Nyssa loved New York City. She'd never admit such weakness to anyone in the League, and certainly she'd never be so gauche as to buy an "I heart NY" souvenir, but she loved New York.
Its energy, its vibrancy, was so different from Nanda Parbat that she couldn't help being caught up in it - even standing as she was now in the midst of a handful of modern high-rise apartment buildings with none of the charm of the older parts of the city.
But she wasn't here for pleasure, nor even for an assignment for the League, after which she might have stolen a few precious hours to enjoy the city. She was here at the request of Oliver Queen.
Oliver Queen. Al Sah-him - her father's chosen heir. Her unchosen, unwilling husband according to League law.
Why she hadn't annulled the marriage since she'd become Ra's al Ghul was something she chose not to examine too closely. Not now, at any rate - not when he'd requested her presence.
Since they'd parted after his gift to her - Malcolm Merlyn's hand severed from his wrist, and with it the ring of Ra's al Ghul - they hadn't been in contact. She'd returned to Nanda Parbat while he remained in Star City to fight his crusade against those who threatened his city. What would cause him to leave the city he loved so much and, having left it, request her presence?
She checked the address he'd given her against the building she faced - an all-glass monstrosity that she supposed was tolerable only as a contrast to the older buildings only a street or two away. Yes, this too-modern building was her destination.
It was a matter of minutes only before she stepped off the elevator, considering how she would tell Oliver that the building he'd chosen had security only somewhat more competent than a group of seven-year-old boys could manage.
Nyssa found the correct apartment and knocked. The faintest of sounds - a whisper of conversation, the rustle of movement - carried through the door, and then it opened to reveal Oliver.
Though she kept her expression neutral - if only just - her breath caught. He was dressed casually in a T-shirt and slacks, nothing she hadn't seen before, but his expression was more relaxed and open than she'd ever known him to be. A relaxed Oliver, all his strength and power at rest but ready to leap in response to his will - that was new. New and oddly…exciting.
"Nyssa," he said. "Thank you for coming so quickly."
She nodded, both acknowledgment and greeting, and was glad her voice sounded normal when she responded. "Far from home, are you not, husband?"
He stood back to let her in, and instincts honed by decades of training told her they weren't alone in the apartment. She tensed for battle, wondering why Oliver would have brought her to a trap.
But the other person wasn't hiding, had simply stood back a respectful distance. Now a man with curly brown hair and a neatly-trimmed beard, dressed even more casually than Oliver in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, stepped forward.
"Nyssa Raatko," Oliver said, "Ra's al Ghul, this is Danny Rand."
Rand offered her a fist-to-palm salute, bowing his head briefly and saying, "I am honored to meet you."
Nyssa wasn't certain what surprised her more - that he spoke in barely-accented Mandarin, or that his right fist glowed as he pressed it against his left palm. Her heart stuttered. She knew what that meant, who she faced…if that were real.
"What is this?" she demanded of Oliver. "A trick or a trap?"
"Neither," Oliver answered with complete sincerity.
"Would you know if it were a trick?" Nyssa countered. "What do you know of the Iron Fist?"
"Only what he's told me and shown me in combat," Oliver said.
Nyssa could, she thought, be forgiven for staring at him. "You fought the Iron Fist and lived?"
Oliver's lip twitched. "I fought Ra's al Ghul and lived. Twice."
"That is not the same," Nyssa said.
"It wasn't really combat," Rand cut in, drawing her attention back to him. "We were sparring. But if you want proof-"
He tugged at the sweatshirt he wore, lifting it to reveal a dragon symbol of deepest black branded into the skin of his chest.
Nyssa took an involuntary step forward, her fingertips stretching out but stopping short before they touched skin. Touching wasn't necessary; she could feel the power inches away. "Shou-Lao. This could not be faked."
"Tattoos can be faked," Oliver pointed out, and she wasn't certain whether to thank him for his reminder or berate him for his ignorance. She chose a middle path.
"The symbol, yes," she admitted. "But not the power it contains."
She let her hand fall and straightened to offer him the same salute he'd offered her. "The honor is mine, Rand-Kai."
"Be welcome in my home," Rand said, and finally Oliver let the door close behind her, locking it before turning to follow Rand further inside.
Nyssa filed Oliver's apparent ease with Rand away for future consideration. She might not know her husband well (and certainly not carnally, a small inner voice taunted) but she did know that for him to accept another as easily as he appeared to have accepted Rand was unusual.
"Tea?" Rand offered.
"Yes, thank you," Nyssa said. "And perhaps while we drink you will explain why the Iron Fist requested my presence."
