Weekdays at the bookstore tended to be slow ─ afternoons, especially. Jason had made a habit of finding times at which the store would experience the least footfall and visit then. Despite the shop being situated in some backwater street of Gotham, Jason was unwilling to take the risk of bumping into anyone he knew.

Friday evenings, he'd realised, tended to be the quietest hours the place got. Over the last three weeks, he'd been one of four others inside, all scattered between the small rooms and tall bookshelves. He found it calming. It gave him time to think without the din and debauchery of Gotham City closing in on him. That, and being alone let him act interested in books that would otherwise ruin his reputation. None of the Outlaws needed to know he enjoyed Wuthering Heights just as much as the next boy with his head in a book.

Well, he tried to hide behind his love for books. Truth be told, he hadn't read as much as he had over the last two months in around a year. He'd been in and out of this store more often when he'd caught glimpse of the owners daughter.

She was pretty, Jason had admitted to himself on one of the mornings she'd greeted him. She was pretty, with her ink-stained fingers and her paint-splattered tote bag, but (more importantly) she was almost extraordinarily.. well, ordinary.

Jason wasn't used to ordinary. His best friend was a technical genius that he'd broken out of jail once and his adoptive maybe-father was a crime-fighting vigilante that dressed up like a bat. He had been killed as many times as he'd been in a relationship (which meant once). When he talked to you, though, he could pretend he was a normal guy with a penchant for books.

She was sitting (off-shift, he assumed) opposite him in one of the plush chairs the store had to offer, a book in hand. He'd caught glimpse of the author ─ Dostoevsky. Great, but not a personal favourite. One part of his mind ─ the rational part ─ wanted to strike a conversation. The other part, teenage-angst ridden, objected. He sighed.