After seeing progress had slowed when Steph had again fallen into silence, Wendy wracked her brain for another question, another… anything to drag from her. They had been good so far. She could keep that going right? Just had to pick her words right.

“What’s something that’s had a big impact on you?”

Was what fell out of her mouth. Maybe she had been spending too much time around Steph… The filter seems to have gotten disconnected at some point.
Steph however didn’t seem too bothered by it, frowning in deep thought for a moment. After humming to herself, she ’Ahh’ed softly.

“Well, dad would be the obvious, and boring answer there, so let’s go with something less… obvious, I guess.”

Dragging a plastic tub towards herself she tipped the gauntlet ‘upside down’ and shook out the loose pieces and small screws, causing Wendy to just close her eyes and pretend she wasn't seeing what she was seeing.

“There was a little window of time, where I got palmed off from Batman and Robin to Batgirl, then from Batgirl to the Birds of Prey. And Oracle wasn’t very fond of me, so it was more specifically Black Canary, so I was away from the Clocktower. That was, if they weren’t just telling me that I was going to get myself killed, that I should quit, and go home.”

Wendy frowned, slowly opening her eyes, watching Steph’s face. A world where Steph and Babs didn’t get along? That was a thing? She watched this girl fight off all of Gotham when they weren’t in their right minds, and jump out of a plane head first JUST FOR Barbara Gordon.

“Anyway… I was being left out of the loop, as per usual, so I just, y’know, broke into Canary’s place, as I would back in the day…”

“Totally a thing people do. Break into the homes of one of the strongest hand to hand fighters on the planet.”

Wendy made yet another mental note that Steph was in fact entirely fearless, incredibly stupid, or both. Steph just shrugged and continued.

“And she was packing for something. I asked where we were going, and she reminded me that there wasn’t a we. That she wasn’t my mentor. As she did. But she called me talented. And driven. That was the only piece of reinforcement I had ever been given about the whole… cape thing. Black Canary called me talented.”

Smiling softly, picking through the container and separating plastic shards from screws, Steph shrugged a shoulder.

“It was nice. I mean, they were right though, I did get myself killed. But I got better… I mean really. Who hasn’t died and come back around here at this point, honestly.”

Wendy cleared her throat slightly.

“Most people… sweetie. It’s really just you cape wearing nut jobs…”

Steph, very focused on counting the screws, then the screw holes in the gauntlet, didn’t raise her eyes.

“Oh yeah… Hey! My dad doesn’t wear a cape…”

”Oh my god…”