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Getting the Waverider back is a relief.
It’s ironic, really, to suddenly realize that the timeship that abducted you now feels more like home than the place you were abducted from, but – well. If there’s anything Spooner has learned during her time with the Legends, it’s that things occasionally work in a convoluted way with this team.
Not that she’s complaining (… not anymore, at least). Because, as it turns out, she’s never had more fun in her life than she did getting roped into adventures throughout the timeline with this bunch of oddballs she’s started calling her friends.
Getting the Waverider back, though, also means that life stops being as fast-paced as it was while they were stranded throughout history. And Spooner isn’t sure she likes having so much time on her hands at the moment.
She thought she would. She thought it’d be great to chill for a while, to spend hours here and there hanging out with Astra and Gideon and the others, but… Gideon’s focus is mostly on Gary these days, and Astra—
Astra hasn’t exactly been around either.
Three weeks. That’s how long it takes before Astra knocks on Spooner’s door one evening – and if Spooner had thought to check who was on the other side before she pressed the button to slide the panels open, she’s not entirely sure she wouldn’t have pretended to be asleep. It’s too late now, though, so she can only placate a smile on her face and hope it doesn’t look as fake as it feels.
“Astra.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure”, Spooner says flatly. Saying no would require an explanation that she doesn’t want to give, but there’s only so much enthusiasm she can muster when all she really feels is hurt.
Astra closes the door behind her, and for a moment, neither of them speaks.
It’s been a while since there was something even close to tense silence between them. Spooner sure as hell didn’t miss those days.
“Did you want something?” she eventually asks, just so this can be over with as quickly as possible.
A few weeks ago, she would have jumped at the opportunity to spend more time with Astra. But now… Now, there’s too much distance between them, and she’s not quite sure she’s ready to face what closing it might mean just yet.
“Why do you keep avoiding me?”
If there’s a question Spooner wasn’t expecting, it’s this one. Mostly because the role reversal is bordering on outrageous.
She scoffs before she can even attempt to hold it back. “Wow. You have some nerve.”
Astra’s eyes flash. “Excuse me?”
She seems genuinely confused, though, and in a way that makes Spooner feel worse. She’d realized that Astra started paying a lot less attention to what was going on with her once Behrad became part of the equation, but apparently she hadn’t figured out just how much yet.
The truth is, she has been… avoiding isn’t the right word; not actively seeking Astra’s company is a more accurate way to put it, but that’s only because Astra kept blowing her off and Spooner knows how to take a hint. She could only make so many failed attempts at trying to spend some quality time with Astra, whether on missions or on the ship, before she understood that Behrad was permanently glued to her side now and a best friend apparently didn’t have what it took to compete. (The few times she did go on missions with the two of them gave her the worst feeling of being a half-unwanted half-invisible third wheel, so she’s hoping to never ever repeat that experience in the future.)
Astra doesn’t even look for her in a room anymore – doesn’t pay attention to what Spooner is doing and saying and trying to communicate to her, the way she constantly did after they got reunited with the team. The way Spooner thought she always would.
Silly her.
“Don’t twist what’s been going on”, she says without looking at Astra. She thought she’d sound angry, but really she’s just defeated and sad. And hurt. “You’re the one who’s been ignoring me for weeks.” She shakes her head. “You don’t get to put that on me.”
She should have seen it coming, really. She should have known that someone would break her relationship with Astra eventually. Isn’t this the way things go in life? You make friends, but those friends fall to the side once you start dating someone? It’s the commonly accepted hierarchy of relationships, anyway.
But then again… where does that leave her?
“What do you mean, ignoring you?” Astra questions. She sounds rather indignant, and now Spooner really wishes she hadn’t opened that door. Having this conversation feels worse than being ignored in the first place.
“You’ve been… different. You hardly notice when I’m here, trying to talk to you or hang out with you, and trust me, I know – I can feel – when I’m imposing.” The first time it happened was in the bar for time travelers, when Spooner thought they’d pair up as usual and Astra left with Behrad without even a look back instead. Things have not improved – or stung less for that matter – since then. “So what was I supposed to do, other than accept that things have changed and give up?”
Understanding finally dawns on Astra, but Spooner isn’t quite sure she likes that any better. “Is this about Behrad?”
“I get it, okay?” she says through gritted teeth. “You have a boyfriend now and I’m just the best friend. Not your priority anymore. It’s fine.” It’s not fine. “Just don’t go around blaming me for it because you don’t even realize you’ve pulled away and we’ll be good.”
That’s a lie. That’s a blatant lie, but what else is she supposed to say? That it hurts to not be the person Astra puts first anymore, even though she has no claim to that title?
She’ll have to figure out a way to be okay with it anyway, down the line. Better she start now.
The words hang in the air for a few seconds, and then Astra tilts her head. Spooner, who is still avoiding looking at her, only catches the motion out of the corner of her eye.
“Wait. Are you jealous?”
Short answer: yes and no. Long answer: it’s complicated.
She’s not jealous of Behrad per se; or, at least, she’s not jealous of the type of relationship he now has with Astra. She doesn’t understand dating anyway and has no desire for it, so that’s hardly the issue. She is, however, annoyed and bitter that he’s stolen Astra’s time and attention when it used to be hers. Does that qualify as jealousy?
She must take too long to answer, though, because Astra speaks again first. And it sounds like she’s drawn her own conclusions. “Oh. You— I— I didn’t realize—”
Spooner instantly knows where this is going – looking back, saying ‘I’m just the best friend’ might have been a poor way to word things on her end –, and there’s no way in hell she’s not clearing that misunderstanding right this second.
“¡Ay, dios mío, no!” she exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. “I don’t want to sleep with you! Why is that always the first thing people think about?! Does everything have to be about sex?!”
That outburst manages to stun Astra into silence, and the room goes quiet as Spooner drops down on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands.
She wishes Astra would just turn around and leave. She wants to be left alone.
(That’s a lie. What she really wants is to turn back time to a month ago, before Behrad confessed his feelings, and to get her best friend back. Or better yet, she wants to have her memories of this timeline erased and to wake up at her mom’s house, with Astra and Gideon but no other Legend with them, and to live there in blissful ignorance forever. But that’s not going to happen, so, whatever. She’ll take the next best thing.)
Except Astra doesn’t turn around, or leave. Instead, Spooner can feel her hesitating on the other side of the room (and she does mean feel, literally, because she’s an empath and stuff like that happens to her sometimes if an emotion is strong enough) before Astra crosses over to the bed and carefully sits down next to her.
