Continuity: some place where it no longer fits. Rats.
Warning: Violence. So AU it's not funny.
Disclaimer: Batgirl and all associated characters are the property of DC comics and as such I have no legal claim to the. This fiction is not written in the interests of gaining profit.
Comes Down To The Red.
She'd had a dream about it.
Dreams had never been her concern. They came in the quiet times her childhood had allowed her, broken between violence and survival and bullets and concrete. A father's hands showing her how to snap wood and necks, as precise and calmly as if that were dreaming too.
The dream was just like this was. Only reversed.
He's bleeding. A lot. It's all over her hands, seeping through skin and material and cracks in armour and… She should be used to it.
She is used to it. Just not from him. She sits besides him, toes touching the side of his head, arms curled around her knees. She isn't shaking, even though she wants to. Really, there are so many countless reasons why she should be. Reasons of –for– anger, betrayal, submission, strength and a strange sense of total detachment from everything. So this was how it feels to kill.
She already knew that.
But that's the difference between her and every other killer on the streets of Gotham City.
She has no reason to fear vengeance.
They have many words for this kind of situation. She thinks the correct one to use is "irony".
She looks at his new uniform. Bright red on black. She likes it. It's only when it reaches her across the wood, that you become aware that somewhere along the line, his artery has been punctured on a nail in the pier, and he's bleeding everywhere.
Cassandra had dreamt she was asleep, or maybe just pretending to be. And Robin was smiling. Only the smile was forced and constrained. The kind of smile someone would give the dying, and then, she's not quite sure if she's asleep or something more, and Shiva is there, to rip the tendons in her throat and twist her neck and break it with a crack.
'Cuh-Cass…?'
She wishes this were faster. She could have made it faster, she knows. It's too slow like this.
'Yes.' It's a simple answer. The only one she can give. The only one he wants. His mind works in questions and answers and thoughts and, most currently, pain. That's what he responds to. She can't give him more of an explanation. 'You did it. You actually- I never thought…
'Why?'
'No choice.'
'Th-there's… always…'
'Shiva,' Cassandra taps her heart, then touches her fingers to his. 'Blood… means something.'
'Wuh-what?' She reads the sentence in flinches and trembling.
'I'm not sure. I'll find it.'
'…Oh.'
No hate.
He doesn't hate her for this. Nothing like that. She's not totally sure just why he's so… accepting.
Cassandra squeezes his hand and forces the remaining blood out of his fingertips as she does so. She's not used to being gentle. Fingers close around his throat, seeking out a bundle of nerves. 'It's not so hard. It's... quiet. Light.'
She remembers all that.
Dick wants to fly.
They get close enough with grapples and hooks, but it's not enough. He needs to be able to fly. And he needs telescopic vision, damnit, and x-ray vision and super sensitive hearing. He needs to be able to yell loud enough for Robin to hear, no matter where he is and for him to yell back, so Dick can find him, and…
He's not panicking.
No. He's nowhere NEAR panicking right now. Really, he's trying not to freak. It's not the first time they've lost contact with a Robin on a mission.
'N.' The voice on the other end of the line sounds way too calm.
'Babs? No sign?'
'Official terms, remember, N? This counts as a mission.'
'Just tell me.'
A sigh. '…No. Nothing. I'm tuning into every frequency I've got here, N. I highly doubt I'm going to find anything useful unless I get a tip off. I lost his communicator's signal an hour ago and his tracking devices aren't showing up.'
Silence.
He's not panicking.
'Dick…We'll find him, you know.'
He doesn't believe what she's saying anymore than she does. 'Yeah. Nightwing out.'
'Dick—'Silence, except for the rushing wind.
And Dick's thoughts –all of them panicking.
Earlier: eight months
'I know, but… I think she could use it.'
'You have a reason?'
'Well, her exact words were something like 'he's closest to flying.'
Dick tilted his head on one side. 'Huh?'
'Yup. You're closest to flying bar Bruce, apparently. She wants to learn from you.' Barbara puts down the coffee cup bearing the words: "Old Librarian's Never Die – They Just Get Re-filed". They're watching a screen. More precisely, they're watching Cassandra on a screen. She's in the holoroom, smashing up stone slabs like her hands can take the pain and there's no tomorrow.
'Looks like she's learning well enough to me.' Dick crouches in front on the wheelchair, tracing patterns on Barbara's hands. 'Who does she have to thank for that?'
'Oh, I don't know… World's greatest detective? Caffeine drinks? Being teach from birth to interpret violence as a language and act upon it?' Barbara is smiling as she says that. A sad kind of smile.
'Yeah and all that on top of having momma Oracle in the house, right?'
Barbara throws a cushion at him.
'God, way to make a girl feel like an old timer. Are you with me on this or not?'
'Hm.'
He really doesn't have much of an idea what he can teach the world's best martial artist. He'll give it a shot, though. There are one or two things…
She did say something about flying, right?
'Stop, stop now!'
Dick looks up at her. Cassandra stands at the other end of the cave and watches him, still holding the escrima sticks in her hands, face soaked with sweat and eyes wide open.
'Cass? Something wrong?'
There's got to be something wrong, because Cassandra doesn't ever stare like that (unless she's considering putting a fist through your face, which she's probably not doing right now, seeing as she's still gripping the escrima sticks in both hands).
'Um…I…' her eyes change from wide to thin lines, staring at him, and it's making him feel… uneasy. She doesn't usually get nervous, either. Not very often.
'Uh, Cass?'
'Sorry. Go again, Nightwing. I'm watching.'
'Um…'
'I just want to watch. You… just fly, Nightwing. I want…' Cassandra doesn't finish her sentence. There doesn't seem to be any need and Cassandra never used more words than is necessary. She sits down on the wooden box and waits for Dick to move.
