Yet Forgives the Butcher's Knife
This fills the second day's prompt: College (albeit quite briefly, but this was written before I planned to enter this event, so go me for having such foresight that AYFTBK needed barely any tweaking at all!)
Disclaimer: This follows Canon events up to a point, but since DC has the inability to stick to one timeline or version of events without retconning it, I'm taking liberties with some plot points. (Canon-complicit to a point)
Rating: T TW: none? Violence lite, perhaps
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Stephanie thanked Leslie for all her care and told the doctor she was leaving to start her second life afresh. She promised to keep in touch and zipped up her duffle.
Steph and Jason flew to Oxford, England, where Jason attended uni for Lit and medical classes and Steph trained to become LoA material. The apartment Jason had asked Talia to obtain had the usual suit, weapons, training area, booby traps, etc, plus a special surprise. Steph dumped her purple duffle on the coffee table and dodged a strike, rolling to her feet and pulling escrima on her assailant. Jason rolled his eyes and greeted her casually. “Hey, T.”
Steph looked at the choreographed fight-dance of Jason and whom she now realized was his mom, admiring their fluid, well-practiced moves that she aspired to. Jason finally pinned Talia and helped her up.
“Why're you here, T?”
“I came to see my son and daughter-in-law, of course, and to make sure you haven't slacked off just because you're in love.”
Jason and Steph coughed and blushed heavily, having not said those words yet.
Talia smirked and nodded at Jason. “I approve. She is not up to recruits' level 3 yet, but she shows promise. Good job avoiding my opening blow, Stephanie. Your observational skills and instincts are quite honed.”
“Oh, thank you? J's been running me pretty hard, but I've been improving, so I'm glad it's not just in my head,” she laughed awkwardly.
“I am here to train you while Jason is in class,” announced Talia. “I will be here for two weeks. When I return to Nanda Parbat, you are welcome to come with me.”
~♡~
Steph didn't return with Talia, but she and Jason did visit the fortress a couple times. Jason got Slade Wilson to train her for a while, and the mercenary liked her because she reminded him of his daughter Rose. A few of his other friends/trainees agreed to help her as well, and she was able to take Jason down at least 50% of the time by Jason's graduation 2 years later. As well as the physical training, Jason refined Steph's already quite-honed stealth skills, plus hacking, stalking, mental boundaries and a couple languages. She could now speak English, French, Swahili, Mandarin, and Russian. For fun, he taught her a couple motorcycle stunts and weapons tricks to intimidate low-level opponents. She got upgraded Official Robin Training she'd missed.
Over the two years, the couple had planned their steps once leaving Oxford well. They headed to Hong Kong to collect the gear Talia had provided and finalize the details.
Red Hood made an appearance in Gotham 18 months ago, sniping the Joker and ensuring he was cremated. It was quick, quiet, and clean, so there should be no trace of him, but if there was, only his shiny red helmet would be visible. No other traces were left.
In Hong Kong, Jason and Stephanie headed to the safehouse/penthouse Talia had secured. Steph went out to get groceries while Jason checked over everything, especially the new suits for Red Hood and Indigo. The design was modified from the League's uniforms enough that it wouldn't tip off the Bats but still kept its functionality.
Steph got the fresh food and headed home when she heard fighting coming from an alley. She hid the groceries under a piece of wood and hurried to help. A young Chinese-American girl about her and Jay's age was fluidly fighting off eight gang members. Steph paused a moment to appreciate the girl's style (Steph was now a top ninja, but this girl's moves were something else) which reminded her of Lady Shiva's, before rushing two goons and knocking them out cold. Once all were unconscious Steph wiped her hands on her jeans and turned to the girl.
“Neihhou, I'm Steph. Nice moves...why were you fighting them?” she said in slow Cantonese, unsure which languages the girl spoke.
“Neihhou...m goi," she answered even slower, bowing slightly, but Steph was pretty sure it was from politeness, not an injury.
The girl began making signs slowly, explaining that the goons were traffickers who'd made the horrible decision to attempt to kidnap her. Steph grabbed the girl's hand and dragged her to Jason, stopping to collect the groceries on the way.
Jason looked up and did a double-take when he saw Steph wasn't alone. “Steph...”
“She fights similarly to Shiva and I thought she was almost kidnapped so I jumped in and took her home. She prefers sign or body language, I think,” Steph announced.
Jason looked the girl up and down. “Do you know Lady Shiva?”
The girl looked between Jason and Steph. “Mom.”
Jason and Steph exchanged glances. “Lady Shiva is your mother? Who's your father, then?”
“David Cain.”
“Are you an assassin?” Jason signed as he spoke, hoping she knew ASL.
She shook her head emphatically. “No. I don't want...hurt people...Innocents...David made...me kill...once...I ran... Five years.”
“Do you have a name?” asked Steph.
“One Who Is All,” replied the girl. “No name. Title. Bodyguard.”
“You need a name!” said Jason immediately. “You read body language, right? I heard stories about you. You predict moves like Sandra?”
The girl nodded slowly.
