GOTHAM CITY; YOUNG RESIDENCE | 6:46 PM | CRISTEN
THE PUDDLES IN Cristen's driveway were a perfect sky blue, like mirrors embedded in gravel. From the garage, she could hear birds twitter and faraway tires whisk. In the early evening sunlight the grass was a shade of green so saturated it could only be found in nature. Under the swing in her yard there was a circle of mud like a bowl, and the longer she stood there the more the little ant-flies and sand-sized bugs fascinated themselves with her ankles and calves. The dry breeze smelled like the cocoa mulch Reese used in his garden. Not even that made Cristen feel better. If anything, it made her angrier.
Lucy loved sunsets like that. That was always the playful argument the two of them reverted to. The sun is the most beautiful thing in the whole world! Lucy would defend. No, Cristen would say. Night is so much prettier. So much safer.
And Lucy would ask, How can night-time be safer than day? Anybody can be hiding in the dark.
Yes, anyone, Cristen would reply. Including you.
She realized now that Lucy had been right. Cristen's skin shone like she was layered in gold powder, drawing drooling lines of sunlight down her shin-bones and hands. Daylight was beautiful. Lately, Cristen hadn't gotten nearly enough of it. Half of the time she was holed up in the cave, or living off of reflected sunlight from the moon on patrol. Nothing as pure and fine as this. The peaceful scene should have made Cristen feel better, but all she felt was bitterness.
Even with the sun exposure, the seam of Cristen's ribcage felt too easily pried apart. She hated to hate the sunset; she hated to miss Krypton and Palaci and the sunsets there that she'd never see; she hated that she was already talking about Lucy in the past tense, like that last frightened look at her in the corner of her living room was the last. Cristen hated being angry all the time. Maybe if she hadn't been then, Lucy would be home safe.
Cristen hadn't realized she'd been crying until the motor oil on her hands was interrupted by clean teardrops. If she let it continue she wouldn't stop, and then she'd only feel worse about being unable to help, so Cristen rolled back onto her hands and breathed hard through her nose. The tears didn't go away.
Of course Cristen had the luxury of sitting around and crying. Of course she was the one who got to be upset and nothing else, while Lucy was probably terrified out of her mind or getting beaten to death. Tortured. Cristen's useless vigilante brain had come up with a million horrible scenarios, but in none of them had she found a way to help Batman and Nightwing pursue her friend.
Then, a jacket dropped down next to her, and Cristen jumped like a bullet had missed her by an inch.
(Well, like something had scared her, because even bullets didn't scare Cristen anymore).
It was Damian. He'd snuck up on her. He probably didn't mean to, but suddenly his car was in her driveway and he was marching into her garage to see her. Silently, Damian fell down on one knee, rolled up his sleeves, and resumed the task Cristen had abandoned with her bike. He might have muttered an ungenuine, you're doing that wrong, but Cristen didn't have the strength to talk.
He didn't look at her as he worked. She was surprised that he didn't boast about finally being able to sneak up on her, but the two of them had a funny system now. Damian would go out of his way to cheer Cristen up, Cristen wouldn't be able to comprehend it, and they would both try and distract themselves with the idea instead of Lucy.
Hesitating, Cristen wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her too-warm face into the shape of his back. Breathing was hard, but getting that pencil-like smell off his sweater made for good incentive. The last couple of months his closet had changed up a lot. He still mimicked Bruce with turtlenecks and slacks, but there was a gold necklace pressed against her cheek that Cristen didn't recognise and his sweater was two greens lighter than she'd ever seen him wear. Regardless of how new his clothes were, they already smelled like Damian. She distracted herself with that and tried to stop crying.
"H-Hi," Cristen managed.
"Hn," said Damian. Under her hands his body was forcibly still, and when Cristen's insight reached out she could feel the anxious butterflies stuffing his belly. Damian tapped the back wheel, "These could use a fill. You have a pump?"
"Tomorrow. I'll have time then." Cristen sniffled. "Selina put me on the bench, remember? Working from home for the next couple of days."
Bruce figured that Stray could be the reason for the attack on Lucy's house, so he gave Selina the idea to hold Cristen down for a bit. Cristen knew it was a sensible plan, but she would be much smarter the second time around, and not above putting herself out in Gotham as bait for the girl that had taken Lucy.
Damian turned to look at her, and Cristen leaned to the side so there was a respectable distance between their faces. Like every time she cried, Cristen was splotchy, ugly, and ruddy, but Damian had bled on her in the past, so being grossed out by one another wasn't exactly a thing anymore.
"That's why I'm here," Damian said. He lied: "There is a task that you would be useful in handling that father has put me on. I'm giving it to you instead because you're... more equipped than I am."
I've brought you a case because you're sad and it's annoying and also makes me sad, Cristen guessed.
(Billy had never done something like that before. He'd gone out of his way to put Cristen where she was safe, but Damian understood Cristen's need to be useful—it made her consider how great a boyfriend he would make).
"Handling," Cristen mumbled the word. "I can do handling. Is that all you're here for?"
"Why else would I dare to enter the peasant half of my kingdom?" Damian smirked, gesturing to the street Cristen lived on.
"Speaking as an actual princess," Cristen leaned a little too close to his face, "That's offensive."
They stared at one another for a moment too long. One of Cristen's hands was holding Damian's ribs still, and Damian's eyes were forcefully applied anywhere else but Cristen's mouth. The two of them stared, and stared longingly, and then realized in the same moment how utterly shameful it was—shameful and stupid to try to be romantic when their friend was out there and suffering. Shameful, stupid and ignorant.