Spooner doesn’t move. She’s too busy blinking back tears and trying to hide that very fact.
A deep breath later, Astra finally asks: “Are you okay?”
And Spooner doesn’t have it in her to lie. She couldn’t pull it off anyway, not in the state she’s currently in, so what would be the point?
She doesn’t trust herself to speak, though. So she settles for just shaking her head.
Astra takes another deep breath. “I’m bad at this, you know. Talking about my feelings, or helping someone else with theirs. But…” She sighs. “Even I think we need to talk this one through. So, let’s start this again. What’s going on? Really?”
And wow, if that’s not a loaded question with a lot to unpack on Spooner’s end.
Ace.
The word floats around in her mind after Zari introduces her to it, but she doesn’t get to dwell on it much until the insanity is over, evil Gideon is defeated, and they’re all back safe and sound on the Waverider.
Ace.
Incredible how a simple three-letter word managed to turn her world upside down.
She always thought that it was just her. Why wouldn’t she? Everyone she ever met, every character in every piece of media she ever consumed seemed to have an interest in sex, and nothing ever indicated that she wasn’t the only one who just… didn’t get it. Didn’t care.
For a while, she tried to pretend. When she was a teenager, there were a few years where all she wanted to do was hide her differences – starting with her ability to sense aliens, of course, but her complete disinterest in sex made her stick out like a sore thumb as well, so she concealed that too. She kissed a few guys, slept with one or two. Looking back, she thinks she was taken advantage of in most of these situations, but she wasn’t putting much of a fight at the time, because she was supposed to want this. She was supposed to care – to go out of her way to look for it, even. Except she just… couldn’t seem to figure out why she even should.
Eventually, she gave up on fitting in – she was terrible at it anyway. So she bought an abandoned farm, built fences to keep out aliens and people alike, and figured that she’d spend the rest of her life alone behind high walls. That was fine with her. (It wasn’t.)
Of course, that was before the Legends crashed into her life. And before Zari, in the span of two sentences, shattered a belief that’d taken root and solidified in her mind over the years.
It wasn’t the alien abduction. (Well, there was never any alien abduction to begin with, to be fair, but Spooner will argue that time displacement by a magical alien mushroom that chose to protect Earth from invasions should still qualify as such.) Her childhood has nothing to do with the fact that she doesn’t experience what always seemed to be universal human feelings.
(And she does mean universal. Because while there seemed to be a few other teenagers who didn’t care much for guys in high school, which she could relate to… in the end, they all ‘simply’ turned out to be gay – albeit very closeted for a long time due to growing up both Catholic and in Texas, like her. Still, that turn of events prompted her to wonder if that might be the case with her too, if she might simply be into girls instead of guys, but the answer always circled back to the same thing: she didn’t care about sex, no matter the gender of the person she might sleep with.
And that set her apart from everyone else.)
But now, it all finally makes sense. She’s not the only one; she just never met a fellow ace before – but they do exist. They do exist.
Which means that she’s not alone, and she’s not broken. There are other people like her in the world.
The relief she felt upon learning that is indescribable. It’s as if there’d always been something weighing down on her that she wasn’t even conscious of, and now that it’s been lifted, she feels lighter than she has in years. Maybe even decades.
But Zari also said something else, about many ace people desiring relationships anyway, and that part still nags at Spooner’s brain.
Not because she ever cared about romantic entanglements to begin with. She never gave a damn, and she’s not about to start now. They’re simply not for her.
But then… Why does she have such an issue with Behrad and Astra?
Spooner never had many friends in her life – in fact, she’d go as far as to say that she never had any real friends before she ended up on the Waverider – so she’s not entirely sure how things are supposed to go, but even as clueless as she is, she knows that best friends are usually happy for each other when they start dating someone they like.
Except she’s not happy. She feels miserable.
It’s as if Astra just… disappears, suddenly, once she starts dating Behrad – not physically, of course, but for Spooner, that’s almost worse. The feeling of becoming nothing more than background noise, an afterthought instead of a priority to her favorite person in the world, is unbearable.
She thinks about confronting Astra about it, once, a few days after they’re back on the Waverider, even though she has no idea what she’s going to say. Does she wish Astra was dating her instead of Behrad? Is that what this is about? But if so, why can’t she picture herself in a romantic relationship with anyone, not even Astra?
(To be fair, she’s not quite sure what a romantic relationship is supposed to look like without sex; but even then, she’s rather confident it’s not something that would make sense to her.)
In the end, she never has to figure it out, because she never gets to speak to Astra that day. She tries, after dinner, but by the time she rounds the corner, Behrad is already knocking on Astra’s door, so she has no choice but to pretend that she was just passing by and keep walking past him as she buries the resentment that is steadily growing inside of her.
She goes to Zari’s room instead.
Honestly, she has no idea who else to turn to at this point.
Zari, at least, greets her with genuine – albeit tinted with surprise – enthusiasm. “Spoons! Come right in, girl. What brings you here?”
Spooner’s first thought is my best friend ditched me for a guy and it hurts and also you’re basically my only other friend, but she can’t very well admit any of that, so she says something else instead.
“How comes you know? About asexuality? Did you have ace friends, back where you’re from?”
She’s the first one surprised to hear herself ask those questions, but she needs to know. Zari is her only link to her identity at this point, and she’s desperate for any additional knowledge if Zari still has more to spare.
“Well…” Zari hesitates for a moment, but she must sense that Spooner needs honest answers because she doesn’t try to hide the truth. “As a child celebrity turned social media influencer, I never had many real friends in my life – only people who wanted to get close to me because it reflected well on them, for the most part. But if you’re referring to those people… then yes, a few of them over the years were ace. That’s not how I knew, though – it’s just common knowledge in my time, the same way you and I and all the other Legends could easily define bisexuality when I’m sure Gwyn had never heard of it before meeting Sara. Being from the 2040s does have its perks, I suppose.”
Spooner digests that information. “Huh. That’s reassuring, in a way; to know that the future generation doesn’t grow up as clueless as I was.”
Zari gives her a soft smile. “Yeah. We definitely had it easier on that front.”
There are a few seconds of silence while Spooner keeps reflecting on Zari’s whole answer, until she suddenly picks up on an underlying theme completely unrelated to asexuality.
“You know, there’s another thing we have in common”, she notes. “We both grew up with little to no friends. Sucks, doesn’t it?” She chuckles. “Who would have thought it’d be getting abducted by time travelers that’d finally show us what we’d been missing out on all this time?”