"It's all true?" Oliver sounded ever-so-slightly awed as he led her to the dining table and held a chair for her - an old-fashioned courtesy, perhaps, but one that Nyssa found she enjoyed.
"What's true?" she asked.
"Nanda Parbat is one of the cities of heaven."
"Not entirely," Nyssa said. "Nanda Parbat is more the town below the castle keep. We guard the entrance to the city."
"Which one?" Rand asked, too casually, from where he waited for the kettle on his stove to boil.
Nyssa debated only a moment before giving it its traditional name. "Zhizhu Wangguo."
Rand blew out a breath. "The Kingdom of Spiders."
"Yes," Nyssa said more for Oliver's sake than because Rand needed the confirmation.
Rand placed a mug of tea on the table in front of her. "I hadn't expected to find one of the champions working for the Hand."
"She would not," Nyssa declared. "Not voluntarily."
"How can you be sure?" Oliver's question was gentle. "Do you know the champion he's talking about?"
"My half-sister."
"Talia?" Oliver sounded surprised.
Not as surprised as she was. Nyssa stared at him. "You know Talia?"
Oliver turned to Rand without answering her question. "When you say you defeated her - do you mean you killed her?"
"No," Rand answered immediately, even before Nyssa had the chance to consider the implications if his answer had been different.
"Where is she now?" Nyssa asked.
"I don't know," Rand answered. "I left her at the warehouse the Hand was using."
"Talia would not work for the Hand," Nyssa repeated, more emphatically. "Not voluntarily."
"She seemed pretty enthusiastic to me," Rand said. He held up a hand before Nyssa could protest. "I'm not judging, just observing."
"We all know there are ways to force cooperation," Oliver put in. "Blackmail and drugs, to name the obvious. Talia could have been coerced. Or she could have a plan we're not aware of."
"Can you contact her?" Rand asked.
Nyssa shook her head. "We haven't been close since she was taken for training."
"Taken?" Oliver asked.
"On their fifth birthday, all firstborn children of Ra's al Ghul are taken for fifteen years of training," Nyssa said. "It is part of the agreement between Nanda Parbat and Zhizhu Wangguo. Not all who are trained become the champion."
She knew pride tinged her voice, and she wasn't ashamed. Circumstances might have dictated that she and Talia would never be close, but she would always be proud of her sister.
"She is very skilled," Rand allowed.
"When was the last time you saw her?" Oliver asked.
"Last year, before you came to Nanda Parbat to challenge our father," Nyssa said. "She received instructions - we assumed from Zhizhu Wangguo - and she left. We have had no word since."
"More than a year," Oliver murmured. "Plenty of time."
"Time for what?" Rand asked.
"Almost anything to have happened," Oliver said. He met Rand's gaze. "Will you take us to wherever you fought her?"
Nyssa stiffened. "She is my sister-"
"And I offer my assistance in finding out what happened to her," Oliver finished. "Freely, without obligation to you."
She bent to her tea to hide the shame that flushed her cheeks. Whether intentionally or not, Oliver had reminded her of the price she'd made him pay before she helped his sister, Thea. That had not been her finest moment, and yet Oliver didn't seem to hold a grudge over it. She could do no less for him.
She straightened and met his gaze. "Thank you, husband."
=A=IF=A=
430 Cherry Street.
It was an address Danny had never expected to visit again. It was an address he would never forget.
In the afternoon light, the vine-covered walls seemed almost welcoming. Danny shook that thought aside and strode into the brick-lined alcove.
He paused just outside the gate, Oliver and Ra's al Ghul - Nyssa - flanking him on either side. "It was a grand duel - the Hand's version of a challenge. Their best fighters against me."
"Why did you accept the challenge?" Oliver asked.
"It was the only way to rescue an innocent girl." Danny stepped forward. Unlike at his last visit, the heavy gates remained closed. He stretched out a hand, found they resisted his push.
"Can you climb these?" he asked without turning. "I could break them down, but-"
Two lithe figures sweeping past him cut off his thought, and in a moment he found himself alone outside the gates.
"C'mon, slowpoke," Oliver called from the far side of the gates.
"Showoffs," Danny muttered, and then he, too, had vaulted the gates and stood beside the other two in the courtyard.
The plants, lanterns, and statues that had greeted him during his last visit were gone. All that remained was the ivy-covered building with its pagoda-like entrance. He shouldn't be surprised - the Hand wouldn't sit quietly waiting for his return.
The doors had been padlocked. Danny exhaled, reaching within to summon his chi.
"Let me." Oliver stepped forward, pulling a multi-tool knife from one of the pockets on the cargo trousers he'd worn.
"You learned some useful skills during your exile," Danny observed, watching as Oliver worked the padlock.
