DC – I am Batman

Jacob Kane shook Thomas's hand at the door and the handshake lasted exactly one second and Jacob's arm went back to his side and Thomas, who could never match Jacob's efficiency of motion, put his hand in his pocket and left it there.

"Good to see you, Thomas."

"Jake. Come in, come in."

Martha hugged Gabi and Gabi laughed and the laugh filled the foyer and went up the stairs. Same laugh. Same Gabi. Her hair was shorter and she had reading glasses pushed up on her head that she'd probably forgotten were there.

Kate came through the door last.

She was twenty-two and she looked older. Black jeans, leather jacket over a plain shirt, her red hair cropped close. She moved through the doorway with an inventory already running, same as her father. Exits, sightlines, who was where. Everything about her said military even though she wasn't military anymore.

She saw him and stopped.

"Hey."

"Hey."

She crossed the foyer and punched his shoulder. Solid. Same spot. Same Kate.

"You got bigger."

"People keep saying that."

"People are right." Her eyes went to his shoulders and his hands and his posture. She was reading him. Soldiers reading soldiers. "You carry yourself differently. You used to fidget."

Julie had said almost the same thing. Julie had said it like a question. Kate said it like a field report.

Dinner was roast lamb. Mrs. Brennan had outdone herself and the dining room smelled like rosemary and garlic and the lemon polish Alfred used on the table every Thursday. Thomas talked. He was good at talking during family dinners, filling the space, making everyone feel like the room was warm even when parts of it weren't.

Jacob was quieter than he'd been when Kate was twelve. He ate. He asked about Thomas's work. He didn't mention West Point. Nobody mentioned West Point.

Kate ate how she'd always eaten. Methodical. Grid pattern, left to right. Fork, knife, napkin. She answered questions when asked and said please and thank you and didn't volunteer anything.

Gabi filled the silences. She told a story about a neighbor's dog that had learned to open the refrigerator and eaten an entire ham and the neighbor had called animal control because she thought the dog was possessed. Martha laughed. Thomas laughed. Kate's mouth twitched. Jacob cut his lamb.

There was a piece of bread in the basket near the centerpiece, the last piece, and it stayed there through the entire meal because everyone was being polite about it.

Kate put her elbow on the table between the main course and dessert.

Same gesture. Ten years later. Planted, firm, hand open, fingers up. She looked at him across the table and her jaw was set and her eyes were green and direct and the table went quiet.

"Kate," Gabi said. Same tone.

"He's bigger than me. I want to see."

He put his elbow on the table and took her hand.

Her grip was different. West Point different. The girl who'd been strong at twelve was a trained combatant at twenty-two and her hand clamped down with the specific force of someone who'd spent years gripping rifle stocks and pull-up bars and other people's wrists. Her forearm was corded, lean muscle under pale skin, and her wrist was straight and locked and she pushed immediately. No countdown. Same Kate.

He pushed back. For real this time. He had to. Her arm was shaking with effort and his was shaking with effort that was less manufactured than it had been at ten and the match was locked. Dead center. Neither hand moving. Jacob had put his fork down.

He pushed harder. Her wrist gave a fraction. She gritted her teeth and recovered it and then some and his hand tilted toward the table and for a second he thought she was actually going to win again and he put in real force, the kind that came from Kirigi and Shiva and from whatever the transmigration had done to his body, and her hand stopped.

They held there. Dead center. Both arms trembling. The candles on the table flickered.

Then she looked at him. Her jaw eased. She let her hand go to the table.

"Good match," she said. Same words.

Across the table, Jacob picked up his fork.

Kate didn't let go. The match was over but her fingers stayed locked around his and she leaned forward and her voice dropped below the conversation Thomas was restarting.

"You're stronger than you should be."

He met her eyes. Green. Sharp.

"You too."

"I went to West Point." She let go. "Where did you go?"

He didn't answer. She picked up her water glass and drank.

Martha was watching from the end of the table. Her eyes moved between them. She picked up the bread basket and offered it to Jacob and the last piece found a home and the meal continued.

He found her on the back stairs after dinner.

Same spot. Third step from the top. Shoes off. Gray wool socks, military issue. Her leather jacket was on the step beside her and her arms were on her knees and her chin was on her arms and she was looking at the wall across from them where the painting of the Wayne ancestor still hung, still dusty on the top edge.

He sat on the step below her. Same step as last time.

The house made its noises. Settling wood. Alfred's footsteps somewhere on the first floor. Gabi's laugh muffled from the sitting room. The grandfather clock in the study was ticking, two minutes fast, same as it had been for twenty years.

"I got kicked out," Kate said.

Flat. The same tone she'd used at twelve when she'd said she was going to be a soldier. A thing that had happened.

"They don't call it kicked out. They call it separated. Honorable discharge. Very polite about it." She was looking at the wall. "I was first in my class in tactics. Second in marksmanship. I could outrun every man in my unit and most of the officers. I was the best cadet they'd had in five years and they separated me because someone found out I was dating a woman."

He sat. He listened.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell." She said it with the precision of someone who'd said it enough times that the words had stopped meaning anything and become a serial number. "The policy says you can serve as long as nobody knows. Someone found out. So I can't serve."

Her hands were still on her knees. Her shoulders were square. Underneath the control was fury, compressed and dense.

"I was the best they had," she said. "And they threw me out for who I love."

She said it to the wall. To the painting with the jaw and the humorless eyes. The stairwell was cold and her socks were gray and she was twenty-two years old.

"What are you going to do now?" he said.

She turned her head on her arms. Her green eyes found his.

"Something that matters."

They sat on the back stairs. The house settled. The clock ticked. A moth was batting against the light fixture at the top of the stairs, circling and hitting, circling and hitting, persistent and stupid.

"Next time," Kate said. She was watching the moth too. "I'm winning for real."

"You'll have to."

She punched his shoulder. Harder than when they were kids. Same spot.

He didn't rub it. Her mouth pulled to one side.

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