Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters or settings. Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Hear Me Out
Cassandra Cain is the daughter of assassins David Cain and Lady Shiva, born into abusive training on an isolated Tibetan mountain. Deprived of speech and human contact during her childhood as conditioning to become a world-class assassin. Consequently, Cass grew up to become an expert martial artist while simultaneously remaining mute, developing very limited social skills, and illiteracy.
Government organizations would deny hiring independent contractors, mercenaries, thieves, assassins, and contract killers, but they often do. The Director of Shield, Nick Fury, was no stranger to death threats and assassination attempts, but when he had caught intel of Lady Shiva's contract on him, he had reasonable cause to take precautions. He strategically hired Cassandra Cain to guard him. Over the course of nine months Cass had single-handedly stopped three assassins, including her own mother, Shiva. She took several bullets to save the life of Nick Fury, proving her devotion to protecting him. Impressed with the efficiency of her work and indisputable skill, Director Fury offered her the position of his personal guard permanently. She accepted.
Cassandra was trained to read other people's movements and body language and predict, with uncanny accuracy, their next move. After striking deathblows, she read the target as they died, and saw death. It left the kind of wounds that didn't gush blood, wounds that weren't visible. Fury's offer was her chance to be more than a tool for her father, who had treated her like nothing more than a weapon.
Maria Hill, her handler, tried to the best of her abilities, to teach Cassandra some semblance of English. With little headway, Cass spoke with extreme difficulty. Dyslexia hampered her ability to read and write. Her schedule was Fury's schedule, which was hectic at best, it left her little time to improve her literacy. Fury had picked up the habit of grumbling on about how certain situations could have gone better to her. Cass was always nearby but to someone who didn't know otherwise, it seemed as if he was talking to himself.
He was doing it at the very moment.
"Natasha could have been more discreet… the Lemurian Star should have been easier to recover…" Fury was mumbling on about a recent mission that involved hostages on a ship at his long desk. The huge windows pouring in daylight behind him didn't seem to brighten his mood.
A movement alert came up on the small handheld device Fury had given Cass. The AI stated over the intercom that Captain Steve Rogers was on his way up the elevator to Fury's office. Cass made herself scarce and disappeared from view of the room. Not many were privy to the information of the Shield Directors bodyguard and it was an advantage.
Rogers stormed into the bright office, wasting no time, he snapped, "You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?"
Cass tensed at the sound of it. It was too hostile for her liking.
"I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours," Fury cooly stated as he leaned back in his chair.
"Which you didn't feel obliged to share," Rogers immediately shot back.
Exasperation was blatant in Fury's voice, "I'm not obliged to do anything."
Steve had been taking orders from him since he woke up in that sham of a recovery room and he was through with unquestioned leaders, "Those hostages could have died, Nick."
Fury leaned on his desk and said, "I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen."
"Soldiers trust each other that's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns," Steve wanted to make his point clear.
"The last time I trusted someone I lost an eye." Fury stood from his chair and continued, "Look, I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with, Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."
"I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own," Captain Rogers was unrelenting as he continued to argue.
"It's called compartmentalization," Fury explained, "Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."
"Except you," Steve sneered.
"You're wrong about me. I do share," he said, "I'm nice like that." Fury had to give him something to get him off of his back. He trusted Rogers, he did, but divulging information was not his forte. He started again, "I'd like you to meet someone."
Cass wasn't too surprised. Fury made choices that improved upon the bigger picture, if he decided she should be a part of it, then so be it. She came out from her hiding place and silently stood behind Captain Rogers.
"Who?" Steve asked. Fury gave a pointed look behind him and he spun around to find a small woman. She had long black hair, thick brows that framed her heart-shaped face, high rosy cheekbones, creamy skin, and wide eyes that suggested Eurasian decent. She had a uniform similar to Agent Hill's, the only difference being hers was black. Short but lean was an apt description of her.
Cassandra took a more detailed inventory of Steve's impressive stature. The serum had affected his physiology to make him invulnerable. She looked for any weak points. His right arm hitched slightly when he turned to look at her. The overuse of his shield probably caused the slight habit. His uniform was heavily padded but had vulnerable areas where he needed room to make unhindered movements. He was taller than her by more than half a foot. Wide and muscular, with his skills as a tactician, he could be threat if he chose to be.
Fury knew Cass wouldn't speak unless she absolutely had to so he spoke for her, "This is Cassandra Cain, my bodyguard."
"You need a bodyguard?" Steve was a little disbelieving, Fury seemed more than capable, and the small woman in front of him seemed less so.
"I've made more than a few enemies, Cap." Fury gave him a disapproving look and said, "I can't afford to expend energy on looking over my shoulder everyday, and with her I don't need to." He began walking to the glass-paneled elevator, Steve and Cass followed.