"One or two." Oliver stood and let the chain fall through the door handles, the rattling noise echoing through the courtyard. "But I never fought a dragon."
"Listen" Nyssa said. "A busy street lies not a hundred yards behind us, but here it's almost as quiet as Nanda Parbat."
"Except for the chains," Danny had to point out.
Oliver glanced sidewise at him. "They knew we were here before we vaulted the gate."
"Then the time for stealth is past." Nyssa stepped forward, shoving the doors open.
Danny followed her inside, Oliver at his right. In the daytime, he'd expected the room to be brighter, but the only light came from a couple of windows high up on the walls. Beside him, Oliver swapped the knife for a compact high-beam flashlight and swept it across the space.
Like the outdoor approach, the room had been stripped of adornment - screen, planter, lantern braziers. The only thing remaining was the circular stone basin in the center of the room.
"What is this place?" Nyssa asked, turning a slow circle to study the brick-arched alcoves lining each side of the room.
"Stables, maybe? In the past, at least," Oliver ventured. "You can see where gates used to be."
He aimed the flashlight at one of the alcoves, and a metal hinge gleamed dully in its beam.
"This is where you fought my sister?" Nyssa asked.
"There were three challengers. Technically four," Danny corrected himself. "The first was through here."
The room where he'd fought the Russians looked much as it had before, except for the remains of the Russians' blood circle on the concrete floor.
"There were two," Danny said. "Russians who said they fought as one."
"The Veznikov brothers," Oliver said.
Danny turned to him, one eyebrow lifted. On his other side, Nyssa frowned.
"I was bratva," Oliver said, as though it were an explanation in itself - and maybe it would've been, if Danny'd had the first clue what the bratva was. "They have a reputation."
"They got in my head," Danny admitted. "Made me question who I am, what my purpose was."
"Doubt leads to death." Oliver regarded him seriously. "How'd you win?"
"It was as if Lei Kung were speaking to me, guiding me once again," Danny said. "I listened to him, and they fell."
"What of Talia?" Nyssa's sharp question brought him back to the moment.
"This way." Danny retraced the route he'd taken when the old Chinese lady had escorted him to the second challenge.
Like the room where he'd faced the Russians - the Veznikov brothers, Oliver had called them - this space looked much as it had when he'd fought the Bride of Nine Spiders. Only the gauzy fabric had been removed; the oxygen tanks, chain-link fencing and bare bulbs overhead remained.
Danny found a switch on the wall, flipped it. Surprisingly, the bulbs flickered to light, and Oliver switched off his flashlight.
"Here," Danny said. "I fought her here."
"And?" Nyssa prompted.
"She tried to seduce me," Danny blurted.
"More mind games," Oliver said, his voice echoing in the space. Danny blinked, realized that Oliver was pacing the room, studying the floor.
"Did it work?" Nyssa asked, and Danny wasn't certain what lay behind the question, if anything.
"Almost," he allowed, wincing internally at the memory of how uncertain he'd been, thrown off-center because of a woman's seductive ways.
Lei Kung never prepared me for that.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Oliver squat to pick something up from the floor.
"What?" he asked.
"Acupuncture needle, I think." Oliver held it up, so thin it would've been invisible if it hadn't caught the light.
"Careful," Danny warned. "They're tipped with singing spider venom."
"So it was Talia," Nyssa murmured. "I had hoped otherwise."
"I'm sorry." Danny wasn't surprised that Oliver offered the words. He was surprised that he echoed the other man.
"I will find whoever corrupted her, and they will pay for what they've done," Nyssa vowed.
"We should find Talia first," Oliver said gently.
"How?" Nyssa demanded. "There's nothing left here that could tell us where she is."
"Nothing here, no," Oliver agreed. "But this is New York. There are traffic cameras, ATM cameras, security cameras all over. One of them saw something." He turned to Danny. "When was the challenge?"
Danny frowned as he searched his memory. "The tenth. We finished by nine, maybe nine-thirty that night."
Oliver nodded and turned away, pulling his cell phone from a pocket.
Danny found himself frowning as he watched the other man place a call and speak in tones low enough that, even in this echoing space, Danny couldn't understand a word.
"What troubles you, Rand-Kai?"
"Danny," he corrected automatically, even as he wondered whether to answer her.
"If I pry, I apologize," she added, and he half-smiled.
"It's not a secret. It's just - I've known Oliver two days, and I wonder if I should trust him as much as I do. Then again," he added more to remind himself than to inform her, "I've known Ward and Joy since we were kids, and I'm not sure I should trust them as much as I do."
Nyssa appeared to consider the question.
