anonymous prompted: AU prompt: Bruce meets Cassandra back when he's being trained by Cain
To be completely honest, I wasn't sure what to do with this one when I first got it, anon! It seemed like such a hard thing to retcon originally, but as I sat down with the idea and tried to see what I plotted, wow, you REALLY gave me some serious inspiration, anon! I can't thank you enough for that. I love it when a great prompt comes along and surprises me with its possibilities. So thank you! And I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed playing with it!
Batman and related properties © DC Comics
story © RenaRoo
Father, Father
The second time he found himself in Macau, he had embraced the mantle of the Bat.
He was no longer a boy with a plan to achieve grandeur, but a man with the mission to do so. And, for him, he thought that would have been enough to face the demons he had impressed upon on his way.
When Bruce Wayne traveled the world, usually under monickers and lies for pretense, he took it upon himself to tutor under the very kinds of people he wished to someday stop, to learn their crafts and subsequently overtake them in order to stop them.
It was a terrible line that he walked for several years, and in doing so he made acquaintances with some of the worst people in the world.
David Cain, the master assassin, was not, by any means, low on that list, but his work as a mercenary rather than several other tutors' occupations, as well as Cain's extreme difficulty in being located, placed him as a lower priority for old tutors to turn back in.
So it was only coincidence when the trail of a murderer whose spree had momentarily made its way to Gotham took him to Macau and Batman himself saw the familiar form of an old teacher waving to him from across the city streets.
He narrowed his eyes.
"David Cain," he said lowly, fist clenching.
By the time they met halfway, they both spoke in the exact way the mercenary always preferred - with fists and kicks.
When their blocks and strikes hit a near perfect mirrored rhythm, David Cain finally stopped and smirked, head tilting back as he laughed.
"I know who you are," he said, drawing back, shoulders still squared and large. "I always knew I'd see you again."
Batman stood back as well, eyes narrowed. "I need answers," he growled. "Are you the man to go to for that still? Or should I go ahead and take you in?"
Cain's smile never dropped. "I'm sure I have answers you want," he said simply. "But you'll have to do me a favor first."
"Depends on the favor," Batman responded thickly.
Reaching the point of unnerving, Cain's smile continued on. "I just need you to run a training exercise."
Slowly, Batman raised a brow.
The moment Cain opened the door, Batman regretted everything.
The girl was no older than seven, bright eyed, filled immediately with adoration directed toward Cain, then immediately with apprehension and competitiveness when she looked toward the unannounced guest.
Cain held up one hand, then motioned with his fist. The girl leaped to her feet and lowered into almost a runner's stance, bright brown eyes sparking as she looked straight at Batman from across the mats.
Years ago, when Bruce Wayne was a nameless traveler studying beneath the worst of the worst, he had convinced David Cain that he was worth the tutelage.
"Everything you need to say in battle, everything you need to say in life, can be done with your hits," he had said. "It is a Language. Violence, that is. You can only study with me if you can respect the power of the most basic instinct of all."
It was something that had stuck with Bruce Wayne and later the Batman for all of those years, but there had been even more to that lesson.
"You are too old to appreciate what I have developed. Everyone is. You can learn from my lessons, but you will never live them. If you can live these words, if you can live this language, then you would be perfect."
Before the battle had even started, looking at this young girl, Batman knew what she was. Could see her skill in every flinch, in every blink.
He knew that she was perfect, long before the whistle blew and the girl sent a flying kick for Batman's jaw.
She was perfect, and it made Batman sick. In his concentration on so much other crime and plague of the world, he had allowed Cain to not take precedence. And because of that, for the sake of her perfection, this little girl was no longer a child. She had never been a child.
She was a weapon.
And Batman needed to know how to stop her. Or how to save her.
While his cheek could have still stood to use an ice pack, the ache in his jaw didn't come to mind as he watched her in the play room.
Cain was so confident in her love for him, in the thoroughness of her training, that he left the girl in the compound even with Batman free to stay in one of the quarters.
Batman assumed that Cain must have known that Batman could not leave the girl alone, that their training session, that Batman's failure, was not something that would easily be allowed to stand and be ignored, even with the mounting pressure to finish the mission that brought him to Macau to begin with.
He took the time to approach the girl, to carefully remove the cape and cowl beforehand.
She was still in her black clothes, not even broken into a sweat from their combat.
