Sacrifice Ch.35 Better Than You Know

35 - Better Than You Know

Tim slapped his hand hard against the mat, breaking his fall best he could.  Thankfully his falls were instinct now or Cass' throw would have hurt him.  They'd been working on basic judo moves for the past hour and so far the boy hadn't managed to throw his sister once.  He evaded attacks rather well, but he was very weak when on the offensive.  They switched to judo because of this, but still found he had too little strength to get the job done.

His sister was ready to give up on judo too.  "Alright, I think that's it for now."  She pointed towards the small weights off to the side.  "You better work on your upper body strength."

"When are... we... getting back... to hitting?"  Air had a hard time reaching his lungs, and all things considered, she couldn't blame him.  As weak as Tim was compared to her, he worked really hard at everything he did.  In time he'd become quite good because of that, but convincing a nine year old this was intensely difficult.

"Tomorrow. We'll work on your form first."

"But-"

"I said no complaining!"  Her snapping got Tim to quiet immediately, remembering their deal.  She'd only train him if he promised to do exactly as she said and not complained about it.  Normally she wouldn't have snapped either, but she was very frustrated.  Not just with the lack of progress with Tim's fighting prowess, but in everything else around her as well.  

She didn't show it like the others, but she was anxious about Dick too, about everyone.  She just...

Rubbing her head, she tried not to imagine the acrobat flipping on the bars not too far away from the practice mats.  He always was there with them in the past, making sure everything turned out alright.  They were his spotter and he was their emergency medic.  It was a pretty simple system and worked well for years.  Not having him there set her off balance.  

"Sorry..." She shook her head as she apologized for snapping at her brother.  "I just... I need some air.  Work on your arms for a few minutes then call it a night."

Glumly he nodded and did as he was told.  Cass saw his disappointment and tried to shrug it off as she left the room to breathe.  Harder to do than she thought.  She was running out of ideas on how to teach Tim anything, or what to teach him.  This really wasn't the job for her but it was all she could do and she had promised she'd help him out.  She didn't want to disappoint him.  Tim was her favorite.  She got along well with Jason and alright with Damian and Dick, but they understood each other best.  The quiet ones.  They'd been in the same class for the past three years, helping each other out whenever they were in trouble.  And right then she didn't know how to help him.

Dick would know what to do.  He always knew.  Dad knew too, some times.  He was just... distracted.

Getting an idea, Cass decided to pay the man a visit.  More than likely, considering the late hour, their dad was in the cave, working on either Dick's case or on a minor one the League ran into that could be handled easily.  Damian would be with him, getting sleepy enough to go to bed without a fuss (quite a challenge these days).  Jason might be there too, but he was still cleaning cars for ditching school last she knew.  Really it was time to wind down for the night.  For everyone to wind down actually.  Did Dad ever wind down?  She was beginning to think not.  

Thinking about the past couple months, the girl could not ignore how tense he was.  Often he was seen drinking coffee, looking over data until he couldn't make sense of the words anymore.  He slept every few days or spontaneously passed out when he sat still for too long.  She never seen him like this before, and it worried her.  

Everyone worried her.  

Even Barbara had taken a turn for the worst, not talking to them these days.  Too bad all their bodies spoke to the girl so loudly.  They may have been able to conceal their worry if she hadn't been able to read them so easily.  Things couldn't continue like this.

Spotting Alfred, Cass decided to slip into the cave undetected behind him.  It wasn't hard for her, especially since the old man was concentrating on carrying the coffee tray and cups down the stairs without tripping.  He'd been shaky the past few months, but only she had noticed.  Missing some cleaning, using only so much of certain spices instead of making foods to taste, even taking shortcuts in the cooking every once in a while. The tension in his shoulders, the way he looked at everyone, the ghost of a habit to look up at different intervals, his subtle body language worried her even more. She noticed his subtle signs of distress, but didn't know what to do about it.

Sadly, the lass passed him in order to hunt down her father and see what he was up to.  Maybe even convince him to act according to her wishes.   Silent as could be, Cass made it to the main level of the cave, gliding towards the computer their dad sat at.  Aunt Diana was with him, looking over something.  A clue of some sort?