"I don't know that there are shoulds in matters of the heart," she said finally, her voice almost as low as Oliver's as he spoke with whoever was on the other end of his call. "And you've known me even less than you've known him, but for what it may be worth, he is a man of honor - however difficult he may make it to believe that."
Danny nodded an acknowledgment just as Oliver turned to rejoin them.
"Felicity's checking the cameras nearby for any signs of Talia when she left," he reported.
"How?" Danny asked. He might have missed fifteen years of changing technology, but even so, checking security cameras seemed a little unusual.
"I wouldn't understand the details if she told me," Oliver said. Which didn't answer the question, but at the same time told Danny all he needed to know.
"She did say," Oliver continued, "that because we don't have a photo to match, the search may take a bit longer."
"Any idea how long?" Danny asked, more out of consideration for Nyssa than any real curiosity.
"As long as it takes," Nyssa answered with a slight smile. "Some things cannot be rushed."
"In the meantime," Oliver said, "I'll see what the local Russians know about the Veznikov brothers."
"I'll come with you," Danny offered, but Oliver was shaking his head even before he'd finished speaking.
"You're too recognizable," Oliver said. "They won't talk to me if you're there."
Danny scowled. What Oliver said was likely true - but he didn't have to like that fact.
"I will watch your back." Nyssa's tone brooked no debate, and Oliver nodded once before looking back at Danny.
"We'll be back for dinner. Or sooner, if Felicity gets lucky."
With a silent sigh, Danny gave in. "Text when you're on your way. I'll order takeout."
=A=IF=A=
"You can sleep here." Oliver opened the door to the guest room Danny had offered him - the guest room he'd ignored last night, instead falling asleep on the living room floor while talking with Danny.
To be fair, when he'd woken in the morning, Danny was fast asleep on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table from him.
Nyssa surveyed the room. While modern American eyes might consider it minimalist, even Spartan, the quality of its furnishings was, by League standards, opulent. Oliver used her moment - and it was only a moment - of study to grab his duffel bag from where he'd dropped it the evening before.
"And where will you sleep, husband?"
"Why do you call me that? In private, I mean," he added, just to clarify. There were occasions when others needed to be reminded of their relationship, but those were almost always League occasions.
"Because you are," she answered simply. Then she turned to face him, and her expression was anything but simple. "And that is a fact I must accustom myself to."
"Why?"
"That is a conversation I believe is best had another time." Her gaze swept over the room. "Another place."
Oliver wanted to protest, to say that he'd already swept Danny's apartment for electronic surveillance and that he trusted Danny, but he stopped even before his mouth twitched to open. The first might be true, but was he willing to stake his life, and hers, on the second?
"Your preference," he said finally.
"And?"
Oliver blinked, surprised. "And?"
"And where will you sleep?" There were layers in the question, and Oliver could only identify a couple of them. He suspected she was deliberately letting him hear those layers.
He nodded toward the living room. "He has an Oriental rug that's surprisingly comfortable."
Nyssa smiled, as he'd hoped she would. "Good dreams."
"Sleep well." He turned to go, but her voice, softer now, so soft he almost missed it, called him back.
"You may kiss me good night."
Those six words were a minefield, but the request behind them was clear. Oliver took another step into the room, into her personal space, and bent to kiss her cheek.
"Good night," he murmured.
She caught his head in her hand and tugged it down so she could press her lips to his. It was a gentle thing, and over almost before he realized her intent.
"Good night," she whispered. "Husband."
He swallowed, uncaring that she'd see that minor lapse, because it was followed by the major one of a tactical - or maybe strategic - retreat to the living room.
Danny was sitting on the sofa, legs crossed in a lotus position. Oliver placed his duffel on the floor as quietly as he could.
"Noise won't bother me," Danny said. "But I appreciate the consideration."
"I've never been able to master sitting meditation," Oliver offered. "I have to move."
"I didn't have a choice. But it has advantages. Not requiring a dojo, for one."
Oliver chuckled and turned to find something to occupy himself with while his host meditated.
"No, it's fine. There's something I wanted to tell you, anyway."
"What?" Oliver crossed the room to take a seat on the coffee table facing Danny.
"Before the challenge, there was a man - one of the Hand. I fought him." Danny met Oliver's gaze. "The Hand killed him because he lost."
Oliver got the implication immediately. "You think they might have killed Talia, too."
"It's a possibility."
Oliver turned that over in his mind, examining it from every angle he could think of. Finally, he met Danny's gaze. "If they did, they did. I don't see that there's any profit to them in killing her, not yet, anyway. But we have to assume she's still alive."
"So we don't worry Nyssa?"
Oliver chuckled. "Iron Fist or not, you'd have a fight on your hands if she heard you say that. We assume she's alive because if we assume otherwise, we might miss something in the search."