The clouds hang low over Gotham like bruises, heavy and quiet, muting the world in silvers and grays. A damp chill clings to the stone steps of Wayne Manor, the kind that seeps into your clothes, your skin, your breath. The vast estate looms behind you, its windows catching little of the light, its doors still and cold as if watching you from the darkened halls within.

You shift your weight, boots scraping softly against the aged stone. One hand hovers near the concealed blade beneath your coat—reflex, not fear. A grounding point, familiar steel beneath your fingertips. Gotham teaches you that comfort comes not from calm, but from readiness. But today isn’t about patrols, intel, or violence. And that unsettles you in a way you didn’t expect.

“You and Cassandra need time outside the cave. No masks. No missions.” Bruce’s words echo in your skull, firm and final. You’d scoffed at first—at the idea that tension needed soothing. As if it were something warm baths and soft voices could fix. But now, standing here with too much silence and no plan, you feel it: a different kind of danger. Not sharp like a blade—dull, slow, crawling. Uncertainty. Vulnerability.

Then footsteps. Quiet, almost not there, but you feel them before you hear them. The manor door opens with reluctant creak. You turn. Cassandra stands in the threshold, haloed by the light behind her. She wears a charcoal hoodie too big for her narrow frame, sleeves covering her hands, black leggings and scuffed sneakers soft on the stone. Her posture is relaxed, but not casual. Stillness isn’t passivity with her, it’s control. Poised. Watchful.

She doesn’t speak at first. Just looks at you. And that’s what always catches you off guard about her. That silence. It’s not awkward, not empty—it’s focused. Whole sentences pressed into a glance. The way her eyes land on yours—dark, sharp, unreadable. Like she’s scanning your breath, your heartbeat, the way your fingers twitch beside your thigh.

You’ve trained with her, bled beside her, watched her drop men twice her size without a sound. But here, without the armor of movement and mission, she’s unfamiliar. Unnerving in a quiet way. Like a mirror you can’t quite recognize.

"Ready?"

Cassandra steps down beside you, her presence light, but not fragile. You walk together toward the gravel path winding through the side gardens—overgrown and wild this time of year, tangled with ivy and the ghost of summer roses. There’s a kind of peace in the space between you, the quiet not pressing, but open. She doesn’t fill silence with words but presence.