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Steph stepped into the bookshop with her iced coffee in hand, the bell above the door jingling gaily as it swung shut behind her. She took a moment to take it all in: shelf after shelf after shelf overstuffed with books of all kinds, a winding staircase in the middle leading up to floors above full of the same. The railing was entwined with fairy lights, glimmering all the way into the darkness overhead. With a small smile, she wandered inside, eager to start looking amongst the stacks.
There weren’t all that many customers inside other than herself. There was also no shopkeeper to be seen, the front desk unmanned – the only evidence of any was a still-steaming coffee sitting by the register. Steph shrugged and started looking. She rarely took a list when she went hunting for secondhand books; it was more fun to see what the universe had in store for her. And this place, oh, this place was bursting at the seams with books: the shelves were packed with hardcovers and paperbacks, first editions and new releases alike. Well, newish.
Steph started flipping over books to skim their blurbs, returning them to their place not long after. She wasn’t sure what she was after. It would find her, she was sure. Honestly? After getting kicked into a brick wall last night by some goons and promptly benched by Dick not long after – he claimed she had a concussion, she said it was just a headache – she’d decided to make the best of a bad situation and treat herself to a coffee and an afternoon book shopping.
She still had some cash squirrelled away from last summer’s babysitting gig, so she could afford it, at least.
It was tucked in the back pocket of her shorts. She had at least a hundred there, plenty to do a proper shopping spree. She knew she should save some of it for next semester’s textbooks, but…fuck it. She would only live once.
Maybe that was the concussion talking. After all, this was technically her second chance at life.
As she wandered, her fingers came up to rub her temple, where last night’s headache still stubbornly remained despite the two Advil she’d taken with breakfast that morning. She replaced another book on the shelf, feeling disappointment linger for a moment. She’d been in there fifteen minutes at least and still hadn’t found anything. But she reminded herself, there were two floors above to explore. Something would turn up.
Sipping her coffee, she swirled the ice around for a moment as her gaze wandered over the shelf. It didn’t look promising. But then, she spotted it:
A near-new copy of Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.
Sure, it had come out a while ago, but she still hadn’t managed to grab a copy yet – and To Kill a Mockingbird had been one of her favourite books in high school. This copy appeared to be in impeccable condition. She reached for it and found her hand colliding with someone else’s almost immediately.
She jumped back.
“Sorry,” he said, turning to look at her with an easy grin, and she felt her heart stutter for a moment. “Go on. You saw it first.”
She was momentarily rendered mute by this tall, dark, and handsome gentleman, but after a moment shook her head and said, “No, please. You can have it.”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome leaned against the shelf and studied her. “Have we met? There’s something familiar about you.”
“Um, no, I don’t think so.” Steph blinked. “I’d remember that.”
She felt her cheeks flush upon realising she had just said that out loud.
“You’re right,” he said. “I think I would remember that, too.”
“Unless – unless you go to Gotham U?” Steph said, tucking a blonde strand behind one ear. “We might have seen each other around campus.”
He offered her a wry smile. “I’m not the college type, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, so you just read Harper Lee for fun?” She raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down. He was wearing a leather jacket and boots, but they weren’t new like the posers on campus, they had a distinct worn-in look to them. Still, despite the scuffs and marks on both, she could tell they were well cared for.
He laughed. “You caught me.”
He had a Gotham accent. She studied him closer. There was something familiar about him – he reminded her, in a weird way, almost of a young Bruce. He had a similar build, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes, but where Bruce’s face was a perpetual thundercloud, this guy’s was open and warm. He seemed…nice.
Steph didn’t know a lot of nice guys.
His eyes flickered toward the door, like he was thinking about leaving, but he didn’t move.
“To Kill a Mockingbird was my favourite part of tenth grade,” she found herself saying, mostly because she wanted to keep talking to him. “I loved it. I stayed up all night reading it.”
His gaze found hers again, and she found he was listening attentively.
“I never made it to tenth grade,” he said. “But I was a big reader in middle school. Way above my grade level. Drove my librarian crazy. She couldn’t get books in my hands fast enough.”
“But you dropped out before tenth grade?”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome shrugged. “Yeah. Something like that. Gotham stuff. You know.”
Unfortunately, she did. Her dad was Cluemaster, she’d fallen pregnant in high school and died the year after. Gotham stuff. At least she had the escape of being a vigilante, though.
“Well, what do you do with yourself now, if you didn’t finish high school?” Steph found herself asking. She glanced down at his hands. He looked like he’d be good with his hands.
“Oh, you know…” He shrugged again, his thumbnail worrying the zipper on his jacket. “I fix cars. I read books. I stay out of jail.”
He winked.
Steph found herself laughing, mostly because of the way he said it. Okay, so whatever he did probably wasn’t totally above board. She’d sworn off bad boys a long, long time ago…but there was something about him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that made her curious.
“What’s your favourite book?” He asked suddenly. “Like, your all time favourite.”
Steph didn’t even have to think. “Dracula.”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome tilted his head. “Dracula?”
