This, she can do. She could talk about Ryan for hours. “She’s amazing. I mean, you know, you’ve seen her. She totally fills out the suit. Like it suits her and not the other way around. You’d think that it wouldn’t, but she really makes it her own.”

“Right, with the wig.”

“With everything!” Mary drinks some more. “She really gets this city, you know? Everything we’re doing with the Center is all Ryan’s idea. She came up with the plan, and she has these rules that we follow as the Bat Team! No killing, no working with Crows — again, no offense. Er, well,” Mary tilts her head to the side, “some offense. You guys have an awful track record at this point.”

Sophie takes another drink. “So you tell me.”

“But we also do team building exercises. It’s mostly us playing Taboo, and Luke getting really tired of us. Ryan’s so great. It’s like we don’t even have to say anything to know what the other is thinking. And even though she’s the boss, and she’s the leader, it’s like we’re really working side by side to make Gotham the place we always wanted it to be. The Center’s only the start. She has ideas about upgraded transitional shelters for people experiencing homelessness, and expanding the clinic if we get enough resources. She listened to my whole pitch about what we would need to do it, and asked questions, and— what?”

Sophie’s staring at Mary. Staring hard, but soft at the same time.

Mary swipes a hand across her cheek. “Is something on my face?”

Sophie shakes her head. “No, it’s nothing.” She drinks again, but her brows stay furrowed.

“Sophie, come on. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” Maybe hearing about all the good that Ryan wants is too much for Sophie right now. Mary can wait. It’s not like she’ll run out of good stuff to say.

“It’s the way you talk about her,” Sophie says finally. That softness is there again. A gentle touch in her voice. “Between that and your ‘kinda sexy’ comment yesterday… I don’t know, Mary, it just sounds like you have a crush.”

“A crush?” Mary repeats. “On Ryan?” She scoffs. “Hate to break it to you, Sophie, but I am straight. Like so straight. Like—”

Sophie puts her hands up in a silent casual defense. She drops them a moment later. “You don’t have to convince me. I believe you.”

“Thank you!” Mary flops back into the couch. Her head bounces just a bit on the top of it. Her curls smush, and she sinks down so that the thought can hopefully follow it out of her head.

She knows what sexy is. She can identify that something could be attractive without actually being attracted to said thing. There are all the different types of attraction. She ran a course on gender and sexuality for the doctors and volunteers at her clinic to make sure that everyone was on the same page in how to properly treat people that the medical field did not always regard with respect. She would know if she had a crush on Ryan.

Wouldn’t she?

Sophie sets her wine onto the coffee table. “It’s a tale as old as time. ‘Straight’ girl meets somebody that she just has to know, wants to spend all her time with her, starts wearing her clothes….” Sophie and Mary both look down at the color-block jacket that Mary’s wearing — Ryan’s color-block jacket.

“Okay, but we live together,” Mary reasons. Roommates borrow each other’s clothes. It’s not like she’s taking her crush’s jacket so that she has an excuse to see Ryan again. She can see Ryan whenever she wants. She does see Ryan whenever she wants. She can’t even count the number of times she’s come back from an awful shift, walked into Ryan’s room, and flopped down onto the bed beside her.

Her bed’s not softer than Mary’s. Mary obviously cared a lot more about her rest than Kate did, so Mary’s mattress is a dream. But Ryan’s room smells like a dialed down greenhouse. It smells alive and hopeful and earthy in a way that instantly calms Mary down. And when Mary’s having a really rough day, Ryan will put a pillow in her lap and run her hands through Mary’s hair until she stops seeing whatever gruesome wounds that she’s spent the last few hours dealing with. That’s not a crush. That’s… comfort. Intimacy. A deep, deep starvation for physical touch after a lifetime of parental neglect.

Friends can be affectionate. Friends can want to be close to each other.

She wants to be close to Luke. And to Sophie! She would love to curl up next to Sophie right now. Though, the more that Mary thinks about curling up with Sophie, the more she recognizes that it wouldn’t be the same as cozying up to Ryan. Ryan’s basically her same size. She’s got this warmth that radiates from her cheeks and her chest, and she hums songs and asks Mary to guess which song it is. Mary’s awful at this game, by the way. She usually ends up giving up, or drifting off to sleep while Ryan’s clearly picking songs that Mary — as someone who did not grow up in a Black household — did not grow up with.