"And there's nothing your Oracle systems can bring up?  At all?  Even with the added information?"

Wonder Woman shook her head, disappointed for some reason.  "Hera help us.  I don't even know if Apollo could decipher what Dick put here."

'Dick?'  The girl blinked, slipping even further into the darkness, straining her ears to listen to every word spoken.  Were they holding something back?

"Have you tried talking to her about it?"  The amazon pointed to something she couldn't see.  "It is addressed to her after all."

"Not yet."  The man sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes.  His careworn face was looking more weathered by the night.  Stress radiated from every feature, worrying the child.  What were they talking about?  "I wanted to see if I could find something first.  Anything.  There isn't anything remarkable about the supplies and there's no DNA.  And the message itself..." He shook his head before continuing.  "The wording is his, the handwriting's his, and other than the one misspelling, there's no code to decipher.

"The message has to be in the artwork and the extra letter."

"What message?"

Both adults jerked around at Cass' voice, shocked she was there with them.  Damian wasn't in the cave after all, merely them, Alfred, and the large computer with a barely readable note on the screen with a few test results next to it.  A note that had her name on it.  "What's going on?"

Diana and her father exchanged hesitant looks, then looked beyond her to the old man who now stood just behind her.  If the girl had looked behind her she'd have seen the withering I-told-you-so look in Alfred's eyes.  Reading the two before him, she already had an answer.  "You've been keeping something from us about Dick."

While Wonder Woman tried to come up with some liable excuse, her father slumped in defeat.  He knew he couldn’t hide this now.  Didn't matter what he said. She knew when he was lying, she always did.  "Little sister, we did not wish to-"

"Don’t tell Tim or Damian."  Bruce looked to her imploringly.  "I don't want them to get their hopes up until we have something solid and can bring him home.  You know how they are."

"Bruce!" the Amazon objected out of reflex, but Cass nodded anyway, hurrying over.  She understood what her father was getting at, even if the woman didn't.  "I thought-"

"Weren't you just telling me to include her in the investigation?"  He gave her a quick look, silencing his ally.  Sighing slightly, he looked back to his daughter.  "And you're right.  She may see something we don't.  A fresh set of eyes could help unravel this clue.  Cass."  He tilted his head slightly, signaling her to take a look.  She didn't hesitate to go to his side and see what he had on the screens.  It didn't take her long to see what it was, her eyes widening with every second.  "What do you make of it?"

"You found evidence Dick's alive."

Her father nodded.  "And that was nearly two months ago.  Last week Zatanna helped me make contact with him."  Cassandra jerked her head to see him properly.  What was that?  He held up a hand so he could explain.  "It was a onetime spell and I didn't get a lot from it.  Let me tell you what I know and you can tell me what you think."

The girl watched his face for a moment in silence, seeing how worn he was from all of this once again.  Not telling them was part of the reason he was so stressed.  If he wasn't so good at keeping secrets for the sake of others, he'd have burst from the knowledge.    And from the looks of it, he had quite a bit.  Cass nodded and slid onto a flat panel next to the keyboard, letting the man review.

"Around your birthday, Dick and two men made a pit stop in Smallville at the northern gas station.  They were driving a U-Haul and only stayed long enough to get gas, use the restroom, and stretch their legs.  When his captors were distracted, he wrote this note, folded it into a tight diamond, and put it in between the gondolas so it wouldn't be found by the wrong people.  Then he proceeded to the bathroom and made an etching on the stall door."  Bruce brought up images of the note and circled R mark from an old door.  Both were clearly done by Dick and willingly, somewhat in haste.  Cass read the note, her mouth quirking because it was addressed to her but confused as to why Dick would send that when he clearly needed help.  He must have put a secondary message in it.

"Martha and Jonathan Kent fount the mark a week or so later; we're not sure exactly when Dick was there, just late January, early February.  Clark found the note after a search and brought it here as soon as they found it."

"I see..."

