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dc-secret-gift-exchange · 5 years

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Message Man

Written for @SamySamSam , who asked for Tim, Jason, and Cass. Happy Holidays!

Summary: Tim and Jason are two of the top assassins in the League, having spent years gaining their reputations. But on a mission in New York, they encounter a woman who’s a member of an elite group, and she’s got an offer for them…

~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a girl watching him.

Tim can feel it, like an itch at the back of his skull. Whoever she is, she’s smart though; when Tim turns – moving casually about the room, no direction in mind – to get a better look at her, the girl is already moving, one step ahead of him the whole time. Just out of eyesight, just out of reach.

It tells him that’s she’s letting him know she’s there, and that makes something clench uncomfortably inside of his chest. H doesn’t like the implication that whoever she is is better than him, that his skills are slightly less-than if she’s granting him the opportunity to know she’s there, like she could hide herself from him – and everyone else – completely if she wanted to.

Or maybe she couldn’t, and she’s simply messing with him.

He tilts his head and sees a flick of black hair as she dances out of view, this time far closer to being spotted. It’s almost playful, the way she’s acting. Tim doesn’t know what to make of it.

“You seem tense,” someone murmurs in his ear, and it’s only years of training that keeps Tim from jumping as Jason appears at his side.

“Me?” Tim asks airily, trying to track the girl’s position without moving. “Tense? Who’d’ve thought.”

Jason offers him a smirk, eyes already scanning the room for whatever was setting Tim on edge. Tim can see the moment Jason picks up on the girl, can see the way Jason’s jaw ticks and his eye twitches. Tim has to suppress a grin at his partner’s frustration – he was no longer alone in his feelings at not being able to catch sight of the girl.

“Well that’s inconvenient,” Jason huffs. “Any clue who they are?”

Tim shakes his head. “She’s amused, though. Letting me come closer and closer to spotting her before moving so I can’t really get a good look – if she’s here for our target, she’s either brand spanking new to the business or really old hat at it. I hate that I can’t tell.”

Jason hums in agreement. His eyes scan the ballroom, gaze sharp to see if there are any other clear signs of rival players, but there’s nothing; if the girl if here for their target, she’s here alone.

“I’m gonna take a lap around,” Jason tells Tim. The younger man can see his hand twitch, likely longing to hold the gun currently in the small of his back, hidden beneath his tuxedo jacket. They’re undercover tonight, and though both of them are trained to act at ease in all situations, Tim knows that Jason has never liked events like this, far more comfortable in the run-down streets a few blocks away than shining ballroom they currently find themselves in.

“Okay,” Tim agrees. “But check in over comms, alright? Where one unknown is, others tend to follow.”

Jason snorts, but he does nod his acceptance. “Whatever, Timmy. Besides, you have work to do – our window with the target is closing. He’s the early to bed type, remember?”

He vanishes into the crowd without another word, and Tim only tracks him for another moment before reminding himself that Jason is a big boy and has been in this business even longer than he has, and can certainly handle himself.

Tim pulls his thoughts away from his partner, away from the girl watching him, and approaches the target with a charming smile and a firm handshake.

Their current mission is pretty straightforward, and not really a challenge. They’ve been hired to take down Alex Johnson, a rising politician in New York City. His opponent – and the current mayor – isn’t his biggest fan, currently getting beaten in the polls, and spent quite a bit of money to hire League assassins. He wanted subtle, and to discredit Johnson while they did it, hence why they were undercover; plant some evidence to make the politician seem dirty, and then induce a heart attack.

Tim’s pulled a couple similar jobs since he started working for the League nine years ago, and considering Johnson is a pretty friendly guy, it doesn’t take much for Tim to get close and tip a small vial into the man’s champagne glass. The poison takes a few hours to take effect, which will give him and Jason enough time to be long gone by the time anything is wrong.

He stays and talks with Johnson for a while, allowing the device in his pocket to begin hacking the phone in Johnson’s, filling his personal accounts – emails, banking app, text messages, etc – with evidence of money laundering and blackmail schemes, thoroughly ruining his good name after his death.

