Chapter Text
Like every year during the winter time, Gotham is extremely cold at the moment. It has been snowing for the last couple of days. It is not rare to see snow in the crime ridden city of Gotham, it would be surprising not to see any snow at all. Tim gets to see a “White Christmas” every year, for as long as he can remember, since his birth but who can remember anything from their birth?
He notices a mugging nearby from atop of the roof he is crouching on, he wonders to himself as to why people resort to muggings continuously in this city knowing full well that Batman and his soldiers work in this city. He asks the same question over and over again for the last couple of years to himself, he already knows the answer but he still questions it regardless. Spotting the three victims, all female and scared to death in the situation they are in. Not everyone in this city experience a mugging but a lot of people do, he still wonders if these three live here. He grabs a hold of his grappling gun and jumps down to deal with the mugger.
Two of the victims are still in shock and the one that is not keeps thanking Tim for saving them, “Thank you!” she repeats over and over. “I don’t know what would’ve happen to us if you didn’t show up when you did!” she was crying, she was relieved. He did not expect to be hugged, it was not the first time to happen to him but it was not something he expects to happen to him. While the hug was unexpected but not shocking, a kiss was not something he thought was going to happen to him. Her green hair catches his eye, it was obvious to him that she dyed it and wonders how recent the color change is, he also takes notice of the smell of her perfume, he thought it went nice with the way she was dressed tonight. Allowing himself to be this distracted by how the attractiveness of her choice of clothing and body is something that he has tried to never happen when he started this life style, he does not show it but it does happen to him but he will not admit it to anyone.
The image of Lynx’s unmasked face comes to his mind, he smiles at the green haired woman and tells them that the police should be here soon. After tying up the mugger he looks at them again and tells them to stay safe while they are at Gotham, the city can be quite unforgiving to those who are never careful walking in the streets at night. Using his grappling gun to head to the nearest roof and brood once again, he is bothered that he is allowing Lynx to trouble him again. Bruce has given him advice how to deal with her, his mentor has noticed that the struggles of the past is going to repeat itself once again. Tim’s growing attraction to her continues to bother him and an unwelcome distraction at the moment; with everything that has been going on in his life, he does not believe he needs someone else to be distracting him from his work.
Wonder Girl has been in his mind as well lately, they have been spending a lot more time together after her relationship with Superboy ended. A year after not seeing each other they decided to try out being in a relationship with each other but that did not work out for either of them. The reason for that is probably because Conner’s (Superboy) was still in Cassie’s (Wonder Girl) mind and Tim had lost not only his father but his girlfriend Steph (Spoiler). Steph and Conner came back into their lives but by that time Tim and Cassie had already ended their relationship due to the fact they did not think they were truly in love with each other. The snow continues to fall onto him as he does his best to stop thinking about Lynx and Cassie. With all the problems he has to deal with regarding Batman and Anarchy, love problems is the last thing he wants to deal with.
The sound of a nearby police siren arrives at the crime scene and he takes one last look at the green haired woman, she is cute he thinks to himself. The failure of keeping Cassie out of his mind causes him to consider to give her a call but Tim decides against it. Noticing the time, he does not think she is awake at the moment, at least it is rare for her to be up at this time. It is 2:04 a.m. on December 14th, the night is still young and he is expecting more occurrences like this mugging to happen again tonight in Gotham.
A dance remix of “Find the Way” wakes her up from the dream she was just having, she does not bother to look at the clock as she remembers what time she has set up her alarm clock. Cassie had a feeling that she would not be able to wake up at the time she wanted, she has not been able to get a good night sleep these last few days, she has been worried about Tim’s obsession with Anarchy lately since that is all he thinks about. She tries to push it away from her mind at the moment and gets out of her bed. Living by herself again has been a struggle, so when Donna Troy offered her a room at her apartment, she quickly agreed and moved in as soon as she could. Without her mother living with her, her life has been kind of a mess, she lost some stability that her mother gave her but Cassie felt like she needed someone to help her out.
Donna had become like a sister to her, a sister she never had, they are related by blood since Cassie is Zeus’ daughter. She walks out of her room and towards the kitchen to fix herself up some breakfast and her roommate is already there finishing up her meal, “Late night, hon?” Donna asks without looking at her, “Hope those dreams that you mentioned to me aren’t bothering you again…” Cassie just nods as she grabs a bowl from the cupboard to get herself some cereal to have, “I can deal with it. It’s not killing me.” Donna finally faces her and gives her a worried look, she was about to say something else before Cassie continues, “How is the photo journalism job?” she does not want to think about her dream or talk about it, Donna takes the hint and they talk about something else as Cassie sits across from her to start her breakfast. The sun shines over them at the kitchen table. Miami really does have pretty mornings she thinks to herself.
“What are you trying to say?” Cassie asks in a defensive manner, “I don’t know why Donna would even mention that to you, I’m fine, Diana.” She feels something like this should not be spoken about over the phone, there are things that she be said in person. “I’m just worried about you, Cassie. We haven’t spoken in some time and I apologize for that but this is something that we should talk about.” Diana tells her, she can tell that Diana is doing something else while they are on the phone and it irritates her. “If you’re really that worried then you would come see me instead of calling me. This isn’t something I want to talk about over the phone right now. Bye.” She hangs up her phone abruptly and prays to Hera that her mentor does not call back.
