Chapter Text
Cassandra Wayne stares balefully around the stale apartment she’s rented in the heart of Shanghai. She flew here out of her home base in Hong Kong a week ago, hot on the trail of several financiers of an international human trafficking ring.
A trail that has since grown cold, cold as the city she’d enjoy exploring if weren’t for the fact that it’s four days until Christmas, and she’s had to call Alfred and tell him there’s a chance she might not make it home for the holidays this year.
She hasn’t yet had the chance to tell Bruce; he’s only legally been her father for five years, but she knows he’ll be bitterly disappointed nevertheless. She’ll see it in his body language if they Skype, so she makes a note to call him on the phone. Bruce is good at lying with his words, not so much with his face and body language. Not to her, anyway.
She doesn’t even want to think about breaking the news to her brothers.
Or the rest of the Batfamily, for that matter.
Really, human traffickers are the worst.
If it were any other case, she might consider taking a break.
But she’s met some of the victims of this case now, and she’s seen too many more never make it out alive. Some of the ones who do have eyes that skitter anywhere before meeting another person’s gaze, while others stare sightlessly ahead, too lost in horror to comprehend they’ve been rescued. For these, and for far too many others, there will be no real rescue, as extraction comes too late to prevent the death of the soul. It’s murder, even for those who are found with breaths and pulses still in their bodies, but with their hearts and minds too shattered to recover anything that might even come close to resembling life.
And Cass, like everyone else in her family, has a mission.
So as much as she loves her family—and she loves them so much she often feels as if the sheer expanse of it will burst out of her pores, her skin, the limits of her being—there are times when the mission must come before comfort. That right now happens to be one of those times is just unfortunate for her.
She sighs, walks over to the little kitchen, if it can even be called that. Reluctantly pulls out a prepackaged cup of instant ramen for her dinner.
Alfred would be appalled.
Then again, if Alfred were present, he’d have no reason to be appalled, because Cass would’ve insisted on taking him out to explore the culinary adventures a town like Shanghai had to offer. Or she’d let him talk her into preparing something so they could have a night in before she had to surveil her targets.
Normally, she’d be staying in the presidential suite kept for her family and other top executives at Wayne Tower, but the public don’t know she’s in town. After all, she’d come to Shanghai not as a pampered Gotham princess, but as the Black Bat. Or, as Dick likes to teasingly call her, the vigilante formerly known as Batgirl.
But Batgirl was a lifetime ago.
Before Veronica had died, and Ra’s al Ghul had stolen away her body to resurrect her in a Lazarus Pit, and then hide her away from the BatClan.
Before Bruce died—well, before everyone thought he’d died, but he’d actually been thrown back in time somehow. Cassandra doesn’t really understand or care about the science of it. All she cares about is the fact that her Baba had been gone forever, or so she’d thought.
Her family had been ashambles, everyone flinching away from each other except when they chose to stab each other with sharp looks and even sharper words. She’d fled to Hong Kong to avoid being cut to ribbons, and to find out who she was when she wasn’t Bruce’s daughter, Veronica’s favored niece. When she wasn’t Batgirl.
Now Bruce is back. And so is Veronica.
And Cass has become Black Bat, a skin she wears more naturally than that of Gotham’s Princess, Cassandra Wayne. A mantle she’s crafted and taken on for herself. A duty she loves, is completely committed to.
But she’d really wanted to be home for Christmas this year.
She’s visited them often, of course, since they both returned, mere weeks apart, just shy of five months ago. She’s held them and been held by them, smelled them, touched their faces, heard the timbre of their voices, cherished the sound of their laughter, mingled her tears with theirs, read the language of their bodies. Been reassured that they are real, and alive, and hers, or as much hers as any one family member can belong to another.
But this is different. This is Christmas, and would have been their first complete Christmas as a family. Last year’s had been miserable and so haunted by Bruce’s and Veronica’s absences, Cass could all but taste the tears on the air. The year before that, they hadn’t met Dami yet, or had an inkling he even existed. This year they’d promised to be together. Even Jason had vowed to come.
And now Cass is the one who must tell her family she won’t make it.
She sighs, tells herself not to think of it, and moves to open the package meal in her hand.
She’s surprised, yet grateful for the interruption, when she hears the doorbell ring. Cup still in hand, she goes to check the security feed.
Bright blond hair, the flash of a smile that has always said “I’m here, I’m your family” and a signature head tilt.
Cass is sprinting for the door and has thrown her arms around her visitor before she has fully thrown it open.
“Woah, there!” Veronica says, laughing. But her arms are solid around Cass, and in this narrow apartment hallway that smells of battered exhaustion and old cooking oil, hugging a woman who’s been more mother to her than the woman who birthed her, she is all of a sudden home. The two women just stand and cling to each other for a while.
“借过一下” Both women turn to the little old lady Cass is pretty sure lives three doors down from her. The woman’s eyes are rheumy, but there’s amusement and kindness in her gaze, and she is smiling slightly. Despite asking to be let through, her tone is patient, if just a little bit chiding.
Cass and Veronica smile at her in sheepish apology. Veronica steps forward and bows her head a little in a gesture of respect. “对不起,” the blonde tells the older woman, whose eyes widen at her flawless accent as she apologizes for them blocking the hallway. Cass knows Veronica’s fluency is hard-won and not by virtue of being a natural polyglot the way it is with Bruce and Damian, but it’s clear the Veronica Mars has not let any of her skills slip.