A shame, certainly, considering he seems like a good man, but a job is a job.

“I don’t recognize anyone, and no one else here is armed, so I’m pretty sure other than the girl, we’re alone on this job,” Jason tells him over the comms, and Tim hums in acknowledgment, masking it as a sound of agreement to something Johnson was excitedly saying. “Also, speaking of the girl, I’ve got eyes on her.” A momentary pause. “Or, really, she has eyes on me.”

Tim immediately excuses himself from the conversation with Johnson, striding away. On instinct, he takes stock of the weapons he has on his person – knife strapped to the small of his back, garroting wire in his inside jacket pocket, tasers in the heels of his dress shoes, extra capsules of poison in the links of his watch – and then murmurs, “Is that a bad thing or a really bad thing?”

There’s a moment of silence from his partner that has Tim’s anxiety rising just a smidge, before Jason flippantly replies, “TBD. She seems nice. Not inherently murder-y. Time will tell, I suppose.”

Tim can feel his blood pressure rise.

“Jason-”

“Cool your pants, Timmy, I’m fine. Down the main hallway, fourth door on the left.”

Tim follows the instruction, depositing his glass of untouched champagne on a random waiter’s tray before leaving the ballroom and making his way to Jason’s location. He hesitates for a moment outside the specified door, counting his weapons once more, and then pushes the door open.

He sees Jason first, and takes stock of his partner automatically. He looks fine though, no different than their brief interaction earlier, save for the fact that his gun was now in his hand instead of hidden under his jacket. His grip is solid, but he’s not pointing the weapon at anyone currently, so Tim figures that there isn’t an active threat at the moment.

He sees the girl next.

She’s perched on a table across the room from Jason, her legs crossed and her weight leaning back on his palms. She looks a little older than him, maybe about Jason’s age in the mid-twenties, and has Asian features. She’s wearing a beautiful silver dress that shimmers and catches the light as she shifts to look at Tim, and other than the knife strapped to her thigh under the dress, Tim can’t see any other weapons.

The girl – woman, Tim corrects – smiles brightly at him, her eyes warm, and as far as Tim can tell the expression is genuine.

“Hi,” she says, and lifts a hand to wave at him.

“Hey,” Tim returns cautiously. He closes the door behind him and takes a few steps closer, purposefully relaxing his posture and sliding his hands into his pockets. Her smile grows just a little bit more at that, all in the eyes, and Tim wonders what it is about his actions that has amused her.

“Why were you watching me?” Tim asks.

The woman tilts her head and lifts a shoulder in a small shrug. “Bored. You’re…interesting.”

Jason snorts, and Tim shoots him a dry look. Jason just smirks back at him, unbothered, and says, “Here that, Timmy? A girl finds you interesting!”

“Oh, fuck off, Jay,” Tim grumbles, and looks back to the woman when she giggles. “So you’re here…why?”

“Keeping an eye,” she tells him, and gestures around the room, and maybe the building at large. Maybe the city as a whole. Keeping an eye on what?

Jason asks, “And who sent you here to ‘keep an eye’?”

The woman offers them a mischievous smile. “Who sent you?”

Tim and Jason share a look. They’ve known each other long enough to be able to communicate quite a lot with just a look, and right now they seem to be in agreement that it is time to head out. This has been an intriguing diversion, but they don’t need this kind of attention. Their mission is complete; it’s time to head back to base and put this behind them just like every other mission.

The woman sighs slightly, like she could tell what their decision was before they even opened their mouths, and then holds up her hand, producing an envelope out of nowhere.

“Alright,” Jason says slowly, “and what is that?”

“An invitation,” she tells them, and smiles. Neither of them move. Her expression shifts in exasperation, and she wiggles the envelope in the air. “It doesn’t bite.”

Tim and Jason share another look.

“What the hell,” Jason mutters, and strides across the room. Tim can see his partner’s grip tighten on his handgun as he approaches the woman, but she doesn’t make any threatening movements, simply offers the envelope out for Jason to take, releasing her hold on it as soon as it’s in his hand.

