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Cassandra sighed as she leaned against the buffeting wind, the tips of her toes curled in her boots as they jutted over the edge of the roof. It wasn’t quite raining, but she could feel the gathering storm deep in her bones, in the scar tissue of decade old injuries.
This would be a night where even the criminal element took shelter. It would be a night where, once, people without homes of their own would have died, or gotten close to it. There were well equipped, well run shelters now. Thanks to her, and Tim’s, and Jason’s work on the Gotham Restoration Project.
It had, during the budgeting phase, once been called the Narrows Reparation Project. She had found that encompassing all of Gotham in it had made it much more palatable to the board members.
She could still remember shivering between two buildings, a thick plastic sheet that had once covered a bullet shattered window of a restaurant being used to keep herself dry.
Her cape whipped and whirled behind her, before coming to a sudden standstill as the wind died for a moment, and she had her hand on her grappling gun and a line shooting out to the nearest rooftop before she had even tipped over to the edge, the metal hook catching and the line jerking as she swung down, the force of her decent pushing against her cheeks.
There was crackly laughter in her ear, and she couldn’t help the grin slipping onto her lips, crinkling her eyes under her domino, and she maneuvered her body around as the grapple pulled her up until she spotted the glint of red.
Tugging her other grappling gun free of her belt, she fired it as she released the other, the line snapping back as the new hook caught against the roofs edge.
Moments later, Cassandra’s feet hit landed on the edge, and she laughed as she tipped over and into her brother’s arms, looping her own tight around his neck.
“You’re back.” she said, pulling away a little reluctantly once he’d set her on her feet on the flat of the roof.
Jason laughed again, and nodded. “Yep, finished up this morning, booked it back.”
“And?” she asked, tiling her head.
She couldn’t see his grin on his lips, covered as they were by his helmet, but it was there in how he held himself, and she could hear it in his voice as he spoke, “Drug cartel broken up, leaders in prison and the kids who were roped into it are safe.”
Cassandra smiled, and patted his shoulder. “Good,” she said.
Jason smiled at her, she could tell by the way his head tilted just a bit, how his shoulders loosened and his body leaned towards her, could feel the warmth of it pouring from his body as he nudged her shoulder with his elbow. “Come on, let’s get home. I heard a rumor from the baby bat that agent A is making pizza and cinnamon buns.”
And Cassandra smiled, because it was a stark reminder that they were both alright now, that there would be no one shivering tonight.
It was a reminder that, while the past, the path she had taken to get here, shouldn’t be forgotten.
It was not who she was, not entirely.
She was Cassandra Wayne, and though once she was cold and alone, it was no longer true.
Cassandra Wayne had Hope.
Cassandra Wayne had Family.
Cassandra Wayne had Warmth.