Cristen swallowed and looked away. Damian honed back in on the bike even if there was nothing else to do. "It's Deathstroke."
"What?" Cristen said.
"He's in Gotham," Damian told her. "That's your case."
"You mean to tell me that Deathstroke managed to get into my city without Batman's say-so?" Cristen asked.
Damian glanced down the driveway for listeners, looked to Cristen for insight-confirmation, then told her, "We're stretched thin, as you understand. Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face—all of them are out of Arkham, and father believes them to be a much greater threat to the city."
"We don't know that," Cristen pointed out. "Who knows what Slade could be contracted to do here. He wouldn't come to Gotham unless there was serious money in it."
"Precisely," Damian said, "Which is why I am employing your tracking skills to study what he's doing. Just observation. Follow him around."
Cristen washed both of her hands down her cheeks, hands damp with leftover tears. She gave Damian a look of relief. "Thank you for trusting me. I know you kind of agree with your Dad about me staying out of sight, but I can't just sit around anymore. I hate feeling useless. I hate being unable to do something."
When all Cristen could do was clench and unclench her fists, Damian relaxed his shoulders and frowned. "I know."
"You're not worried about me handling Deathstroke?" Cristen questioned him. "What if I'm trailing him and I'm caught? You trust me that much to fight him? He's taken down half the Justice League in a good six seconds before, not to mention the Titans."
There was a swimming hatred in Damian's eyes. Cristen knew enough details about their history to be confused why Damian would ever give up an opportunity like this, to have Deathstroke right where he wanted him. For some reason, he trusted Cristen more. As many ways as she could interpret that, the certainty in his face told her that it was just Damian being tactical—putting his best knight out front. If Damian was the Roman general plotting marks on a map, then Cristen would gladly be his centurion.
And she would always encourage his emotional maturity, if that's what this was. Stepping back so he didn't go in unchecked.
"Slade and my father have many similarities," said Damian, "their ability to plan ahead has kept them alive for a long time. You're the one vigilante in Gotham he still hasn't met, and being Catwoman's partner, he'll surely underestimate you."
Damian smiled coldly, but Cristen sensed pride underneath that coldness. "And on the off-chance that Slade is aware that you're a metahuman, you'll still have surprise on your side. As well as your insight."
Hesitation built up in the back of Cristen's mind. If Nightwing or Batman picked up a lead on Lucy, she should be ready and waiting instead of distracted with a case. Then again, Cristen doubted that two of the greatest detectives on the planet would need Cristen's help. What they could definitely use—what Gotham could definitely use—was a stern eye on Slade Wilson, and if Cristen could do anything, she could do that. If she couldn't protect Lucy, at the very least she could protect everyone else.
Cristen kept that idea in mind, then closed up the worried part of her brain all-together. Damian was giving her this case because he had faith in her, so Cristen couldn't let him down. Either way, in this case or alongside Lucy's, Stray needed to be at the absolute top of her game.
"He's a bit of a pre-cog too, isn't he?" She remembered.
"In the sense that my sister is," Damian supplied. "Body language. Reflexes. But I'd prefer if you didn't interact with him, on any level. You are very good, Cristen, insight or not, but Slade is an adaptive creature. Be in a room with him for less than a minute and he'll have you down to a science."
She didn't mention how she could also do that in less than a minute, in a decimal of a second, but Cristen got the feeling that arrogant was the last thing Damian wanted her to be for the night.
"Hey," Cristen touched Damian's wrist. He was pretty hesitant, too, but Robin probably had a lot of work piled on him as well. "I've got this. Just some recon, that's all. I'll fill you in by the hour, keep my distance. Where is he, anyway?"
"I have an informant that puts him in a motel in the outer city," Damian explained. He turned back to her bike to test the tire pressure, shoulders bunched together in the little way that meant he was really stressed out. "I would handle this myself, but I'm doing my own hunting. Zatanna gave me a tip about this magical artifact that's been stolen somewhere in the city, and I owe her a favor."
For a long moment, Damian just thumbed the seat of her bike in thought. A muscle in his jaw jumped with dislike, so Cristen touched his back. "No offense, but I wouldn't think that B would even let you near something Deathstroke-related. I don't know exactly what, but there's a bad history there, and B isn't the most trusting of you when it comes to history..."
"I wondered that at first, too. I believe Father is... trying to have more faith in me." Damian closed his mouth and bunched his lips in distaste. "Funny enough, Slade always makes him so much more fatherly. The competition, I suppose."
Cristen snorted. "Competition? Like, what? Who's the better griller? Who's better at playing catch with his kids?"
Damian furrowed his brows at her. "I figured you knew."
"Knew what?" Cristen asked. "You may go prying into my business all the time, but I prefer to find out about you from you, actually."
Damian's chest constricted funnily in reaction to what Cristen said, so she decided not to mention his secrets again.
"When my father returned to Gotham it was brought into question whether I was really his biological son," Damian shrugged. "That doesn't exactly matter. Especially in my family. But, if it wasn't him, then it could have been Deathstroke."
The look in Damian's eyes was familiar. That bone-deep, hereditary hatred for yourself, for what you're supposed to be because of your family. Again, they were back under those bleachers, reassuring one another about DNA.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Cristen scoffed. "Of course Bruce is your dad. There's no question about it. You look like him, you act like him, you feel like him."
Damian raised an eyebrow, hesitantly optimistic. "I feel like him?"
Even if he was human, Cristen figured that Damian would see that too. Sometimes, their auras were so similar to her insight that she would confuse the two of them. Cristen's powers were hard to describe, but anyone with insight would sense it: Damian was a sprout from one of Bruce's dead limbs, regrown somewhere else, a piece of him in the way that people were pieces of recycled star-matter.
