Sins Of The Father

[Arsenal]

It was like being kicked in the head and the balls at the same time.

She'd said League. Left the League. In the moment, he'd thought nothing of it, but now it was spelled out, things slowly began to click into place. She was an assassin. She had been an assassin. Everything he'd assumed was wrong. The long absences, the trips abroad, the work that she couldn't tell him about; he'd assumed it was government work. Agent. Operative. It was an easy assumption to make, given their past. They'd first met when Roy joined the Army, a misguided choice to follow in Oliver's footsteps, volunteering for the military service that Oliver had been forced into by his own guardian. He'd been a Lance Corporal; she'd been the Lieutenant in intelligence. It had been something secret, something taboo, something impulsive and exciting and unspoken.

Service had taken them in different directions, and that had been the end of it; right up until fate slammed the two of them back together in Star City. She hadn't been willing or able to tell him about what she did; but then, neither had he, not until that last night. It had been familiar, but different, and he'd let himself get swept up in it. He'd thought maybe it was more than it was, and so he'd made the step: tell her the truth, admit that he was a vigilante. All had seemed well until she'd left in the night without a word; but now it was different, not running because of what he was, but running because of what she was; what she'd done; how he might have reacted if she'd shared the same kind of truth. Did that change things? Maybe it did, but for now his mind was too busy reeling from the secondary blow to his delicates.

Your child is going to be hunted.

Your child. His child. Something he'd never considered, never imagined. At the back of his mind, he wondered if perhaps he would follow in Oliver's footsteps. Perhaps he would be the Green Arrow in his own right one day, the one and only rather than some elaborate decoy; or perhaps he'd strike his own path, but either way, perhaps one day he'd find a Speedy of his own. Find someone struggling through the same kind of hardships that he, and Mia, and Oliver all shared. Perhaps they'd become his ward, and perhaps one day they'd look at him as almost a father in the same way that he saw Oliver. Never had he considered that his own child might be part of the equation; maybe that was just part of being an orphan, or maybe that was just him. But here was Jade, standing here in front of him, telling him that he was going to be a father; that the unimagined was already happening.

But no, that wasn't all of it. Hunted. Not merely hunted, either: hunted by the League of Assassins. Ruthless. Insidious. Unstoppable. Jade said she had run, to Gotham of all places; but why? For what?

Roy drew a breath, and released it slowly.

"I need you to start at the start, Jade."

Another step closer was taken. The bow fell completely to his side this time, arrow stashed back in his quiver. Another step, and another; his freed hand reached out, hesitating for an instant before it came to rest against Jade's arm.

"What happened? Why are they after you?"

[Cheshire]

Breathe.

Just breathe.

In…out. In…out.

There was a sort of eternity passing in the moments it took his mind to grasp what she was telling him, and for the wave of nausea that assaulted her senses to fade away. It was all she could do to remember to breathe, and even then, Jade almost needed the mantra to remind her body of its natural function.

Just breathe.

As the nausea finally passed and left her senses to slowly reassemble themselves, she realized he’d approached. It was the sound of his voice that brought her back completely, and she blinked owlishly at the hand that now rested on her arm. It was…the closest they had been since the night he’d given up his identity as a vigilante…and the night she had left. It was closer than she had ever thought they’d be again after that night.

Jade breathed deeply and exhaled slowly, now giving her own mind the time to catch up and try to put a few words together in some semblance of a response. He deserved one, and not the kind she’d have given him before. This needed to be the truth. The complete, unvarnished truth, no matter how much it would sting to lay her decidedly sordid past bare.

She studiously avoided his gaze as she began, her voice quieter than it had been before.

“When I left…I…I went back to the League, because I was supposed to. It’s what I always do. I follow orders, to the letter. I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left you in Star City…I was just running. But they knew by the time I got back and there were plans being created…”

Bile rose in her throat and darkened her vision, cutting the stream of words off for several long moments until she could contain the reaction.

“I was supposed to be dutiful and just hand over the baby after it was born. Let them raise her, train her, indoctrinate her…she wouldn’t have been our child anymore. I couldn’t let that happen, not after everything my own parents put me through. So I left…and I came here to Gotham. It’s the one place they won’t…they can’t just stroll into to get me back.”

Dark eyes rose slowly, their focus shifting from the pavement at their feet, to the sais in her grasp, and lingered on the hand he still had pressed against her arm. She took a deep, measured breath and finally lifted her gaze to meet his, tracing the familiar contours of his features beneath the mask.