It's all Dick can do to oblige. Climbing the ladder, reaching out and grabbing the cave's trapeze bar with one hand. He pushes off and gravity drags him straight into air and from there…
From there it's easy, almost like it's not his own body doing the work. Like an extension of oxygen. One swing, then a second. He releases his grip on the bar and falls forwards, gripping the next tightly in both hands. He's separate from everyone and everything now, except the bar and the ropes and the air. It feels as if Cassandra's eyes aren't staring right at him, watching his every move and flinch and every twitch of muscle. He can almost smell the popcorn burning and the sawdust, coating the big top floor. He pushes through the other memories. The sound of screams and worn out fibres snapping.
He leaps again, extending his legs, grabbing the double rings from beneath. They're a nice addition to the trapeze. He wonders why more circuses have never tried the trick.
Because it's too dangerous, of course.
Not for me.
He can imagine a small boy with hands sticky from ice-cream. The image is a familiar one. This particular memory always tends to come to him at times like this.
'You had your picture taken with me. Nobody ever gets their picture taken. So they'll let you fly too, I bet.'
'I don't know, Dick…'
'You won't be high, it's just a little.'
'It's… I'll fall.'
'C'mon, Tim. You can risk that. You wanna fly, don'tcha?'
And the little boy had taken the bar and…
And flew? Almost. Actually he'd lost his grip and…
No time for thinking about that now. Distracted from the routine, Dick knows he's already missed his second chance to jump and has to pump his legs to get back into the right swing. Tendons tug and this is the point where it becomes obvious that yes. It is his body doing all the work.
Can't push through the wall, so he goes around it, skidding down into a somersault. Back to the bar, climbing again, swinging again with barely a pause for breath.
He can feel her counting the turns he makes as he comes down. Four. Four and a half… almost—
Damn.
His hands grip too soon and catch nothing but air. There's a lower bar though –a safety grip in case the first fails, and he catches it. Distracted. Sloppy. If this had been anywhere else, his head could've cracked against steel or concrete. He finds the muscles to frown as he falls downwards, collapsing into a crouch and rebounding against the wall. Muscles tense, then relax, as automatically as water hitting rocks.
Four and a half turns in mid air, a stumble backwards which he turns into a roll, pushes off from his hands and his feet and…
It gets a bit blurry from there. Probably because he's spinning again, and putting shame to every acrobat in the American Olympic Team. The vaulting covers the mistake but it shouldn't cover it from Cass.
He lands.
She stares.
He smiles at her, and mocks a bow. Pop Haley would probably have laughed if he'd been there to hear his: 'Thank you, folks. The show will be back in town next week if you care to sign up for tickets.'
Cass… doesn't smile. Maybe she doesn't get the joke.
'What? Wasn't good enough for you? C'mon, Cass. Were there really that many mess ups?'
'No. No… mistakes.'
Dick knows, for a fact, that he DID make mistakes. Several. Not enough to matter in a fight, but…
'It's just I can't…'
'Can't what?'
Your… Your moves. Actions. I can't…' It takes Dick a moment, and then he realises what Batgirl means.
'You can't read me, is that what you mean?'
Cassandra winces at the admittance. Cassandra reads everyone. Your moves and actions are imprinted onto her brain before they're even imprinted on yours.
But Dick's… Dick's aren't.
Oh-kay.
'…I don't understand.' Cassandra says.
No, but he does.
Batgirl reads body language to see what her opponent is planning to do, long before they do it. But here, an acrobat became a vigilante. Performer-meets-bullet-dodger meets police officer. Nightwing is all those. He walks like an acrobat and fights like one, too. Flies like…Like whatever you can name that flies. One type of movement merges into the next, liquid and flowing. It's a weakness, sometimes, all this… flamboyance in fighting, even though it comes as naturally as breathing, but in some cases, it's also a strength. He fights, and she watches. But not even batgirl can read the way water flows.
'Okay. So you can't read what I'm going to do next. That's… that's odd.'
Seems like Batgirl finds it more than odd. Still, Dick Grayson, has just discovered that perhaps the greatest martial artist in the world is unable to read his body language. This has, therefore, removed her main source of defence against him.
Hell, no man with a sense of pride would turn down this opportunity.
He aims for her left shoulder – an open handed strike. But what he does in jest, though, she responds to with sharpness, and hits him back, about ten times harder. The next thing he knows he's on the floor, head blazing, a nerve strike right up close to his throat.
'Can't read,' she said, grinning proudly into his upside down face. 'Can still… beat you.'
Dick's head is pounding where it made contact with the stone floor. He reaches a hand to his shoulder and… yeah, that is most definitely going to bruise in an hour or so. He still smiles.
Robin always… fights for everything. Why not now?
She learned, a while ago, that killing should not be about hate. It's more of a sense of justice that others do not understand. She thinks about how one of Stephanie's children's books might have explained it to her, in big, bright letters and even bigger pictures: Once upon a time, there was a girl who became a bat, and a boy who became a bird. Both learned different lessons about lying and dying. In time, the bat and the bird were replaced. Another two children with things to resolve. And they too learned some harsh lessons about their new job, and what it meant to kill and to be able to avoid it, no matter what.
But that doesn't matter now. Because it's me. Because it's… what I am. Why I was born. Death. She's spent a long time, trying to work out whether or not that matters. There's a lesson, somewhere, that people forget. How you're born doesn't matter. And death shouldn't really be that important either, because, really, you're dying from the very second you're born. How you live is whatmatters
It doesn't always work that way. Because the past will catch you up, in the end.
'Cass…'
She pulls her hand away from a bundle of nerves in his throat. Not yet, a voice in her head is saying. Cassandra doesn't really want to listen to it, but she does, anyway.
Don't talk to me, she thinks at Robin. She doesn't want him to talk.
'Thought muh-maybe I was wrong, th-thought you might not…'
'It was. I…'
She wants to apologise.
The word won't quite form properly. Perhaps because she wouldn't mean it.
You can't do this to someone and not mean it. It's practically an unwritten law. Instinct has nothing to do with it.
