A/N – This chapter contains references to dry ice, and FYI, you should not ever sit in a small, enclosed place with dry ice, because it leaks too much CO2. I had the characters ventilate the room but still, irl, don't ever sit in a tiny room 'cause I'm sure technically speaking there wasn't actually enough ventilation. Sh, this is fiction.

"If we sling Blondie over your back, you can ride behind me on my bike," Jason said to Cass as they snuck out of the still-dark funeral parlor with one very dead Robin in a bodybag, the trimmed-down henchman safely entombed in Steph's re-closed casket.

Cass nodded as a warmth filled her belly. Hood had included her so easily in his plans to bring back her Steph, not even bothering to question Black Bat's willingness to participate but automatically assuming she'd want to, and the friendly trust and camaraderie he offered meant more to Cass than she could express.

Steph had been the only one who had ever treated Cassandra Cain with such openness of heart. Batman's horrifying casual reveal of Steph's death hadn't just meant the loss of Cass's friend; it was the loss of her only friend.

She had frantically raced to the funeral parlor after the Big Bat's cowardly exit, needing to hold her Steph one last time, but hoping against hope that Batman was wrong, that Steph wasn't really gone, after all, because Cass hadn't quite known how she would cope with the rest of her life if Steph was lying there dead when she opened her casket.

To go back to the raw, aching emptiness that was all Cass had known growing up with her father, assassin David Cain, who had wanted his daughter to be a weapon more lethal and better trained than any other fighter in the world, such that he had withheld verbal language from her for years, forcing her to become an expert at reading body language, at meeting her own needs, at living in complete solitude - Cass didn't think she could survive that way again, not after Steph had befriended her and given Cass her first taste of true human connection.

Black Bat hadn't been trying to make friends the night she'd saved Spoiler from the crooks who had outnumbered the purple-clad girl. Black Bat didn't have friends. But Steph had determinedly changed that.

"Oh, my God! Thanks so much, you're the best!" the clearly overmatched girl had said, wide-eyed, when the shadowy ninja had dropped down from the roof and handily defeated every one of the thugs that Spoiler had already taken far too many hits from.

Ninja Cass had frowned at her before directing a scathing glance to the now knocked-out foes.

"I wasn't trying to fight them on purpose," Spoiler said, intuiting Cass's rightful judgment of her inability to handle the situation. "I was following my da- Cluemaster, and they came out and surprised me and I got trapped. I've never seen you before," she'd said. "Are you one of the bats?"

Cass's snort of disgust had earned a giggle from the rescued girl.

"Me, neither," she said. "I'm friends with Robin, but Batman doesn't like me very much," she added. "My name's Spoiler. Can we hang out? I'll buy you a BatBurger," the blonde girl had pleaded.

Cass had been startled. Slowly, she pointed to her lips and shook her head side to side before shrugging helplessly.

"Oh, you don't talk?" the girl said.

Cass nodded.

"But you're not vegetarian or anything, are you?" the girl persisted, which seemed unrelated to Cass, but the girl was continuing on. "Actually, I think BatBurger has a veggie burger now, so will you come?" she begged Cass.

"There aren't any other girl vigilantes in town and the Bats think they're in charge of everything, anyway, and I'd really like to be friends," she had said, and Cass had seen the wistfulness in the girl's body that said she was lonely, and the persistent shivers that said that even though she was acting brave, she was still kind of scared from what had almost just happened to her, and Cass found herself nodding her agreement, much to Spoiler's delight and Cass's trepidation.

And now her best and only friend was lying dead in a bodybag slung across Cass's back while Cass clung tight to Red Hood's waist as he sped them through the city on his motorcycle. She couldn't resist leaning into him a little closer than she needed to; she hadn't hugged anyone in months, having left Gotham a little while ago to track down the back end of the trafficking ring that had brought her to Spoiler's crime-laden city in the first place.