Jason makes his way over to Tim and extends the envelope for the younger man to see. It’s a plain white, firm with whatever type of cardstock is inside. The flap is simply tucked in, no one having licked it – and thus given their DNA – to seal it shut.

Tim shrugs a shoulder, figuring what the hell, and opens the envelope, pulling out the card.

The front of it, he sees, has their names – their full names, Tim notes with a start – written in perfectly neat print. Jason stiffens next to him, his hand twitching around the gun as he sees his birth name in full for the first time in half his life.

Upon entrance into the League, you give up who you were before them. That includes family names. Jason hasn’t been Jason Peter Todd since he was twelve years old. Tim hasn’t been Timothy Jackson Drake since he was the same.

Hell, he’d forgotten what his middle name even was.

“What the hell is this?” Jason asks tightly, and when Tim looks up he sees his partner glaring at the woman, eyes alight.

“An invitation,” she repeats, voice gentle like handling a wounded animal. Jason’s eyes narrow even further, but he bites back whatever his comment was going to be, looking back down at the card.

Tim takes a moment to breathe, to trace the letters of his birth name with his eyes, before he flicks the card open and reads what’s inside.

His breath catches.

“Of fucking course!” Jason shouts, throwing up his hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you really one of them?” he asks, turning his attention to the woman. She cocks an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “This is so ridiculous.”

Tim reads the message over again, and a third time just to be sure, and then works to suppress his smile. Jason might be irritated by the senders of this mission, but Tim’s a little…giddy. He’s always been an admirer of the group this woman is apparently a part of, and an invitation to work with them, even just for a little while, just for one job? Well, Tim would adore an opportunity like that.

But he’s a professional, and so he keeps his cool, not looking up from the card until he can trust his voice to remain level and his expression even.

“Watching me because you were bored, huh?” he drawls, quirking a dry smile.

The woman smiles back at him, her expression far more honest than his. “I was bored. You were interesting. This is…” She contemplates, and then gives a small shrug. “Extra.”

Jason snorts. “Yeah, thanks, but no. Not interested in working with your freaky cult.”

Both the woman and Tim frown. Jason spots the expression on his partner’s face and then his own expression turns incredulous.

“Oh, you must be joking,” he says, shaking his head. “Timmy, I get that you’re like, a fanboy, or whatever-”

“Hey! I am not a fanboy-”

“-but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for us to work with them, we can’t trust them-”

“I mean, we aren’t supposed to trust anyone, Jay, but they’re probably more trustworthy than most in our business-”

“-and they’re so weird, anyway, I mean should we really trust people who act like such a cult-?”

“That is so out of line! Just because they’re secretive doesn’t make them a cult! Hell, many people would call the League of Shadows a cult too, and frankly that accusation probably has some weight to it-”

“So your reasoning to accept this job is that we’re in a cult too?”

Tim throws up his hands, exasperated. In the corner of his eye he can see the woman watching them with an amused expression, and can’t even blame her. When he and Jason get going, they bicker like nobody’s business.

“Jason,” Tim says, beseeching, “it’s the Batman.”

Jason just looks at him, thoroughly unimpressed by this argument. Tim bites back a sound of frustration.

Before the League, Tim was a native Gothamite. He grew up around stories of Batman and his ilk, the infamous men and women who had built their own way, not joining up with the League of Shadows or any of the other established organizations. Barely anyone had ever seen one of the Bats’ faces, even less who lived to tell the tale, and Tim is utterly fascinated by them, always has been.

When he was little, he’d dreamed of becoming one of the Batman’s operatives, the assassins who were so much more than assassins – thieves, protectors, torturers, healers, fearmongerers, heroes; they were all legends, all gods amongst men. At least, that’s how Tim had seen them as a kid, and that was a hard feeling to shake.

