"I," Luther begins, stammering, immediately looking a little lost and thrown for a loop. Intercepting a curveball he hadn't expected to field at all, and so the look that he sends Allison now is a quick, uncertain thing, a flicker of What do I do? behind his eyes — looking to her for cues, instructions, when ordinarily the shoe's on the other foot. Ordinarily all of the Hargreeves took their lead from him.

"I'm not sure that's exactly what she was asking, was it? She was just wondering if you could—"

Out of the mouths of babes, because the girl cuts in quick and insistent: "No, but I want you to. You're in a ball dress and everything."

Sounding plaintive, begging, the way a child might ask for a favourite dog to do a trick or, in this case, near-mythical figure to show what they're made of. Dancing isn't a party trick he's used to seeing the Rumor pull out — normally, when they were once made to jump through performing hoops in front of a crowd, it was to demonstrate their lethality. Their combat skills. Their special superpowers.

Not their footwork.

He dabs his mouth with a napkin, suddenly self-conscious, wondering if there's ice cream on his chin. He's been classically-trained in ballroom dancing; all of them had been. But he's rusty, and hasn't done it in so very long. (To dance, you need a partner.)

"Well, if it's a request," he says slowly, each syllable measured, and then looks over at Allison, and finally stands up and holds out a hand to her.