Zari chuckles as well. “I know! Crazy, huh?”
But there’s no smile in her eyes, and Spooner feels more pain than joy radiating from her.
Something is definitely wrong.
She chooses her words carefully. “Look. I can pretend to believe that you mean what you’re saying if you want me to, but—” She taps the side of her head. “Empath. And what I’m picking up on is not happiness.”
For a second, Zari looks panicked, but it quickly turns into resignation. “Right. I almost forgot about that. It’s very inconvenient, you know?”
Spooner holds her hands up. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. We all have our secrets; I respect that.”
“And I appreciate it.” Zari’s smile is genuine this time. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I love traveling with the Legends; it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m just not sure the feeling is fully mutual.”
Okay. Spooner is officially lost.
“I don’t get it.”
Zari looks away. “I’m… It’s kind of like I’m the consolation prize. The other me doesn’t belong in this timeline so I’m the next best thing, but even if they don’t say it explicitly, I can tell that most of the Legends would easily pick her over me if they could. And it just… sucks to know that I’m not even my friends’ first choice. Or my brother’s, most likely.”
“What? No!” Spooner exclaims. “That’s not true. Hey, I’d pick you. I’m pretty sure Ava would, too, and she’s not the only one. They all know that you’re amazing and we’re lucky to have you.” She pauses, then pokes Zari on the shoulder as she tries to lighten the mood a little. “But don’t tell the others I went soft on you. It’d ruin my whole tough and trigger-happy vibe.”
“I promise”, Zari stage-whispers. There are tears in her eyes, but they both pretend not to notice them. “Thanks, Spoons.”
They keep the conversation more light-hearted after that, but that evening solidifies their – so far – tentative beginning of a friendship, and hanging out in each other’s rooms turns into a semi-regular thing from then on. Whenever they’re feeling down, or bored, or they need someone to help them work through a nagging insecurity, they go knock on the other’s door.
Sometimes, they bond over complaining about the space taken by romantic relationships on the team. Zari herself admits that it’s a bit hypocritical of her since she’d be one of them if John hadn’t… well, been John; but still, they’re pretty much the only people on the Waverider who are not in a relationship at the moment. (Gwyn doesn’t count. His love is just a timeline change away.) And on more than one occasion, that feels really isolating.
Sometimes, Spooner just has more questions about asexuality. Zari happily gives her the answers when she has them; and when she doesn’t know, they turn to the Internet instead.
Having someone there helps, in a way. Spooner could easily do that research alone, but… she doesn’t want to. Because after keeping that part of her locked inside for so long, she always, always feels like needs to talk about it when she figures something out.
She doesn’t mention Astra, though.
She thinks that Zari knows anyway. There are just some looks, during team meetings, that tell her that Zari is definitely aware – at least in part – of her internal struggles. (It’s not even surprising. Zari is just perceptive like that.)
But she still doesn’t mention Astra. That part feels too personal.
She simply doesn’t know how to label what she feels for her – or what to do with it, for that matter –, so she doesn’t talk about it. And Zari, who respects her boundaries, doesn’t ask.
Because the thing is… Spooner is slowly coming to realize that Zari is what a best friend is supposed to be and feel like; but because she never had one before she joined the Legends, she didn’t know that. So when she grew close to Astra, she didn’t give it a second thought. She just assumed that’s what their relationship qualified as.
But now, she’s questioning it. Because there’s definitely a difference there.
Astra is the first person she wants to tell if she gets good news, and the person whose arms she wants to feel wrapping around her if she’s sad. She’s the person Spooner will always worry about more, her number one priority; the person she’d put her life on the line to protect without a second thought if it came down to it.
If Zari found a romantic partner, Spooner would be happy for her. She’d tease her about being left alone in the ‘I’m single on the Waverider and y’all frustrate me sometimes’ club, that’s for sure, but she wouldn’t mind beyond that. And she certainly wouldn’t feel resentment and bitterness towards that partner, the way she currently does towards Behrad.
It’s just that… she got used to being Astra’s priority the same way Astra is hers, and to lose that overnight absolutely sucks. And the fact that she can’t even explain why it hurts her so much is adding a very unnecessary amount of confusion and frustration to the mix.
Of course, she could decide that she doesn’t care about a label. She even has one that’d kind of fit: she discovered the whole concept of queerplatonic relationships alongside Zari, and although it’s not something she’d actively look for, it would more or less describe what she’d want with Astra. But it’s also an extremely broad concept, and it describes a relationship – not Spooner’s feelings. And there’s a major difference there.
How is she meant to convey what she feels, to communicate about it efficiently, if she can’t even find a good word for it? If the only way she knows how to describe herself is through the things that she doesn’t experience?
She’s pretty sure that her feelings aren’t romantic. She’s come to realize that aroace is an identity that describes her too well.
But that still doesn’t solve the mystery of Astra.
What’s going on? Really?
The question seems deceptively simple at first glance, but for Spooner, it might very well be the most complex one she’s ever been asked. And she cannot find any words that would qualify as even a semi-decent answer. (One that wouldn’t make Astra run away even further than she already has, as a base requirement.)
“Alright”, Astra says slowly when Spooner doesn’t move or speak. “Then I guess I’m going to start. You’ve felt… distant. Ever since we got back on the Waverider. And I don’t understand why.” An uncharacteristic note of self-doubt suddenly enters her voice. “Did I… Did I do something wrong?”
Spooner sighs and finally lifts her head back up, even though she still keeps staring at the floor. “No. I guess not. You just have a boyfriend now; it makes sense that he’s become your priority. But you’ve been even more distant than me – and apparently you didn’t even realize. So, y’know. That part is a bit annoying.”
“Why didn’t you just confront me about it?”
Spooner turns her head, finds Astra’s eyes at last, and throws the question right back at her. “Why didn’t you?”
“I’m here now”, Astra points out, raising an eyebrow.
And… yeah, okay. Fair point.
“I know you, Spooner”, Astra continues. Any and all traces of anger have left her voice; she seems more confused and worried than anything else at this point. “If something is bothering you, you usually deal with the issue head-on. So why didn’t you, this time?”
Because talking about it is making it even more real than it already is. Because feeling Astra slipping away is painful on its own, but hearing her confirm what Spooner already knows is going to be ten times worse.
Sue her for wanting to avoid that for as long as possible.
And since she still doesn’t want Astra getting too close to figuring out her true motives, she settles for deflecting. “I would have talked to you, but it’s kind of become impossible to do that without Behrad being there as well these days. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“So this is about Behrad.”