"We suspect Dick left this vague message because he knew he was being watched," Diana explained, trying to justify her presence.   "Every resource we have has tested it, including my people's Oracle systems.   It has only confirmed that Dick was more worried about it being found than about being found himself.  Whoever is with him must scare him greatly."

"You can say that again."  The detective continued to tell his daughter what they knew.  "I convinced Zatanna Zatara to attempt making contact with Dick using magic, but she told me it would be difficult.  Apparently she already attempted a scrying spell on her own and found he was being blocked from location spells by some unseen force.  She believes his captors have a talisman, and the only way to move around it was to use a very complicated spell which would... weaken Dick's constitution and make the entire visit like a fever induced hallucination."

"What?"  Cass looked over the man in confusion.  He looked incredibly guilty about something.   The Amazon explained, also trying to hide some guilt and contempt.

"She cast a spell to make him sick.  Sick enough for another spell to slip through the talisman's barrier and allow for communication, howbeit briefly."

"We couldn’t find him," Bruce explained, "but I was able to talk to him for a few minutes.  He confirmed he was in Smallville and left a note.  He said they went through Mexico, but he's not sure if they're there currently or not.  There are two men involved, but one of them is like Alfred, yet not.  The other, his main kidnapper, terrifies him to the point he can't talk about him at all.  Mr. Kidnapper has some sort of trigger that'll kill people if he doesn't do what he says."

"And what does he want?"  This is what she wanted to know, needed to know.  Why was Dick taken away?  Why him?  It didn't make sense to take one of them and not demand money.

"Apparently an apprentice."  Cass blinked in confusion while her father sighed heavily, almost as confused as her.  "From what I could gather, the person who took him saw the news report from Halloween and was impressed by his skills.  He must have spent months preparing for Dick's abduction, watching him and setting up an elaborate plan to take and keep him without too much hassle.  The phones from Star City to keep from being discovered, the fire in Ivy Town covering up a theft of an unknown object, the warehouse maze for a meeting place, the near untraceable tech there... they were all meticulously taken and used to ensure Dick couldn't be found or leave his kidnappers when they struck.  Mrs. Macamyre must have been proof he was serious about killing innocent lives if he didn't comply."

"So he is trying to save us." The thought of their lives being used in order to control their big brother made sense, yet sickened her.

"I had Clark check for bombs around the manor and Wayne Enterprises," he explained, holding up a hand.  "Even your school.  He's found none.  It's very possible the ones being threatened aren’t us but Haly's Circus, or his distant relatives.  It could even be a children's hospital he visited.  We can't determine yet whose lives the men are hanging over Dick's head yet, but we're narrowing it down."

"The curse of a noble and caring heart," Diana murmured to the side.  Alfred was almost done serving Calamine tea, offering it to everyone as they spoke.  "Wanting to protect everyone and everything.  A very good trait to have most days, but can be considered a weakness if played on by a villain.  You raised too good of a boy."

"Nobility of heart is a very fine quality to have," the butler agreed, nearly forcing the tea cup into his employer's hand.  "And there are few as strong as Master Richard in that regard."

"Quite so."  Bruce coddled the cup as he continued explaining.  "Whoever has him, isn't so noble.  When I saw him, he had bandages and bruises, making his illness worse than it had to be."  He shook his head regretfully.  "He was just supposed to have a fever...  Dick claimed it was all from training accidents, but I don’t quite believe him.  Either way, his kidnapper is training him to kill, by any means necessary.  Training him to be like him."

"An assassin."

Cass paled as she came to that conclusion.  Someone was trying to do to her brother what was done to her.  The first six years of her life was hell, and she knew it.  Her ability to read bodies came from survival.  She either learned how to read her biological father's movements, or suffer when she failed to perform to his liking.  She could only thank her lucky stars leading to her family now that she never knew her biological mother.

As it was, her real dad placed a hand on her knee to reassure her that the past didn't matter to him.  She was a child forced into a world she didn't want.  Bruce Wayne gave her a real life and she would forever be grateful for that.  Her tightening stomach loosened considerably as he looked her steadily in the eye.  He was nothing like Cain and she was never going back to him.

