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Stephanie wasn’t paid enough for this. She wasn’t paid at all, but she sure as fuck wasn’t paid enough for this. She wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten wrangled into this and she was mentally working through the steps of unwrangling herself as she watched Damian attempt to carve a hole into the dude with the metal arm. Said dude was looking at Damian like he was an adorable kitten and not a menace sent straight from the League to unravel Gotham from the inside. Joke was on the League though. Today they weren’t even in Gotham. Bruce had business in New York today and had brought Damian to Avengers Tower, which had somehow led to Stephanie “keeping an eye on him” while Bruce left with the most put together woman Stephanie had ever seen.
A blond man came to stand next to Stephanie and watched the knife fight through the glass walls of the conference room. She appreciated that he was being calm about it, even as she was processing that the smell meant… yeah, that was tomato sauce all over him. What the hell? “So, what? Instead of ‘this meeting could’ve been an email,’ one of them thought ‘this meeting could’ve been a knife fight?’” he asked as he gestured with the most crumpled coffee cup that Stephanie had ever seen that still seemed to be able to hold liquid.
“And then decided that he could be the change that he wanted to see in the world, yeah,” she agreed, trying to convey to this man and the entire world that she was not responsible for Damian. This was Damian’s fight and Damian’s fault, but she had no part in it and was not intending to take responsibility for him.
The man nodded agreeably and took a long sip of coffee as Damian jumped off the table and launched himself into a flip at Metal Arm. Apparently Metal Arm had also taken levels in ninja skills because he grabbed Damian out of the air before he made contact and dropped him pretty gently on the ground, given that Damian was trying to swipe at him with the knife again. “Frankly, that’s inspirational.”
“Right? Like, sure, I’ll have the urge to start the fight sometime, but to have the energy to actually follow through?” Stephanie was pretty sure she’d been permanently tired since she first started going out as Spoiler and everything that followed hadn’t exactly fixed that problem.
“And against the Winter Soldier, too. Gotta give the kid props. When he decides to go for it, he really doesn’t hold back.”
“…The who now? Shit, Bruce is going to lecture me about this.”
“Eh. It’s basically enrichment. Bucky looks like he’s having a great time and there isn’t any screaming. Knife-baby looks more confused than murderous at this point.”
“You’re not wrong. But if Damian catches you calling him Knife-baby, he’s going to try to put that knife in you.”
“…Bucky will protect me,” the man said after a moment, even as he readjusted his grip on the purple bow he was holding. Who the hell even brought a bow into an office building? He didn’t seem like a Rogue, but Stephanie wasn’t fully sure of the procedure for interfering if it turned out he was one. They were here as civilians, more or less, and they were literally in Avengers Tower.
“Bold of you to assume that Damian won’t be lying in wait the next time you’re walking down a dark alley alone. That kid can hold a grudge like nobody’s business.”
Clint nodded and pretended not to notice as some of the tomato sauce fell off of him. “Ah, but you see. I’m blond and if I’m getting into trouble in an alley and he’s bringing the ‘fighty little bastard trying to bite off more than he can chew’ energy, then we basically add up to Steve Rogers when him and Bucky were growing up, and everyone knows that’s basically a Bucky summoning circle.”
Stephanie eyed the ground where the sauce had fallen and then looked at Clint a little more directly. “So-“
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, okay, I can respect that. I- Holy mother of Gotham, get a load of those arms.” Stephanie hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but sauced-up coffee guy seemed to be game. He turned to look and Stephanie was sure she saw him scrunch his face up out of her peripherals, but that would have to wait until she was done looking at the junior Amazon who just stepped off the elevator. Miss Junior Amazon was wearing a purple and black vest that showed her arms off in all the best ways and Stephanie was going to carry this memory with her to her actual grave. A woman in her colors who wouldn’t look out of place with the Bats or literal goddesses.
“There’s not enough coffee in the world for this,” the man muttered at his cup before speaking up enough that Stephanie figured it was alright to acknowledge that he was talking. “That’s Kate. She’s single, but she’s been pining pretty hard for a woman who isn’t really available. Katie-Kate could use a distraction.” Here, Clint visibly sucked his teeth for a moment before gritting out, “Even one from New Jersey.”
Stephanie wanted to be offended. It wasn’t Gotham’s fault that it was in New Jersey and it wasn’t her fault she was from Gotham, but… “Well, if she could use the distraction.” She paused to look back through the glass at where Damian and, apparently, the goddamn Winter Soldier were. The Winter Soldier, Bucky, was explaining something and moving in slow motion, probably to explain what he was saying. Damian nodded seriously because the kid thought he would die if someone didn’t take him seriously. They were probably busy enough and Bruce had to come back eventually. Time to go make new friends.