I do not own Young Justice or any of the characters.
Recruits and Parties
Cassius watched on the monitor as Harper stared emptily at the clock. She'd been sitting there for an hour, and had done nothing. After Megan had filled him in about Harper, and about her father potentially being an alcoholic, Cassius had done a bit of investigating of his own. Not only was Harper's father an alcoholic, he was an abusive one, and Harper routinely took beatings for her brother. So, he'd reached a decision and had given her the test she was currently ignoring.
He sighed, walking into the room. "Not a single question, huh?"
"What's the point?" Harper asked. "This won't get me any better grades in school."
"You're right," Cassius nodded. "This is so much more important than that. This can get you and your brother away from you abusive father."
Harper stared at him in surprise.
"Interested?" Cassius asked, then looked at the clock. "You have twenty minutes left. Blank answers count as wrong, not that SAT crap where they don't count at all."
Harper scrambled to begin writing down answers, and Cassius turned, walking back out of the room. Twenty minutes later, as he opened the door, Harper sat back, sighing, and looking exhausted. Cassius walked over to her, picking up the paper and scanning it, his Darkwear verifying her answers for him. Her math was rough but all correct, her English was average, history was below average, natural science was low average, and her mechanical science and engineering was perfect.
He hummed thoughtfully. "You're good with machines, aren't you?"
Harper nodded. "I've had to fix a few things growing up, so I had to get good at stuff like that."
"Think you could fix something for me from seeing it the first time?" Cassius asked.
Harper nodded.
Cassius returned the nod and motioned for her to follow him. As they walked, he messaged Cassandra to disable a stun disk, a palm-sized, single-use tazer they were in charge of testing for batman, then hide. Then, when they reached the garage where the engineering class was set up, Cassius walked to a work table, picking up the disk and tossing it to her.
"What do you think?" Cassius asked.
"What is this?" Harper asked, turning the transparent coin over in her hand, studying the internal components. "Some kind of stun grenade?"
"Something like that," Cassius nodded. "Can you fix it?"
Harper hummed thoughtfully. "Well, it looks like the power supply's disconnected, so that's an easy fix, but..."
"What is it?" Cassius asked.
Harper looked around before shaking her head. "Nothing. Give me ten minutes."
Cassius nodded, and left, Cassandra sending him her Darkwear's feed while she watched from the corner near the ceiling, hidden atop a huge set of shelves bearing different parts of different machines. Harper worked quickly, but Cassius couldn't tell what she was doing. In fact, she had the power supply removed entirely until the end, and he could swear she was adding to the disk. Finally, after ten minutes, he walked into the room just as she finished putting the disk back together.
"So, I did a bit more than reconnect the power supply," she said, holding out the disk. "The way it was built, it would short out after one use, and would also have to make contact with the person, which makes it kind of useless as a grenade. So I fixed that, too. Should be good for about five feet, still non-lethal, and will go for about five seconds before shutting down to recharge. It's solar-powered, too, so you just need to leave it in the sun for five minutes."
He stared at the disk, then her. "You did all that in ten minutes? Without ever seeing one of these before?"
Harper nodded. "Can I ask where you got that? I've never seen one, but..."
Cassius shook his head. "You don't need to worry about needing one. You'll have better toys to play with."
Harper frowned in confusion until Cassius shifted into his uniform. She gasped sharply, staggering backward, then grinned widely, excitement filling her features.
"Void!" she grinned.
"In the flesh," Cassius bowed, then corrected himself. "Well, goo, anyway."
"Oh my God!" Harper grinned. "I'm meeting Void! You are easily my favorite hero! You do whatever you want, every time!"
"Not really, but I am a bit more loose with my morals than most of the League," Cassius said. "Now, would you like to be a hero?"
Harper nodded vigorously. "Please! Can I arrest my dad?"
"No," Cassius said. "The first thing you're going to do is report your father, which means you'll need proof, probably a bruise. The second thing is to pack your things and be ready for me to pick you up. I haven't decided where you'll be, so you might end up staying with your principal."
"Why?" Harper asked. "I'm so done with school. Heroes don't need-"
"Because you won't be a hero forever, and because you finishing school is a condition for me making you a hero," Cassius interrupted. "College is one thing, but you will finish high school."
Harper sighed. "What about my brother?"
"He's going to go with you," Cassius said. "But not as a hero."
Harper nodded, and Cassius absorbed the stun disk into himself and shifted back to normal before leaving with Harper, Cassandra slipping out on her own. Cassius drove Harper back to her house and dropped her off, giving her his phone number to let him know when she was ready to leave, which would be when she reported her father. Then, he left, driving back to Megan's house, finding Cassandra already there.
"How'd she do?" Megan asked, still not in favor of him making Harper a hero.
