lifebetweenthedeath:

“And now she’s a Bat.”

There was acid oozing from her tone, dripping from it. Her contempt for the Bats was no secret — at least, not to Jason. She didn’t like their holier-than-thou attitude and, more than anything, she didn’t like Batman. Anyone affiliated with him was just as bad. They were collateral damage.

Perhaps she was jealous. For as long as she’d known Jason, she’d been the only woman consistently in his life. They were like siblings, told each other everything, and now… now there was this tiny little bat flapping about that Kori wasn’t at all prepared for. How was she supposed to take that? Jason was the only family Kori had, but he had others he never even bothered telling her about.

“Honestly, Jason,” Kori said, sighing and running a hand through her hair, “She’s not what I’m worried about.” That much was true. Jason could be friends with whoever he wanted, that was fine. If he wanted to hang out with the Bats, more power to him. She didn’t understand the desire, but it’s not like the princess was in any place to stop it.

They hadn’t been talking for a long time, Kori knew. Drifting from Jason was something she regretted very deeply, but she needed her space, she needed to mourn, and she thought Jason understood that. Then again, Kori thought Jason understood a lot of things that seemed to be completely missed. Maybe they weren’t as close as she thought.

She sighed again before speaking. “How much do they know about us?”

“Yeah. She’s a Bat.”

He shook his head, trying to clear away the memory of asking her to join him, watching as she shook her head, casting a glance back at Bruce. All but telling him that he needed her help more than Jason did. 

“She’s not like the others. Not like…him, at least." 

He didn’t talk about Batgirl. He never did. She was his secret, his link to sanity away from the Outlaws. After all, Kory hadn’t done a thing for Jay after Roy died, didn’t attempt to help him through his own grief. Just shut herself away from anyone she knew, made a whole new set of friends at her paramedic job. 

Left Jay alone.

"There’s nothing to worry about. Black Bat, Batman, Batsi-Batgirl. None of them know who you are. and even if they do, there’s not much they can do. You can level anything they throw at you with ease.”

That was one thing he’d missed. He and Henri and the rest could cook up all sorts of gadgets and weapons, but there was just no replacing her firepower. They’d done the math. Her blasts hit upwards of a terajoule in testing, probably higher when she was good and pissed off.

“Look. She’s family. Next question." 

lifebetweenthedeath:

 

Silence was not really a virtue for Koriand’r. She knew when to keep her mouth shut if it was necessary, but the truth was, it was very hard for her to keep from speaking her mind. When it came to Jason, that feeling was ten-fold. Until Roy’s death, everything she said to Jason had always been no holds barred, regardless of what it was about. Kori knew he could handle it and, when he couldn’t, it was often because he just needed to hear it. Things weren’t like that anymore. No, since Roy’s death, speaking to Jason so freely just didn’t seem… appropriate.

The thought of any formality with Jason just seemed wrong, and Kori knew she was at fault for that — she had been the one to stop suiting up, she had been the one to stop coming around the Complex — but she’d been in the thick of grief for a long time, and part of her was upset with him for allowing her to go through that alone. She’d told him she needed space, but she’d also spent nearly a month on her floor of the Complex immediately after Roy died. Home was too painful to be alone in; Jason should have known, had to have known, that something was up.

She may have put the costume away, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still an Outlaw.

In all fairness, there wasn’t really much of the Outlaws left. With Roy gone, it was just the two of them and, in her mourning, Kori lost sight of what was important: the people she had left. Distancing herself from Jason, and even from Dick (though they remained closer than she and Jason had), was her mistake and she should have known better. For all the spats they got in and as often as they pissed each other off, remaining close to Jason would have retained the only bits of normalcy she had left… but she gave all that up.

This, though… suiting up, riding along — it was all a lot to take in. Kori would have been lying to herself if she said she didn’t miss it, but she was too preoccupied with certain other details of their evening to revel in her return to vigilantism. She’d been staring, rather blankly, out the front window of the Dragon as she thought about the scene she’d just witnessed, bright green eyes intent on the night before them. It was only when she heard Jason’s chair swivel toward her that she tore her gaze from the windshield. At his words, an almost bitter smile pulled at the corners of her lips. I’m not pissed, was the first response that popped into her head, but she didn’t say it; though Jason and Kori may not have been as close as they used to be, she certainly wasn’t going to lie to him.

“How did she know your name, Jason?”

“I’ve known her since she was an infant. She was an assassin, just like me. That’s…that’s about all I can say. She’s very near to my heart.”

And it was true. Cass had been a constant companion throughout his life, and it was only after David stole her away that they lost touch. 

He’d changed her diapers. 

He’d splinted her broken bones.

Fuck, he’d even held her as she cried over losing members of the League, held her hand as the funeral pyres burned.

“I found out she was a Bat when Bruce and I tangled this year. I didn’t say anything to you because…well, because we weren’t exactly talking then.”