She and Steph had Facetimed every other night without fail while Cass was in Hong Kong (until Steph had missed their last appointment, but Cass didn't want to think about that, now) but Facetime wasn't the same as hugs, and Cass was realizing just how much she had missed human contact, so she snuggled even tighter into Hood's warm back.

She sensed his movement before it happened, but Cass was still surprised when he reached down and squeezed an affectionate hand over hers where they were locked around his waist. The touch gave her an odder sensation than when Steph used to touch her. It felt all fluttery and low in her body - much lower - and it made her want to press her cheek into Hood's back.

So she did.

And to her delight, his hand lingered over hers, his thumb tracing gentle patterns on her fingers that lulled Cass into slumping against him with eyes shut, allowing herself to be soothed by the raucous growl of his bike's unmuffled engine that crowded all possible thoughts out of her mind until it was a peaceful blank of noise mingled with the feel of Hood and the smell of car exhaust from the still-crowded streets of Gotham.

"We're here," Hood said in the modulated tones of his helmet, rousing Cass back to sitting fully upright as he pulled them into a dark garage in a run-down building in the Narrows, going by the looks of the architecture and graffiti covered walls.

Cass reluctantly swung herself off of his bike once he had stopped, feeling Steph bump against the backs of her knees as she stood.

"I'll carry her upstairs," Hood said after pulling his helmet off and leaving it and his domino on his bike, from the sounds of it. "Not that you can't," he said, and Cass could hear his smile despite the pitch-black room, "but I know where I'm going in the dark and won't bang her into stuff," he said.

And his hand gave Cass's shoulder a little extra rub as he slid the strap off and took Steph's weight from her, and that made Cass smile into her other shoulder, even more so when Hood reached down and took her hand in his so he could lead her through the garage and up stairs and through doors and then more stairs, all without turning any lights on.

Warm, Cass thought to herself. And strong. Rough. Fighter's hand.

She liked it.

Hood finally snapped lights on, letting go of Cass's hand to do so, which left Cass feeling emptier than she wished it would.

"I've got dry ice ready in the bathroom," Hood said to her over his shoulder, leading the way through a cozy living room packed with shelves and shelves of books along with an over-stuffed couch jumbled full of pillows and blankets in front of a very modest sized tv.

"I know they pumped Blondie full of formaldehyde, but I didn't want to take a chance on her getting stinky," Hood said, wrinkling his nose.

Cass was thankful he had thought that far ahead.

Jason gently set Steph's bodybag down in the hallway before motioning Cass into the slightly cramped bathroom, where two styrofoam coolers with lids ajar were gently spewing spooky gas into the air, although the open window and running bathroom fan were dissipating most of the excess carbon dioxide.

"What?" Cass asked him, touching his elbow and motioning to the bathtub, which was several inches full of some kind of lumpy material hidden under a few towels.

"Packing peanuts," Hood said, hefting up the first container of dry ice and dumping it into the tub on top of his base layer. "Should hopefully keep the dry ice from cracking the tub," he said, adding the second cooler full. "But I guess we'll see," he grinned.

"Stick these in the hall and grab Steph?" he asked Cass, passing her the empty coolers.

She set them in the hallway before lifting up the bag with her friend, feeling strangely comforted that Steph was right here with her instead of inside a coffin, alone in the dark somewhere. Jason gently took the bodybag and laid it on top of the dry ice. Cass came up next to him and knelt down to begin to unzip the bag, but Jason halted her.

"It'll burn her skin to take her out and lay her straight on the ice," he said.

Cass shook her head, though.

"See," she said, only unzipping the portion of the bag over Steph's face and gently folding it down over her friend's chest.

"Oh," Jason said softly as Cass turned and sat leaning against the wall, laying her left hand on Steph's hair and gently stroking it back in soothing motions.

"You want to sit in here with her?" he checked and Cass nodded, touched by the kindness in Hood's eyes she saw when she glanced up at him.