Dick knows how it feels to want to kill someone and imagine all the infinite ways in which you can do it, ranging from hands around the throat to a bullet through the chest and a thousand more that're noticeably more imaginative. And he knows how it feels to actually do it. He knows how it feels to watch another person do it and not make a move to stop them. The three sensations are different. But just barely.
Cross the line between one and another. It's all too simple, really.
And she's Batgirl. Was Batgirl. She'll destroy him. In ways no less imaginative than any he'd ever conceived in his head before, no matter whether she could read him or not.
Of course, this is all depending on whether she's actually done what they think she's done (Because Cass is like that. She's the type who will race you to a fight and race you back again, but she'd never trip you up to make sure she won. Not that she'd need to) and…
She's Cass, so that idea really isn't likely but…
Could she hurt him? Robin? Tim? By accident –maybe. Deliberately…
She's capable. She's been gone for months and the last sign they had of her was when Oracle's cameras caught someone who was in no way an impersonator, ripping a gaping hole in Harley Quinn's throat.
Is Robin really that far a step away from that? Bruce wouldn't think so.
No. correction. Batman wouldn't think so.
Dick isn't either of those people.
She went further than she meant to, here. Or maybe she didn't. She can't quite recall what her intention was at the beginning of this evening, or whether or not it even matters.
She wanted... his trust again. She didn't get it, which is no real surprise. Warnings con… con… (she knows the word, she just can't…) congealed (yes), congealed with anger and pain and pain with violence and a need to end it fast. When she went to see him in his apartment last night there was heat and light, and now there's just the blood.
He didn't trust her anymore. She felt it. She knew it.
And she knows this is what she had to do.
She sits there besides him, watching him die –which takes an unnecessarily long time– and can't quite bring herself to stand up and leave.
'"Once upon a time",' Stephanie reads out loud… She's trying so damn hard not to laugh, because the weird little creature on the first page of the paperback was…
'Robin,' Cass laughs, pointing at the paper.
'Don't interrupt, lady,' Stephanie sniggers. 'You're meant to be the student here. Okay, where was I… "Once upon a time, there was a—" hey, give that here!'
'Let me try, you're supposed to be teaching.'
'And you're supposed to be learning!'
'I can't, not if you're doing… all the work. Let me try.'
'hey, watch it, Batgirl, these are my books. You rip em, you pay for em.'
'I have no money.'
'Yeah, right. She paid for takeout with a fifty dollar bill and she says she has no money!'
'That's… business…'
Stephanie laughs again. 'I'll show you business. You're gonna let me read to you.'
'Heh.'
'Trust me, it's a good story.' Every kid should read this one at least once. You missed out on that. We have a lot to catch up on. After this, I'm showing you "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".'
Cassandra flops back onto the pillows, smiling and tucking her hands behind her head. 'I know all about Robins. No need.'
'Not this robin, this is "The Little Red Robin" and it's a classic. Like the one on the rocky adverts, only cuter. It's even got a fable to it.'
Cassandra stares at the still open page. The letters glare back at her over a fat little paperback painting. Only she doesn't see the words "Once upon a time" like Stephanie does. All she seems is black squiggles that are supposed to be letters, shifting on white. The picture, however, is clear enough.
'That…' she says, faking being serious and pointing. '…is NOT what Robin looks like.'
Stephanie's laugh is loud and sharp and infectious. She's… silly. Cassandra has never been exposed to that, but she thinks she could get used to it. She could get used to being it, if it's always this much fun.
'Okay. Last time. Listen up, Cass. "Once upon a time there was a little red"…''Robin.'
'Right. Little red robin. (Not a Tim robin, not a one with batarangs or birdarangs or whatever he prefers to call them. Just a robin.) "Who got lost while flying south for the winter"…' Steph stops, sits up, kneading the pillow where Cass's hair is sprawled. 'Urgh. Cass, I think I need a drink. I'm getting childhood flashbacks here. Want something?'
Cassandra doesn't answer. She's too busy staring at something on the floor.
'Okay, Cass. Suit yourself.'
Steph stands up and turns towards the kitchen. Cassandra's stomach does a 360o.
'I… don't go.'
'What do you mean "don't go"? The kitchen's right through…' Stephanie stops. Then she looks down at her feet, still clutching "The Little Red Robin" book tight in one hand.. 'Oh, yeah. Right. I kinda… forgot.'
Cassandra feels her heart thud and can't quite explain where all the adrenaline just came from. 'Don't go. Stephanie?'
'Hey, I'm thirsty…' she shuffles her feet, which isn't natural. Cassandra looks at them. On the floor she sees tiny droplets of gathering red. Like the robin's red breast is leaking from the pages of the book.
'I… I guess I can't not go, though, huh?' Stephanie says, hesitantly. 'Damn, this sucks.'
Cassandra's stomach tightens. The feeling has nothing to do with overexertion or pain or how it feels to be punched in the gut. Stephanie's face is drawn and afraid, and she's never looked so beautiful as she does right now, standing in front of Cassandra with her blonde hair shining.
'We never even finished the story…'
Stephanie looks up again and meets Cass's eyes. Her face is suddenly taut and white with sunken eyes that don't shine anymore.
Shiva's eyes, however, are still as bright as the day.
Shiva…
'Where did you come from?' Cassandra thinks. There are no answers, because Shiva's open, shining eyes are dead to the world. Her body licked in the flames of the Lazarus Pit. Stephanie's not there anymore, and neither is the couch and the piles of books that Cassandra never got to read.
Shiva. Lazarus Pit. Stephanie. Dead.
Cassandra was a bat. But she killed, so she can't be a bat anymore. Perhaps she doesn't want to be. Intended bodyguard for Ra's Al Ghul, but that wasn't what Shiva had wanted and Cassandra would never have chosen it even if she hadn't known who and what Al Ghul was.
But Shiva had had plans for her child, too.
'Will you ever stop?'
'It's why I had you.'
Steph is gone. Lady Shiva is gone. Now, there is only her daughter and a legacy that began thirty years ago with a dead sister, a mother, a father, gunshot, bullets and blood soaked walls.
