Talk to the Hands

*November 15, 2019*

Ernest waits outside the library, scrolling through his texts to remind himself why he’s still in the school building on a Friday afternoon instead of vacating the premises to get a head start on the weekend.

T: Hey so remember when you asked me to spy on Atlanta?
E: ‘keep an eye on’ is not the same thing as spying
T: Well I’m like 90% sure she’s not a supervillain BUT she does know ASL
T: And she’s gonna teach you after school today!
E: what
T: I may have scheduled this last week and forgotten to tell you about it
T: But also I know you’re not doing anything and she’s like busy all time
T: So can you pleeeease show up this afternoon
E: okay okay fine
T: Thaaaaaaanks

“Hey, Ern!” Timothy’s sky blue voice echoes in the nearly empty hallway. He’s leading one of his classmates over, and gestures to her once they reach the library. “Ernest, this is Atlanta. She’s super cool, but also really busy, so don’t waste her time. Atlanta, this is my brother Ernest. He’s got weather powers and kinda has a whole superhero thing going on, but don’t let that intimidate you. He’s actually a huge dork once you get to know him.”

“Okay, introductions complete!” Timothy claps his hands together, sending a cascade of yellow-green sparks across Ernest’s vision. “I’ve gotta run to rehearsal, you two have fun!” he calls over his shoulder, already halfway down the hall.

“Uh, hi, Atlanta,” Ernest says, holding out a hand. “Sorry about my brother dragging you into this, I know he can be a lot sometimes.”

Atlanta smiles and shakes his hand. “It’s okay! Timothy is super nice. Plus, we don’t have swim practice today, so I’ve got plenty of time before I need to pick up Jasper. Besides, I think it’s great you want to learn ASL! Um, I’m not like, a teacher or anything, but I can teach you some basics.” She seems to realize that she’s rambling and stops. “So, should we get a study room?”

Atlanta’s voice draws an orange sherbet thread through the air that dips up and down as she speaks. Ernest can already see why Timothy didn’t take his warnings about her potentially being involved with Gambit seriously, she certainly doesn’t give off supervillain vibes.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I don’t think Timothy reserved one, but I doubt we’ll have too much competition.” He begins walking down the row of study rooms, peering through the windows until they come across an available one. “So how long have you known ASL? I only know like, two words, so even the basics will be a big step up.”

Despite Timothy being the one to set this meeting up, Atlanta can’t help but wonder if this is another Big Team member attempting to spy on Evil Gambit Member Atlanta. Regardless of his intentions, he at least seemed sincere about learning ASL, and she was always happy to help people learn it.

“I’m a CODA, uh, sorry. Child of a Deaf adult,” she responds, keeping pace with him. “So I’ve just always known. Bilingual household and all that. And my little brother is deaf, so we still use it all the time.” Atlanta stops and opens a door to the open study room. “Does this one work?”

“Yeah, this looks good.” Ernest enters the room, dropping his backpack in the corner and taking a seat in one of the chairs around the table in the center. “Growing up bilingual is really cool. I used to know some German when I was little, but we didn’t really have a reason to use it after Opa passed, so I lost most of it. I don’t know whether Timothy mentioned it when he asked you to teach me, but his hearing isn’t quite what used to be. The doctors think it’s stabilized now, but we figured it would be good to learn in case it gets worse. Plus it seems like a really cool way to communicate.”

Atlanta nods, taking a seat across from him with one leg tucked under her. “Yeah, if Jasper wasn’t deaf, I don’t know if I’d use it enough now that,” she stops suddenly, but covers it up with a smile. “Anyway. Yeah, ASL is really fun. It’s blunt and to the point, and sometimes it’s way easier to say what you mean. It’s way more gendered than I’d like, but languages evolve. We’ll get there. And I’m sorry about your brother. It can be a rough transition. And we have classes and Deaf meetups at the community center sometimes. If you want to practice, that’s a good place to do it.” She pulls out a notebook and a pencil, tapping the eraser on the table nervously.

“We’re all still getting used to it, yeah. And neat, I’ll have to look up when those are.” Each tap of the pencil flashes indigo in the corner of his eye, but Ernest wills himself to keep his concentration on Atlanta.

“So I know how to say thank you,” he demonstrates, holding a hand to his chin and moving it forward. He starts to make another motion but hesitates. “I think the second one might actually be a swear word someone taught me as a joke, so let’s just leave it at that for now. Do you usually start with the alphabet, or just jump right into words?”