"Well…" he said, thinking, "let me get an extra fan," he said. "Even with the window open, I'm worried it'll be too much CO2 for you," he said, and then he was off to look and Cass was alone with Steph and wishing so badly that her friend's eyes would open and she'd look up and laugh at Cass like she used to, so often, about so many things.

Sometimes about their equally miserable fathers, or their shitty childhoods, or what Batman had done now that was super obnoxious and annoying, or about the utterly fabulous Halloween themed eyeshadow kit Steph had gotten that had both purple and black in it - so we can both use it! - she'd said, proudly holding out Cass's very own, very first makeup brush - or about the day that BatBurger introduced both Spoiler and BlackBat toys into their Justice Meals and Steph and Cass had gone in, in costume, to buy meals and then posed with their toys and the little kids on the Gargoyle Gym outside - and Cass didn't even feel the tears slipping down her cheeks until Hood was back and ripping off some toilet paper and dabbing her face for her.

Cass gave him a watery smile that he returned warmly.

"Do you want to change so you can be more comfortable?" Hood asked her, and Cass noticed he had taken off the Red Hood armor and was in pajama pants and a t-shirt now. "I brought you boxers and a tee if you want," he said, holding them out and Cass nodded her thanks with a smile that only grew as Jason reached for her hand and pulled her up to her feet.

"I'll set the fan up when you're done," he said as he left her alone in the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

When Cass opened the door again, he was there with the pillows and blankets in his arms that she'd seen on the couch.

"I figured if you're gonna sit here with her, you should be comfortable," Jason said with a shy smile that looked slightly embarrassed at the surprised appreciation pouring out of Cass's face.

Cass wanted to say thank you to Hood, she really did, but her words were giving her more trouble than usual tonight (because Steph was dead, her brain chimed like an annoying morning alarm) and 'th' sounds were hard to make and she hated mispronouncing the few words she could manage to say, so Cass decided as she took the pile of covers from Hood and set it next to the bathtub (and it had nothing to do with the motorcycle ride over, really) that a hug would be the most effective way to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

She had to stand on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Hood's neck, and that meant that her arms went a little more tightly around his neck than they otherwise might have, because she had to keep her balance, of course, plus Hood seemed a little startled by the hug and that meant that Cass had to hold on a little tighter because he jumped a little bit when she turned around and embraced him instead of sitting down with the blankets, but Cass didn't think that Hood minded because his arms slipped around her waist, lighter than Steph used to hug her, though - Steph used to squeeze the breath out of Cass with each exuberant hug - but Hood's hug was swoopy, kind of, with his palms skimming Cass's back and hips, and the fluttery feeling she'd felt on the bike was back, with some added tingles, and Cass found herself burying her face in Hood's muscled chest as her arms hung off his neck.

"You're welcome," he said into her hair, and Cass felt his smile against her scalp, which made her smile against his chest, and she was still smiling when he let her go, but he was, too.

He kept smiling as he turned and set the fan up, facing it to blow out of the room to help vent the carbon dioxide, and he snapped the bathroom lights off, leaving just the nightlite on, which gave Steph's face a soft, yellow glow that made her look less dead, and Cass liked it.

She looked up when Hood knelt in front of her as she fiddled with a pillow on the floor, trying to get comfortable.

"Lean forward," he said, taking the cushion and getting it placed just right against the wall behind her, and then he was unfolding a blanket and spreading it out over Cass's drawn-up knees and getting her all tucked in, but to Cass's great delight, Hood grabbed another pillow and propped it behind him as he turned and sat with his back against the tub and his long legs stretched out in front of him, that he covered with another one of the blankets.

The warmth that flooded Cass wasn't just from the covers.

Jason hadn't been expecting Black Bat to get so cuddly on the ride home, but fuck it, he was going to enjoy it and his conscience could shut right up.

Maybe Cass was his soulmate, huh? So then it wouldn't be a big deal to flirt with her, would it? That's what he told himself as his hand found hers and couldn't let go the whole way home.

Besides, who was gonna want a soulmate like Jason Todd, anyway? Murderous vigilantes weren't exactly prime catches the last time he checked, no matter how much ooey gooey made-for-each-other romantic slop you pasted on top.