Of course it’s about Behrad. She was doing just fine with Astra, right up until he decided to confess his feelings.
“I get it”, Spooner says through gritted teeth. “Well, no, I don’t, actually, but… I know how these things work. He’s your main focus now – of course he is. That’s what a romantic partner is supposed to be, right?”
To her mild surprise, Astra doesn’t reply right away. If anything, she looks conflicted and unsure for a while before she finally speaks.
“I don’t actually know.”
And, well… That’s not what Spooner was expecting to hear – at all. She thought she’d get a direct confirmation without a doubt, because the question was rhetorical in her mind.
Her face must betray her confusion, though, because Astra sighs and continues.
“I’ve never been in a relationship before. I never…” She pauses, then forges on. “Growing up in Hell, there were only two types of people: predators, and preys. Having a weakness, being vulnerable… that’d make you a prey as soon as someone found out – and someone always would. So I became a predator instead. Ruthless. Uncaring. It was the only way to survive. And I didn’t think I’d ever change.”
When Astra stops again, Spooner can’t help but comment on what she just said.
“You weren’t like that when we met.”
Astra lets out a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, well, I was already out of Hell back then. You didn’t see me when I tried to kill John and the Legends.” She closes her eyes. “That’s not the point, though. What I meant to say is that… I have no idea what I’m doing with Behrad. I’ve never been that close – never let myself be that close – to anyone else before. Except you.” She finally looks at Spooner again, and her voice becomes incredibly quiet. “I don’t know how to be vulnerable with someone who isn’t you, Spooner. That’s why I’ve been… so focused on Behrad, these past few weeks. This thing between us – it’d been brewing for a while, but I didn’t know what to do with it. So, now that it’s out in the open… I just don’t want to mess it up.”
There’s something close to a plea in Astra’s voice, asking Spooner to just understand, but Spooner is so overwhelmed by so many emotions – both hers and Astra’s, pushing at the edge of her mind – that she can’t process anything at the moment. It’s too much to take in at once.
So Astra says one more thing.
“But now I feel like, by doing that… I might just have messed things up with you instead. So talk to me. Please.”
“What do you want me to say? You have a boyfriend now, so I’m being replaced.” Spooner shrugs. “I’m just going to have to accept that, even if I don’t want to.”
The words are out of her mouth before she consciously grants it permission to speak. And to be perfectly honest, she probably would have vetoed them if parts of her brain hadn’t shut down due to the whiplash that she got from Astra’s entire speech.
(Astra’s very unexpected speech. Spooner has never seen her be that vulnerable on her own accord before.)
It’s too late to take them back, though. It’s too late to keep this conversation away from her actual feelings.
“What do you mean, ‘being replaced’?” Astra repeats. She gives Spooner a suddenly exasperated look. “Did you not hear a word I just said? That’s not what— You’re— I just—” She stops and huffs, seemingly annoyed at herself for tripping over her words like that. “I miss you, Spooner, okay? I miss my best friend. But don’t make me repeat that another time, because I won’t.”
That last part is so Astra that it almost succeeds in making Spooner smile. Almost.
Because for some reason, being referred to as a best friend leaves a bad taste in her mouth this time.
“But it’s not the same anymore”, she retorts. “He’s the person you’re turning to now.” She wants to say more, to make Astra understand why it’s bothering her so much without actually having to explain why, but she doesn’t know how. So she just shakes her head and sighs. “You don’t get it. It’s not the same for you as it is for me.”
“Because you’re not the one with the boyfriend?”
Because I’ll never have a boyfriend, or want one.
Because you understand the concept of ‘more than friends’, and I don’t. Because I’ll never want more out of anyone than I want from you, but you do. Because I’ve been hurting for weeks, and you don’t even seem to realize how different you’ve been.
All of these are true, but Spooner can’t say any of them. And she can’t come up with an answer that wouldn’t lead to ten more questions, either.
So she keeps her mouth stubbornly shut.
“Okay”, Astra says under her breath once it becomes obvious that Spooner won’t reply. “Then how about that.” There’s a pause, a long pause, before she finally goes for it. “I’m jealous of Zari.”
That catches Spooner off guard. “You’re what?”
“Yeah. Having feelings and – and emotions is really annoying, did you know that? Because now I can actually get hurt. And seeing you spend all your free time with Zari, sharing inside jokes with her rather than me? It does hurt. So, if you feel like you’re being replaced because I have a boyfriend now, well, just know that the feeling is mutual. Except I’m actually being replaced as a best friend.”
“The only reason I even started hanging out with her in the first place is because you took off with Behrad at the bar, back at the Fixed Point, and she was the only other one left behind!” Spooner exclaims incredulously. “And now it keeps happening because neither of us has anyone else to turn to!”
Astra’s eyes flash then, but with what, Spooner isn’t quite sure. Regret, maybe? There are too many emotions floating around the room at this point; she can’t even pick them apart anymore.
“Oh. I didn’t realize.”
Spooner gives her a look. “Yeah. That’s kind of my point. If it makes you feel better, though… You and Zari? Not the same thing.”
Astra tries for a joke. “She’s not your new best friend, then?”
The joke falls flat.
And Spooner really wishes Astra would stop asking questions that she doesn’t know how to answer.
“It’s not the same thing”, she simply repeats. “She’s not you.”
“And what is that supposed mean?”
Okay. So Astra is getting frustrated, but she also somehow managed to ask the most complicated question.
The one that Spooner has been trying to answer for weeks, to no avail.
She knows a way to avoid getting into details, though. But she has to brace herself first, because the fallout is about to be painful.
“You’re the most important person in the world to me – and that won’t change. Even though I’m not yours anymore.”
Astra looks properly taken aback by that. “Says who?!”
“Says the fact that you got a boyfriend!”
“So?”
Astra looks ready to get even more heated, but she stops herself before that can happen. Instead, she takes a deep breath, thinks for a few seconds, and finally asks: “Is this what you’ve been thinking since Behrad and I started dating?”
“Considering I pretty much became background noise to you from then on? Well yeah, of course”, Spooner can’t help but scoff. “I got the message.”
Except she must have missed something, because Astra suddenly looks close to horrified.
“The wrong message.” She says it firmly, but her voice is apologetic, not accusatory. “You were just— You seemed to be doing just fine without me; you were spending so much time with Zari anyway that I figured you wouldn’t really mind if I put more of my focus on Behrad – because, as I said earlier, I want to make sure I do this right with him. But that didn’t mean…” Astra looks entirely remorseful. “I’m sorry. I never stopped to consider what this would look like to you.”