Atlanta grins. “Yeah, thank you and F you are very similar. Hand shape and motions are pretty important if you don’t want your please and sorry to be mixed up. Or if you don’t want to insult someone you’re trying to thank.” She pauses to consider the question. “Fingerspelling is actually pretty important. Like, when I introduce myself, I’ll do my sign name which is bean,” she puts her left hand out into a fist with her index finger extended, then uses her thumb and forefinger to pinch her left index finger and pull along it, “but with an A at the end.” She does the motion again, but her hand goes into the sign for A as she ends the motion. “But if it’s a person I haven’t met before, I’ll sign my,” she puts a palm against her chest, “name is” both hands in fists front of herself with her index and middle fingers extended, tapping them together twice, “Atlanta,” she fingerspells this, “and then I’ll pause, and do my sign name. You don’t have a sign name, for either of your names. And you can’t give yourself them. Neither can I. Sign names are given to you by a person who is deaf. That’s really important.”

Atlanta pauses, realizing she just info-dumped a lot of information. “So we can start with the alphabet, and then go into some common phrases like introducing yourself. Because if you don’t know a word in ASL, you can spell it. Sorry, I got a little ramble-y there.”

Ernest watches Atlanta intently as she explains, attempting to mirror the motions as she demonstrates. “Hey, I’m here to learn about this stuff from you, so you can ramble all you like. “So bean, with an A…” Ernest mimics the signs a bit clumsily. “Is that supposed to be like Bina? Who gave you your sign name?”

“It’s more like a nickname. The initial is added to make it different from the food. You can usually tell by context that someone is talking about a person instead of whatever their sign name is, but sometimes it can be unclear, so the initial helps with that. And like a nickname, it doesn’t always need to make total sense.” She pauses before answering the second question, looking deeply uncomfortable. “It was my mo-” The word gets caught in her throat. She swallows before continuing. “My mom.” After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she smiles and holds up an A. “So, do you know the alphabet at all?”

The room falls quiet enough that Ernest can hear the cerulean ticking of the clock’s second hand. He offers what he hopes comes across as a sympathetic smile, but otherwise doesn’t draw attention to the pause. “Well, you just showed me A,” he says, holding up the sign. “And I remember V and W because those are easy.” He flashes a peace sign, and then adds his ring finger. “But that’s about it.”

Atlanta spends the next few minutes teaching Ernest the alphabet, then has him work on spelling out both Ernest and Weatherman. As she goes, the tension in her shoulders from when her mom was mentioned relaxes. “The best way to get better is to keep using it. So whenever you think about it, you can spell out random words as practice. There are also videos online you can watch to get better at reading fingerspelling, too. I can recommend a few resources if you want.” She pauses to think for a moment. “It’ll be hard to understand most of what you say in costume, though. The patterns on it will break up the shape of your hand. Not that it really matters, since you don’t know enough to be of much use in an emergency yet.”

Ernest continues to practice spelling his names as they talk. Initially, he keeps mixing up N and T, but the mistakes become fewer as he goes. “Yeah, if you know some good videos, that would be great!” He frowns at the mention of his costume. “Ah, really? They don’t warn you about that kind of thing when you’re designing a costume. It’s cool that you know what mine looks like, though. Do you follow a lot of Big Team stuff or something? I know a lot of us go to school here, and I’ve heard there’s some kind of fanclub?” Belatedly, he remembers how several of his teammates keep secret identities and aren’t known to attend Big High. “I mean, some of us go here, anyway.”

“It’s not the kind of thing most people would worry about when designing a costume.” She pauses. “Um, I think I’m technically in the fanclub? There was a whole thing this one time when Aman, Ellen, and I were investigating Kurt.” She makes a face, making it clear she knows at least a little about what he’s been up to. “But anyway. Uh. I follow the news. Heroes are on it a lot. Plus, I’m friends with Ellen and Boon. So I follow it at least a little.” The pencil starts tapping again as she pauses, weighing whether or not to continue. “If you want an example of a costume that’s a good design for ASL, Verve’s is a good one. Her hoodie is light pink, but she wears black gloves. So there’s good contrast. And her mask is small enough that you can see her eyebrows and facial expressions, which are like punctuation in ASL. Jasper told me she speaks it, so it makes sense that she’d have thought about it when she made her costume. But anyway. If you give me your number, I can send you those videos?”