There was more she could say – wanted to say, but she’d run out of words.

[Arsenal]

Ninjagarten.

The word formed in his head like a reflex; a defense mechanism. For some people, hearing the voice of their father in their head was a source of reassurance, or wisdom. For Roy, it was a coping mechanism. No matter how dire and grim the situation, Oliver Queen found humour, nocked it on his bow, and shot it at the face of whatever they were up against. That would have been his response here. The notion that the League of Assassins was taking babies, and training them as killers from infancy, it was too big to process; to heinous, too terrifying. It dredged up too many questions, threw too many new perspectives on revelations that Roy was still struggling to come to terms with. Was that Jade's story? Was that conditioning, that indoctrination, the reason that someone he'd cared for - maybe loved, even, though they'd never made it as far as that - could be a ruthless killer for hire? If so, what did that mean for them, for him, for what she'd felt? It was too much.

And so Oliver's disembodied voice provided Ninjagarten. It was simple. Obvious. If there were baby assassins, there'd need to be baby assassin day care. Ninjagarten. It's what Oliver would say right now: the glimmer of levity, the hand reaching down to help him clamber up from the maelstrom of thoughts that he had fallen into.

That wouldn't be the end of it, of course, just the start. It was what would get Roy back on his feet. Oliver would ask if he was okay; Roy would lie and say that he was; and then they'd move on, move past it, get back to whatever mission or situation or fight demanded their immediate attention. Right now, the fight was Jade. An ex-assassin, on the run from the League, because they wanted to take her baby away. Whose baby, his baby, could wait until later: strip away the other factors, and it was clear which side in this was right and wrong. A woman needed his help, and if Roy was going to deserve the green in his costume that Oliver was trusting him to wear, he damn well needed to help her.

"We need to talk."

Roy said it quietly; firmly; not quite his voice, but not quite all the way to the commanding tone that Oliver always adopted as the Green Arrow, either.

"We need to talk, a lot, but not in some dingy Gotham alley. We need to get you out of sight, somewhere safe -"

His voice faltered, hand slapping to his neck out of reflex as something punched into his skin. His fingers wrapped around the offending object, pulling it and the attached needle free from his flesh and into view. Dart. His eyes tried to seek out the source, but his vision had already begun to blur. Not good. He staggered, a wave of nausea and disrupted equilibrium sweeping over him. Something moved on one of the rooftops above. The alley floor slammed into his shoulder. His gaze, still darkening, settled on Jade.

Oh no.

[Tigress]

Artemis landed in a low stance, the hand crossbow that had fired the offending tranquillizer dart, laced with Vertigo, still gripped in your hand.

"Your boyfriend's not wrong."

Her voice came out in a practised purr, one that echoed a dedication to the Tigress moniker she had inherited from their mother which continued through the strands of dark in her platinum hair, and the tones of black and gold woven into an outfit that otherwise reflected Cheshire, her usual League attire abandoned back in Nanda Parbat in favour of something more befitting the streets of Gotham. The conspicuous difference was the katana slung across her shoulders: not something that one might expect to blend in anywhere else in the world, but on the streets of America you could get away with most things if you did them with sufficient confidence.

A smile tugged at Artemis' lips, fighting the urge to reach for the sword already, eyes keenly aware that Cheshire was already poised to make use of her signature sais. A pang of nostalgia squirmed within her, and the smile faltered, memories of contests between enforced contests between the two of them at their parents' behest. Cheshire had won, always; always the victor, always so eager to please; always daddy's best, daddy's favourite. That had been her first mistake; her second, a string of betrayals. Abandonments. Cheshire had left, abandoned their contests, left Artemis to train, and hone, and harden in her absence. It was what she did; it was why the name, Cheshire, fit her so well. Running, fleeing, fading into darkness - it was what Cheshire did best.

Artemis had fought to embody her name just as aptly. Tigress had been a name their mother had used; Huntress was another. Artemis strove to be both, and it was why she was here. Cheshire was prey, and the League of Assassins wanted her found; hunted; dragged back as bested quarry to face judgement for one betrayal too many. That was the mission. The will of the League.

Her knuckles clenched beneath fingerless gloves, a narrow-eyed gaze seeking out Jade's attention.

"You have something that belongs to the League," she demanded, a hint of snarl creeping into her words. "Ra's al Ghul demands its return."