“Yeah.” Steph bit her lip. “I’m just – I find myself very drawn to stories that are ultimately about the battle of good and evil, you know?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, uh…” He looked almost sheepish for a moment. “I’m pretty fond of Austen at the moment.”
Steph wrinkled her nose, taking a sip of her coffee. The ice was starting to melt. “Like, Pride and Prejudice?”
“Got it in one.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t take you for a romantic,” Steph smirked.
“It’s not actually a romance,” he said. “Like, if you look at the genre conventions, it’s actually satire. A very biting satire, at that. Like, Darcy is supposed to represent…”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome trailed off, his cheeks heating under her gaze.
“I must be boring you,” he said. “Nobody wants to hear this shit.”
“No, please,” Steph said. “It’s actually kind of refreshing to meet a guy with opinions about books that aren’t just repeating what the professor told them to say.”
He offered her a roguish smile. “Well, it’s actually kind of interesting for me to meet a girl with good taste, so we’re alike in that regard.”
Steph smiled and ducked her head. Very few people thought she had good taste in books – and, well, the company she usually kept had very different taste in books. Barbara enjoyed mystery novels (or rather, enjoyed ripping them apart) and Cass didn’t have much of a keen sense for books yet. Tim alternated between comic books and sci-fi novels, and Damian preferred old, fact-heavy texts about world leaders throughout history.
Steph liked books.
Like, real books.
And she was beginning to suspect she also liked men who liked real books, too.
Like Tall, Dark, and Handsome, who had a little sliver of a scar through the end of his eyebrow and a slightly crooked nose that indicated it had been broken once or twice. He smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, black coffee, and aftershave, and honestly? On him it was a good mix.
“I like your scrunchie,” he said suddenly, his eyes flickering up to her ponytail. She noticed, seconds after he said it, that he seemed to cringe a little, like he’d been thinking it but hadn’t meant to actually say it out loud. It endeared her to him, a little bit, and she reached up and swished her ponytail a little.
“What, this? Really?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “It’s cute. It suits you.”
“Thanks,” Steph said. It was a garish shade of purple and made out of velvet and had been an absolute bitch to stitch together. “I made it. I make all sorts of things. I’m like, super handy with a sewing machine.”
“Really? What is that, velvet? That must have been a bitch to work with.”
Steph perked up. “Oh! It was. It’s so slippery.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard,” he laughed, a low and husky sound. “That’s cool, though. That you can sew. I don’t know a lot of people who are good at things like that.”
“What are you good at? Other than books, I mean.”
“Uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Guns, mostly. But I’m not some redneck gun freak, okay? Just, you know, target shooting is actually a really zen sport…I believe in gun control.”
He was so indignant, so desperate to prove he was still a decent guy. Given the kind of things that happened in their city, she understood why.
“Don’t we all,” Steph muttered. She laughed and leaned forward to give him a little shove. “I won’t hold it against you.”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome seemed relieved, at least, at her answer.
“Also Scrabble,” he said after a moment. “Are you…any good at Scrabble?”
Steph smirked. “I’ve been known to win a game or two in my time.”
“Just one or two?” He chuckled. “I’d be willing to wager three or four.”
“Or just every single one against you,” she replied.
“Hey!” He laughed with her, shaking his head. “You’re a smartass.”
“That’s what they tell me,” Steph said. She didn’t think she’d smiled this much in…well, it had been a while, a long while. Since before Batgirl. Since before Bruce died and Cass left. Maybe longer. Her bright eyes flickered back up to the book, still sitting on the shelf. “But, for real, you can have the book. I’ve got a whole day to waste here, I’ll find something else.”
“No, no,” he pulled it off the shelf and held it out to her. “I insist. I won’t get in between you and good literature.”
Steph bit her lip.
“Maybe we could share it?” she suggested after a moment. “Joint custody. One of us takes it to read first, then the other gets it for a bit, back and forth for a while?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I’d like that, actually. Um. You can take it first. But – are you weird about people writing in books?”
She shook her head, and he flipped it open to the front page, pulling a pen out from one of the inner pockets of his jacket. He scrawled something inside and handed it back to her.
“There,” he said. “Now we’ll have a way to keep in touch. Maybe organise a Scrabble game or two.”
“I’d like that,” Steph said.
An accented voice called out from the front of the shop, and he looked over her head with a frown.
“I have to go,” he said. “But I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “See you around, um…I didn’t catch your name?”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome tapped the cover of the book with a wink and then wound his way through the bookshelves and the small crowd in front of the register to meet a petite redhead with an armful of books. He held the door open for her as they left, but he caught Steph’s eye once more, shooting her a smile from across the room.
Smiling to herself, she flipped open the book, and found that in addition to writing his name and number, he’d also slipped inside a five dollar bill, the exact cost of the book. She studied the handwriting for a moment.
Jason…? Why was that name so familiar?
She looked up again to see him walking down the street with his friend, a tall and imposing figure in the crowd. Jason. The name was familiar, and when she’d seen him, she’d thought he looked familiar…
Then it dawned on her.
Jason.
Jason Todd.
Oh, fuck.