'Shh. It's over.'
'Th-Thank you…'
'Shh.'
He's laughing. Or… or smiling, at least. If feels like he's laughing at a story Cassandra didn't speak out loud. At a tale she'll never, actually, tell him or anyone else. The story of all her dreams and nightmares and how often they all involve him in some way or another.
And that feels… wrong. Crazy, almost. He shouldn't be laughing. He'll lose too much bloo—
Don't be silly, Cassandra, she tells herself with a voice she never knew she had.
'Dick. Kon, I… Cass? Will he…'
'Shh.'
'Kon, he…' Robin's eyelids close behind the mask. 'Mask. Stuck on… night vision,' he mumbles.
Cassandra nods and reaches out to pull the mask from his face, without loosening the adhesive. A little more blood probably won't change anything, though Tim winces a little as she pulls it away. His eyes are still closed, but his lips twitch a little in pain.
She doesn't –quite– know what she's still doing here. She just knows that she can't leave him yet. even if that means staying to watch him all night. Even if it means punishing herself in that way. There's no question.
'Die. Heh, he… he died, Cass, I—Superboy. Saved the world. I kind of fuh-forgot, for a while. Thought he was…'
'I don't…'
Wait. Yes. Superboy died. So many died. She remembers the news articles and watched all the programs. The cloned boy who would be Superman. The boy who saved the world. Tears and rage and pain. Blonde hair and blue eyes and…
Steph.No. Not Steph. Not Spoiler… Stephanie is—
'Dead.' Tim's breathing is shallow and she can barely make out the way his chest is moving. 'He's. I want to see, Batgirl. I'll see—'
Cassandra understands. On screen bodies. Pain and loss and a light haired girl with shaking shoulders. Tim, Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman and a crisis nobody can quite remember clearly.
'You want to see Kon. To see Superboy.'
'I— yeah. I-I…'
And Steph. He'll get to see Steph. His father. Mother.
She shouldn't feel angry, but…
She wants that.
She wants it so much.
…It should be easier than this.
None of it is fair, to anyone.
He could have been faster.
He'll tell himself that over and over in the weeks to come. Eventually, it'll stop mattering, though. All that will matter is the fact that he made the wrong decisions and so many people had to suffer for it. He's dealt with that before in the past, but…
But if Tim…
That would be different. He couldn't stand it if Tim…
Damn. Missed the ledge again.
'N?'She's still watching from the mask-cam, sees his hands slip on the de-cell cable and old bricks crumble as he snatches them with his fingertips.
'N, honey. Concentrate now. We don't need you breaking bones.'
'Nothing?' he asks.
'Nothing new. Just calm down, Nightwing. We're still looking. I've got Black Canary checking out the Warf, Robbinsville and Crime Alley are being covered by Huntress. Bruce is running enough area scans to make the FBI look harder at their security, hell he's even letting Flash in on this one. Eyes everywhere. One of us is going to have to see him sooner or later. I expect it'll be you, first, though, the way you're going.'
'I… Barbara…' (she doesn't warn him against not using the code.) 'Thanks.'
'Just find our man, Nightwing.'
Earlier: One year, eighth months.
It's a park. In the middle of Gotham City. Not currently occupied by Poison Ivy, of course, but still perilous, because of certain women who choose to make their trade there this evening, close to the town, far away from some of the more typical areas.
Hookers are more often the victims than the persecutors. This is why Cass is here, and why morality takes a few leaps over shades-of-grey territory, in the interests of those she wants to protect. She'll go down later and talk to them. She'll tell them about the hostels and the police stations and the clinics where people can help them. They won't go, because this is the best they think they can do. But they'll listen to her, at least.
Not much of a victory. She'll give whatever protection she can here, though, so at least these women will know their patrons are less likely to become their downfall in that way.
What these women do is their business. But Cassandra can at least attempt to avoid a few incidents of potential rape.
The man in the large green coat and hat is the fourth to go down the alley after the red haired woman in black and red this evening. He is, however, the only one who doesn't come back after thirty five minutes. And that's enough for Cassandra. She spits out a de-cell cable and follows into the dark, tracking where he went via windows and corridors.
She didn't expect any violence this night. Yet she still gets it.
Twenty minutes later, Cassandra is standing in a room with a man's body on the floor,. His neck is snapped and his eyes are wide and starting, and a woman cowers in the corner, shirt clutched to her chest and horror in her eyes.
And another, who Cassandra recognizes as Shiva, standing behind her, eyes on her throat.
All that's really important is the fact that…
'You are… a murderer.'
'So was he,' Shiva nods at the body. 'But then your morality doesn't extend to such greys, so I won't elaborate.'
Cassandra observes the woman who could kill with a touch for what feels like forever. In subjective time, it probably is. She reads each expertly timed tug of Shiva's body, and realises that there's very little for her to go on in a fight. Shiva reads as well as she can. She knows how to hide her body language so Cassandra can't use it against her. But still… 'I'll stop you.'
'Try.' Shiva steps forwards. To a normal person, there is no attack or threat in how she moves over the body between them. Batgirl knows better. The way Shiva moves screams danger and menace and a threat against everything she's ever known.
'This isn't the bird's area anymore, then, is it?'
Cassandra blinks beneath the cowl. Not good. 'Robin's not here.'
'I know. He's in Blüdhaven. I watched him fly the nest. Just you and me, tonight. A goddess and a bat… and we both protected an innocent this evening, though only you intended it.'
Cassandra glances at the corner where the redhead still cowers, half naked and terrified. But not terrified of Shiva. And not of the man lying wide-eyed and dead on the carpeted floor. Cassandra can feel it.
It's Batgirl. The woman fears Batgirl's presence. The presence of her rescuer. Her park protector. Why? Has she seen this before? Cassandra looks back to Shiva, meaningfully. Shiva does not need to see her face to read it.