"We can't rule that out," he admitted, giving her knee a squeeze before letting go and returning to his tale.  "Ra's insists the League of Assassins has nothing to do with Dick's disappearance, so whoever this person is, he's freelance.  If I had access to Ra's records, I could narrow the list down further, but as it is, we don’t have that luxury."

"You keep in contact with that man?"  Diana objected, having heard of their past.  Cass grimaced a bit at the memory of the man who nearly became their grandfather.  They only met twice, and both times she got the impression that if she wasn't the daughter of two prized assassins and potentially his future granddaughter by marriage, he would have had her killed.

"Not exactly."  Judging by how uncomfortable the man became, there was more to this than he was going to tell them.  This was one secret that'd remain secret, at least in part.  "He contacted me in order to end suspicion and probing of his empire.  Ra's al Ghul is powerful, deranged madman, but he usually is a man of his word, particularly when family is involved.  And as I told Clark, how Dick was taken is not his method, at all.  I think we can safely assume he had nothing to do with it.  He may know who did it, but he's not telling.  Apparently thinks I should be able to figure it out."

"Then we should capture him and interrogate-"

"At what cost?"  He looked back to Wonder Woman imploringly.  "Ra's is a powerful enemy and has many followers.  It'd be a waste of time and resources."

"He's right."  Cass slipped off the panel she was on and typed on the computer to get a better look at the note and data.  Her immediate willingness to work surprised the Amazon a bit, but it really shouldn't have.  She was raised by Bruce Wayne after all, and despite the privilege they lived in, they all were raised with a strong work ethic.  "We should focus on finding out what assassin has a name starting with S and a theme of orange and black.  He has an accomplice who's a bit like Alfred and is a tactician.  Anything else?"

"From what the gas station owner says," Bruce continued on, "the kidnappers are older men, somewhere between Clark and Mr. Kent's ages. They're former military as well, American."

"So... mid-forties to late fifties, two males... guessing white?"  He hadn't mentioned race so she had to guess.  Her father nodded.  "Ex-military turned assassin.  Name starts with an S or is associated with an S.  And some part of his costume is half black and half orange.  Freelancer and some kind of caretaker with him.  Using U-Haul trucks and cash... That about sums it up, right?"

"Part of his costume?"  The adults looked at each other, apparently not considering that yet.  "Why do you say that?"

"Why else would he split it down the middle like that?"  She pointed to the slight crease in the paper, marking the division.  "Some focal point about his kidnapper must be half black, half orange down the center, some kind of signature.  It must be important, that and the extra S.  Maybe if you crossed those with the data base you could make a list of suspects."

Bruce's face became extremely still for a moment, the way it did when a piece fell into place.  He looked over to the screens a second later, placing his tea cup off to the side.  Diana became severely confused while Alfred merely raised an eyebrow, watching the cup to make certain it didn't fall.  Cass watched their reaction and wondered what was going through each of their heads.  Had she sparked something important in her father's head?

"He knew who he was."

"What?"  He didn't explain himself but started bringing up old files in his systems to start weeding through them.  Their foreign ally tried once again to get him to talk.  "Bruce, what are you talking about?"

"When Dick was taken, he left his parents rings behind."  The man glared at the screens in frustration, kicking himself for one reason or another.  Cass knew there was more going on in his brain than he let on.  "I thought he was just making certain the chain didn't tangle, but he formed it into an S, right on top of his clothes.  It was a clue.  He knew from the very beginning who took him."

"Meaning..."

"Meaning he's somewhere inside these files."  Bruce's eyes focused on the myriad of old cases before him.  Donning came to Cass and Alfred immediately while it took a little more to get Diana to catch up.  

"Master Richard likes to read old case files of Batman and the Justice League when he's bored," Alfred informed her.   "He is possibly the most updated civilian on League activities and the villains you face."

"And he has a photographic memory," Cass added.  "He recognizes people in an instant."

"The only way he'd know an assassin I wouldn't think of is if he was in these files."  The detective started clicking on files, seemingly at random.  "Unfortunately the program to do a quick search contracted a virus a couple weeks ago and I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet.  We'll have to search them manually."