Jason couldn't help but hear Dick's voice in his head, though, the whole time that he was thoroughly enjoying holding Cass's hand while leading her upstairs through his house.

"Waiting for your soulmate will be worth it, Jaybird. You'll see," his older brother had always counseled when Jason would come home from school crushing on this girl or that boy.

But Dick was such a romantic, Jason thought to himself. So in love with the fact of soulmates and so eager to meet his own one day and so determined to save himself and make his soulmate his first and last and only love, and yeah, that was great for Dick.

Dick's parents had been soulmates, of course, and had been wonderfully happy together until their lives had been cut short.

Jason's parents? Not so much. Oh, they were soulmates, sure, but the fact that leaving her abusive husband Willis would have meant leaving her soulmate was the primary reason why Catherine Todd had stayed, no matter how many times Willis had hit her, or hit Jason, or cheated on her, or spent all their money, or disappeared for days on end leaving them without food.

Jason couldn't help but think that if his mom hadn't been so desperate to cling to the Universe's idea of what was best for her, she might have packed them up years before Willis finally left them for good and saved Jason and her both a lot of bruises and hunger pains.

But Jason had adored Dick when they were kids, and Jason really did want to be good and do the right thing (once Bruce had adopted him, at least, and approval had become his prime currency) and Dick always said that meeting your soulmate was the most important thing in the world, so… yeah.

Jason was feeling a little guilty about how much he was starting to like Cass.

He shoved the guilt aside as soon as she hugged him for bringing her the blankets, though, because it was a really nice hug, and people didn't hug Jason Todd (except for Steph's mom, he thought sadly), and girls especially didn't hug him, and a girl he liked had never hugged him, so if he got a trifle handsy when he hugged her back, well, it wasn't like his hands strayed anywhere they shouldn't have.

Even if they had been rather flirtatious in their explorations of her back and hips and - she was smiling at him, again, but trying to pretend she wasn't, now that they were all tucked in on the bathroom floor hanging out next to the dead girl in the bathtub in what one could conceivably call the romantic dim of his BatSignal nightlite.

"I only met Steph for the first time last night, when I found her," Jason said to break the silence, "but I really liked her," he said, and that was clearly a good opening gambit because Cass was lifting her head up now and smiling at him full on while she continued to stroke Blondie's hair with one hand.

"She was so brave," Jason said honestly, "and tough. She didn't crack and tell Roman Bruce's identity even after everything he did to her. Did Bats tell you that?" he asked and Cass shook her head no, looking proud and awe-struck even though her eyes were sad, too, about it, and even though the hand in Steph's hair laid a little heavier on the caresses.

"Funny, too," Jason continued with a fond smile. "Blonde Robin was laughing and joking with me right up until the end," he said softly, getting a little choked up remembering it. "So fucking brave," he whispered, dropping his eyes down into his lap as they got a little wet.

He looked up when Cass's free hand reached forward and squeezed his tight.

"Happy Hood there," she said, blinking through her tears before letting his hand go and leaning back against the wall again.

"Me, too," Jason said. "No Robin should die alone," he muttered. "Hell," he laughed bitterly, "even I didn't die alone," he said with mocking cynicism.

At Cass's questioning look, he said, "Joker killed me, but only because my birth mom Sheila sold me out to him. But Jokes got the last laugh, because he killed her, too, and we died together," Jason said, his mouth going a little grim.

"I gotta tell ya, Cass, it's a hell of a way to go, to be trying to save the mom who offered you up to die in the first place while she tells you what a good kid you are," he said with a slightly crazed chuckle.

Cass met his eyes without shrinking away, though, and slowly nodded her understanding.

"Dad," she said, tapping her chest. "Kill."

"He taught you to be a killer?" Jason guessed and Cass nodded.

"Not want," she said, before shrugging sadly.

"You were little?" Jason asked her. "A kid?" and Cass nodded again.