'No. You planned this.' She points at the prostitute. 'Accomplices.' She steps back. 'It's not… like you. Accessories. There's too much risk. You don't… You work alone. But… this is you.'
'You knew, of course.' Shiva's voice is calm and unbroken. Shiva reads people too. She knows Cassandra worked it out.
'Well, that's messed it up, now, hasn't it?' the red head whispers, still clutching a pillow tight against her chest. Nobody looks at her. The woman's hands are shaking. Still scared. Cass reads fear, pain, death, bitterness and guilt, all rolled into a single twitch of the woman's toes.
And this isn't right, for so many reasons, but the most distinct reason is because it's Shiva. Because this is…
This is not like Shiva.
'Why the new style? Why do you need… assistance?'
'We all find different ways of fulfilling our destinies, little Bat. It's a dead animal who doesn't adapt.'
And Shiva adapts. To this?
Cassandra doesn't think so.
Stephanie would say "whatever" and fight on anyway. But then, she'd probably die. Cassandra is not Stephanie, but she wants to fight anyway. They can't. Their real fight is not to happen tonight. But with an accessory-to-murder and a body between them, perhaps that doesn't matter.
'The Little Bird didn't fight like you, you know.' Shiva says on what seems an irrel… an irk… a pointless tangent. 'Even after I taught him. Until I was finished with him, anyhow. The Bat never doubted, but he should have. Even if there was no need to.' Shiva almost laughs and the laugh tells of the blood of a thousand men who heard it before Cassandra did. 'And then he was ready.'
'Ready for what?' Cassandra asks.
'That would be telling,' Shiva's smile deeps in the corners, bright and true and…
Cassandra wonders what that means.
'Why?'
'So many questions. Another day, little girl, there might be answers.'
Shiva's eyelids flicker and her lips twitch: "necessity," Cassandra reads in the movements. "What necessity?" Shiva reads in hers.
Her body gives no answer.
Shiva aims for Cassandra's throat. Cassandra sees it coming, though, and blocks it. Snaps back, turns to kick, knowing already that it isn't going to work. She kicks anyway. Shiva snatches her leg and Cassandra feels the tendons rip and then feels the leg pushed in on itself and she's back against the wall, clutching her knee, before she can think. Shiva doesn't want her dead, though, or else she would have been the first time Shiva snatched her throat.
'Not now,' she smiles. 'We have three months yet. You remember, don't you?'
Cassandra remembers her dream. Shiva snapping her neck and throwing her down. She wants to move and can't because to do so would force the pressure on her neck, and she can't fight unconscious, either way. She chokes, grits her teeth and tries to keep breathing.
'Till then. I'll wait, girl. I… look forwards to it.'
The strike is faster than Cass was expecting, but perhaps, not as hard. Shiva hits her, and Cassandra hits the floor. It takes three whole minutes before she can stand up, staggering just a little on her injured knee. By then, Shiva has vanished.
Cassandra stands up and looks around. The red haired woman has obtained a dressing gown and is still standing there. Her eyes are red and wet. She hasn't tried to run away.
'So…' she says, quietly. 'Figure I'm in right deep this time, aren't I?'
'You… helped her.' Cassandra says. She thinks she hides her anger towards the woman just as well as she hides her sympathy. 'Do you realise… what you've done?'
The woman in the dressing gown looks down at the body on the floor. Her look says it all. He's a man with blond, slightly greying hair, wide, blue eyes and connections to three major criminal organizations in Gotham City. When Cassandra analyses her results, later on, she shall reveal that "connections" translates as "owes debts to" three major criminal organizations in Gotham City. Someone wanted him dead. Shiva was hired. How or why is unknown. Cassandra is determined it won't remain that way. Questions will be asked, and Cassandra can't answer them, or be around to do so.
For now, however…
'Always the same here, y'see,' the woman says. 'So I thought, well, she offering more money than they ever would here and-and the opportunity was just… there. Presented itself, you know. I wasn't going to say no.' She bows her head. Red hair cascading over her eyes, strangely highlighted in the dull light. 'I… Am I gonna be sent to prison? I swear, I didn't think she was gonna do this, I… Do you think someone hired…'
Cassandra looks up. She reads the stagger and fall. Before the woman has even taken a step forwards, Cassandra is holding out her arms to catch her. The woman's eyes widen, and she falls forwards. She's dead and rag doll limp by the time she hits Cassandra's arms, and Batgirl is left, standing in a room with two dead bodies.
Nerve strike, Cassandra starts to think, and curses herself for missing it. A delayed reaction taking roughly five minutes to kill. Shiva, of course, knew she could do without any witnesses.
Cassandra should have known.
But she didn't. The penalty is failure.
There are still a lot of things about that night she doesn't know.
Dick almost misses his chance with the grapple. Again.
'N, I saw that. You're really losing your touch.'
Dick swings again, between one building and another, the route mapped out in his head. He doesn't miss, this time. 'Always watching, all seeing Oracle. But you missed something.'
'N, B will be back in Gotham within an hour…'
'I know I… Look, when he gets here, send him after me. I know where they are, and…'
And he should've worked it out sooner.
He should've. Fucking. Worked. It. Out.
'Blood… means something, Tim.'
'N-not… not everything.'
'No.' Cass agrees. Her hands trace through the drying damp on the floor, then they reach up to brush his face and settle on his chest. She feels nothing. She has no regrets.
Loneliness. Yes. Confusion? Yes.
No regrets.
'Not 'vrything. Cass…'
It should be faster than this, she thinks, for the millionth time. She could have MADE it fast, she knows that. She doesn't want him to suffer.
I killed you, she thinks. So why do you keep talking to me as if I'm a bystander? I killed you. Like I killed my mother. And… (the thought is a strange one, but it's most likely true, because Shiva always… liked the little bird.)
'…Was that what you were meant to do?' she asks out loud. 'Defeat her? Like me?'