(The one time Mary used that as a defense, Ryan had pointed out that Ryan didn’t grow up in a Black household either. Ryan grew up in a mismatch of cultures and identities in group homes before Mama Cora found her in high school. They’d made up for lost time with plenty of Miss Anita Baker and all the classics that Ryan had missed out on. The rest of Ryan’s cultural education came from other Black students and friends who’d either clowned her for not knowing a reference, or rushed to show her what their parents told them. It hadn’t been as simple as a natural osmosis for Ryan to feel at home with some of the cultural references around her.)

(Mary had whispered that it wasn’t easy for her either. Not with her mom working all the time and the rest of her Korean-American family out of reach. “There weren’t many Korean people in Gotham.” An understatement, but Ryan had leaned down and pressed a kiss to the crown of Mary’s head to comfort her. Sadness Mary hadn’t even known was still there had welled up. Liquified into tears that slipped onto Ryan’s pillow.)

(“It was—” Her breath had caught in her throat. The tears smeared her vision, which was fine, since all she could see from this angle were Ryan’s plants by the window anyway. “It was so lonely sometimes. And my dad…. With Kate… And Alice….” She couldn’t finish a single sentence. All the tears turned to sobs, and the sobs turned into this soul-clenching pressure in her chest.)

(Ryan had curled around Mary then. An arm found its way under Mary’s knees and softly tugged her into a tighter ball in Ryan’s lap. Ryan rocked them, whispered again and again, “It’s okay. Let it out. I got you. I’m here, Mary. I’m here.”)

Mary gulps now. “Ryan is….” She’s Mary’s roommate. Mary’s best friend. She’s the one who got Mary through losing Kate and who welcomed Mary onto the Bat Team. She’s the first person Mary calls whenever anything happens and literally the only person Mary could entrust The Hold Up to. She’s Batwoman, and…. And Mary has no idea what she would do without Ryan at this point. But it’s not like Mary wants to kiss Ryan. Just look at Ryan.

Look at Ryan in those ridiculous flannel shirts. She has twelve. Not including jackets. And she’s a woman, which is not Mary’s type. Mary hasn’t been super successful with her previous type, but they definitely have certain characteristics that Ryan does not. They don’t walk around in fluffy robes that they bought to spite their ex-girlfriends, or wake up super early after a late shift to use the workout bike that Mary still has never actually tried riding. They don’t make Mary sweet potato pancakes and encourage her to try out cooking on her off nights for stress relief. They don’t make her feel like home. They don’t…. Shit.

The lowest groan that Mary has ever done in her life grumbles out of her.

Sophie pops her lips. “There it is.”

Mary squeezes her eyes shut. “You’re not right. I don’t — I can’t — it’s Ryan.” She can’t fall for her best friend! She doesn’t have a backup bestie. “Besides!” Mary pops up to tell Sophie, “I have never once wanted to kiss her.”

Sophie raises an eyebrow in the smoothest, most silent way to ask, Are you sure?

(Mary got them breakfast the next morning. She couldn’t do the sweet potato pancakes, but she knew the right cafe to get Ryan’s favorite vegan chorizo burrito. She got back just as Ryan was finishing up a shower and called out, “Breakfast!”)

(Steam followed Ryan out of her bedroom. The tips of her hair dripped softly onto her shirt, just above her chest, and Mary couldn’t stop glancing down at it. Normally, she would’ve been able to, but that morning…. Ryan snatched up her burrito and flopped down onto the couch. On the first bite, Ryan let out a soft moan that somehow carried straight over to Mary. Maybe Mary made the wrong food choice? If the burrito was that good, and Mary could feel it, then she needed some of what Ryan was having.)

(“You’re brilliant,” Ryan said. Then she locked eyes with Mary and gestured with her burrito. “Anyone who would ever leave you behind is a dumbass. Full offense to the entire Hamilton-Kane family.” Ryan dug in for another bite, and Mary’s heart swelled in her chest. She couldn’t even smile with how full she felt. How warm and safe and loved. God, she loved Ryan. She really, really could spend the rest of her life like this.)