“Yeah, well, not great, and it hurt”, Spooner says matter-of-factly. She has to sound detached, because if she loses control of her emotions now, she’s definitely going to cry. And she doesn’t want to break down in front of Astra. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time.”
“Spooner…” Astra breathes out. She seems to be at a loss for words.
So maybe it shouldn’t surprise Spooner that much when Astra reaches out physically instead. Maybe. But until now, she’s pretty much always been the one throwing herself into Astra’s arms to initiate their hugs, not the other way around, so… she just wasn’t expecting it.
Although, to be fair, Astra doesn’t throw herself anywhere. She just tentatively extends an arm to wrap around Spooner’s shoulders, slowly, as if she half-expects to be swatted away, but Spooner is not about to reject her when she needs that hug more than anything else right now. She falls into Astra’s embrace with ease, hands coming up to grip her shirt at the back and hold as tight as she dares.
Neither the apology nor the hug eases her worries about the future, which still feels like a huge question mark, but it does a world of good to at least make the past hurt less.
She hasn’t lost Astra; lost this with her. The last three weeks will not become the norm.
Spooner lets out a shaky breath.
They might be okay after all. She might manage to deal a little bit better, if she stops feeling like Behrad completely stole Astra away from her. It’ll still suck, of course, but she’ll take it.
Besides, she’s not trying to be selfish here. If sex and romance are things that Astra has a desire for, then she does want her to find that somewhere. And since it’s not something she could ever give to her, it has to come from someone else.
That’s not the part that bothers her. The part that she really, really doesn’t like is the emotional connection that comes with romance – how it seems to always grow and expand and quickly encroach on pre-existing, non-romantic relationships. Because she’s never going to stop putting Astra first. And she wishes she would never stop being the person Astra will put first, too.
She feels like she’s stuck in an in-between. What she experiences is beyond friendship, even a really close one, but not romantic, even though some aspects are similar, and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with it besides feeling out of place all her life. She wants too much and not enough at the same time.
It means that in the end, she’ll always be the one to lose.
“I’m sorry”, Astra says again before resting her chin on Spooner’s head.
“I’m sorry too”, Spooner whispers, because now that she can feel herself calming down a bit, she’s starting to realize that some parts of this misunderstanding are on her as well. Both of them drew wrong conclusions based on partial information, and both of them failed to communicate and fix the situation before it became such a big issue. “It’s not all your fault. I should have confronted you about why you kept ditching me a lot sooner.”
“That’s the part that I don’t understand”, Astra admits. “If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you? It’s not like you to keep quiet.”
And Spooner seriously considers telling her, this time. Because she feels safe in Astra’s arms and because Astra has been nothing but reassuring so far, when Spooner originally feared the worst and thought she’d be let down easy – so to speak – at best.
Maybe none of this will end in disaster.
Maybe she just let her fears get the better of her.
(She definitely discovered that she still has some deep-seated insecurities about her identity and how it relates to the world at large, at the very least.
But it doesn’t mean that she has to let them win.)
“I think… I think I wanted to delay the inevitable”, Spooner mumbles. “I didn’t want to actually hear you say that I had to deal with not being your priority anymore and feel even worse, so I just kept quiet.”
Astra squeezes her tighter for a moment, before letting go so that she can catch her eyes. “But why were you so convinced that I would say that, right from the start?”
“Because that’s how I’ve always seen romance work.” Spooner shrugs, if only because the movement grounds her. “It takes over every other relationship – and it’s expected to. Friendship is seen as lesser – just friends, right? So, with how invisible I felt after you started dating Behrad… Of course that’s what I thought would happen.” She averts her eyes before she says the next part. “It’s going to happen anyway, eventually. And I don’t think you can help it.”
Astra won’t shut her out any longer, of course; she might even make a conscious effort to be there for Spooner just as much as she used to. But as things get serious with Behrad, he will take more and more space, and Spooner simply can’t compete with that.
Why couldn’t she just feel less, care less? Be fine with being labeled Astra’s best friend instead of needing more somehow while knowing that’s not something she can get?
Unfortunately, her face must betray some of that inner turmoil despite her best attempts at keeping it under wraps, because Astra is now studying her carefully instead of arguing with her or questioning her any further.
“There’s something you’re not telling me”, Astra finally says after a few seconds. “I don’t know what it is, but I keep feeling like I’m missing a very important part of the picture and if I could just put my finger on it, everything would make a lot more sense.” She holds up a hand before Spooner can say anything. “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me about whatever this is, of course, for whatever reason, but… I can tell. I know you too well. And it’s really not helping me figure out what to say.”
Oh.
Damn Astra for being so perceptive, when it comes to her.
She could just not say anything, of course. She knows that Astra means it when she assures her it’d be fine. But, with how much she’s already let slip tonight… is there even a point not telling Astra anymore?
The thing is – even if there hadn’t been three weeks of miscommunication between them, Spooner still wouldn’t have wanted to tell her about her asexuality right away. She wouldn’t have felt comfortable talking about it so early in her journey – not with the way her exploration of her identity is so intricately tied to trying to understand and name what she feels for Astra.
(To be fair, she doesn’t want to tell anyone else on the team yet either, but that’s for a different reason: because it still feels too intimate a revelation for her to be ready to invite the outside world into that. Even if the outside world is just her friends.)
Now, though?
She’s already told Astra so much. She might as well take a leap of faith and go all the way while she’s at it.
Still, she feels like she can’t look at Astra while she talks about her identity; that’s more than she could handle at the moment. So she lets herself fall backwards on the bed, and settles with her back against the covers as her eyes find the ceiling and stay glued there.
How is she supposed to do this? How do you come out to someone who might not even understand the simple words you could use, the same way she herself had never heard of asexuality a month ago and didn’t get it when Zari suggested it might fit her?
She hadn’t thought about that yet, and she only now realizes how much harder that makes the entire process.
“I’ve always known I was… different”, she says slowly. “And not just because of the aliens. I don’t… There are some things I just don’t feel. Sex and romance don’t make sense to me; they never have. And I always thought that it was just me, that something was broken with me.”
Astra says silent while she gathers her thoughts, giving her space to do this on her own terms.
