Chapter Text
Today had started with nightmares, awkward conversations, and dismaying revelations about the help he could have called months ago if only Jason had remembered it. Cooking had probably been the most exciting part. A child assassin barging through one’s window kinda took the cake.
Jason barely managed to protect his chin when Dick shoved him to the ground. Knives thudded into the cabinets above; their attacker was probably drawing again and neither of them were wearing body armor. Jason rolled fast, shoving his idiot brother against the island, and caught the next knife between two fingers an inch from his face. (It stung.)
“Akhi!!!” Damian shrieked distantly. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!!!”
“Shit---” Jason blocked raining blows, struggling to get to his knees without moving away; Dick was still behind him and he couldn’t see and the kid still had knives. “Damian DON’T---”
The sound of Damian bowling headfirst into the assassin was reminiscent of a yowling cat. Jason scrambled to his feet, crushing the urge to draw a meat knife from the block, and kicked Dick out of the way. The kids were chasing each other too closely; there was no room for backup and Damian was losing. The girl struggled away from his grasping hands, ran up the wall, and kicked off over his shoulder. She landed behind him, using his own arms as a chokehold.
“Hey!!!” Jason grabbed the softest thing within arm’s reach--- an orange--- and lobbed it at the assassin’s head. “I’M the target!!! C’mon!!!”
The orange bounced off the girl’s masked face. She dropped Damian, fury in her scrunched eyebrows, and leaped from his back to gain height, lunging---
Jason ducked under her guard at the risk of another knife, catching her bodily around the waist. He blocked the slash with his forearm, drew his load back, and slammed her into the ground. Her head hit his hand instead of the tile, and she rolled over, scrambling dizzily for purchase. Dick, finally coming to his senses, leaped at her and pinned her arms and lifted her into the air.
“Hold her still,” Jason panted sharply, raking sensitive fingers over her wriggling body; knives, weapons, anything with a familiar… There, three more of them in a half-empty sheath; six ninja stars, one garrote, and a vial with a note inside. He had to tug hard for that one; it was sewn to her clothes.
“Ouch,” Dick hissed as she sank her teeth into his forearm.
“Hangon.” Jason pulled the girl’s gaiter back up her face, using it like a makeshift gag. She struggled frantically enough to hurt herself. “Can you h---”
Dick folded inward, getting to his knees to trap the kid’s legs underneath him, her head against the floor and her body between his knees; a makeshift safety hold. “I got her. Go get Damian.”
Jason was already skidding to his little brother’s side, heart pounding wildly in his throat. “Are you hurt, can you breathe?”
Damian coughed grumpily, grabbing Jason’s shirt to steady himself. “I am fine. I miscalculated---”
“She was aiming to kill,” Jason muttered darkly, pushing Damian’s sweaty hair back from his forehead. “You’ve been working lately on non-lethal combat training; you were caught off your guard.”
“I apologize,” Damian croaked hoarsely. “It will not happen again.”
“It sure won’t.” Jason surged to his feet, backtracking. “Dick?”
“She’s gonna break her neck,” Dick grunted back. “I can’t… shit…”
Jason hit his knees at their side, reaching under Dick’s guard to rest a hand on the back of the girl’s neck. He didn’t squeeze, not really, but the tiny assassin stilled anyway, barely breathing. “Geez.”
“What are we waiting for?” Damian joined them with two fistfuls of the girl’s knives, temper blazing. “She is attendant to Cain; he is surely not far behind!!! We MUST---”
“Kid… kid, let’s just…” Jason glanced fervently from window to window. It was raining outside; he couldn’t decide if anyone was lurking on the fire escape or in the hallway or… “Let’s just take a breather.”
“What?! No!!!” Damian stomped his foot emphatically, hoarseness rising. “She almost KILLED you; we need to flee!!! We--- Release me at ONCE; we must leave!!! Why won’t you listen to me?!”
Jason smoothly disarmed Damian of all pointy objects, scooped him into a hug, and held him tight. He wobbled to his feet to check the buildings outside. Empty. He checked the street--- abandoned--- then the hallway of the apartment; all quiet. He locked the door behind him.
Damian fisted handfuls of Jason’s hoodie, choking on what sounded very like a sob. “She t-tried to kill you, Akhi…”
“Shhhhhhhhhhh.” Jason rocked from foot to foot, checking briefly on Dick to be sure he wasn’t having his eyes clawed out of their sockets. “I’m okay. Look; she barely nicked me. I’m okay.”