She knew that Bruce didn't like himself very much. But he knew, too, that Damian was a part of him, and the part of him that made him think: If I can make something so good... so brave and strong and loving, then maybe... maybe I'm salvageable.
"Yeah," Cristen said. She jogged a hand to try and explain herself, but insight was hard to translate into words. "Like... you're made of the same stuff. Same metal, I guess I'd say. I'd know if he wasn't your dad."
Damian's eyes were bigger than usual. "...And you'd tell me?"
Maybe it was selfish, but Cristen couldn't help but be jealous of that connection. She loved Reese with everything she had, and she saw a lot of him in herself, but that night on her porch had confirmed all of her worst fears. Anita and Cristen had had that very same connection, but broken and frayed by time and hatred. If Damian's father was Deathstroke, that would be exactly what their connection would look like—Cristen didn't want that for him.
"Yeah," Cristen lied.
"Really." Damian's eyes flickered around the room. She guessed that he'd never had absolute confirmation on that until now. His hands dropped into his lap. "...Huh."
"You're much too good for Slade anyway," Cristen absent-mindedly brushed the ungelled ends of Damian's curls away from his temple. "Someone so evil could never make someone so good."
Right away Damian steered the expression on his face where Cristen couldn't see it, but the blush crawling up his neck was pretty telling. Comforting him, talking to Damian made her feel a lot better about Lucy, and then four times as guilty for daring to forget about her for even a moment.
"You know that goes for you, too." He spoke to the open door of the garage instead of Cristen.
Cristen gave a noncommittal hum.
He started to put on his jacket, which Cristen took as Damian taking his leave. They stood up together and the movement made Cristen remember that the world moved on regardless of her, that Lucy could be dead, that Damian was risking himself to please her uselessness, and all Cristen could think to do was grab him by the back of the shirt and embrace him.
"Thank you for having faith in me," she whispered. "You didn't have to give me something to do, o-or come over and comfort me, but you did. I love you, Damian."
Anything he'd planned to say escaped him, and like usual Damian stood there until Cristen let him go. Like usual, Cristen knew how much he enjoyed affection and how he wished he could enjoy it, so she closed her eyes and refused to leave. Like usual, Damian's instinct fell away. They squeezed each other together like little kids who would never see each other again, like little kids who didn't know how hugs worked but swung their best friend into one anyway.
"We'll find her," Damian assured Cristen's hair. "And... after this is over, I'll have a zeta installed in your ship. We'll be able to... organize things. Make it comfortable. Like you wanted to."
"Yeah," Cristen swallowed down her tears and pressed her face into Damian's cool shoulder. "...After this is over."
Damian pulled back and held her elbows with a forgiving sadness in his eyes. "Yes. And, um..." he tried not to smile, "I love you also."
GOTHAM CITY; BURNSIDE | 9:27 PM | CRISTEN
SLADE WAS BORING.
Cristen had specifically requested the hotel room beside his under an alias name, paying in the cash Damian had given her for the operation. He was nice enough to leave a little extra for snacks, knowing the dull nature of a long re-con like this one, but Cristen had at least put up a fight about that. She tried not to be annoyed at how easily he could throw money at her. Cristen tried not to be a lot of things.
Sitting on the floor with her back to the wall connected to Deathstroke's, Cristen meditated. Her insight was trained intently on what went on in the room opposite hers. Wilson waited by sharpening knives and half-watching daytime television, not distracted, but not honed in completely on the world either. Even if he was, Cristen didn't doubt that he was just as battle-ready sitting on the couch as he was in full gear. That's why she was meditating; Cristen needed to be the same.
Not seeing him meant that Cristen got only her insight's image of Slade, which was numb and grotesque with hate and malice. The good in him was selfish, at best. Being around him made her feel... gray, and the leeching kind, the kind that made it easy to think that the world was a terrible place—that people were inherently bad instead of good, which was probably why Damian might have believed Slade was his father. His manipulations were in so deep that he'd convinced even himself of them.
(It reminded her of her mother).
And that's why Cristen knew she could beat him.
There was a lot of arrogance in that statement. Violence was really the only thing Cristen was arrogant about, and she and Slade had earned that right themselves in separate ways. As sparse as they were, Cristen's insight naturally picked up their similarities; how they both knew they were right, how they both pushed past their limits, how they were always ten steps ahead.
The difference was that grayness. Slade killed for many reasons, and one of them was how ugly the world was. How cruel and unforgiving. The difference was that grayness, because Cristen knew the world was good, and thinking the opposite was what made Slade weak.
Three seconds before her communicator could beep, Cristen tapped it open and answered Damian's call. "He's sitting and watching television."
"Hm," Robin replied. "No calls? Nothing?"
"He's got the normal blocking tech set up. But no one else is keeping an eye on him if they could, as far as I can tell," Cristen said. "Hasn't answered any phone calls. Sent any emails, encrypted messages. Must be here for a job that's already been communicated."
"Or he hasn't done anything to report on for said job," Damian added.
Cristen could imagine how Damian would set his elbows forward and brush his thumbs across his lips in thought, which was probably something she shouldn't be thinking too hard about on a mission, cuteness aside. He didn't sound too busy, so Cristen said, "In short, he's boring. Thank you for giving me an excuse to sit around and eat Nutter Butters."
"In short..." Damian echoed with a snort. She could tell he shook his head to himself. "You've spent far too much time around me, Stray."
"TT." Cristen blurted, "Or maybe not enough time, Robin."
