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queenslayerbeeTitle: unmotherly instincts.
Fandom: DC comics (circa No Man's Land).
Character/Pairing: Cassandra Cain & Lady Shiva.
Rating/Warnings: M. Implied abuse, implied sexual abuse, implied father-daughter incest.
Summary: Cass Cain Week, Day VII: Happy Birthday | Free Day.
Word count: 700.
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Shiva stalks her prey.
She’s followed the pair to a cheap motel on the outskirts of Blüdhaven. She spies as the young girl enters the bathroom, leaving the door open. The flickering light of a lamp bathes the man’s body as he undresses, emphasizing the tapestry of scars littering his skin.
Shiva enters, swift and silent, and drives her saber through the nape of David Cain’s neck.
He never sees his killer, nor is granted the dignity of a thrilling combat.
Shiva refuses him the privilege.
Once, Batman asked Shiva if she had kids. “I’ve dropped litters in every corner of the globe!!” she’d replied, amidst a ribs-breaking laugh.
It was a truth; just as it’s a truth that she’s no mother.
About two decades ago, a doctor who trained Shiva in healing arts performed a total hysterectomy on her. A calculated decision, born out of convenience, taken without an ounce of sentimentality. When asked if she agreed to donate her eggs, it cost her nothing to say yes. They’d be a waste on her, and an asset for another.
She’d nearly forgotten, until Batman and Robin reminded her. The interest her own genetic material inspired in Shiva was no more and no less than anybody else’s.
Until three months ago, after another recruiting attempt from the League of Assassins. As if the al Ghuls’s aspirations of enforced world peace could ever entice the truly free-spirited.
Said attempts often ended in carnage –followed by a show of politeness as Ra’s laid the groundwork for a future attempt–, so Shiva never dodged them.
The Demon’s daughter approached her. “I must tell you something that concerns you. Then again, maybe you’ll feel indifferent. I can never tell.”
“Try, and we’ll see,” Shiva replied, amused. Conversations with Talia al Ghul usually had that effect.
This one didn’t. Talia regaled her with a tale of a mercenary who impregnated her eggs with his own sperm, implanted them on dubiously-willing women, and raised the children as assassins— offering their services to the League, among others, for however long they lasted.
Talia provided yet more information, and Shiva investigated.
Nearly all the children were dead. Cain set out to create a perfect army, formed of genetically perfect warriors, trained by so-called perfect methods; all he perfected was proof that equal nature and nurture could still produce wildly different people.
Only one remained, still by his side. She’d tried to escape him before, showing courage and grit seemingly beyond her, years later.
But when she fought, it was absolutely breathtaking.
Until Cain ordered the kill, seemingly ignorant, or perhaps willfully oblivious, that what he had in his hands was a child with a broken spirit, unable to decide for herself.
Who’d remain just so, if nothing changed.
As soon as the body hits the floor, the girl –naked, wet, leaving the shower running– runs out of the bathroom.
She has eyes only for Cain. Kneeling next to him, her mouth opens in a silent, yet agonic scream.
Shiva doesn’t speak. The girl wouldn’t understand her; was robbed of that very capacity, because Cain wrongly believed that deprivation made a great warrior.
Believed it for others, not himself, Shiva thinks, looking at the sole bed in the room, at their equally scarred bare bodies. She’s sure Cain always took exactly as much as he wanted.
Shiva looks at the documents he’d spread over the table. Maps of Gotham, pictures of its police commissioner… their next target, surely. Shiva should send him an invoice, for her troubles.
Of course, she’d have to present it in person. Gotham is isolated, exiled out of the country, communications cut down… the city must be an epicenter of chaos.
A perfect destination.
Shiva’s disappointed the girl doesn’t take advantage of her apparent distraction. Instead she remains entranced by her father’s corpse; dry eyes, trembling hands hovering, hesitant to touch him.
Would she chase after Shiva, seeking retribution? Would she come to see today’s actions as a kindness, a gift?
“Child.” That makes her look at her, for the first time. Shiva turns away and calmly walks into the night. No sound of steps follows her.
Shiva can’t wait to find out the answers.
-A/N (c&p): Some relevant posts: here I talk about my canon-divergent headcanons about Cass's parenting, and here about how I think Cain and Cass's relationship would've evolved, if she hadn't escaped as a child.
