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It had been a quiet day, Cass had woken up over and over again last night, fighting monsters in her sleep, which left her lethargic the next day. They sat around watching movies for most of the day, both of them trying to catch up on things they missed. Jason made a filling soup for dinner then shepherded his sister into a bubble bath. Then he lay next to her in the dim light of the bedside lamp and read to her until she fell asleep.
Jason was still brimming with energy; the light day hadn’t worked any tension from him. He got up and began to prowl the apartment looking for something to do that wouldn’t wake up his twin. He was just about to settle down with a pack of cards when he heard the bathroom window being jimmied open. He quickly and silently made his way to the bathroom door, settling into the shadows and waited.
The door opened slowly, the well-oiled hinges keeping it quiet, Jason waited patiently for the intruder to step past him before attacking with a two-handed blow to the back, which knocked them to the floor. He followed up with a swift kick to the abdomen, his target rolled agilely and bounced to his feet. It was hard to make out any details in the low light but he looked like a white male, late teens or early 20’s, dark hair, wearing a mask. The intruder whipped out a bo staff and whirled it in the small space of the living room, he handled it expertly. Jason risked taking a hit to catch the staff and trap it between his arm and body, with a quick yank it was in his hands. He jabbed out with lightning speed hitting the man in the sternum and using his coughing fit to push him into the wall, using his own staff to choke him.
“Brothers stop!” Cass yelled out from the bedroom doorway. Jason immediately loosened his grip and took a step back. Cass was between them in an instant, fretting over the intruder.
“This is Red Robin, good guy,” Jason slumped down, adrenaline leaving his system. Cass had explained about her vigilante family a while back, but Jason hadn’t expected to meet them in Hong Kong, she had told him they stuck to Gotham.
“Oh, shit, sorry man, hope I didn’t hurt you,” Jason said, handing him his bo staff.
“Nothing but my pride,” Red Robin said, chagrined and a little awkward. “Who are you? I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.”
“This is my brother,” Cass told him proudly.
“Your brother? You mean your twin, you actually found him! That’s great Cass.” Red Robin beamed at her then turned to Jason, “I’m glad you two found each other.”
“Me too,” both Jason and Cass replied at the same time.
“What are you doing here?” Cass finally asked Red Robin after her inspection of his injuries were finished. Jason could admit he was curious too.
“I’m here to bring you back to Gotham.” Oh, that’s not good, Jason thought, stomach sinking.
Not long after that Jason slipped away into the bedroom to give them some privacy, or the illusion of it anyway, their walls weren’t very thick. Jason couldn’t hear the whole conversation but he got the gist of it. Tim offering something, Cass turning him down, Tim offering again, Cass turning it down harder, it became a cycle of offer and rejection.
Jason was sick with nerves, would they leave? He had just gotten used to the happy little life they were leading in Hong Kong, how much would change in Gotham? Who was he kidding? Everything would change. Would Cass even need him around if she had her whole vigilante family around her? Would they stay in Hong Kong and would Cass start to resent him for keeping her tied down? He did his best to shove down his worries, not wanting Cass to be overwhelmed by them when she looked at him. Just as he got himself comfortable Cass walked in.
“He is gone, told me to tell you good night, will be back tomorrow.” Cass said as she sank down into the bed.
“Are you going with him, back home?” Jason asked, doing his best to hide his emotions. Cass shook her head sleepily.
“Here is home,” she told him, wrapping an arm around his waist. Jason fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Red Robin did return the next day, he had exchanged his Robin suit for a business suit.
“Tim Drake, nice to officially meet you,” Tim said when Jason answered the door for him the next morning. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”
“No actually, Cass never told me anyone’s civilian ID’s, I figured it was better not to go looking.”
“Oh, well,” Tim rubbed a hand on the back of his neck.
“I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.” Jason interrupted to say.
“No, no, I believe you.” There was a large awkward silence, but Jason was starting to think it was a part of Tim’s personality, bubbles of awkwardness that followed him about.
“Why don’t you come in, I was just getting started on breakfast, you eat omelets?”
After breakfast was served and eaten Tim pulled something dark and bulky from his bag and set it in front of Cass.
“Not Batgirl anymore, it’s Steph’s now, she needs it.” Cass told him, pushing the fabric away.
“What about what you need?” Tim countered, then spoke again before she could reply. “Call yourself Batchick, Knightbat, or Black Robin for all I care, the point is you’re still a part of the family.” Jason could see her crack, and she pulled the fabric, a vigilante costume, he was guessing, closer to her.
“Thank you,” she told him. Jason moved closer and played with the thick material of the costume, before exposing the bat symbol on the front.
“Well really, if you’re gonna be in the family business you should at least wear the family name.” Jason told her, smiling. He could be a vigilante without being a Bat but he knew how much it meant to Cass.
Tim left shortly after that, Cass seemed sad to see him leave but perked up later as they fixed up her costume for that night’s patrol. That night, for the first time ever it wasn’t Cass and Jason who left to keep the city safe but Black Bat and Nomad.
How it normally went was that Cass worked on bigger cases, and left Jason smaller cases so he could work on the detective parts of his skills, which weren’t the best, honestly. He had the surveillance and reconnaissance down pat, thanks to his time as an assassin, but needed to work on his computer skills and piecing things together. This time however one of his small cases turned out to be something huge.