Or her natural talents, Cass muses, as she watches the woman tilt her head at her neighbor, then offer her a small, familiar-looking box. The scent of cinnamon and baked goodness wafts Cass’s way. The old lady (whose name, Cass learns, is Mrs. Liu) tries to decline, but Veronica turns up the charm, adding sparkling eyes and a hair flip to that ruthless application of head tilt. She takes the time to explain what the box contains—her signature snickerdoodles. And then she has to explain what snickerdoodles even are. She opens the box and lets Mrs. Liu try one, and the old lady is instantly hooked.
Not that there’s any doubt she would be from the start. Those snickerdoodles have caused Kryptonians to riot. Cass smiles fondly, ruthlessly squashing an image that comes to mind, of a day about a month after Veronica had died when she’d come home to find Superman sobbing in their kitchen after finding one of the cinnamon-coated cookies, weeks stale, in one of the many snack stashes around the Manor.
Finally the old lady moves on, box hugged possessively to her side. Veronica turns to Cass and says teasingly, “Well? Are you going to let me in?”
Her smile is everything warm and bright despite the chiding tone. Cass finds she must blink her eyes against moistness and swallow against the love that has risen in her throat. Words, which have never come easy to her, fail to form on her tongue. She steps back, and Veronica walks in, deposits her purse and a backpack on the couch with such casual familiarity that the lump in her throat only gets bigger.
Why are you here? she signs instead of speaking, using the modified ASL shorthand used almost exclusively by the Bats and Supers. Why not with the family?
Veronica’s smile widens. “I am with family.” She signs it as well as speaks it.
And Cass’s eyes water anew. “I miss you,” she whispers.
“I’ve missed you too, Cass,” Veronica says, enveloping her in another hug that makes her feel like the world—even the mission—can wait a little while. “We all do. Which was why Alfred gave me a call when you told him you weren’t coming for Christmas.”
Guilt floods her. Veronica is here just for her? “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, Cass. I’m here to help with the case.” Veronica smiles. “Let’s see if we can’t gather enough evidence to put some really bad guys behind bars in the next three days. And, worse comes to worst, unlike your father, I’m not above a little exploitation of Justice League resources if it means catching a zeta beam to Gotham so we can join the family for dinner on Christmas Eve, patrol, and brunch the next morning.”
Cass tilts her head. “He won’t like that.”
Veronica laughs. “He’ll like us being there. Besides, it’s like a gift to him, giving him something legitimate to grumble about.” Then she frowns. Cass follows her gaze and sees it’s landed on the cup of instant ramen, still in her hand. “Was that going to be your dinner?”
She grimaces.
Veronica’s frown deepens, and she takes the cup from Cass’s hand, tosses it back on the counter. “Right,” she says. “That’s not going to work for me. Pack up your stuff. By the power invested in me by Bruce, your auntie Mac and I have taken over the suite reserved for traveling VIPs at Wayne Tower across the river in Pudong. You’re coming with me.”
Cass shakes her head. “Cassandra Wayne is not supposed to be in Shanghai.”
She gets a smirk in reply. “Check your social media, sweetie. Bruce Wayne’s personal jet was seen at Hong Kong International Airport, where a certain shapeshifting Martian morphed to look like a certain black-haired Gotham princess was photographed entering the jet after being greeted by Brucie’s bestie, Veronica Mars, former Justice League liaison to the UN.”
“You did all that for me?” Cass’s eyes are wide. She suspects they might start tearing up again and blinks defensively.
“Of course, sweetie. And as a cover story, Mac and I are here to consult with several businessmen interested in what WayneSec and WayneTech can offer them in the coming year, but we’re actually here to assist you in your takedown of the barely human scum you’re hunting.”
She would never say no to help from either woman. Veronica, who infrequently moonlights as the vigilante known as Vesper, is a director and primary consultant for Wayne Security, while Cindy “Mac” Mackenzie, AKA Umbra, is CEO of WayneTech and former queen of BatTech, until she turned her crown over to Oracle AKA Barbara Gordon so she could focus on tech work for the Justice League and on running WayneTech.
Cass says the only thing she can. “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem! We’re no Batman and Oracle, but we’re not exactly chopped liver in the investigations department. One would argue that Bond and Q have been doing detective work for longer than the Bat has.”
Cass’s grin mirrors Veronica’s. “Yes,” she agrees.
“Then come on. I’ve got a bright yellow Lamborghini parked a couple of blocks over. Bruce says it’s yours if you like it, mine if you don’t. I’m hoping you don’t.”
But she reads the lie in the smile that ghosts the corners of the older woman’s mouth, in the relaxed slump of her shoulders, in the way she gives off the impression of bouncing while standing still. So Cass shakes her head, still grinning. “If I like it, I will tell him you did too, and he will buy you your own.” Veronica has always brought sparkles to Bruce’s darkness, and Bruce has never been unextravagant in his gifts of appreciation.
Still, she packs up her belongings—a small duffel bag for her personal items, and larger packs for her equipment. They load everything into the Lambo with some difficulty and then speed across the Huangpu River to Shanghai’s business district, where Wayne Enterprises has its offices just a few blocks away from the Oriental Pearl Tower. They take the private elevator up, and Cass finds herself engulfed in yet another hug, this one from her mohawked self-identified “cool aunt,” Mac.
“Okay, after hugs, we’re leaving,” Veronica announces. “Because I’m starving! And I’m craving some roast duck and xiao long bao! My treat!”
Mac shakes her head. “Dead and back again, and the woman’s stomach still reigns over our lives.”
But Cass only laughs. “Okay,” she tells her aunts. “But afterward I’m taking you for boba tea and custard buns!”
Veronica’s eyes sparkle. “And egg tarts?”
The other two roll their eyes. But Cass knows she’ll be happily buying the egg tarts too. And then, surveillance. She has a mission, after all.
But she’s got family too.