“You are bleeding. I should have… I should have protected you.”
Jason squeezed tighter, allowing himself a shaky sigh. Adrenaline hadn’t allowed him to even feel it yet, but he could tell just by looking that it wasn’t poisoned. (Why… Why wasn’t it poisoned?) “You’re not gonna win every fight that comes your way, habibi; you’re just not. Even Batman loses, alright? I’m okay. You’ve protected me from enough.”
Damian burrowed into his shoulder, hiding his tears. Jason let him. “How you doin’, Dick?”
“She’s barely breathing,” Dick reported dryly, turning his head on hers to look at Jason from the floor. “I still have all my fingers, though. Y’know you’re bleeding?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Jason crouched down, keeping Damian on the hip furthest from their visitor. “Try sitting up. Slowly.”
Dick raised himself back to his heels, still hugging the girl to his chest. He was right; she’d gone from vicious flight to a terrified freeze. Her wide eyes beaded with tears, glazing over.
“She’s checking out.” Jason risked a gentle touch, brushing her hair from her tear-streaked face. “Check her for a concussion or bleeding; I hit her pretty hard.”
“Who is she?” Dick loosened one hand to feel the tiny assassin for any injury. “You recognize her.”
Jason watched the girl’s blank expression, morbidly fascinated. “If Cain was going to attack us, he would have done it by now. He either sent her as a spy…” Anger bubbled in his gut, finally causing the green to flare. “… or on a suicide mission.”
Damian raised himself up with a hearty sniffle. “Cain is not here?”
“Not so far.” Jason stood up, grabbing his extra pistol from the compartment under the island counter. Just… to be safe. “I’ll scan the perimeter anyway, see what I can see.”
“Wait, David Cain?” Dick snarled over the girl’s head. “David Cain wants you dead?”
“It’s a big club.” Jason set Damian on the counter, checking the contents of the mag before grabbing his armor-lined jacket. “I’ll be right back; stay here, Damian.”
“But I---”
“STAY.” Jason climbed out the broken window, scaled the last two floors with his bare hands, and vaulted onto the roof. Aside from rain and cars and the occasional shout from pedestrians below, he couldn’t hear anything. Or, rather, the lack of anything. No silence where there should have been the pit-patter of rainfall; no strange pockets of quiet, no shadows that held perfectly still. Nothing.
By the time he got back inside, he was soaking wet. Dick was sitting criss-cross in the more protected corner of the kitchen with the girl in his lap, hugging her now instead of restraining her. She sat limply against his chest, frozen except for the ongoing tears.
“Well?” Jason croaked out, dread flooding his spine. Did I hurt her?
“A mild concussion, bruised ribs.” Dick looked up in the calm sort of way that hid fragile desperation. “It’s hard to tell anything else; she’s too dissociated. Who is she, Jay? Why does she want you dead?”
Jason raked his hand through his damp hair, sighing. “Her name’s Cassandra. It’s… a long story.”
Damian hopped to his feet. “I will put the ramen on.”
************
“That’s… Okay, hold up.” Grayson leaned back into a corner of the couch, glancing at the boarded-up window, then at the trembling assassin still curled in his arms. “It doesn’t sound like she has any reason to want you guys dead, right? You were so kind to her.”
“We tried to be.” Akhi rested his elbows on his knees, flexing his hands. (Were they stiff from the cold, or was he simply uneasy? What about anger? The Pit in his eyes still glowed.) “I may have spooked her a bit. I doubt she’s here because she wants to be. Look at her; she’s like seven years old.”
“She must have been sent by Cain,” Damian repeated insistently, setting down the ready-made ramen bowls he was allowed to prepare without supervision. Why did no one else see the urgency in this matter? “Why else would she target you specifically? I am the one Cain should be offended by; I interrupted his audience with Mother, took his daughter from his presence against his wishes, and faceplanted into his tush.”
Grayson’s eyebrows disappeared into his ridiculous hair. “That’s a relevant… piece of information.”