It started out with small-time weapons runners but ended up with Cass and Jason on a boat filled with Semtex headed to Gotham. They couldn’t stop the boat before it left the harbor but did manage to catch the Captain in an obliging mood (after rounds of threats and a compelling beat down), and he turned around.
The police were waiting when they got back to port, the explosives confiscated and the runners all arrested, but it left the top perpetrators unaccounted for. Cass had left to make a quick call to Batman in Gotham to warn him of what happened and tell him to be on the lookout in case explosives come from another location in the future. As well as to watch out for who the explosives were supposed to go to.
Jason was standing on a warehouse on the docks, watching the police take care of the clean up when he felt a disturbance behind him. With a quickness belying his size he dropped to the ground hearing the whistle of a projectile overhead. He rolled behind the air conditioning unit and took out a small mirror to check who was on the roof with him.
There was a man, tall, maybe taller than Jason, and broad, heavy with muscle, he wore black and white, had gray hair and wore a mask over his lower face. He didn’t fit the description of any Bat Cass had told him about.
“You’re fast boy, that’s good, come out here, let's see how you fight.” He spoke with a low, deep voice, slightly muffled by the mask.
“I’m good, thanks,” Jason snarked back, deciding to wait for Cass before engaging.
“Don’t be like that,” the man said with a chuckle, “we only have so much time while my associates keep your sister busy,” Jason didn’t like the sound of that, he needed to get rid of this guy so he could help Cass, “so come out here boy or I’ll come get you.” A shiver ran down Jason’s spine, that voice, that phrasing, it sounded so much like Willis Todd when he was looking for a fight.
Jason straightened up from his crouch and walked out from behind the A/C unit. He could tell the man was immediately sizing him up, Jason’s hand hovered near his knife in his thigh holster but he didn’t reach for them, yet.
“That’s good, you don’t look much like Shiva at all do you? I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to take off the mask.”
“Definitely,” Jason retorted. His stance was relaxed but he was ready to spring at any second, so was the man across from him. He could read the marks of a skilled fighter from miles away, no need for the Zone to read this body language.
“I heard you finally gave Shiva what she’d been longing for, did you inherit her little groupies, should I be calling you Lord Shiva,” the man spat out like the words tasted bad.
“Fuck no, I’m Lord of nothing, thanks.” The man nodded and stepped forward into the reflected light of a street lamp. His eyes. His eyes were a bright teal blue, the shape hauntingly familiar, he knew who the man was now.
“David Cain,” Jason fairly hissed.
“Not going to call me father?” He said with a sardonic tilt of his brow.
“Not in this lifetime, asshole.” Jason prepared his body, tensing a few key muscles preparing to fight, now that he knew it was Cain he also knew there was no way he was leaving without a fight. Jason was more than ready to deliver a beat down to this pathetic, child abusing fucker.
“Well, I guess that ends the civil conversation part of the evening.” Cain says before flowing into a fighting stance. Jason takes his own stance and waits, letting his eyes rove over his opponent looking for weaknesses and reading his body.
He saw the first jab, and the feint and follow up to it, he didn’t bother sitting back and blocking after that. He led in with a powerful kick to the side, which was deflected but jarred Cain’s arm fiercely. He had been learning from Cass over the past few months, how to blend his hurricane style with her shadow flow. But Cain seemed to know those moves and use them to great effect, he was the one that taught Cass after all. He also seemed to know most of Shiva’s specialties, and he couldn’t pull out the Leopard’s Blow without making the fight fatal.
So Jason started throwing in some more obscure moves, a trip that turned into a Capoeira Queda de rins, a feinted kick which turned into a knee strike taught to him by an Israeli ex-pat, and an underhanded trip learned on the streets of Gotham.
“You really are very good boy,” Cain said wiping blood from his mouth, “but do you still have those killer instincts?”
“I don’t kill anymore.” Jason said, taking a moment in the ceasefire to flex his sore fists, the knuckles were bloody and torn.
“That’s a shame, from what I heard you were a damn good killer.” Cain tells him before taking a swing at his head, which Jason dodged. Jason grinned, a little in misplaced pride, a little as a taunt.
“You could join me, you know, Cass isn’t the only family you have left, and I won’t even try to impose a stiff set of morals on you.” Jason delivered a powerful uppercut, his eyes narrowed as the blow stunned Cain but failed to knock him out. He went on the offensive delivering a flurry of blows to the stunned man.
“It’ll never happen Cain, Cass can offer me the one thing you’ll never be able to.”
“What’s that then?”
“She loves me, she believes in me, that’s worth every pricey contract I’ve given up.” With her usual perfect timing Cass appeared from the shadows, and moved between the two weary combatants.
“This stops now,” she says. “We aren’t yours, not now, not ever!” Cain stops fighting and steps back, assessing and deciding his next course of action.
“Fine, we’ll drop it for now, but just for now, I’m sure I’ll see you both again in the future,” he grinned through bloody teeth and looked Jason in the eye, “You’re always welcome with me, think about it.” He said before taking a running leap off the roof and into the night.
“Not fucking likely,” Jason says to the empty space. Cass elbows him in his tender ribs.
“Language,” she scolded and he just grimaced.
“Let’s just go home little sister.”
“Big, big sister, I was first born, I am big sister.” Cass vehemently argued as they started their trek home.
“Talk to me when you actually reach my shoulder, shorty. Until then I’m bigger, therefore, big brother.” They bickered the well-worn argument all the way home, together.