"In the morning."  They all looked at the butler putting his foot down.  There was a firm crease in between his eyebrows, warning his employers there was no debate on this matter.  "As this task will likely take several days, even weeks, to complete, I recommend a full night's sleep before trying to start it.  Or have you both forgotten about this being a school night?  And the board meeting tomorrow?"

Father and child stilled, exchanged wary looks, then both gave into the old man's demands.  It was time for the others to be in bed after all.  The Amazon must have sensed it was time for her to go because she gave some vague excuse and politely left before either Wayne could make it up the stairs.

"Never could get Alfred off my back about sleeping," the man murmured to his daughter.  She shrugged, knowing a little what he was talking about.  She was possibly the most obedient of everyone in that house, with Tim being the close second.  Speaking of which... "What brought you downstairs to begin with?"

"Tim."  Cass looked down in disappointment.  "I don't know what to teach him.  We both try but... He's not strong enough.  I think he needs you to help him."
Bruce looked over her for a moment, confused.  "But he's making a lot of progress.  I've been watching on the monitors and he's improved a good deal.  Even learned a few new tricks."

"True... but-"

"Cassandra," her father instructed, looking her in the eye as they reached the study, "you need to have a little confidence in your teaching.  You're both doing better than you know."  

She thought over this for a minute, starting to see what he was.  Tim was always okay at defensive moves, but he'd gotten really good at taking a hit and minimizing damage to himself lately.  She just wasn't seeing progress in the offensive area, and that was where they were trying to improve most.  "Maybe..."

"If you're that unsure about everything," he tried, "how about teaching him how to use a staff?  Some people learn better by going backwards instead of forwards."

"Tim's a genius," she reminded him, not liking the idea of teaching weapons before hand to hand combat was mastered.

"Not in combat."  The knowing look the man gave her was a bit annoying, but justified.  "That has always been your territory."

Shrugging, the girl bypassed her dad to get to bed.  It really was too late to think of anything new.  Her head was still reeling from learning about Dick.  She had answers and a lot more questions, plus a new secret to keep.  She didn't know if it was better to know what she knew now or to be kept in the dark, but she knew sleep would elude her until she could sort it out.  May as well get started on that.

-=-

"NO!  I'M SORRY!  I DIDN'T MEAN-"  Pressurized water slammed into Dick once again, making him writhe and scream in pain.  Bruises mounted on bruises.  Recent small cuts and scrapes stung as liquid fell into them.  The wall he was sent careening to barely managed to keep him upright during the entire onslaught.  This time was longer than the last.  "MASTER! PLEASE!  STOP!  I'M SORRY!"

"Not sorry enough."  Not even the lad's begging would stop him this time.  The pressure continued, striking every part of the teen repeatedly and forcing him to move in certain directions to relieve the pain.  Even when Dick was reduced to a quivering body trying to protect itself in the fetal position, it did not end.

When it did, he was physically and mentally unable to tell.  Everything hurt.  Everything froze.  He was too scared to do anything, to move or to say anything more.

All of this for a comment?

He barely realized he was grabbed and pulled to his feet just seconds before he was thrown into the cooler once again.  Panic gripped his heart as soon as he made it through the doorway, thoughts and memories creeping into him without his bidding.  No... Not again!

He hit concrete, scraping his joints on impact.  Crying out on reflex rather than pain, he almost didn't hear his master's ultimatum.  "-done this months ago.  You are going to stay in here until you learn some respect Apprentice.  I am your master, and you are to uphold my legacy and dignity under every circumstance.  Never insinuate I am something I'm not.  Never talk back to me.  And never disobey me.  This is nothing compared to what I could do.  Remember that.  Apprentice."

Dick turned around to look at him fearfully just seconds before the door slammed shut, locking him inside the dark cold room, soaked through the skin and completely alone.  He couldn't stop himself from running to the door, pounding it, and screaming at the top of his lungs to be let out, begging for forgiveness.

And to think a couple days ago he was starting to think Slade may not be all bad.