The line was deadly silent for just a moment. Cristen bit down on her tongue and covered her face with her hands at her own boldness, scolding herself, but Damian eventually spoke again. "Yes," he sighed, "far too much time."
Cristen hurriedly scampered away from the subject. Looks like Damian wasn't ready for vocal flirting just yet. If Cristen was supposed to be flirting at all. Just one more habit she'd picked up from Selina. "Uh, what about you, then? How's your hunt for... what was it again? Some kind of magical artifact?"
"Stolen from Wonder Woman, yes," Damian said. "It's a knife. Some kind of ancient ceremonial dagger," Damian paused uncomfortably, like he had a history with ancient ceremonial daggers, "Blood-contact with the blade apparently produces spirits of your own bad qualities that will attempt to kill you. Greed, envy, others in that vein. Diana mentioned that it's from pre-Amazon days."
Cristen whistled impressively. "So, if someone stabs you with it you basically die no matter what? Does not sound like something I'd want to run into. But you're pretty good with magic. I know you'll get the job done."
"I've been unsuccessful thus far, so don't place any bets," Damian said.
"The great Damian Wayne has been unsuccessful?" Cristen teased, popping a fruit gummy into her mouth. She turned her ear to the wall; Slade had turned off his television. To make sure she wasn't overheard, Cristen turned on hers and flipped to National Geographic. "I'm surprised you'd even admit that."
"I admitted it to you because I imagined I wouldn't be made fun of," Damian said, pointedly. "Remind me to never entertain you again."
Cristen laughed to herself. "Admit it. You love me."
She expected to hear the silence of Damian's eyeroll, but he said to her instead: "I do. Now, off. Concern yourself with Slade. Check in with me when something happens."
"If," Cristen tried to assure him.
"Tt." This time, Damian did roll his eyes, and corrected, "When."
Once he ended the call, Cristen couldn't help but feel alone all over again. She wished that they could do that for hours, just talking to one another. Some of the best nights of her life included doing that with Damian. Some of the best nights of her life included doing that with Lucy, too.
Slade had moved on to eating dinner. Eating snacks on the opposite side of the wall felt a little bit too much like Cristen was eating with him, so she got off the floor to do push-ups. The tempo made her feel better. She was in full gear but for her cowl, which stared at Cristen with anxious eyes from the bed.
Then finally, finally, something happened.
Slade left his room. He passed Cristen's, taking a left down a hall toward the pool. It would make a funny story to know that Deathstroke the Terminator was taking a break in a hotel's hot tub, but instead he turned again and down a stairwell. They were on the first floor. He hadn't taken his phone with him, nor any weapons, so Cristen was unsure if she should follow or not.
Stray waited three minutes. Then a bad feeling washed over her, so she pulled a trench coat over her uniform and took a brisk walk after Slade.
"He's on the move," Cristen whispered into her communicator. The halls on this floor were empty and their cameras were out of service, so she didn't worry about being seen with only sunglasses on. "I'm trailing. No contact. I pinkie promise."
Damian sighed. "Be careful."
"When am I not?"
"I'm not answering that question."
Cristen probably shouldn't have been smiling as she pushed open the door to the stairwell, but Damian had that effect on her regardless of the danger she was in. With the incoming summer the stairwell was cold with air-conditioning, which whirred constantly somewhere high above Cristen's head. To her left was two short flights down to some kind of maintenance room. It was lead-lined, which automatically had Cristen on gaurd. A safe-house in Gotham? Maybe Slade had some kind of connection with the owner of the hotel?
Stray put her cowl on and dropped the twelve feet over the railing, taking the impact with her sound-dampening boots and slinking forward to listen through the hinges of the door. Her super-hearing could just barely get through.
Deathstroke's voice touched the air like one bar patron drawling with another.
"Thought I'd give you some time to stir," said Slade.
Cristen's insight sensed it at once. There was a man in the room with Slade. Between the furnace, generators and other building maintenance, Slade had a captive tied in a chair at the far right of the room. Neither of them she could see, but his captive was clearly just an innocent person. They seemed helpless and stressed with Slade's venomous voice so close, and well aware of what was about to happen.
Stray deciphered: magical bindings, table full of torture devices. This was an interrogation.
"Please just let me go... Please. I did everything you asked, gave you all the information you needed," the captive said. The voice was masculine and high with fear. Cristen wondered what Slade would want with anything magic-related, but nothing came to mind.
"You're right. You did," Slade chuckled. Cristen sensed that he already had this conversation open and shut, and didn't necessarily need anything from his captive. He was just a toy to play with. She seethed with disgust.
Slade spoke like a barber, like he was standing behind the man in the chair with a knife in hand, intending to cut hair and more than that. "You're wondering why you're here."
"No I'm not," the man's voice quavered, even if he was trying to be brave. "You're going to make sure it's authentic. Going to test it on me."
Cristen's insight swept the room again. Test what? All Slade had was a couple of books, his collection of knives, and torturing equipment. Her insight might be getting frazzled by the magic in the captive's bindings, but surely she would sense whatever weird weapon Slade was wielding...
"I showed you. I showed you it was real. You practically watched me steal it for you," wept the captive.
Slade stepped away, back toward his table. His victim was upset by this. "Please! I risked everything for you! Wonder Woman will kill me for what I did."
Wonder Woman? Cristen echoed.
Slade slid a wooden box from his assembly of tools. It was like a small coffin, engraved, and all at once Cristen realized the truth—the dagger! Slade must have been hired to take it!