“I learned otherwise because of a game of fuck, marry, kill, if you can believe that. Zari was trying to get me to play, and I just… I stopped bothering to pretend that I got this stuff a long time ago, so I told her the truth. About how I feel – or don’t feel, I guess. And she just understood what I meant. For the first time, here was someone who understood what I was trying to say, because she knew of people like me; knew me better than I knew myself, really. And so she could tell me that I’m not broken, that I’m just…” Spooner takes a deep breath, then releases it as she finishes her sentence. “Ace. Aroace, specifically. Short for aromantic asexual, meaning that I experience neither romantic nor sexual attraction. Because, as it turns out, that’s a thing.” She closes her eyes. “Zari is the only one who knows so far. I don’t… I haven’t quite figured out how to talk about it with anyone else yet.”
Well… now, Astra knows, too. And even though she can tell that it’s irrational, Spooner is very much freaking out while she waits for her friend to process that revelation and speak.
(She shouldn’t, and the logical part of her brain knows that – keeps telling her that this is Astra; of course she’ll get nothing but love and care and support from her –, but… still. She’s apprehensive.
And she can’t even really pinpoint why.)
So she closes her eyes. She feels safer this way, somehow – less vulnerable.
She doesn’t need to see, anyway. Hearing is more than enough, she decides; but it turns out she doesn’t even need that, because Astra’s first reaction isn’t verbal. It comes in the form of a hand gently squeezing her forearm instead.
And Spooner knows what this means. Astra did it once before, back at her mom’s house, when she was watching her younger self being sent away and Astra was trying to show that she was there for her without really knowing how.
Spooner feels herself smiling, just a little bit. Astra may not be the best at communicating her thoughts and feelings, but this brings Spooner the comfort it was meant to all the same.
“It must be such a relief”, Astra finally murmurs once she’s worked out what to say. “To finally understand a huge part of yourself that didn’t make sense before. I can’t even imagine.”
Yes, it was – it is –, and it’s life-changing to learn that there are words – a whole identity – to describe her, but as of right now, it also kind of… sucks. And that other side of the coin is harder to talk about.
In a way, it’s as if she was currently mourning something that never even existed. Because, sure, embracing her asexuality and aromanticism is bringing her some long-awaited, much-needed peace, but even though it’s incredibly liberating to know that it’s normal … it’s also forcing her to confront the fact that she’ll always feel like an outsider in a world so focused on sex and romance. And while that would be a complicated journey on its own, the unfortunate timing of its beginning – right as Behrad and Astra started dating? Well, that certainly made it even trickier.
She just didn’t have time to process the two events independently. They became intricately linked instead, one big thing always circling back to Astra, and what ended up happening is that her feelings of brokenness morphed into loneliness rather than a path to acceptance soon after the initial wave of relief hit.
As far as improvements go, this hasn’t necessarily felt much like one.
“It’s… a lot”, is the reply she settles on. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything.”
Astra’s grip on her arm tightens slightly. “I’m sorry for that too”, she says, and Spooner can tell how much she means it just based on the number of times she’s apologized already. It’s very unlike her to begin with. “I should have been there to help you work it all out. Instead… you’ve had this major revelation about yourself, and I wasn’t— I didn’t even see. I was so focused on Behrad I didn’t even notice something was going on with you. I should have.”
Spooner finally opens her eyes again to glance at Astra, who looks as mad at herself as she sounds; and it’s comforting, in a way, to know that Astra wanted to be there for her that badly, but Spooner also can’t let her blame herself for this.
“That part’s not on you”, she says with a shake of her head. “I didn’t want you to see.”
She can’t help another glance to the side then, just in time to see a flicker of surprise and hurt flash on Astra’s face before she schools her features into something closer to neutral, and that gives Spooner an overwhelming urge to explain herself further. Not that she has to – Astra is not asking for more, respecting the fact that she has every right to go through this journey at whatever pace and in whatever order feels best for her, but also… the safe half-answers she’s been giving so far feel a lot less like enough now that she can see the effect they have on Astra.
“It’s hard”, she admits as she sits back up, “talking to you about all this. I just don’t know how to go about it. I can’t find the right words – I don’t even know if they exist.”
“You did just fine”, Astra tries to reassure her, but Spooner immediately shakes her head again, because that’s not what she meant.
Explaining that she’s aroace, she could manage indeed. Explaining what she feels for Astra… that, she simply can’t.
This time, though, Astra seems to figure out at least part of what’s going on – no doubt helped by all the times Spooner revealed a bit more than she meant to throughout their entire conversation.
“‘Just friends’”, Astra mutters to herself before turning to face Spooner properly – although Spooner can’t bear to look at her right now. “That’s it, isn’t it? You think everyone is always going to pair up and leave you behind, on your own, because you’re never going to be… anything other than ‘just a friend’ to anyone. Right? That’s why Behrad bothers you so much.”
Hearing someone else say that out loud makes it an awful lot more real, and Spooner suddenly finds herself on the verge of crying. Astra just connected enough dots to put her finger on her biggest insecurity, and now she has very little left to hide behind.
She still tries to push the emotions away.
“It’s inevitable”, she says evenly. “I just haven’t found a way to be okay with it yet.”
She doesn’t say that she regularly wonders if she should try to meet other aroace people, so that she can at least feel less alone with that feeling. Or that she can’t actually find it in herself to care, because those hypothetical people are not the ones she wants by her side.
(Because none of them would be Astra.)
“No, it’s not inevitable”, Astra says forcefully. “Spooner.” She waits until Spooner reluctantly looks at her, then locks their gazes with enough intensity that Spooner doesn’t think she could look away again even if she wanted to. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“You don’t get it”, Spooner says helplessly. “It’s not the same for you. There’s no one else – and there won’t ever be anyone else – for me. There’s just… you.”
“So I’m…” Astra hesitates for a moment. “I’m your person.”
Oh.
Spooner had never thought to label it like that before, but yes. That’s it. That’s exactly how she feels about Astra.
The most important person in the world to her. The person she wants by her side.
Person. Her person.
It’s deceptively simple, but it works.
She’s not even entirely sure how she ended up here; how she went from being at odds with Astra when they first met to this, but… she wouldn’t trade it for the world, now that she has it. Looking back, it all probably started the day she began trusting Astra, but even that she can’t pinpoint exactly – all she knows is that she didn’t, because she never used to trust anyone, but then, when they all got trapped in Gary’s all-too-realistic board game, she suddenly realized that the only one she trusted to be by her side in there was Astra. Somehow. Even though that was the same person who’d once turned her into a fork.
(Was it the cosmic bowling alley? Is that when it started happening? Spooner still remembers hugging Astra that day; how against all odds it’d felt like the most natural thing in the world to her.)