“Yes, thank you, Damian.” Akhi shook his head as a horse would to rid itself of flies. His frustration appeared to be mounting. Would it help to climb into his lap, or just make it worse? “We’d fought before during my first year as a vigilante, but there’s no personal grudge as far as I’m aware. I’ll bet you anything he sent her on a suicide mission. You were right, Damian; why go so out of his way to kill me when he’s not even there to back her up? He had to know she’d fail.”
“He thought you’d kill her?” Dick hugged the assassin tighter, hiding her face in his shoulder. She still refused to move. “That’s messed up.”
Damian stared at the girl with a funny feeling in his throat. His gut was hot with anger, shame, and the will to act, but he could still remember the quiet sympathy he’d felt as said assassin had skittered under his cot in Nanda Parbat, refusing to accept the food she clearly wanted to take.
“This was sewn to the inside of her shirt.” Akhi held up a tiny bottle, prying at the lid. “I can’t quite…”
“Here, allow me.” Damian swiped it from Akhi’s hand, using his much smaller fingers to wiggle the tight cap from its hold. He carefully tugged the note out, passing it over. “A message, it looks like. A threat, perhaps?”
Akhi smoothed the crinkling paper over his knee, reading the slanted English aloud. “‘Haras Malki… I hope this letter finds you in good health. News of your victories in Gotham have reached me on my assignment across the sands, and though you were never meant to escape our grasp’--- That’s a lie; she helped us escape. Maybe she’s covering for the possibility of someone else finding the note--- ‘Though you were never meant to escape our grasp, I am pleased to hear that you have reached such acclaim in your own right.’”
“Real sunshiny lady,” Grayson commented dryly. “At least she complimented you; she just ignored me. Sorry Dami. Uh, go on.”
Akhi cleared his throat. “‘Forgive the unorthodox method of intrusion. I hope that, reading on, you may understand. This child of your known enemies is in grave danger. Her father has become reckless with her life, and upon her mother’s request, I have arranged to send said child on a mission to assassinate you in your own home.’”
Damian leaped up, enraged to action despite the thunder in his chest. “That is false!!! Mother would never---”
“Wait, wait, hang on.” Akhi clutched the note in both hands. “‘I know of course that you will have won this fight without causing harm; your skills far exceed what is required to keep her safe. Her father believes her to have been killed on an impossible assignment to the Demon’s Head, and though vexed, he will look into her disappearance no further. I hope you will remember what her mother has done for you and yours and will respond in kind. Yours until the ill-fated day we meet again… Talia.’”
Damian’s teeth finally clicked shut. “I told you.”
Grayson whistled lowly. “Lady Shiva… the sociopath that helped train Tim…”
Akhi sat straighter. “Oh, so Tim got enemy trainers?”
“That… That lady is this kid’s mother?”
“Cassandra,” Damian corrected with another strange flip-flop in his stomach. He could not look at the girl without feeling confused. “I do not like this. Shiva is a martial master, yes, but there is no way she would have been able to hide this from Cain. Why---”
Akhi suddenly waved his hand, prompting Damian’s silence, and stared intently at the assassin in Grayson’s lap. She had stirred when she heard her name. Her gaze zeroed in on Damian.
“Why don’t you keep talking to her?” Grayson suggested softly, oblivious to the coiling spring. “It’s not like she can get---”
The girl arched her back in one fantastic twist, tumbling free of Grayson’s grasp. Akhi surged to his feet as she shot for the front door, but he wasn’t fast enough; Damian hadn’t even risen from his own seat before--- BANG. The door flew wide open, the air filled with the smell of burning wood, and the assassin was gone.
“Shit.” Akhi disarmed the sparking booby trap. “She activated the defense mechanism; she was shocked. I hadn’t refined…”
“How much voltage, Jay?” Grayson shouted over his shoulder, grabbing a jacket on his clumsy dash from the apartment.
“Clearly not enough if she’s still--- Wait, where are you going?!” Akhi stuck his head out of the doorway. “Hey!!!”
“I’ll get her, don’t worry!!!” Grayson called distantly. Then he too was gone.
Akhi slammed the door shut. “Fuck.”
“What if this is what she wants?” Damian scrambled to his brother’s side, tugging on the highest point he could reach; the hem of Akhi’s shirt. “What if she is leading Grayson into a trap?”
“He has his phone on him.” Akhi spun around, eyes glowing. “Maybe I can track it from here. Where’s my laptop?”