Like a shotgun blast, Cristen veered back and slammed shoulder-first into the room. A smoke canister snuck out of her hand before Slade or the captive could see what they were dealing with, and by the time it had cleared, the only lightbulb in the room was shattered by a batarang. The captive yelled. Slade growled. All at once the three of them were in darkness, only the red and green lights off the generator visible on the walls.
The batarang flew back into Stray's palm, seamless. She waited.
Deathstroke drew the dagger from it's box. Cristen's insight retraced the word on her back with a searing hatred. The blade was so powerful that the metal glowed in the dark, casting light against Slade's haggard face—and the terrifying chrome eyes of the other creature in the lightless room.
Slade smiled. "Catgirl."
"Slade," Stray supplied, uninhibited. Behind her, the captive sighed with relief. "Here's our deal. Put down the knife and maybe I won't send you back to the Titans in a full-body cast."
For the first time Cristen saw his face up close. He had Bruce's haggardness, like everyone in the world had gotten their own piece of him. His hair was more gray than white, peppering into the sallow color in his face, like a mountain at night with the black grooves in shadow. The only thing distinct in his face was his left eye. A sharp, washed-out blue. Cristen let him see that unwelcoming reflection in the lenses of her goggles, quirking her head.
"Cute," Slade's smile disappeared. "Where's momma kitty? Off on vacation?" He turned the knife over more comfortably in his hand, and something new and more dangerous touched his eye. "Giving her kitten a chance to play with the big cats?"
He was deciphering her, just as Damian had said. His jokes were empty—only a way to get under Cristen's skin, as if Slade knew already how Cristen felt about being treated like a kid. Digging around for a way to get a reaction out of her. Old, too-in-the-book tricks. Cristen wouldn't give him the advantage.
Stray deciphered: a bad knee, poor depth perception because of the eye, more dominant right side.
She smiled to herself. Weak old man.
"It's cute," Cristen drew her claws, "that you think you're a big cat in the first place."
Then, Cristen smashed her first two knuckles into his eye, drove her fist into his wrist, and scooped the handle of the dagger out of the air as she veered her boot sideways into the joint of his knee.
A snap. Ouch. Cristen didn't give herself a moment to enjoy it. Knowing he'd follow, Cristen dove out of the room and dashed away with her treasure.
—He had her by the collar before she was even two steps out. Cristen was spun around and thrown hard against the generators, but she caught herself before she made contact and skidded back against the floor. Slade was thrown off by her initial attack. His eye blinked furiously and his leg looked twisted, but the look on his face was downright calm—if a little annoyed.
"Alright," Slade said. He cracked his neck, silhouetted by the light from the stairwell, and jerked his dislocated knee back into place like some kind of horror movie freak.
Cristen swallowed. Deathstroke dared: "Hit me, little girl."
So Cristen did. She flew forward and smashed her fist into his gut, keeping the knife out of reach, blocking with that arm and fighting with the other. It was a poor strategy to be consistent about her blows, but Cristen was smart enough to know that and to keep Slade's opportunities away from him.
He was fast. So fucking fast. Cristen's insight could barely keep up, but it quickly grew used to fighting with Slade, trying to outsmart him. Where the first of his hits had to be blocked, soon they were matching each other strike-for-strike, then blow-for-blow, then Cristen got the upperhand and smashed the handle of the blade over his stupid eye. Too obvious a weakness. Idiot.
Where Stray had learned, so had Slade. The power in the knife pulsed up her arm, whispering furious thoughts, coaxing her to go for the killing blow—which was any blow at all with the dagger. Holding it in her hand confirmed Cristen's thoughts: this was the knife that Damian was looking for, and one swipe to Slade's skin and it would all be over. The amount of "bad qualities" he had was irresistible to the ancient metal.
She could sense that he realized Cristen was trying not to kill him.
Stray sprinted off when he was distracted, and at her back Deathstroke snarled with understanding: "You're one of his. Bruce's little precog ...Interesting."
His voice faded away. Cristen ran and ran, sprinting hard, taking eight steps at a time up the stairwell. She slammed through the rooftop exit and broke out into the moonlit night, panting for the first time since seventh grade. For a moment Stray was sure Slade hadn't followed, which wasn't what she wanted, but one moment she was panting for breath and the next a boot was grinding her back into the cement.
"Hell!" Cristen hissed. She tried to roll back her arm to threaten him with the knife, but he knew Stray wouldn't dare kill him. Slade took the pistol off his belt and shot her right in the wrist, spraying a hiss out of her mouth and the knife out of her grip. He picked it up, but it wasn't the dagger he was interested in.
"So. Catwoman's girl is bulletproof. Curious," said Slade. Cristen could feel him studying her, could feel it like a worm crawling across her skin, and braced her hands on the ground to make a quick getaway.
The pistol's silencer touched the exposed part of her neck under her cowl, so Cristen stilled. "I wonder," Slade said, "how bulletproof?"
"If you kill me, Batman will bring the entire city down on top of you. Catwoman, Robin, all of them," Cristen reminded, calm.
"Maybe so," Deathstroke paused. His boot ground her into the hard roof, but the sensation had nothing on Cristen's seething insight as Slade debated testing the dagger's powers on her. Slade leaned down to smile at her, "How is my son, anyway?"
Hot, broiling anger filled out Cristen's ribcage like pressure in a bomb.
"He's not your son!" Stray spun onto her shoulder blades like a top and slammed the steel toes of her boot into his face.
Slade rolled with the impact, taking only half of it with the knife still in hand. Still, he held his jaw as he recovered, and looked up to find Cristen snarling in the shadow of the taller surrounding buildings. Slade smiled to himself, bruised; he'd hit gold.
