Carmen was one of those people who adopted everyone who walked in the doors as her child. She grew on people, but sometimes it took a little while. Xander didn’t mind, of course, he’d long-since grown used to that strange feeling of knowing he was a grown man, but feeling like a little kid on his birthday when she set food in front of him. 

And there it was. There was the reaction he was looking for. He checked what expression she’d frozen on and made the same one, then continued a little bit of the speech, just how he’d done it 15 years ago. “Come on, Dick…that’s the only education we got.” 

He laughed, an actual full on, not hiding anything laugh. “What, you want me to go outside and free-climb up the building to prove it?” He would, honestly, if she said yes. Not because he wanted to necessarily prove himself, but because why not? He hadn’t climbed a building in a while. If she knew about that one, she knew about “Triple X,” so he smirked. “You wanna see the tattoo?” His trademark, on the back of his neck. Sure, other people could have gotten it, too, but he got it first, it was his. It was him.