************
“Learn how to chase after tiny slippery children, Dick. It’ll come in handy someday, Dick. Surely Timmy wasn’t the last one, Dick.” An amused huff burst from Dick’s throat between his quiet panting. He leaped another wide gap. The assassin girl was doing a pretty good lose-your-tail job; excellent, in fact. It was only due to Past Dick’s foresight that he was able to keep up at all. Five whole blocks… seven… eight…
The elusive shadow finally slowed, darting between a roof’s ledge and an AC unit to hide. Dick crouched on a nearby chimney, catching his breath, and waited. It was raining pretty hard outside, and in this weather, that was worse than snow. They’d die of hypothermia before they’d drown. “Where are you g-going, kiddo?”
The shadow booked it. Dick fixed his footing, leaped to the next perch, and gave chase. He had a home turf advantage; the slippery rain, the signature of Gotham’s weather, had been his training ground for over a decade now. He didn’t think mini assassins trained in the rain; not by the way his target kept sliding clumsily around corners and almost-barely catching new ledges to climb on.
This was dangerous.
Just grab her, his impatient side whispered, the one that regularly wanted to smack Stephanie with a frying pan. He resisted, fell back a little instead. This kid was scared shitless, abandoned in a city that would not protect her from itself or those she’d escaped from, and catching her right now in the cold dark of a stormy mid-morning without the ability to communicate that she was safe would probably traumatize her at best.
Dick could play the slow game--- He just had to wait her out.
He didn’t have to wait long. The shadow stopped again to try another hiding spot, and if Dick sat veeeeery still, he could hear quick, sharp inhales through the rain. She was obviously hoping he’d pass her by, and obviously, Dick wasn’t doing that. How to communicate that she was safe without words?
“Cassandra,” he tried softly.
Cassandra took off. Dick, squashing his disappointment, followed. This chase only lasted four minutes before the shadow cornered herself on a rooftop with nowhere else to jump to, fingers poised like claws. Her hair was plastered to her thin face. She was shaking.
Dick landed in a puddle, allowing himself to be heard, to be seen. He tried for a smile. Words weren’t enough for this situation, and his instincts to grab were being unhelpful. What would Batman do?
What would Bruce do?
Dick took a knee, holding his empty hands up. “Cassandra.”
Cassandra actually hissed at him. Dick was torn between urges to laugh and cry. He kept his hands out, saying nothing. (What was there to say?)
The minutes slowly ticked by. Dick started shivering. He couldn’t imagine how cold the kid must be. Of all the places to stop…
Thunder boomed overhead. The shadow squeaked. A second later, Dick found himself with an armful of trembling girl.
A kid. She’s just a little kid.
Dick folded his arms around Cassandra’s body, squeezing gently. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t have--- His throat hurt. What had changed? Was he suddenly less threatening than the weather? Was he communicating effectively in other ways, in body language, in facial expression and tone?
It didn’t matter. He had her.
Dick’s phone buzzed, making both of them jump. He stood up, shushing Cassandra quickly as he pulled the device from an inner pocket. Seven missed calls, six from the same unknown number. He risked answering.
“Dick? Holy hell man, I can’t track you; where did you--- I’m coming, hang on.”
“Jay---”
“Are you hurt, did you fall for it?”
“Fall for what?” Dick adjusted his hold on the shivering kid. She looped tiny arms around his neck, hiding her face in the crook of his shoulder. (No, his heart did not melt.) “I’m okay, Little Wing. I’m okay.”
A shaky sigh. “Fuck.”
“Sorry. I was busy running.”
“From?”
“To. I got her.”
“No trap?”
“No trap, Jay. She’s just scared.” Dick eyed Cassandra’s raven black hair. “What would Damian have done?”
“Yeah, I know, I know… I just…”
“I don’t see Cain; I wasn’t followed. Hell, I disabled my trackers; how do you think I’ve kept your secret all this time?” Dick felt a distant pang of guilt as he said it. All that preparation just for Bruce to find them by chance. “I’m coming back. I’m not hurt. Just… cold.”
“You scared me.”
“Allow me to host a movie night to make it up to you.”
Some grudging grumbles. “Fine. You’re bringing the popcorn.”
“Warm up some blankets.” Dick pressed his hand to Cassandra’s back, to a tiny heartbeat rabbiting away in a tiny body. “We’re coming home.”