“So you're a prophetess...Cassandra? Cassandra was a Greek prophetess cursed to have nobody believe her. What do you think?”
(Nerd, thought Steph lovingly. But my nerd.)
“Cass,” said the girl definitively.
“Cass it is!” said Steph.
“Oh, this is Jason, my husband, and I'm Steph.”
Cass decided to stay with them and Talia quickly had a suit in her size prepared.
~♡~
The suit was hand-delivered by a grumpy baby assassin, Jason's little brother Damian. He was 10 and far too old to need babysitters, but Talia had deemed the League too unsafe for him now and knew 3 of the world's top fighters would protect him better than she at present. She had considered sending him to Bruce, but even a Wayne was too much too much attention, and Damian popping out of the woodwork would cause too much scrutiny, so his brother and sister-in-law it was! He brought his suit along with him, plus a suitcase full of weapons.
~♡~
Steph and Jason finally arrived in Gotham, with double the passengers and load they'd expected. Luckily, all were ninja and so packed lightly—the majority of the luggage was weapons and ninja gear, anways. The base of the quartet's operations was in the Narrows area, underneath a building owned by Stephanie (under a pseudonym, of course). The sub-level BOOP had 3 layers:
1) garage, vigilante stuff, tech centre, etc.
2) training area/gym/mini-hospital and lab
3) living quarters.
Stephanie and Jason were absolutely not going to allow Damian to join them on the streets, but compromised by letting him run the comms, since he was quite good with tech—he could probably give Babs a run for her money, Jason decided. He and Steph took turns teaching Damian (and Cass, since she sat in) since he couldn't attend normal school, at least not in his fresh-from-a-murder-cult state. The subjects were higher-level and more varied than public schools' as well. Everyone also learned ASL so Cass could communicate with them more comfortably.
Once the 4 were settled in Gotham, Jason began his plan.
Stephanie had decide that she couldn't kill, (unless maybe in self-defense, but she had enough training that she shouldn't be in that position, anyways), but she sure didn't say no to Jason taking Black Mask out for her.
Cass had sworn to never kill again and frowned when Jason and Steph told her their plan, but once Jason's PowerPoint was over and she saw how victims—including Steph—relaxed when their [family's] murderer, kidnapper, rapist, etc was gone for good, she saw their point of view snd accepted their stance.
With Sionis out of the way, Red Hood stepped in and took over Gotham's underworld. One duffle bag left quite a first impression and there wasn't too much rebellion after that. Most people preferred Red Hood to Black Mask—he actually protected people, so crime was at an all-time low, especially violent crime; kids weren't allowed to buy/ run drugs or work for any criminals, so fewer kids died in gang disputes; Hood took care of the street kids and working women, making them the safest they'd ever been; he controlled all of Gotham's drugs, so there were fewer gang/turf wars, “cut” drugs, bad deals, etc. And the final straw: Hood cared. He was one of them—there was no mistaking his (played-up) Park Row accent. His lieutenants Indigo and Orphan were intimidating but Indy had a Narrows accent too and Orphan was very protective of hurt children and innocents. Almost everyone in Gotham was beyond satisfied with their new prince.
~♡~
Jason and Steph suited up for the night, Cass staying behind for a night off. The base layer of all their uniforms was plain black cotton long-sleeved T-shirts, leggings, and socks. Next came the Kevlar-weave tunics, high-necked and dropping to their thighs. Black bindings wrapped around their wrists and forearms and calves-down, past their heavy-duty steel-toed boots. Red Hood wore dark grey cargo pants, while Indigo's and Orphan's were black. Indigo and RH both wore kevlar-weave hoods with red/purple lining, red/purple-tinted goggles, and a red/purple mask from nose to chin for filtering air and adding another layer of ID security, as voice modulators and rebreathers were built in. The goggles were connected to Ghoul's computers and could call up maps, files, etc., while the comms were built into the goggles and masks. RH, I, and O all had utility belts with grapples; smoke bombs/pellets; shuriken, etc; snacks; paper & pen, etc. Red Hood had the most guns, but Indy and Orphan also carried a pistol and rubber bullets. (Think this design [+sleeves] for Jason and a similar one in purple for Steph.)
As well as his Jericho .941's, Hood carried a variety of knives, small missiles, and a strap for his dual swords, but he didn't wear them unless he was trying to make an impression.
Indigo carried knives and small missiles, plus escrima on her back and a bō on her belt.
Orphan preferred intimidation (and went out the least, or stayed on Hood and Indy's six) and if she did fight, favoured hand-to-hand, but she carried a knife and a bō just in case, plus the pistol. Orphan didn't like Hood and Indy's hoods as they restricted her vision, which was her primary sense considering her specialty (Hood and Indy were good enough the handicap didn't affect them). She had a full-face kevlar-weave covering (with breathing spaces, duh) and a haphazardly-stitched mouth. (Cass's outfit)
Unsurprisingly, she didn't get to fight many criminals—most fainted. Ghoul did have a suit for if he was needed in an emergency -a mini-version of the others'- but in deep green. Crime Alley was slowly losing its nickname.
~♡~
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