"She turned this into a solar-rechargible stun grenade," Cassius said, tossing the disk to her.
"Wait, really?" Megan asked. "You know, instead of being a hero, she could just be a tech expert."
"That wouldn't be good enough to get her away from her father," Cassius said. "Besides, she has the heart of a hero. She protects her brother from their father daily."
Megan nodded. "I guess. I still don't like it."
"Relax," Cassius said. "I'm not making her a part of any team, or taking her on missions, until she's ready."
Megan nodded. "That's going to be a while."
"Exactly," Cassius said. "And in the mean time, she and her brother are safe, she's agreed to finish high school willingly, and she can obviously upgrade our tech for us in between school and training."
Megan nodded. "Maybe she'll decide she likes working on tech instead."
Cassius chuckled. "We'll see."
Megan nodded and Cassius took the Zeta-tube back to the Batcave, arriving in time to have dinner before patrolling with Cassandra, Rose, and the rest of Batman Incorperated.
Cassius stepped forward as Halo dropped her illusion of there being a section of wall around them. In front of him, an assassin with a chinese broadsword stared at him through her tinted, domed mask.
"That you, Shiva?" Cassius asked, growing a pair of wakizashi.
The assassin crouched, adopting a much more cautious, experienced stance.
"Thought so," Cassius nodded. "Go ahead."
Cassandra hurled the stun disk Harper had upgraded from where she'd been hidden off to the side, even Shiva having not seen her. Shiva avoided the disk, but it hit a couch behind her and detonated, electrocuting her for five seconds before dropping to the floor along with her.
"Stop playing possum, Shiva," Cassius said, holding his left hand out to the side to keep Tara and Halo back.
As he advanced, Rose swung in through the window where Shiva had entered, and Cassandra walked forward, both readying their liquid metal swords.
Shiva stood, readying herself again. "I should have figured you three would see through that. You always were the Shadows' most promising."
"Shame the Shadows lied to my face and then drove Cassandra and Rose away," Cassius said. "I think the four of us are a bit past the point of idle chit-chat and pleasantries. Shall we?"
Shiva lunged at him, slashing, but just as he deflected her sword, she was forced to leap backward away from Rose and Cassandra's blades, both using the blunt sides. Shiva looked over at Troia as she stirred, then sighed heavily, sheathing her sword.
"Another time, then," Shiva said. "Always nice to see you again, Cassandra."
Rose stepped forward to stop her as Shiva turned to jump out the window, only for Cassius to wave her off.
"Let her go," Cassius said. "There's no cell in Belle Reve that can hold her, yet."
"Let me know when it's ready and I'll break out of it," Shiva said, then jumped out the window, vanishing before Rose could even look.
"How're they doing?" Cassius asked, walking over to check on the Outsiders, including a goo clone of himself taking the place of Angel. Just as he looked, an arrow in Bart's hand exploded. "Ouch."
Just as Bart stood and Garf got up and began to defend himself, Flash arrived, quickly mopping up the would-be assassins. A moment later, as Luthor, who called the League to help and who used that to praise his own system while bashing the Outsiders for being there illegally, Megan ordered both groups to pull out. Cassius reabsorbed his clone on the Bioship as it grew him his usual throne. He sat down, sighing.
"So, Luthor wants to play the PR game using staged assassination attempts," Cassius said. "Not bad. It was a setup to defame the Outsiders, and it's probably only step one."
"Agreed," Megan said. "You'll all have to be more careful from now on."
They all nodded and fell silent as they flew to Taos, Cassandra and Rose joining Cassius in his throne. However, at Taos, Edwardo Dorado Sr., head of the Meta-Youth Center and father of the newest member of the Outsiders, El Dorado, was furious about his son being in a legitimate fight. After an argument, Edwardo Jr. had Halo use a boom tube to send them back to their Cave in Hollywood, the others all going with them for solidarity reasons. Cassius sighed as he stepped out of the Boom Tube with Cassandra and Rose, seeing Edward fuming and storming up to the room he'd been using since joining whenever he needed to stay there.
"He'll be alright," Rose said.
"Calm...soon," Cassandra agreed.
Cassius nodded. "I know. Just not the best New Year's Eve." He grinned. "Bart, Garfield, time to set up the usual?"
"Oh, definitely!" Garfield grinned, grabbing a phone. "I'll order pizza."
"I'll be able to do the decorations in like...an hour," Bart said, grinning. "This is gonna be crash!"
"What's going on?" Tara asked.
"New Year's Eve party!" Garfield grinned. "The Team style!"
Everyone who'd been at the Team's party for the previous New Year cheered, Jaime and Rose all but leaping onto the sofa and grabbing the controllers for Garfield's video game stations, all three of them. Cassius and Cassandra laughed at Rose before joining her on the couch, Cassius sending goo clones to start decorations. An hour later, Bart finished healing and rapidly finished the decorations while Cassius retracted his clones' goo. Then, once the pizza arrived, the party began.