Stopping in the doorway, Batman allowed himself, if only for that moment, to become Bruce. To look in horror as the girl solved the same jigsaw puzzle again and again with frightening speed.
The third time she completed it, she turned to look at him, smile bright and proud.
Bruce stepped forward.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked, soft, unsure of how the girl would respond to the sound.
There was no reaction on her face, just the same smile as she watched Bruce. When he didn't come closer, she turned and hugged her knees. One of her eyebrows raised slightly. She rocked back until her feet were off the floor and then she kept the position.
"I expected that," he said, more to himself as he came further into the room. He sat across from her, watched as she made sure to never have her body anything but completely squared to his own. "I don't suppose anyone can sneak up on you, can they?" he asked.
The girl blinked at him, showed some teeth with her smile, then began to disassemble the puzzle, mix its pieces, and pushed them toward Bruce.
Without needing any clarification, he began to build the puzzle back.
Once finished, he pushed it to her and watched the girl's growing delight.
"I'm not as fast as you," he said softly. "You should be very proud of yourself."
He could see with the glimmer in her eyes that she was.
Bruce stared at her, uncertain of what was worse - if she had been completely robbed of her innocence before he got to her, or that she managed to still have it while Cain's lessons made her every movement potentially lethal.
He knew he was running out of time to catch the assassin. It was the one fact he clung to in order to excuse himself for daring to leave Cain's compound without the girl secure in some way.
He told himself that that as soon as the assassin was secure, as soon as he could be sure no one was going to die that night, he could go back for Cain's student and take her from his rule over her young life.
He told himself these things, but it didn't make the reality any easier.
The assassin, a slender sniper type who wasn't good at checking behind him, went down easily enough. Only two shots were fired into the night before Batman flattened him into the pavement and began to cuff his hands behind him.
"No! I can't lose again!" he roared as he thrashed.
Batman gave him a warning glare, stiffening the man out, before continuing to remove any weapons from his person.
"You will always lose as long as you are committing yourself to being murdering scum," Batman growled out.
"You idiot!" the assassin seethed. "I'm not losing to justice tonight, or whatever the hell you think you're doing. You think I'm the only one buying for that hit tonight?"
Batman hesitated, watching the man carefully.
His eyes narrowed.
Grabbing the assassin by the collar, Batman hoisted him into the air and threw him against the nearest wall. forearm digging into the man's clavicle, Batman snarled in his face, "Is it David Cain!?" he demanded. "Who is he after? What's the hit's name!"
The assassin's eyes widened. "You don't know? It's... it's Faizul. He's a major mob boss in the city-"
The man didn't get much further. Batman threw him into the nearest embassy before taking off after his big mistake.
Since he had arrived in Macau, Batman had been playing one step behind David Cain. While an average man would have been overjoyed with such an accomplishment, for Batman it was one step too few.
For the mysterious student, for the innocence of a child, it was one step too few.
He tore into the mob boss' suit just as blood bubbled and eyes gazed into darkness. He was there to see a proud man's smirk and hear a broken girl's scream.
David Cain had murdered again, but not with his own hand, and it was in the tatters of that moment that Batman could see a girl's full understanding of the world take hold. And he could see - so clearly - that the realization was upon her of just what she had done.
She lashed out first, bursting Cain's nose with her well placed fist before tearing for the nearest window.
Batman might not have been there soon enough to stop the tragedy, but he was there then to swoop in, to catch her from the fall.
One arm around her waist, Batman swung them to the nearest rooftop, unable to regain control with the momentum, and flung them both onto the surface.
By the time he recovered, the girl was standing by him. Unlike all the times before, she was not in black training clothes, but instead a pink dress with pigtails. Her eyes were draining with tears and there was a splash of red over both of her hands.
She took a step back from him.
"No, wait," he called, reaching out.
In response, she stayed, shoulders trembling, but Batman could see she was ready to flee in an instant. Her eyes widening as she began to realize that he must have seen what she had done.
Taking one of her hands in his, Batman reached up and uncowled himself. Bruce looked into her face before rubbing her hands in his.
She looked down with him to see the blood smeared over his gloves.
"I failed you," he said. "Forgive me. Tonight... tonight I let someone die. And I will never make it up to you" He reached into his utility belt and produced some sterile wipes that he began to rub down her hands with. "But I will try."
Without warning, he found himself with the young girl wrapped around his neck. Painfully, he pulled her against him and hugged her back before taking her home.