The League had picked him up when he was twelve, same as all the other League members who were chosen. And Tim has always been grateful to Ra’s al Ghul, always been thankful for the opportunity to make something more of himself than the lonely, neglected little boy his parents produced. Tim is one of the League’s best, and he’d always hoped that one day, maybe, he’d get to meet a Bat, and now –

“We’re doing this,” Tim says firmly, setting his jaw.

Jason juts out his chin and cross his arms over his chest, the perfect picture of rebellion and disagreement. But in his eyes Tim sees something, a small glimmer, that reminds Tim of something very important:

Jason is a native Gothamite too.

“Come on, man,” Tim murmurs, “don’t you want to be able to say you did a job with a Bat? That you were held in high enough regard that the fucking Batman sent one of his operatives with a personalized message to invite you to work a mission with them? They’re legends, Jay. Don’t you want this experience?”

His partner doesn’t say anything for a long while, his eyes narrowing to slits. He’s unhappy, angry even, but he grew up on the stories of the Bats too, right in the city they were founded – he knows better than most how true the stories are, just like Tim. And to not only meet them, but work with them? No assassin worth anything would turn this down, certainly not one from the League of Shadows.

There’s a rumor that Ra’s al Ghul was one of the people who trained the Batman.

Jason sighs, a sharp puff of air out through his nose, and rolls some of the tension out of his shoulders.

Tim waits.

“Fine,” Jason grits out finally. “We’ll do it.”

Tim grins, wide and bright, and turns to look back to the woman. She’s standing now, leaning lightly against the table, and she smiles right back at him. She seems pleased with their decision.

The realization that she’s a Bat hits Tim like a ton of bricks, almost knocking the wind out of him. She a Bat!

“What’s your name?” Tim asks, a little breathless. “Or – what do we call you?”

“Cass,” the woman tells them, running a hand through her hair. Then, probably sensing what Tim is dying to know, adds, “Black Bat.”

Tim’s heart stops, his breath freezing in his chest. Black Bat. Black Motherfucking Bat. AKA the best of the best, AKA one of the deadliest people in the entire universe, AKA someone Tim really, really, really needs to not fanboy over.

“Ah,” Tim says, and is thoroughly impressed by the fact that his voice comes out perfectly level. He’d expected a squeak or something equally mortifying. “Well. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“And you,” Cass returns, dipping her chin. “You are both…very impressive.”

Her gaze flicks to Jason then, and what she sees makes her smile grow. Tim follows her gaze and has to stop himself from laughing at his partner’s expression; Jason’s face is slightly red, his jaw clenched tightly, his eyes just a little bit too wide, his stance just a little bit too weak.

Jason’s an incredible assassin, and it’s really not easy to beat him; he’s always had a thing for people who could, and if there’s anyone in the world who could, it would most definitely be Black Bat.