"Shit," Jason said with empathy. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like to be forced into that," he said. "Well," he amended, "my brain was mush when I made my first kill, but by the time I got my senses back, I'd killed so many people…" he said, letting his voice trail off.

"Bat," Cass said, frowning. "No kill."

"Yeah," Jason said. "I wasn't here. I was with the League of Assassins," he said, and Cass's eyebrows went up. "That's how I know where they are, and how to get to the Lazarus Pit and everything," he said. "Bruce's ex, Talia, she dragged me there after I came back to life - don't ask me how that shit happened, though, cause I don't even know," he said.

"But, yeah, I'd already become a killer by the time I got back to Gotham and then I was raging out from the Pit so I figured, what's a little more, ya know? If it's the scum of the earth I'm taking out," Jason said. "Plus, I was so angry at Bruce and I figured it would hurt him, and then once I'd started there didn't seem to be much point in stopping," he said somewhat forlornly.

"Same," Cass said, not letting him linger in his melancholy alone.

"Yeah?" Jason asked her.

"Dad die," Cass said. "Cass kill," she said with some resignation. "Killer, kill…" she trailed off with a sigh, too.

"How old were you when he died?" Jason asked her and Cass's face scrunched up in a really adorable way as she searched for the number, before finally settling on flashing three sets of five at him plus two.

"Seventeen?" Jason said and she nodded. "Wow," Jason said softly. "I was only with the League two years. I can't even imagine," he said. "Especially starting from when you were little."

Cass chewed on her lip, looking sad.

"Dad kill all," Cass said. "Cass kill bad kids."

Jason frowned at that before remembering her work taking down the child trafficking ring and her lethal methods of dealing with the perps.

"You only kill to protect kids," he said, and she smiled at his understanding. "But your dad made you kill whoever he wanted? That's terrible," he said with feeling. "That's how it was for me in the League, except at least I didn't have my brain when I was doing it. Now I only kill scum," he said. "Like you, but with a slightly broader definition," he grinned, and Cass smiled back at him.

"Good," she said, nudging his leg a little bit with her foot, which Jason totally, completely, could not even pretend to himself didn't turn him on.

"Hood good," Cass declared.

"Cass is pretty damn good, too," Jason said back, which made her grin and flush a little bit.

"You can stretch your legs out over me if you want," Jason offered, noticing that Cass's legs were curled up against her chest so she could sit sideways to rub Steph's head and still leave room for him to sit against the tub.

Sure, that was all he was noticing. Totally.

But Cass was shifting her legs and laying her calves over his lap and Jason wanted to turn cartwheels, but he settled for repositioning the blankets, ostensibly to tuck her feet in, but really so he wouldn't have a layer of blanket between her legs and his, even though he still had his pajama pants creating a barrier (shut up! he told his brain. Bad Jason. Very Bad.)

Cass didn't seem to think he was very bad at all, though, and that suited Jason just fine.

They'd been asleep on the bathroom floor for Cass didn't know how long when she awoke shivering, despite the blankets. Sitting next to a bathtub full of dry ice was cold, but she still couldn't stand the thought of leaving Steph here in the bathroom all by herself.

So Cass did the very logical thing and slid her legs off Hood's warm lap so she could crawl forward and burrow under his arm. He raised a sleepy eyelid to look down at her, and there was that smile again that kept making her tummy sing.

"Cold," Cass explained.

"You can go sleep in my bed if you want," Hood offered. "I can sleep on the couch."

"No," Cass said, calmly wrapping her arm around his chest.

Hm, it felt like a delicious heating pad. She'd made a wise decision.

"Ok by me," Hood was chuckling, tugging the blankets in closer around them before wrapping his free arm around her tight.

Cass buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and smiled. She was cold, and Hood was hot, and Cass felt a new flutter somewhere she had never felt a flutter before.

Steph would laugh in delight, if Cass could have told her. One day soon, she would.

A/N - Thanks for reading! More to come. Comments are life.

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