"That's what he thinks," Deathstroke holstered his gun under his jacket. His voice was a venomous calm, the writhing of snakes under brush. "I know that he likes you. I can tell. Damian's always had trouble with girls, but you—so ruthless. So angry. You'd be perfect for my kid."
Cristen knew he was just digging. Just analyzing. Trying to find something he could use against Stray that wasn't as tangible as a knife. Just like Batman. Just like Cristen would.
"You remind me of him. Of Damian." Slade said. His attempt at warmness was like hot poison, and fell flat when it came to the ancient magic dagger he was aiming at Cristen. "We may have just met, little girl, but I see it. Those killer instincts. Whatever you are, you're made for it. All those senses, the bullet-proof skin... Just like him, you're a pretty little doll bred for war."
He smiled a tiger-smile. "You ever killed someone, little soldier girl?"
Cristen stepped into the moonlight. Her expression was fierce, but quiet, subdued. She tried to look like something beyond Slade's idea of her, and imagined the cool sweeping weight of a cape on her shoulders, of a bat on her chest, and glared at him: "No. But you have. And that's why you'll lose."
Slade stared at her. Watched the moonlight come down on her skin and reflect, glowing with the residual heat of sunlight. An understanding washed over him. He didn't smile this time, just snorted, and flipped the dagger in his hand so the blade faced downward.
"...You're Kryptonian." Slade quirked both brows like that was an interesting fact he'd never heard before. "Hm. Batman's little secret weapon. Not as tough as Big Blue. The alien runt of the litter playing cat."
When Stray said nothing, did nothing, to indicate that this was true, Slade promised, "I'll keep that in mind."
Cristen balled her fists. She wondered how she would hit him next, how this would go down, but Slade beat her to the real fight.
"I'm glad we've had this conversation, Catgirl," Slade admitted. His eyepatch caught the light and his good eye fell into shadow, making it look like his face was two empty voids of hate. He turned on his heel, "You've taught me plenty tonight. Keep an eye on my boy for me. And don't worry about your little alien secret; as a favor to Damian, I'll play nice. For now."
Stray drew her claws. She was off-put by how casual he was (and how Slade was telling the truth), so her confidence drained by some. "I told you our deal. You put down the knife, and I won't send you back to the Titans in a body cast."
"You're in the big cat world now, Kryptonian," Deathstroke paused to look over his shoulder at her, snarling. "No deals. No politics. All that's going to happen is this:"
Deathstroke pulled a trigger from his jacket, and popped the button on it as if it were nothing. "You're going to race downstairs to get the bomb out of the brain of our bound companion. And I'm going to get away with this little treasure. Okay?"
And that's precisely what happened.
GOTHAM CITY; WAYNE MANOR | MIDNIGHT | CRISTEN
ADMITTING TO DAMIAN how horribly she'd messed up was something not done politely over the phone. She decided, after smashing the miniature explosive Slade had put in his captive's ear, that Damian deserved a mission update in person. At least Cristen could apologize to him for failing; she couldn't say the same for Lucy.
Cristen wasn't supposed to be in the cave, so instead she opted for the over-limbed trees grown so closely to the manor's edges. There was a thick one right under Damian's window, so Cristen climbed it and rehearsed what she was going to say to him in her head: Damian, I take complete responsibility for losing the dagger, and I take complete responsibility for fucking up not just one of your missions, but two. Please don't hate me.
Robin had given his full faith in her and this was the result. No matter how hard Cristen tried, she failed. Lucy could be dead. Slade could sell the dagger to a much deadlier buyer. It wasn't even a matter of things possibly happening, but a matter of when. So many people had relied on her, Selina and Damian and Batman and Lucy's mom, and every single one of them had bet on the worst possible player. What had happened to her?
For a coward's breath, Cristen wavered on the thick branch leading to Damian's window. She closed her hands against the wood to brace herself, emotionally and physically, and tried to work up the courage to reach his room. Just one more person she'd failed.
Before Cristen could knock, Damian's window separated. He looked tired. "There you are."
Grateful, Cristen accepted Damian's help and climbed in the rest of the way. She was met with a rush of cool air, cooler than the cloying heat of late spring at night, and still Cristen felt overheated.
The room in front of her was so comfortable that Cristen dedicated it to memory. Damian must have been working at his easel just under the window, where the moon light filtered in like a night-time artist's personal lamp. Darkness bathed his untouched bed and unlit fireplace with tones of blue. To Cristen's right was the square mirror Damian tended to avoid, and under that was an accent table, his violin and his sheet music. She knew from her visits that there were hanging plants and mounted swords unseen in the dark. If there was room for a bookshelf, then a bookshelf was there.
"—wanted to speak with me in person," Damian was talking. "What happened? Are you—"
Cristen zoned out again. Behind her, Damian locked the window and left the curtains open so they could see one another. He was talking still, but to Cristen's ears his voice was nothing but a concerned murmur somewhere far away. All she could manage to do was stare, and when she did move, it was only to touch the leaves on Damian's bonsai tree.
She jumped. Damian had snatched up her wrist. His voice came back all at once, loud even if he was barely speaking, "—Cristen."
"I-I," Cristen said, and then it burst out of her all at once: "I followed Slade but he had a captive, and-and I heard him talk about how the captive had stolen something from Wonder Woman for Slade, and then Slade pulled out the dagger you were looking for and we were fighting and he said he knew—k-knew I was Kryptonian, and knew how I felt about you, and I don't—I messed up—I-I don't know how to... He got away." Cristen wept, "He got away."
Damian stared at her.