It all grew from there, anyway. They started spending more time together, both because of the missions and by choice, and Spooner… Spooner just let Astra wrap herself around her heart like no one ever had before. By the time they were facing an alien invasion in 1925, they were gravitating toward each other constantly, and once they all lost the Waverider, she didn’t think twice about staying behind with a bedridden Astra while the others left for New York. It was the obvious, most natural choice in the world to make. (Of course, spending more time with her mom was also a bonus, but… she wouldn’t have left Astra either way.)
And from then on… Spooner basically stopped being able to imagine her life without Astra, especially once they started crossing the country with Gideon and their bond just strengthened that much more. She couldn’t, and she didn’t even want to try – but she also didn’t have to, because every time she reached out, Astra was always there. Even once they reunited with the rest of the team.
That’s why it hurt so much, when she thought she’d suddenly lost that with her. Because it’s not just anyone, or even just a best friend, who’d slipped away without a warning – it’s Astra; and Astra was, and had been for a while, so much more than that.
It felt like she’d made a mistake, letting herself grow so close to someone who she’d thought was on the same page. It felt exactly like heartbreak.
Because Astra is her person.
And Astra also apparently knows that now.
Suddenly unable to speak as she swallows over the lump in her throat, Spooner can’t do much more than nod in agreement.
She tries to anticipate what happens next. Her mind goes to a million different serious places at once, running in overdrive as she tries to steel herself for every scenario, but… in the end, none of them are the route Astra takes.
The soft, gentle, playful route. With a tender smile and eyes full of so much love and care that Spooner forgets how to breathe for a second.
“Do you think I pretend to make lucky rocks for just about anyone?”
Astra’s smile turns wider when Spooner lets out a startled half-laugh in a shaky breath, and all the residual tension in the room dissipates at once.
“I’m not going to pretend to know how you feel”, Astra continues slowly. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that I understood everything you said either, because let’s face it – asexuality is not something I ever heard about in Hell or with the Legends, so it’s a completely new concept to me. But…” She pauses, and Spooner can tell that she’s really trying her best to find the right words. “Even though I don’t know if the feelings involved are the same or not… I can tell you that you’re my person too.”
Spooner opens her mouth to reply but stops herself when Astra gives her a look to indicate that she’s not done; Astra let her speak without interrupting earlier, so she’s obviously going to extend the same curtesy now. Besides, she knows that none of this is easy for Astra to say – expressing her feelings is not exactly her strongest suit.
“I heard you, earlier. I know you think Behrad will become… more than you, but that’s not how this works. Not for me. Even though, as you said, that’s…”
“How things always go?” Spooner supplies when Astra struggles to find the right words. “What everything always told me I should expect? What’s considered normal?”
“But nothing here is normal!” Astra exclaims. “Nothing about growing up in Hell or being sent to a different time by a— an alien mushroom or living on the Waverider now is normal. So I certainly don’t care if my relationships are normal either!” She gets up from the bed and paces the room for a few moments before turning back to look at Spooner. “Think about it like that: yes, Behrad is my boyfriend, or my partner if you prefer, but you are always, always going to be my person. And just because they are two different types of relationships, doesn’t mean they’re not both equally as important to me. Even though I know I made you doubt that since I started dating him.”
And Spooner wants to believe her, she really does, but… “What does that even look like?” she asks, looking at Astra helplessly.
“It means that you’ll have to share me with Behrad if you want to think about it like that, but also that he will have to share me with you the exact same way. It means…” Astra huffs. “You know what? I don’t actually know. I don’t know what it’ll look like, because I barely even know what I’m doing these days. All I know is that Behrad is attractive and I like him as a person, but nothing about that is ever going to make him mean more to me than you.”
“But what if he wants more?” Spooner still has to ask, because she wasn’t born yesterday – she knows that people tend to want some level of exclusivity in romantic relationships.
“Then he’ll have to either deal with it or move on”, Astra replies, and she sounds so unwaveringly final that Spooner starts to believe her, too.
Besides, considering who Behrad is as a person… if Spooner stops and assesses the situation honestly for a minute, she will say that there’s a good chance he might be on the list of people who could manage indeed.
“And before you get the wrong idea, no, I’m not just doing this for your sake”, Astra adds. (How did she even guess that’s exactly where Spooner’s brain was going next?!) “I can’t… Spooner, I can’t lose you either. I don’t know what I’d do.”
And Spooner gets that – she gets it way too well. Because that’s exactly what she just experienced, and it felt horrible.
“Just don’t disappear again, okay?”
“I’ll try my best”, Astra promises. “But if I screw up and I do… then tell me. Right away.”
Spooner nods. “I can do that.”
And she really does feel like she can, now that everything is out in the open. Talking to Astra, asking to be seen, doesn’t seem as scary anymore, even though there’s still a little voice whispering doubts at the back of her mind – because it makes sense that it hasn’t fully gone away yet. Because time is the only thing that will, hopefully, get it to quiet down, if Astra does keep her promise and their relationship doesn’t change.
So, yes, the little voice is there. But Spooner, despite having no clue what their future will look like with Behrad in the mix, feels hopeful for the first time since the bar in the Fixed Point.
Of course, in an ideal world, she’d have wished for Astra to have the exact same feelings as her and nothing else; but here, in the real world where she is aroace and Astra isn’t… well, this is truly the best thing she could have ever hoped for. To still be Astra’s person like Astra is hers, boyfriend or no boyfriend to account for.
(She shushes the little voice telling her that it’s too good to be true, that it can’t possibly work, not after she spent three weeks agonizing about how there was no way their relationship would ever be the same again.
Right now, she wants to believe Astra’s words. And, again, the little voice doesn’t get to win.)
“So, since I have to make up for three weeks of lost time… what do you say I stay here tonight, and you get to choose what you want us to do?” Astra asks, and even though she tries to hide it, Spooner can still tell that she’s not entirely sure how that offer will be received.
As if, at this point, Spooner was going to pass up on the opportunity to spend the rest of the evening with her.
“Okay”, she says immediately… though she also can’t resist testing Astra’s resolve, just a little bit. “But we’re watching the new season of Survivor. I didn’t get the chance to start it yet.”
“Sure”, Astra agrees immediately, and she walks back to the bed to plop down next to Spooner. “Wait. What’s Survivor?”
Spooner tries to look innocent, but she has no doubt that the devilish grin she can’t quite keep from pulling at the corners of her mouth is betraying her. “Reality TV.”