“Well,” Tim says on a breathless laugh, “what’s the mission?”

~~~~~~~~~~

This mission, it turns out, is fucking intense.

There isn’t a lot of time for frivolous talking over the next week and a half, the mission taking them over. They traverse the country, the continent, the world, various environments that require a wide range of their skills in various scenarios.

It’s on Day 5 that Tim is settled enough to clue into the fact that they’re being tested.

The mission is real, he knows that for certain. It’s a gigantic, cross-continental human trafficking operation that they’re attacking and working on taking down. That’s real, there’s no way to fake it. But it’s also too perfect, the way the mission makes it necessary for both Tim and Jason to demonstrate why they are the best in the League in all disciplines.

The mission might be real, but they were chosen for this one because it would test them and their capabilities. Cass – and, thus, Batman – is testing them.

Tim doesn’t know whether he’s terrified by that or terribly excited.

The League of Shadows is not a humanitarian organization. Tim’s never worked a job like this, taking down a huge human trafficking operation that spans multiple continents simply because they’d been given a tip about the scope of it, and gone to do something about it.

That’s the kind of thing the Bats do. They still do paid assassinations of course, they do paid just about anything – they aren’t the good guys – but Cass isn’t leading this mission because someone offered them some money. No; they’re here for the simple reason that the Bats learned about it, knew they needed to take it down, and knew that they could. That’s who they are.

It’s exhilarating.

“Christ, Tim, sit still,” Jason grumbles for the hundredth time, trying to stitch up the wound on Tim’s side. The younger man offers his partner a chagrined look and attempts to settle so that he can finish, but his mind is racing too much for him to be able to stay still for long. Jason has to redo multiple stitches, cursing him the entire time.

They were being tested. Tested on something like this, something massive, something…something good.

The Bats are assassins and thieves and torturers and wrathful gods amongst men. They’re all of that, and a million other things that make children shiver in their beds at night. A million other things that meant they earned their feared and awed reputation.

But they’re also heroes.

“Finally,” Jason breathes in irritation when he finishes sewing Tim’s skin together. He cleans the area without a hint of gentleness – making Tim grit his teeth against the urge to wince as the alcohol burns the fresh wound – and then wraps a bandage around it, stepping back once he’s sure it’s secure.

“Alright, Twinkle Toes,” Jason calls to Cass where she’s sitting a little way away, sorting through some of the files on the laptop of one of the ringleaders of the whole operation. The police have received copies of these files, but Cass is taking the original back to Gotham for Batman.

Cass looks up at him, raises an eyebrow. She’s seemed fond of the various nicknames Jason’s given her, said it made her think of someone back home who had a tendency to do that.

“Yes?”

“You wanna tell us if we passed your little test?”

Tim’s lips curve in a slight smile; of course Jason had noticed it too.

Cass tilts her head to the side. “Why?” she asks, keeping her eyes on Jason’s face, though Tim knows she’s perfectly aware of him, too. “You don’t like my…cult. Right?”

The way she says it, the sparkle in her eyes, shows that she knows Jason isn’t completely honest in his derision of the Bats.

Jason clenches his jaw, displeased. Cass just laughs softly, kindly.

“Yes, you passed,” she offers him, looking at Tim too and nodding. “You’re both excellent.”

“And what was the point of this test?” Tim asks. “We already know we’re excellent at what we do.” Though, he has to admit that hearing Black Bat compliment their abilities is extremely flattering, and makes a well of pride warm his chest.

Cass examines them both for a long moment, maybe looking for something, and whatever she sees makes her smile. “Nightwing and I are in charge of the these things.”

Tim’s heart leaps at the name, like the man is just going to appear out of thin air suddenly. He might die if he did, he really might.

“Good for both of you,” Jason drawls. “What is the point?”

“Recruitment.”

Tim and Jason simply stare at her for a moment, not quite comprehending. Then Jason laughs, loud and sharp, and shakes his head.

“You’re joking, right? Why the hell do you want to recruit us? And, more importantly, why the fuck would we want to join your stupid little club? We have jobs, in case you didn’t notice. The League is a pretty sweet organization to be a part of.”

Cass tilts her head again, blinking. “You both want. We want you too. It’s that simple.”

Jason’s nostrils flare, indignant and angry, but he doesn’t actually refute the claim. After the week and a half they’ve had, it’s very hard to say they want to go back to the banality of the League, not after experiencing all of this with Black Bat herself.

“Are you serious?” Tim asks. “You seriously want Jason and I to become operatives of the Bat?”

“Yes,” Cass confirms without hesitation. “Batman saw possibility. And now I see you.”

“Just like that?” Jason asks with a snort. “You guys are just about the most secretive group of wackjobs there is, and you’re gonna just bring in two strangers because you like us?”

Cass cocks an eyebrow at him. “Like you, sure. But my job is to see you. And I do. You will fit. They trust me. They trust Nightwing. They trust Batman. And soon they will trust you too.”

Tim and Jason have known each other long enough to communicate quite a lot with just one look. And right now, despite Jason’s attitude and Tim’s hesitance to accept that this is really happening, they seem to be in agreement.

Cass beams at them before they even say a word.

#Cassandra Cain #Jon Todd #Tm Drake #SamySamSam #dc fanfic #fanfic #dc secret santa 2019 #submission

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