The elevator registered Fury and Steve as they entered, Cass stepped in and the screen didn't bring up an identification. "Insight Bay," Fury orders.
"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for project Insight." The AI stated.
"Director override Fury, Nicholas J.," He leaned against the bar and waited for the elevator to descend.
"Confirmed."
"You're not a Shield agent?" Steve questioned Cassandra when he saw the screen blanked as she passed through the doors to stand opposite of Fury and next to him.
"She doesn't work for Shield, she works for me." Fury clarified on her behalf. Cass had been a part of an organization before, she had been born into it, with no say in the matter. It did not end well for her. That was all Fury would say about it and Steve saw the woman wouldn't elaborate either.
He didn't want to be stuck in an uncomfortable silence, so he commented, "You know, they used to play music."
"Yeah, my grandfather operated one of these things for forty years. My granddad worked in a nice building, got good tips." Fury recounted the story his grandfather had told him, "He'd walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag, he'd say 'hi,' people would say 'hi' back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He'd say 'hi,' they'd say 'keep on steppin'.' Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter."
"He ever get mugged?" Steve asked.
Fury scoffed, "Every week some punk would say 'what's in the bag?'" The city skyline began to fade as they reached the lower levels of the Triskelion.
"What'd he do?" He was genuinely interested in what the grandfather of Nick Fury would do when someone tried to mug him. He imagined it wasn't very pleasant.
Fury gave him the answer he was expecting, "He'd show 'em. Bunch of crumpled ones and a loaded twenty-two magnum." He stepped away from the bar and stared at the three new, giant, modified helicarriers. "Granddad loved people, but he didn't trust them very much."
Steve turned around to look out the glass elevator and did a double-take. He saw that underground the Triskelion was a hangar for weaponized helicarriers.
"Yeah, I know. They're a little bit bigger than a twenty-two." Fury understated.
All three of them walked while Fury explained, "This is Project Insight, three next generation helicarriers, synched to a network of targeting satellites."
"Launched from the Lemurian Star," Steve surmised. He figured it was more important than the original mission briefing made it out to be.
"Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight courtesy of our new repulser engines." A hint of admiration could be heard in Fury's voice. He was the proud father of three impressively deadly helicarriers.
"Stark?" They stepped on a moving platform that went down the length of a helicarrier.
"He had a few suggestions after he got an up close look at our old turbines." Steve remembered that, while in the Iron Man suit, Stark really did get an up close look when he had gotten caught in a turbine after Banner had hulked out on the helicarrier. "These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles per minute. The satellites can read a terrorists DNA before he steps outside of his fight hole. We're going to neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."
"I thought the punishment usually came after the crime," to Steve, this immediately didn't feel right.
Fury sighed, "We can't afford to wait that long."
"Who's 'we?'" Steve asked. Cassandra leaned back against the railing. Their postures were confrontational now, so she sat back and let them argue. She doubted the Captain would take a shot at Fury. If he did, she could stop him.
"After New York I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge threat analysis," Fury said, "For once, we're way ahead of the curve."
"By holding a gun to everyone on earth and calling it protection," Steve retorted. Cassandra had heard many things about Captain Rogers and his need to lecture those he thought needed it, was not an exaggerated characteristic.
Fury challenged, "You know, I read those SSR files. Greatest Generation? You guys did some nasty stuff." Cassandra was also familiar with the gruesome methods used during WWII, but she hadn't read them in a file like Fury had.
"Yeah, we compromised, sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well, but we did it so that people could be free. This isn't freedom, this is fear." Steve pointed upwards to a helicarrier to emphasize his point.
Fury had heard enough of Rogers argument. He took a step towards him and said, "Shield takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. It's getting damn near past that time for you to get with that program, Cap."
Steve was equally through with the conversation, "Don't hold your breath." He walked away in the direction of the elevator.
Once he was out of hearing range, Cass spoke slowly as she looked up at the helicarriers, "He's… just like you said, Nick." Her slight arabic accent had come as a surprise when he first heard it. The base she grew up on had people from all over the world, but the man in charge of it was of arabic descent and she rarely ever left his side when she was young.
"Self-righteous?" Fury suggested.
Cass walked to where the Captain had stood moments ago and looked him in the eye. "A good man," she said. Fury gave her a warning look, he didn't want to argue with her too. He signaled her to follow him back up to his office, grumbling all the way there.
AN: This will be following the CA:TWS plot, so the dialogue and situations will be familiar. If you are looking for something more original, my first fic, After Dark, a precursor to this fic, it's a detailed background story on Cassandra Cain that involves the Winter Soldier. Skylines is a stand-alone fic. You don't need to read the previous story. Also Cassandra Cain is not an OC it's just best categorized that way.
Also in case anyone was wondering; arabic accents flatten and darken vowels. 'E' and 'I' especially aren't as sharp sounding as opposed to a normal american accent.