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“Hey, Tim?”
Tim glanced at Dick over the screen of his laptop and asked, “Yeah?”
Dick shifted a little, then asked, “Cassandra. You’re close, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Tim returned his attention to his laptop. “What’s up, Dick?”
“I want to get to know her better.” He frowned to himself a little, trying to find the words he wanted to use. “She’s my little sister, and I barely know her.”
Tim’s typing paused, and he again looked at his brother over the top of his laptop.
“Well,” he said, tone implying his thought, “maybe you could spar with her. She doesn’t, like, verbally talk much, but she’s more comfortable with body language.”
Brightening a little, Dick stood up and wanted to crush his little brother in a hug–but that wasn’t them anymore. Instead, he put a hand on Tim’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Thanks, Tim!”
Tim nodded, already refocused on whatever he was doing, and Dick headed out to find Cass.
Dick and Cassandra stood opposite to each other down on the sparring mats in the ‘cave. She stared at him and Dick smiled back, trying to let himself loosen up for her to be able to read him.
“You want to… Talk?” she asked carefully, softly.
“I want to get to know you, little sister.”
Cassandra smiled a little at that and they started the spar.
In minutes Dick was pinned, his face pressed to the mats.
“I yield,” he exhaled, coughing a little at the pressure on his lungs, and Cass let him up with a soft laugh.
Rolling onto his back, Dick breathed a long sigh and stared up at the ceiling dazedly.
Cass laid down to his right, using his arm as a pillow, and stared up with him.
“It is nice to meet you, Dick Grayson.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Cassandra Wayne.”
They both smiled.
Jason frowned when Cass left the room he’d literally just fucking entered. His socked foot was the only thing in the room when she’d left.
“She hates me,” Jason observed, walking to sit in a chair.
“I wouldn’t say she hates you as much as she hates your moral compass, actually,” Tim spoke up, doing some crossword puzzle.
Jason snorted. “What, so she’s worse than Bruce?”
Tim shrugged.
Sighing, Jason rested his forehead on the table.
It was quiet for a little bit before Jason said, “She’s my little sister. I want to know her. I want to be able to at least talk to her.”
Again shrugging, Tim said, “I don’t know what to tell you, Jason. Dick just had to spar with her. I don’t think she’ll let you.”
“I ain’t changing anytime soon.”
“That’s perfectly fine with me.”
“But not her.”
Tim sighed a little, then asked, “Hey, what’s a five letter word for understood or implied?”
“Tacit,” Jason muttered back.
“Awesome.”
“You’re welcome.”
When Tim and Cass spar, it’s more of a conversation.
As she sent a roundhouse his way, she asked, “How are you?” without actually saying it.
He blocked with a forearm and caught her leg, barely shrugging one of his shoulders to reply, “Alright. Could be better, could be worse. You?”
And they went on like that until Cass ended the spar with three taps to Tim’s head. They broke apart easily, both sweating and smiling, and Cass hugged him.
Tim relaxed further in the embrace, returning it.
“Hey, Cass.”
“Hi, Tim.”
One thing Duke knew about Cassandra Cain-Wayne was that you didn’t fight her. Because she’d win, every time.
Aside from that? He didn’t know her too well. He often hung out with Jason, and Cass apparently refused to be in the same room as him.
So they never really interacted much.
“Uh, hi,” Duke greeted, frozen like a deer in headlights when he saw Cass watching him on the sparring mats.
She nodded at him. “Hello.”
Clearing his throat, Duke asked, “Cass, right?”
Again she nodded.
“Duke?”
“Yeah.”
They watched each other for a few seconds before Cass asked, “Want to talk?”
Surprised, Duke said, “Talk?”
“My talking.”
“Oh.” Hesitating, he decided, “Sure.”
The spar they started ended with Duke going to have a lot of bruises he was definitely going to feel later.
“Great talk,” he wheezed, blinking up at Cass as she sat on his chest.
She giggled.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Great talk.”
Holding her hand out, Cass said, “Nice to meet you, Duke.”
Duke shook her hand and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Cass.”
He paused.
“Can I get up now?”
Damian watched his sister stretch on the mats, frowning a little. As he watched her practice with a training dummy, his frown deepened.
League of Assassins.
Walking out of his spot, Cassandra paused and faced him.
“Nice of you to walk out,” she said with a tilt of her head. “I was wondering how long it would take.”
“You knew I was there,” Damian answered, crossing his arms. “Why did you show me? Where you learned?”
“Because,” Cassandra replied, returning her attention to the draining dummy. “You are from there too.”
Damian went silent and watched her strikes gradually leak from lethal to nonlethal. Her body language went from hard to soft–almost gentle.
“You’re trying to teach me,” Damian finally said. “To show me.”
Cassandra stopped and faced him, face sober, and replied, “Yes.”
They stared at each other for a few minutes, then Damian nodded.
“Teach me.”
And Cassandra smiled.