Astra sends her best exasperated glare Spooner’s way. “I hate you”, she huffs, but she still catches the pillow being thrown into her hands as she scoots back to sit against the wall.
“Yeah, yeah. I hate you too”, Spooner replies, without trying to hide her grin anymore.
And oh, she’s missed this, these last few weeks. Because, as much as she adores Astra and the soft moments that they sometimes share, this is also a part of their relationship that she loves: playfully annoying each other, and saying I hate you when they mean the exact opposite. So doing this now, after the incredibly heavy conversation they just had? It brings back a sense of normalcy that Spooner desperately latches onto.
For the next few hours, she wants to forget about the future and her feelings and the outside world and everything in between. She just wants to relish in the comfort of having found Astra again.
“Get prepared”, she says as she grabs the remote, a pillow for herself, and one of the blankets haphazardly strewn on her bed. “This can get intense.”
“You mean you get intense”, Astra mutters under her breath, and Spooner just grins again. She won’t even try to deny that.
(She would, however, deny the fact that turning the TV on and switching to the proper channel the old-fashioned way, with a remote, is something that she finds grounding, but the truth is… As much as she’s come to love the Waverider and doesn’t really miss most of 21st century Texas, sometimes, she still needs to hold onto the little things that she considered normal all her life before ending up on a time ship.
“You don’t need a remote, Ms Cruz. I can control the TV in your room the same way I do all other electronic devices here”, Gideon had pointed out when Spooner first asked her to either find her or fabricate her a remote.
“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t matter. Still want one”, she’d insisted. And she’d never explained why.)
Thankfully, Astra doesn’t call her out on it, even though Spooner can tell that she’s mildly amused, and she just scoots closer as she grabs the blanket to spread it on their laps instead.
They spend the next two hours just like that, pressed up against each other as Spooner excitedly tries to predict what’ll happen next in the show and Astra pays more attention to her commentary than to the TV itself, and it feels right.
(It feels like Spooner can finally breathe again.)
Eventually, though, Astra must get tired of her constant and increasingly wilder gesturing, because she rolls her eyes before grabbing Spooner’s arms and pulling her back towards her with a firm grip.
She also doesn’t let go.
“Shut up”, she just mutters while – for once – staring at the TV when Spooner turns her head to look at her with raised eyebrows.
And Spooner lets her have this, instead of teasing her about it. She lets Astra readjust her arms and hold her tight without a word, because she knows what this is about.
She needs the reassurance that Astra is still right there too.
Still, her restrained range of motion doesn’t stop her from pressing play on a fourth episode a few minutes later – even though, truth be told, it’s less about the TV show than it is about the fact that she’s not ready to let this not-so-quiet evening with Astra end just yet.
And so, they watch Survivor for almost an hour more.
(Astra complains the whole way through.
And Spooner wouldn’t have it any other way.)
It takes all three of them a while to find their footing.
During the first few weeks, after Astra talks to Behrad, neither he nor Spooner manage to stop being completely wary about each other, and it’s not rare to find them sizing each other up behind Astra’s back when she’s not looking. It gets better once Spooner comes out to the team and he stops seeing her as a potential romantic rival – though that reaction is something that, on some level, also annoys her –, but still, they’re not exactly the best of friends at first. Especially while Behrad comes to terms with the fact that his romance with Astra will never be of a totally conventional nature, and while they both sometimes feel left out as Astra tries her best to figure out how to balance the two most important relationships in her life. Occasionally, they even end up having full-blown, heated arguments that the rest of the team cautiously stays out of.
With time, though, things smooth out considerably.
They learn how to communicate properly and how to set up a schedule that they’re all comfortable with; sometimes, Astra sleeps in Behrad’s room, sometimes, she spends the entire evening with Spooner, talking or watching TV (yes, even Survivor) or sneaking out of the Waverider to visit Gloria, and sometimes, the three of them decide to all hang out together. Finding ways to satisfy everyone is a process for sure, one that never quite stops being a little bit tricky, but it definitely helps once they all relax and learn to trust each other better.
Spooner, in the meantime, keeps exploring her identity and figuring out both what she likes and what her boundaries are. Without much surprise, she identifies that she appreciates hugs with Astra a lot and cuddles occasionally, but that’s as far as physical affection goes for her (which, thankfully, is just fine with Astra as well). Emotional intimacy is a lot more her thing – and that’s exactly what she gets, because Astra proves to her time and time again that she wasn’t just trying to reassure her when she told her that they are each other’s person. She truly meant it when she said that she needs her just as much, and Spooner slowly learns to let go of her doubts and admit that Astra does indeed feel something similar to her.
Eventually, what started out as a complicated journey turns into the best thing that ever happened to her. In a way, she even starts to appreciate not just her own relationship with Astra, but Behrad’s place in their life as well: it’s great to know that even at times when she can’t be there to look out for Astra, someone else is, and while she’s good at listening and validating Astra’s feelings, Behrad is definitely better than her when it comes to providing comfort and potential solutions, so he’s better equipped to handle certain situations. The truth is – on some level, they complement each other well; it just… takes them a while to figure that out and use it to their advantage. They get there, though, because they both care about Astra just as much.
(Okay, no, that’s a lie. They get there mostly because Zari gets tired of seeing her best friend and her brother constantly at odds, so they get some sense knocked into the both of them.)
After that, the distrust – finally – fully goes away, and it evolves into something a lot more enjoyable: a playful rivalry that extends to literally everything, not just Astra, and that never ceases to amuse the other members of the team. Especially once it becomes obvious that, no matter how much they both deny it, Spooner and Behrad have grown close enough that they’re now looking out for each other as well instead of always focusing on Astra.
Zari teases them about it endlessly, of course, and Spooner complains about that without fail, but secretly… she actually loves it. It feels like everything she never even knew she wanted and more, and while she’s not quite sure how she got lucky enough to have it all, she decides that it doesn’t really matter. (Overanalyzing the past is so not her thing anyway.)
The only thing that truly matters is that she has a family now; not just with her mom, who she gets to visit regularly, but with this ragtag team of people from all over the timeline as well, because that’s what they’ve become to her over time. Because they accept her for exactly who she is, which is not something that she thought she could ever find, and because they make her feel like she belongs.
Because she does belong. With the rest of the Legends, of course, but also more specifically with Astra, who never stops meaning the world to her, and in whatever unnamed dynamic they’ve created with Behrad along the way as well, though that’s not something that she ever anticipated would happen.
Because, in the end, they manage to make it work.
It’s unusual, and it’s complicated, but still.
They manage to make it work.