Feeling guilty that she might have been harsh but she feels that she is right and fights off the urge to call Diana back. It has been a different experience living somewhere that is warm; always moving around because of her mother’s work, they usually lived somewhere warm but the longest place she stayed at has been cold and she remembers that fondly. Though, it seems like she prefers the warmer weather.
It was her day off today but she did not want to sleep in because of her dreams, she notices that it is December 14th today, Christmas is less than two weeks away and plans to spend it with family and friends. She did notice that Tim is the only that declined to show up for the Christmas party the rest of the Titans had set up. He had started to become distant after problems started to arise with Batman, deciding to leave the team once again and leave her in charge is what he thought would be in the best interest for everyone. It annoyed her that he did not take any suggestions on what to do because at the moment all he cares about is capturing Anarchy. She realized that he has always made it difficult to love him and it hit her soon after that she is in love with him. The thought shocks her at first because they have tried being in love with each other before. The feelings were there, at least they were attracted to each other but they were not truly in love with each other. The ghosts of Conner and Steph haunted them before they returned to them. The problem although, is that Conner is still around and she still has feelings for him and she knows that he still has feelings for her. A small giggle sound comes out of her mouth, her love life has always been complicated and probably always will be. Her mother always told her that love is never easy.
Cassie lays her head on the kitchen table and takes a look at the time, 11:57 a.m. She wonders if Tim is up by now. They have been talking to each other more frequently lately, they have gotten closer to each other which is probably why she feels the way she does. They have been through so much together, they have seen the best and the worst of each other. She really cannot see anyone else next to her other than him. Worrying that he does not feel the same way because of the way he talks about his encounters with Lynx and the duel of the lips they have, she decides to call him. A sleeping man bat should be up at this time anyway she tells herself.
Tim returned to his apartment around 6:00 a.m. after only encountering a couple more muggings. Nothing big happened that night other than grateful people for having their lives saved by him. He went to sleep around 8:00 a.m. with the thought of Cassie coming to his head, it almost felt like he was at peace as he closed his eyes to finally sleep. At around 10:00 a.m. he wakes up after a two hour sleep to start the new day, being trained by the Batman has helped him to keep going with as little sleep as he needs.
Almost an hour later after already finishing up his breakfast his phone rings, with just the sound of the ringtone -the dance remix of Find the Way- he knows that it is Cassie that is calling him. He does not hurry himself to pick up the phone as he ponders whether to ignore it or not. She usually does not call this early he thinks to himself but she is the only person he is willing to talk to and he does not want to burn the bridge down just yet. Finally picking up his phone he yawns as he says “Cassie, why are you calling this early?” She scoffs at his question, “Do I need a good reason to call a friend in need?” the sound of her voice brings a smile to his face as they talk for a while, the day just started for both of them. One of them realizes the love that is blooming while the other is struggling to forget about love. Christmas is fast approaching and they both want to see each other already.
The talks Cassie and Tim share have been something they both have gotten a hang of lately. They both have lives that are complicated and the people outside of their life style will probably never understand what they have to do to be able to have any sort of a “normal” life. Cassie puts down her phone after a while from Tim hanging up because he had some stuff he needed to do, they talked close to an hour. To her, these talks have been therapeutic, she feels without the then her life would be far more insane. She gets up from her seat and walks towards the sliding door window and looks out to see two butterflies flying with each other, it almost looks like they are dancing, quite beautiful she thinks to herself. Their wings are colored green, they continue to dance around as they reach a tree and decide to fly up over it and out of Cassie’s view.
She has other friends that she is able to talk to like Cissie, Kara, Kiran, Raven, and she has even been talking to Tim’s ex-girlfriend, Steph, as well. But there are stuff she does not feel like she can share with them, stuff that she feels that only Tim can understand. Turning away from the window she decides to turn on the television set to watch the local news, she wonders if there is anything else she can do today other than just staying home doing nothing.
Ever since it became known that both Donna Troy and the current Wonder Girl are living in Miami, more of Wonder Woman’s enemies have taken that news as an invitation to attack their new home. Cassie feels guilty that they have brought this kind of attention to this city and feels that it is her responsibility to stay here and protect it no matter what. She does not think that she has ever felt that way about a specific place since she usually moves around before she can settle on a location. The news announces that Shimmer is attacking a bank near Downtown Miami, she knows what she has to do and moves quickly to get changed and head out to stop Shimmer.
Tim comes to her mind as she flies off into the sky, she wonders if he feels the excitement of doing this kind of work anymore. He does not talk about his early days but she assumes he must have loved it at first, he must have loved it even more by the time he teamed up with Conner and Bart to form Young Justice and when the others joined up. Being around people your age always helps out, being around people who are your friends are even better. She knows that he hates this life right now but she wants to make it better for him somehow, at least she believes she can do it.