And all of a sudden her cowl's buckle under her chin was being loosened and her goggles were being pulled over her hair and away. Cristen's hair was sweaty, but she didn't sweat, and there was blood on her fingers—all of it was wrong.
"Why are you...?" Cristen breathed. "I messed up. Both things, and one of them wasn't even mine to mess up. I-I'm so sorry, Damian. I can't do anything right, lately. It's like something's wrong with me—I-I can't control anything that's going on anymore, I can-can't..."
Damian pulled her gloves off. She struggled for words as he folded and set them aside, tried to say what she felt while also understanding why Damian wasn't replying. He didn't seem mad, but he had to be mad, because he deserved to be—everyone should be mad at her.
"I take full responsibility, I-I'll talk to Zatanna for you, I'll—" Then Cristen's throat closed up, and through her tears all she could gasp was: "I'm so tired."
He walked away from Cristen, and Cristen immediately accepted it as Damian ignoring her for her failure. It was fine. She deserved the cold shoulder.
When he returned to her, he had a small bundle of clothes in his hands. Calmly, Damian took her by the shoulder and gave her a sharp, serious look. "You won't be doing any of that. What you'll be doing is going to sleep, and waking up at a proper time, and having a proper breakfast."
Cristen sputtered. She couldn't breathe between her tears, so she pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes and tried to fill her lungs. "No, no, I can do it, I can, I-I just gotta figure this out. I-I just gotta fix this."
Damian set aside the change in clothes. He was gentle when he took her wrists, and even gentler when he pulled them away from Cristen's face. "There isn't anything wrong with you. You're only—"
"Then why do I keep messing up?" Cristen tore her hands away from him, seething between sobs. "I can't even protect my friends, of course I'm fucking up a simple mission to protect someone else."
"You said Slade had a captive," Damian interrupted.
Cristen subdued. She pressed her lips together. "Yeah. Yeah, he did. One of the, the employees at the Themysciran embassy."
"And what happened to them?" Damian asked.
"I...I got him, after Slade left," Cristen dragged her hands through her hair, planted in place. "He said... he made a call. To one of the others at the embassy. He said that he was going to own up to what he did to Wonder Woman, and then, uh, a lady with red hair and a Greek tattoo picked him up."
"That's Rachel. She's on Diana's staff at the embassy in DC," Damian assured. "Which only means you haven't messed up. You stopped Slade to save his captive, didn't you?"
Cristen numbly nodded. "But the knife. I didn't get the knife. Or Slade."
Damian touched her shoulder, then her neck. "But you saved a man's life, which is easily worth the cost. You did the right thing. And you uncovered why Deathstroke was in Gotham, as well as where the dagger was. Flawless or not, I am proud of you."
Shuddering with tears, Cristen shook her head at herself. It put sweaty locks of hair in her face, and after a beat of hesitation, Damian brushed them back with his fingers. He whispered, "There is nothing wrong with you. If you feel disconnected, that is only because you have suffered much in these past months. I don't believe that the Catgirl I know would be this upset, considering the life you saved. You are only so frustrated because of what's happened to Lucy."
Cristen opened her mouth to disagree, but Damian radiated calmness and certainty under her insight. Just being around him made her feel better. When she didn't speak, Damian continued, "I thought that giving you an outlet for your grief would help you, but this particular mission was poorly timed. I apologise."
Like a match being lit, Cristen's expression hardened. The room seemed to chill with the intensity of her anger. "What? So I just stop being Stray? I stop trying to help my friend? Because I can't do anything right, is that it? This isn't grief! I can do this! I can! I just need to—to try harder."
"This is grief," Damian cooly countered. "But not just for Newman. For the League, for what happened in Smallville. Your mother. Perhaps even Laureline. What you need to do is understand why you are upset, and simply be upset—this is not something you fix, and even if it was it would not happen in one night."
"But I—" Cristen started.
"Shh. Listen to me." Damian collected the clothes again and presented them to Cristen, "You also need to understand that none of this is your fault. You did not fail to save Lucy, someone kidnapped her. That is what happened. You did not fail to stop Slade, you were manipulated by him."
The words made her furious, made her want to argue and yell and run, but that only helped Damian's point more. Cristen had let all her grief and her hatred and her guilt eat her up inside for the last three months, and now it was bursting out of her from the pressure. She couldn't just take it out on Slade or on Damian. What Cristen needed to do was understand why and how she was feeling the way she was, and process that as they worked to find Lucy.
"Okay," Cristen released a trembling breath. She tried to nod at him as tears rolled down her face. "Okay."
Shaking still, Cristen could barely lift her arms to wash the tears off her face with her hands. Only now did she realize how extensive those feelings had become over time. Thinking about anything at all inevitably led to Palaci or Anita or Lucy or her own kidnapping. The memories would come to her individually or together, like now, and their weight would leave her numb and exhausted. Eating and sleeping and living had lost their luster, and the intensity of it made Cristen spend all this time blaming herself for it.
All of it led back to Stray. If Cristen dropped her vigilante life at this very moment, her future could be so much brighter. Hell, if Cristen had never become Stray the value and happiness of her life would have multiplied tenfold. Bullet's concerns suddenly had ground: everything that Damian had brought up, the great list of horror that summarized the last year of Cristen's life—nonexistent!
...But so would all that Cristen had worked for. The hundreds of lives Stray had pulled out of the fire would be gone—thousands, even, if you took into account how people saved other people and how just one act in her career was consequential either way. Without Stray, there was one less Kryptonian survivor and none at all from Palaci. Her fellow vigilantes would have a heavier weight to bear. Damian would have to work the two cases Cristen had helped with alone, and might have died the millions of other times Cristen had been there to save him.
