Skylar had never been much of a reader when she was a kid. 

But her mom loved reading. And so, every first and third Sunday of each month, she went book shopping and Skylar tagged along with her. On one of those days, they had walked into a second-hand bookstore. While her mom bought books of her own choice, Skylar wandered the cramped aisles till her eyes fell on a faded black cover. The title of the book was inscribed in gold letters. Persuasion by Jane Austen. It was the first time she had picked a book on her own and her mom had been happy so she had also been happy. 

Although she did not understand the book on her first reading, she fell in love with the writing. And to this day, Persuasion was Skylar's favourite Jane Austen book. And that old copy had a place of pride on her bookshelves. 

Even after her mom had died, Skylar continued their tradition of book shopping. Today was another one of those Sundays, where she would buy books without feeling guilty about the money she was spending. After all, it was books and she'd read all of the ones she'd buy within a week. (Not really; they would just be added to her to-read pile.)

Blue Bird Books was basically her second home at this point and that was where she was today. It was one of the few days out of the year when Gotham actually had some proper sun and Skylar knew she had to go out and enjoy it before it disappeared due to Gotham's doom and gloom. 

She opened the door and stepped inside, taking in the smell of books. Today it was surprisingly crowded.  She supposed all the people here also had the same idea to enjoy the Gotham sun before it disappeared again. Skylar looked around the store, trying to see what was new. Though the shelves were organized by genre, the way the books were arranged was messy and scattered. And honestly? That was more fun. It felt like a treasure hunt to find some nice editions. 

Skylar walked past a man scanning the fantasy and science fiction shelves, side-stepping a woman with short black hair, holding a book about jewellery. She walked towards the classics shelf which towards the back of the store in a corner that had books spilling from the shelves and stacked on the floor. It was really the best. She turned and her eyes immediately widened when she saw who was standing there, browsing the shelves.  "Jason!"

Jason looked...good, she realised. His hair was messy but in a good way and he was dressed in a leather jacket, dark denim and wearing a slightly scuffed-up pair of Converse.

She looked at him and decided to say something before she stared for way too long. "You can read."

"Huh?" Jason looked at her like she had asked a stupid question. "Did you hit your head? Of course, I can read."

"No, I mean," Skylar immediately scrambled to correct herself. "I meant to say, you read classics, I didn't know that."

"What are you implying, Sky?" Jason looked at her with narrowed eyes. 

"Nothing," Skylar replied. She stepped next to him, their shoulders brushing because the classics section was tiny. "I just didn't peg you for the type to read classics. I thought you'd be more of a science-fiction person. You know...how do I say this...ahh.."

Jason snorted as he faced the bookshelves. "Don't dig yourself into a bigger hole, darling."

Skylar sighed and ignored the weird feeling in her stomach at the nickname. She faced the bookshelves as well, slowly scanning them and hoping that she'd find something quickly. Her eyes caught on a faded-looking red spine and she pulled it out. She smiled to herself when she realized it was a copy of Persuasion. The pages were quite old and yellowed out so she quickly flicked to the book details page. This edition was from 1983 and was first published in New York. As she flicked through the pages, she noticed the chapter headers had some stunningly intricate flower designs that covered half of the first page of each chapter. It was beautiful. And while she already had three different copies of Persuasion, she did not have one with such pretty chapter headers so of course, she had to get it. 

"So, you like Jane Austen?" 

"Hmm, what?" Skylar looked up at Jason when he spoke. He was looking at her quite oddly and she couldn't quite tell what his expression meant. "Yeah, I do. How'd you tell?"

"You picked Persuasion, one of her final and less-popular works. Not every Jane Austen fan has read that," Jason said. 

"Yeah, because they all just read Pride and Prejudice," Skylar answered with a scoff, not noticing the look on Jason's face. "And there's nothing wrong with that. But all I'm saying is there is more to Jane Austen than just swoon-worthy Mr Darcy. Honestly, I lowkey judge people who just read Pride and Prejudice and...you have a totally weird expression...do you like Pride and Prejudice?"

Jason's expression was enough of an answer. "It's my favourite, but I have read all of her works."

"Including Lady Susan?"

"Duh," Jason replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

"You know," Skylar said, half-serious, half-laughing. "You don't seem so bad when you're talking about books. I feel like we might just be friends."

She felt a tiny bit surprised when she realized she meant it. 

Many days later, after a tiring night of patrol, Skylar lay in bed, contemplating what to do, that wouldn't involve her moving around much. Reading would involve her actually getting up, so that was out of the question. Just then her phone buzzed with the arrival of a text message. 

No.1 Enemy Jason Todd

Look who broke in
[IMAGE ATTACHED]

Skylar laughed when she noticed that the image was of Damian in his Robin costume. Jason must have taken it discreetly. And he was reading a book with an serious expression. Was that...

hold up..
Is he reading pride and prejudice??? whaaatt?? 
howd u convince him??

No.1 Enemy Jason Todd

He thought me reading Jane Austen was some biiig secret

i mean, kind of is. going by ur apperance
u don't seem the type to read such stuff. not judging tho.
*apperence
**appearance
so what does he think so far?

No. 1 Enemy Jason Todd

You are too judgemental🙄
And he didn't like Wickham.
Already suspicious of him. 

smart kid. tell me what he says abt the book.
anyways, imma go. i need sleep. 😴😴
have an early day tomorrow at work

No.1 Enemy Jason Todd

Many flowers to arrange?

sooo many. i could diee

No. 1 Enemy Jason Todd
Speaking from experience,
that's pretty painful. 

oh lorddd. u and ur death jokes. u'll nvr stop will u.
u know. dont answer that.

bye jay, see yaa.

i have been in a jason todd mood lately, so i am back with an update for my babies, skylar and jason. i have been itching to write for them for a while and i finally had enough inspo to get a full chapter out. it is short, i know, but i felt it was kind of cute. i had always intended for skylar to also be a reader so there'd just be another excuse to bond with jason lol. 

i promise the next update won't be super late (and i promise we are getting to the good stuff soon) 

anyways, thank you so much for reading and for being so patient with my sporadic updating schedule! comments and votes are always appreciated <33