"Great place for it," he agrees, about as awkward as asking hey, see the Knights game last night? Still, he's the one who offered, and he sets himself a little gingerly on the sand, a good couple feet between them.

She doesn't seem like a threat, but--last time he helped a lady in need, it didn't go so well for him. When Bruce took him in, he thought he'd be done sizing up everyone he met, wondering if he could outmaneuver them. Instead, Bruce taught him better ways to do both, stressed constant vigilance, and waking up in the fountain to no clear answers had made it all the more necessary.

Excuses, really: it's still a shitty way to think, finding some girl crying on the shore. "We don't really have this where I'm from," he tries, steering his own gaze out over the water. "I mean, we have beaches, but it's a lot of grimy docks and smoggy horizons, in my town."