They cranked the music, played every kind of fast-paced competitive game from racing to fighting, to Dance Dance Revolution, which Cassandra always won, and which Garfield came in a close second on every time. But they all had fun trying to beat them, even Halo, who had seemed down and depressed since her arrest, and Edwardo enjoyed trying and failing. Cassandra and Garfield were just natural dancers. However, Rose always won the fighting games, though by a close margin against Cassius, by using her ability to cheat, while Cassandra was thrown off by the characters on the screen having body language that was all wrong, making her the worst player in the group at that.
As the night wore on, they traded pizza for ice cream, then finally turned on the news to watch the ball drop, which Halo was extremely disappointed with, not understanding the point of the tradition. However, everyone else enjoyed it, and Cassius enjoyed having a customary New Years kiss with both of his girlfriends. Once the ball had dropped, they returned to video games, but Cassius and his girlfriends slipped away, only barely making it into their bedroom before Cassandra and Rose began to lose articles of clothing.
Cassius smiled, sighing contentedly as his hands trailed up and down his girlfriends' bare backs, both of them stirring and pressing lingering kisses to the sides of his neck. It had been a fun day of not getting out of bed except to go to the bathroom, and only wearing bathrobes to do it. Cassius was glad everyone else had left the Cave for the day, though they were all back now. While Cassandra and Rose had enjoyed their third nap of the day, he'd heard the others get back, someone, possibly Bart alone, playing air hocky currently.
"Happy New Year!" Winder Girl called out as she arrived via Zeta Tube. "Everyone ready for training?"
Cassandra and Rose both groaned dramatically before getting up and starting to get dressed. Cassius stood, Shifting into Angel and stepped out of the room.
"-still in bed," Garfield was saying. "Oh, there's one."
"They'll be right out," Cassius said, flying himself down to the others, seeing it was Garfield and Tara against Jaime and Static, and Violet and Fred weren't around yet.
"Where are Violet and Fred?" Wonder Girl asked.
"Violet is upstairs, and Fred went out to look for Vic," Brion said with a subdued, content smile on his face and his phone in his hand.
"Gosh, I forgot about Vic," Wonder Girl said. "Even when I'm here I never see him." She shook her head. "So, are the girls pregnant yet?"
"No," Cassandra said as she and Rose walked over to them. "Careful."
"Cassius is able to choose whether or not his body produces sperm," Rose said, unabashedly. "And we take pills after just in case."
"Okay, ew," Wonder Girl said. "Too much information."
"Way too much information," Static agreed.
Cassius and his girlfriends shrugged. "We're not ashamed." He kissed both of them, Cassandra holding her mask under her arm.
"Dude!" Garfield said suddenly. "So crash! Hashtag We Are All Outsiders is still trending at the top!"
Just then, Wonder Girl cleared her throat, watching as Edwardo Sr, Wonder Girl's mother, and Jay Garrick. Just as Edwardo Sr. said they needed to talk to the Outsiders, however, opened his mouth to speak, Garfield pulled up an online post from a young girl in Dublin Ireland who was asking for help with Dr. Ivo's MONQIs.
"Alright, let's go," Cassius said.
"The outsiders aren't going anywhere," Jay said.
Cassius sighed. "El Durado, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, sort this out. Brion, you coming?"
"You had better go without me," Brion decided.
The others nodded and headed for the Zeta-tube.
Cassius groaned in annoyance as he dropped into the seat the Bioship had grown for him. "I hate MONQIs."
"Ouch," Garfield smirked.
"Let that be a warning to you," Cassius said jokingly.
"They were League," Cassandra messaged him.
"I know," Cassius replied, also silent messaging. "I'll talk to them."
Cassandra nodded subtly and leaned back in her chair, Rose doing the same, having been in the group chat, as always. A few hours later, he went to the Bat Cave, arriving late just as Wonder Woman was scolding the others present for staging false events purely for the sake of PR.
"An excuse to blow up Luthor's Spider Bots is one thing, but she's right," Cassius said. "That crossed a line. And it will not happen again. Beast Boy's already agreed to allow you guys to lend a hand in actual missions to make the Outsiders look good. But if he knew about this, that would be the end of it. His trust in you would shatter, and he might cut ties with the League. No more creating a crisis. If someone needs help, the League can lend a hand with PR once in a while. Otherwise, focus on your own missions."
The others all looked around at each other before most nodded. Batman and Robin did not.
"This meeting is over," Kaldur said.
They all nodded and everyone who didn't live above the Bat Cave left, Cassius heading up to bed, finding Cassandra and Rose had apparently gotten tired of waiting and started without him.
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