Robin can't quite answer her question coherently. It doesn't matter, though, because Cassandra has already guessed the answer, anyway. 'Dick is… going to be mad. At me. He'll— tell him I'm sorry. Tell…' He swallows, like he's trying hard not to cough. 'My dad always wuh-warned me… girls like you.' he's laughing again. She's not sure whether she wants him too. Laughing makes the blood flow quicker and it must… hurt. It makes it all feel like a mistake. Ridiculous. Like a practical joke.
No more.
'Cass—'
'Quiet, Robin.'
He's not even whispering anymore, but he's still talking to her. His flinches tell her that he knows what's happening as her hand grips the nape of his neck, seeking out the nerve bundles.
No more hurt.
'It's over.'
Cassandra pushes. A short, sharp burst of power flows from her shoulder to her palm and bursts through her fingertips. She saw death as other men saw it. Terror, and then… nothing.
But there's no terror in Tim. Just calmness. She feels it.
'Shhh…' Tim falls quiet. Cassandra stays perfectly still and strokes his cheek with one hand.
It all fits, really.
Haley's Circus isn't due back to Gotham City for another couple of years at the most –Dick should know. He's paying the wages of the crew and counting the days– The Cirque Sensationnel was last open for business in Blüdhaven and probably won't be coming back for a long time, after the Double Dare business. The only other circus on schedule for a trip to Gotham is the Cassidy All American, which won't reach Gotham until they're finished their run in Metropolis in two weeks time. So it's not them.
No circuses. No big tops.
But there is a carnival.
A carnival that's already been on the edge of Gotham for several weeks, and where he promised to buy her cotton candy.
Dick heads north east towards the edge of Gotham City.
…Cass?
Still there. You're still there.
You should probably be… running, you know.
I wonder if you can understand anything I'm… thinking. You're like that, I guess, but… it's different. Reading body language in a fight, reading body language just for the hell of it. I…
I guess I should be mad at you, huh?
I'm not… I'm not mad, Cass. I know it's weird, but I'm not. I just want to understand and…
Look, anyway. I'm not mad. But if this was someone else and I was out there then… you know I wouldn't stop until I'd gotten you, right?
We've… we've been looking for you for a long time. Months. We didn't have anything to go on until we caught that video of you and Harley Quinn from downtown security and… and we know you'd never have left it so obviously like that. Unless you actually wanted to get caught. Or at least, get found. So I found you, just like you wanted.
Are you happy now?
I'm still trying to understand what happened. How you ended up… here. I know Shiva had something to do with it but… hell, Cassie, Shiva has something to do with me. Did I ever tell you she showed up at the gates of my school once and just… watched, through the fence? Vanished when Darla pointed out she was there, and…
Anyway…What happened today, Cass? You must've gotten the note I left. I know Steph was teaching you to read. Did you…
I miss Steph too, you know.
She had this book, from when she was a kid. Spent all night laughing at me from behind the cover, once.
I didn't mind, really. Steph, you know. She's like that. Was like that, and…
You know it doesn't, actually hurt anymore. Can't even remember where you hit me.
What's going on? Why're you still sitting there, talking to me? You could've done this differently. My neck. Throat… I've seen. You could've made it… instant.
And you didn't really want to drag this out, you just…So maybe, I guess, I thought this really wasn't what you wanted. You don't want me to actually want
She's exactly where Dick had expected her to be.
The carnival on old Gotham pier shut down just past midnight. Stalls and booths lie silent in the dark, almost like they're brooding amidst the skeleton of a merry go round erected too close to the pier for comfort. Stalls even further out than that. There's nobody around in the dark of pre-sunrise
Just Nightwing and Cassandra. And Robin.
Tim who is bleeding out on the peer. Red on red, red on black, red on Cassandra's hands and Tim's cheek and then on Dick's hands when he clutches Tim's. Robin bright red, seeping through the cracks in the wood.
'…Timmy?'
He knows there's no need to check for any vitals. He does anyway.
Cassandra stands nearby with her hands at her sides. If she had a knife or anything sharp at all, it's gone now. Disposed of. And Dick's mind…
Dick's mind kind of tries to kick start the idea that maybe it's not there because she never had it. That this is all some sick joke and Cassandra's going to have… answers, explanations, for everything. After all, a real assassin wouldn't have stuck around at the scene of the crime the way she did. A real…
Because even though that's exactly what she's done, he somehow knows… it's not the way she meant it to be. Because more than likely Tim was heading here and found her, where she hadn't expected him and this had…
So maybe, just maybe, if Dick had been faster, things might've been different. He could've stopped the bleeding and scared Cassandra off and…
He knew when this night began that it would end in bloodshed. He'd just prayed that it wouldn't be Tim's. It was.
And Dick loses it.
Attacking her really doesn't make sense, he knows. Because it's Batgirl who he's charging at in fury, here. Batgirl who fights better than anyone Dick knows. And she hurt Tim… Robin. She can hurt him, too.
None of that even matters. The only thing that does is his own hands; sturdy and reliable, reaching for Cassandra's throat. They never get there, because Cassandra grabs his wrist and pushes him back into one of the booths at the pier's edge.
Metal. Sharp. Pain is pretty much all that registers for all of ten seconds, which should be more than enough time for Cassandra to reach out and grab his head in her hands. She doesn't. She aims for his gut instead. Swing. Kick. Crack. Something tears.
A rib has broken. It takes a few seconds before he realises it's one of his. Of course it's one of his.
In that blunt moment he wonders why she doesn't grip his neck and snap his throat, and then he remembers that it isn't Shiva he's fighting. It's Cassandra. It's Batgirl.
Dick's read all the files. Cassandra's more than Shiva is, now. Shiva wanted an equal. The one force that could stop her reign of destruction. The One Who Is All. Born to kill –literally.
And she's killing him right now, no trouble at all.
A few seconds later and he's breathless from a punch in the gut. Her arm is against his throat. Her other hand is gripping the base of his neck, making nerve centres burst with pain. The rain is coming down now and it feels like ice were it hits the blood.
'Can still beat you,' Cassandra whispers.