She could get through this. Cristen had to get through this, for her own sake and everyone else's.
"Change into these clothes," Damian made it sound like an order, but Cristen could sense how empathy panged in his chest. "You're too tired to make it home. I'll inform your father. You can sleep in my bed, and you can have breakfast with Alfred and I tomorrow before school. We can pick up your school things on the way there."
The very reminder of the Academy took out Cristen's joints with phantom stress, so she just sighed to herself and looked at Damian's big, comfy bed. "Thank you. You're incredibly sweet. I think I'm too wiped out to even change, though."
Damian blurted: "I'll help you."
Cristen blushed. Still, trying to lift her arms felt like dragging a sunken ship to the surface, so she shifted in her itchy Stray suit and considered. "You would?"
"I-I didn't mean, mean to imply..." Damian choked.
At this point, Cristen's eyes were starting to drift shut, daydreaming about a good night's rest. She tried her best to kick off her boots. "Please?"
After a beat of hesitation, Damian crept forward. It wasn't so outlandish; he'd pried off her armor to get to a stab wound once, Cristen had sucked tiger snake venom out of his arm a week or so before Damian quit the Titans, and so on. They'd seen one another in the worst positions. Blood and gore and bone. All of it. The only difference now was Damian's heart, which was ready to explode because of how intimate this was, not out of fear for her flatlining.
He cleared his throat. Cristen was kind enough to undo her utility belt and chest harness, but most of her energy was going into her effort to keep standing straight. Damian worked off her Stray uniform like this was some kind of medical procedure, stoic expression and all, but Cristen knew he was just trying to be polite. She didn't exactly feel pretty right now.
It felt like any other day for the two of them. That was how Cristen knew that Damian was good for her; she didn't just want to kiss him or whatever, but care for him too. Cristen wanted to rub his back after a hard patrol, wanted to run him a bath when he was tired, wanted to kiss his hair before she put an icepack on his forehead when Damian was sick. She wanted this to be normal for the two of them. Caring for one another.
Most of the struggle was in getting Damian's spare t-shirt on. It was long enough to be a nightgown on Cristen, and her head would gravitate to his shoulder as he worked, nuzzling his cold sweater. When Damian did get the green TMNT shirt over Cristen's hair, he took each of her wrists and helped wiggle them into the wide sleeves.
"Thank you," Cristen mumbled.
"You did get beat up because of me," Damian reminded. He helped one of her feet into the leg of his basketball shorts.
"The bruises aren't from Slade," Cristen whispered.
"Oh," Damian looked away. He pulled the shorts around her hips. "...Fighting him... was it...?"
Cristen lied and yet also not. "Fighting was the easiest part," she said. Slowly, tiredly, Cristen reclined against Damian again, touching her ear to his heart. "My insight... much faster. Only reason he ran was because he knew I could beat him."
After a moment where Damian's thoughts broiled around in his head, unsure, he carded back the hair from her face again. She couldn't see his eyes when he praised, "Atta' girl."
Without even thinking about it, Cristen's face melted into a smile. She could tell how hard Damian was trying to be sympathetic, reasonable, and understanding of Cristen's feelings. He had come so far from that mean little boy she'd first known, and not nearly enough people gave him credit for that. Out of everyone in Cristen's life, Damian was easily the first she would trust with her feelings, as Damian had trusted her with his for so long. She was aware that Damian still had a long way to go with his own self-pride and guilt, but the fact that he was Robin and that he was doing this for her proved Cristen's thoughts again: he was so good.
"Thank you," Cristen rubbed the sleep in her eyes. "You try so hard for me. Don't think I don't see it."
Damian scowled and looked away from her. "You did something for me. I owed you."
No matter how weighed down she felt, it would always be easy for Cristen to wrap her arms around Damian's middle and sigh. Under her palms his back tensed, then relaxed, then tensed again. A hand gently brought Cristen away from him by the shoulder.
"Cristen," Damian said. He avoided her gaze, and in the darkness Cristen felt nervousness bleed off him. "Are we... are you my...?"
Cristen's eyes widened, then softened. She put a hand over the one on her shoulder. "I would like it. If we were. If I was."
There were a million other things she could tack onto that. I love you. You make me a better person. Out of everyone in my life you have always had faith in me, treated me like I was your equal, and that alone is reason enough for me to want to be your girlfriend.
A hot, ferocious kind of guilt bubbled up in Damian's chest. His hand dropped to his side and he took a step away from her, "I... I cannot. Not now."
"Not yet?" Cristen hoped.
That seemed to be a phrase Damian liked, so he said, "Yes. Not... not yet."
"Okay," Cristen hid her disappointment under a layer of kindness, and looked warmly at him, excited. "I'll be here."
Her words seemed to dig Damian's regret knife even deeper into his chest, which turned his gaze pointed and apologetic. He opened his mouth to say something else, but words failed him and he stepped back toward his easel instead. Cristen watched his back burn with shame, before crawling under the covers and collapsing there. Everything—the pillows, the blankets, the sheets—smelled just like Damian.
"Are you staying up?" Cristen asked.
"Painting," Damian explained.
"Would you..." Cristen pat the side of the bed she wasn't on.
With an annoyed sigh that wasn't really annoyed at all, Damian rolled his eyes, pushed the table-cart full of art supplies next to the bed, and carried the easel with him as he sat down next to where Cristen was. He was finishing the freckles under the lace sleeves of a tan girl's sundress.
Cristen fell asleep to the soft sound of brush to canvas, and the occasional brush of warm hand to black curls in the dark.