(Ryan’s face scrunched up. “Stop looking at me like that. I don’t care how hungry you look. I’m not sharing.”)

(Mary faked an outraged gasp. She wasn’t even hungry. Not anymore, not really. Still, she threw herself onto the couch beside Ryan. “I paid for it! Give me a bite!” Ryan squirmed away, and Mary had to cling to the curve of Ryan’s back to try and reach for the good. “Come on! Ryan!”)

(If Ryan was a guy, this is when Mary would’ve kissed him. Would’ve peppered his head and his cheeks and his nose with kisses until he turned just enough for her to kiss his full lips and suck his tongue into her mouth. To lose every bit of resistance in the soft brush of her hands, and the gentle curls of Ryan’s hair beneath her fingers. Ryan’s teeth nipping at her bottom lip, then her neck, then—)

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!” Mary sinks even deeper into the couch. Then shoots up at the reminder of the memory of wanting to kiss Ryan on this exact freaking couch. She turns her wide eyes to Sophie. “What am I going to do?”

Sophie clicks her tongue. “Nope, I want nothing to do with that. Whatever happens there is between you and Ryan.”

“But what if….” Mary loses her words in a squeak. What if she doesn’t know what she wants to happen? What if she doesn’t want anything to happen? What if she’ll be totally fine, going about her business, continuing her life where she gets to occasionally cuddle up with her best friend in their apartment? Maybe she doesn’t need anything more than that. She’s made it this far, and she didn’t even know she had any sort of feelings, or attraction. She can keep on going now. She can be normal.

Not normal meaning straight, just normal meaning Mary’s normal state. Which was straight. Is straight?

Mary groans. “I hate my life.”

Sophie reaches for the wine bottle and fills Mary’s glass up to the brim. “Look on the bright side — at least you know who she is. No secret identities, or clandestine rendezvous. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

“I am apparently into a lot of things I didn’t know,” Mary mumbles.

Sophie sighs. “It’s not that different, and for you, maybe it’s not different at all. Maybe….” Sophie glances around the loft. Mary follows her eyes as they bounce from the wine to the hallway to the silly bat wall decals that Ryan got from Party City and put near the TV. Sophie nods her head, as she finds her words. “Ryan loves Halloween.”

“What?”

“Stick with me.” Sophie points to the bats, then the tiny plastic pumpkins from the checkout section of Target. “Ryan loves Halloween. She decorates the whole house around it because she loves it so much. But me, I grew up in a strict Christian household where Halloween was not what we did. We did Christmas. And you….”

Mary follows again. “We did a mix. Christmas and Hanukkah.”

Sophie winces. “Okay, a mix of holidays. You’re not strictly a one holiday kind of girl. And that’s fine.”

Mary glances back to the Halloween decorations. “So, in this metaphor—”

“It might be time to celebrate Halloween. Maybe you’ll love it. Maybe you’ll hate it. But it’s October now, so, get a costume, grab a pumpkin, and tell her how you feel.”

Okay. Mary can do that. Mary can totally do that. If she can handle Alice imploding her entire life in front of the whole world, then she can tell her roommate that she has a crush on her.

Maybe.

Someday.

When she’s ready.

“Can we, uh, work our way up to Halloween? I feel like I’m still hearing fireworks.”

Sophie grins at her. “Of course. We’ll go at your speed. And if you have any questions?”

Mary picks back up her wine glass and knocks back nearly half of it. “I’ll ask you. Or Parker. She’s incredibly knowledgeable for a teenager.” She probably wouldn’t use such convoluted metaphors either. It’s a win-win really. Great, last time Mary saw Parker, they were watching the lesbian drama; now Mary will be a part of it. Ugh. "I'm never living this down, am I?"

"Oh, absolutely not. Hey, Mary?" Sophie waits until Mary's turned her steadily narrowing gaze to her. "Never have I ever had a crush on Batwoman."

Mary flips Sophie off.