'Yeah. Definitely.' Dick says. 'But not… now.'
He pulls at the ripped kevlar –though god knows how bullet-proof kevlar got ripped– and forces it against her hand, taser first. There's a spark and a sudden, invisible surge of electricity.
Cassandra doesn't see it coming.
One day, he'll probably get used to that fact. Just as he'll get used to the fact that she actually staggered and fell backwards towards the edge of the pier, like something out of a bad cartoon.
And that he jumped forwards, after her, reaching out to grab her arm and stop her falling.
Earlier: seven months, twenty-two days.
Dick's pretty sure that Batgirl doesn't need anyone to teach her how to fly. He's seen her with a grapple, a de-cell cable and a hundred metre drop, not flinching an inch. She's like him, in that way. Only he's been flying all his life and she kind of… learned in a three day period.
Which is pretty much as amazing as Barbara's ability to perfectly recite the context of the September 28th 2004 issue of the Gotham Times (the first one produced after the No Man's Land ended with a long distance shot of Dinah on the cover) from memory, only more… dangerous.
Or maybe just dangerous in a different way.
He's getting used to these incredible feats from Batgirl. She did, after all, master the escrima stick in twenty-four hours. The trapeze isn't much of a step up from a grapple (and not as much use on the field.)
But when Oracle asks you to do something for her, such as Teaching Batgirl the quadruple back flip…
'It's not likely. Even for you.' Cassandra stares with raised eyebrows. Dick laughs, throws the water bottle in the direction of the trashcan. It hits the rim and nearly bounces off. 'I know, I know. I'm not really boasting, though. It's just that I was doing this when I was three and…'
Cassandra makes a quick flick of her wrist in almost the same way he does. She isn't actually looking at the trash can when the bottle lands quite perfectly inside it.
'…Point taken. You're a fast learner.'
Batgirl grins. Which is actually kind of… scary. 'Why're we here, Cass? I mean not that it's not fun, and all.'
Cassandra , then she points across the cave in the vague direction of a large glass case containing a uniform. 'I'm Batgirl.'
'I noticed'
'Well, Barbara was batgirl, too,' Cassandra says. 'She was… good?'
There are so many ways in which he can answer that question, but… it's difficult to phrase any of them as words. He sees Barbara in his head, batgirl-bright smile, de-cell cable taking her weight as she leaps from a building, red hair flying.
'Yeah. She was. She was different to you. But… yeah'
'A good soldier. And Robin is a good soldier, too.' Cassandra says. 'Tim. Jason.'
'Well, sure.'
'Not you.' Cassandra says, 'You were… a partner. Batman trusts you. Differently to Tim. Differently to Jason. Even Differently Steph.'
Oh…
Oh! Dick nods to let her know he understands. It's all the answer she needs.
'He trusts me.' Cassandra says.
'But you don't trust anyone,' Dick finishes, calmly.
'I do.' Cassandra thinks for a second after she says that. 'Not many. Batman. Oracle.'
'So that's what you need,' Dick laughs. 'Little harder, isn't it, when someone else is holding the ropes?'
'…Yes.'
'You're doing well, then. considering the number of times you jumped and expected someone you don't trust to catch you.'
He promised to take her to the circus.
He's not quite sure how his mind makes the connections, but it does. The fact is that this is where Cassandra would be, and where Robin would find her, by following the pattern of her previous…
Her previous… attacks.
She actually wanted Tim to find her, Dick is certain of it.
Cassandra drew back, frowning. 'The circus? Why?'
'Obviously, for cotton candy, trapezes, clowns… You'll love it… um… okay, not the clowns. But otherwise…' he has to move and luckily she lets him up. Her hands are clammy where the sweat has dried.
'Can't. I'm…'
'Training. Yeah. Babs did say that you'd tell me that. You're always training.'
'Lets go again,' Cassandra says. And she's walking to the bars again before he gives an answer. Dick just watches for a moment, still working his head around the conversation they almost had. He follows her, this time, up the ladder on the same side of the trapeze.
'Oh-kay. You're the boss.'
'I won't drop you,' he says. More because he feels he has to than anything else. She…
She needs to understand that.
Cassandra grips the bar in her hands, and smiles. 'I know.'
And this is how they ended up hanging off the edge of the pier with quite frankly neither of them wanting to die and every possibility they might if the Gotham harbour construction turns out to be as genuinely shoddy as is rumoured.
Gotham rarely lets you down, in that department.
Dick clutches Cassandra's wrist as gravity tugs them down and sheer iron will pulls them up again. It feels like a mistake made on a trapeze wire, far above the ground. Two people just hanging there, and only one who can really hold on.
Not that Cassandra would actually be trying to hold on if it was her, anyway. She can't weigh more than one-fifty pounds, but it feels as if she's so much heavier.
'No…' Dick whispers.
Not like this.
She's not going to get away with it like this. Not her. Not death.
Cassandra looks up at him. He can see the tendons in her arms, overdeveloped and pulling against his grip. She wriggles in a way that doesn't quite dislodge her wrist from his hand. 'Let… go, if you want.'
And the mere fact that she asked him that is enough to make him want to. He doesn't. He holds on tighter, and somewhere in the back of his mind there's the image of a deflected shot and a conversation about candyfloss with a grinning girl whose weight is crushing his chest.
'Shit, Cass…'
'You… you do want to.'
She's not wrong. Here on the wooden pier with splinters in her hands and exhaustion in her eyes, wide and bright and hanging there, it's almost like she's already a corpse. It's perhaps the only chance anyone would get. And she killed Robin.
She killed Tim.
'I would never…'
'You thought about it.' Cassandra stays perfectly still, looking up into the rain and Dick's face. 'You're still thinking about it. It would be easy. You just have to… let go.'