“I didn’t realize that Verve knows ASL, that’s neat. I’ve been meaning to ask her stuff about how her lightning powers work anyway, so I’ll just add ASL and costume design to that list.” He passes his phone to Atlanta and takes hers, entering his phone number and email under the contact name ‘ernest welles 🌩.’ “Send me anything you think will be useful for practice! And I guess we can coordinate when to meet up again? Timothy said you’re pretty busy, but I don’t really do clubs or anything outside of the hero stuff, and that doesn’t exactly operate on a schedule. So just let me know what times work for you, I’ll probably be free.”

Grinning at his contact name, Atlanta nods. She lists off a few times that could work the next week. "I can't guarantee I'll be available. Sometimes things come up, but I'll try to text you to cancel. But sometimes I forget or get caught up in something. So sorry about that in advance." She taps the back of her phone for a moment before continuing. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

“Hey, as long as you’re okay with me possibly running off on a mission in the middle of a lesson, I don’t mind if you can’t make a few.” He watches the turquoise waves ripple across his vision as Atlanta taps her phone, wondering what question she had in mind that would set off the nervous habit. “Sure, I guess? What is it?”

"Why are you a hero?"

Ernest freezes up, caught off guard by the topic. He wonders for a second whether this is some kind of setup for Gambit to learn more personal information to use against him, but quickly dismisses the thought as an attempt to avoid the question. “I didn’t have a great reason to start,” he admits, hands clenched on the table in front of him. “But it’s also kind of the reason I’m trying to learn ASL, so I guess you should know. Timothy’s hearing getting worse… was my fault. I lost control of my powers and he got hurt, badly. For a while I didn’t know what to do with myself, but eventually I decided that I wanted to do something, anything positive with my powers, and the hero thing seemed to fit that. So, guilt, I guess?”

He can feel the hairs on his arms starting to stand on end as static electricity gathers around him, so he takes a deep breath and relaxes his hands before continuing. “That’s why I started, anyway. I’m not sure I’d still be doing it if that stayed my only reason, though. Once I began going on missions, I realized all these things I can do that most people can’t,” he pulls together a miniature whirlwind in the palm of his hand and releases it to spin around the room, “they can actually be used to protect people from some really dangerous stuff. And as long as I can save people like that, I want to keep doing it,” he finishes quietly.

Atlanta nods as he speaks. "I'm sorry that happened to you. And I'm glad you came here and have Big Team now. And if being a hero is how you deal with guilt, I mean, you could have done a lot worse." She gives him a comforting smile, seemingly unconcerned with the static in the air. "And thank you for telling me all that."

“Sorry for dropping all of that on you,” Ernest says scratching the back of his neck. “I wasn’t really expecting the question, but I’ve been thinking about it on my own. Why did you want to know? Are Ellen and Boon starting to wear off on you, thinking of trying out some hero-ing yourself?”

A flush rises along Atlanta's neck at the question. "No! Uh. I mean. No. I'm not. Interested in hero things. That would just be ridiculous. Me, a hero. Pshhh." She chuckles awkwardly. She couldn't very well say that she was trying to figure out if her own reason was worth it, so she lied. As she did. "I'm just…curious I guess. Why people do that, why they risk their lives and safety and stability. You know." The familiar rush of guilt welled up in her chest as the lie came out, but she pushed past it. At least it was partly true? "Besides I've got way too much to do to try and add hero stuff on top of it." She stands and gathers her stuff. "So I'll send you those videos, and you can practice fingerspelling, and we'll go from there next week?"

“Oh trust me, I was risking safety and stability way before I became a hero. So maybe you’ve just got your priorities figured out better than the rest of us.” Ernest stands as well, and swings his backpack over his shoulder. “That works for me. Thanks for making time to teach me when you’ve got so much else going on. And it’s been good to get to know you, Atlanta.”

"Thanks. It's been nice to meet you, too. Even if you're not as big of a dork as Timothy promised." Atlanta grins at him.

“I’m sure Timothy will be on my case about setting your standards too high.” Ernest rolls his eyes, but smiles back at her. “Good luck with swim team and everything. See you around!”

"Well keep practicing and then you can talk to my brother as payback." She laughs. "Thanks! Same for you and your team."

As they exit the school, the sun seems to shine a little bit brighter.