'Damn it, Cassandra! Is that what you want?' Dick screams. Because… the water is belting against the peer and it's starting to rain harder now, cold spray and salt air building up and up, and it'd be so easy just to let Batgirl… to let Cassandra drop and put an end to it and… 'It's what you want isn't it?' He half laughs. 'Shiva… That's what you meant. That's where you came from. Shiva's little girl. Shiva's prodigy. It was never Tim.' He's laughing, ridiculous, but he can't help it. 'I-I thought that it was Tim. It's you. I thought… or maybe it WAS Tim. Maybe that's why you had to…'
'Let me go,' Cassandra says calmly.
His ribs, his arms, his whole body hurts so much. And his hand is going to slip from the cold and the rain and the blood on her hands making it harder to keep a hold. Because it's Tim's and—
And Tim was Shiva's choice.
Timothy Drake was the one Shiva chose first, a long time ago. Before she realised who Cassandra was. Shiva's daughter must overrule anyone else who might take her place. Anyone who might be more destined than her to become Shiva's successor.
Nothing more complicated than that, when you got down to it. Shiva was Cassandra's birthright, and Tim had been in the way.
Tim.
No.
Cassandra's eyes glare into his, willing him to let her go.
But Dick's an acrobat. His hands have never let him down, and they never will.
He's on the pier. Wood under his back and rain beating down and somehow or other, he's still clutching her wrist. Cassandra's head is inches from his, and he can hear her breathing. Her hair is still frazzled from a low voltage of electricity from the Taser and he can actually still smell it burning.
He never let her go. He's not sure which of them is more surprised.
He tries to think. But all his mind can come up with is "Tim" and "no" and "killer" and "destiny."
That last one is the one that hurts the most. It makes him want to scream and cry and smash everything in sight, because the world is ending and Tim is dead and all because of what Cassandra thought she had to do and…
God. Cass.
'You wanted to let go.' Cass says quietly. 'Maybe you should have.'
Dick doesn't speak. Or maybe he just can't. He just keeps thinking. I'm sorry, Tim, I'm sorry, Tim, I'm sorry, Tim. Over and over, like a mantra.
'He was wrong, Dick. Batman. Hurting does make it feel better.' He doesn't speak. He can't. Everything's cold and numb from the rain and he can feel Tim's blood, dry on his hands. '…For a little while. Not for long, though. Then it starts all over again. He was right about that. He's usually right. I killed, but in the end everyone dies anyway. Even if you don't care about them. You could feel… better, for a while. Take your revenge.
'But you won't do that, will you? It's not what you do. You wouldn't, even if you weren't Nightwing.'
Dick's too numb to react. His face feels wet, even though he can't quite feel the rainfall beating on his skin. 'You… said you couldn't read…'
'In a fight, I couldn't.' Cass said. 'But we… weren't fighting, there.'
'So you could,' he coughs. 'You really knew what I wanted to—'
'I knew.'
Cassandra learned from perhaps the most frighteningly good liar on the face of the planet. So Dick will probably never know whether or not what she just said was true.
'I'll kill you,' she whispers. 'They won't keep me in. It will be just like Robin, like Steph, like the man in the suit, like Shiva… all over again.' She pauses. 'Tim said, he was sorry. Not his fault… For what it's worth.'
'Why?' Dick croaks. They both know it's not her last statement he's questioning.
'Sooner or later, I had to face it. Him or me. Blood—'
'—Means fuck all, Cassandra.' Dick spits out whatever malice he has left, and then deflates. 'This –all this– Because you wanted to fucking experiment with destiny?'
'Maybe not.' A silence, a pause. There's great pain in her voice when she speaks again, as if the words are something she has to say rather than that she wants to. 'I will kill you. Or you… will stop me. Lock me up. Like all criminals.'
Yeah. Like all criminals, Cass. Just like we do with all the murderers. All killers. All evil people. All madmen and women. Lock you up and throw away the key but that won't matter because Tim is dead because of you and destiny and Lady fucking Shiva and I'll never forgive you so it doesn't matter where we lock you you'll never make this better and I just want to know why!
Why Tim?Don't be an idiot, Grayson. You know why.
Dick cough-laughs, maybe choking on the blood in his lungs. He's not sure. He's too tired to be sure. Too tired, too angry too hurt. There's a rib puncturing something inside of him and it hurts like hell. 'Why? You don't need to. I'm not… Tim. I'm not in the way. Or… or are you really your mother's daughter, Cass?'
No response. But then, she's already answered that question. For just a second Dick turns his head and sees her face, side on. Her eyes are wide and bright in the dimming light. For once, it feels like he's the one who can read body language.
'Tell me… why here, Cassandra? Why were you…'
'He found me. Here. I was—' she waits a second. 'I came to see the carnival. I didn't mean it to happen here. Not tonight.'
'But you did,' Dick croaks. You killer. You did it anyway.
'The opportunity… presented itself.' Dick nods, slightly. He knows that.
'I'm s'posed to believe you?'
'I'm a murderer, now. Why would I lie about some carnival?'
Because serial assassins are twisted like that. 'I don't know. But I do know that you won't kill me today, Cass.'
The silence lasts forever.
'No,' she agrees quietly. 'Not today.'
One of her hands creeps into his and squeezes for a second. That will make him feel sick and vile, later on, when the shock and betrayal wears off and the anger sets in and Cassandra becomes yet another part of Gotham's criminal population. But for now, just for a few measly seconds he's never going to remember. He can almost forget she's anything other than Cassandra, a girl learning to fly and curious about candyfloss. A good soldier. It doesn't last, though and she doesn't speak again.
A few moments later she's gone and there's a shadow moving away from him in slow, awkward steps.
All he can think of is Tim, lying too far away to reach, and Cass, and blood and Shiva and rain and pain and splinters and falling from a trapeze-level height. Then Dick realises he's lost too much blood, because that sensation means he's passing out. But it doesn't matter. His eyes are full of red. Robin red, Cassandra red, Shiva red, Dick—
He takes a breath. Barbara has a track on him. On them. And it doesn't hurt so badly now. She's already sending out a distress call.
And noone else is going to die, tonight.
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