Cassandra Cain Head Cannons

Kidnapped

"Hello?" Bruce asked into his phone after having answered it on instinct. Of course he got several calls a day while working in his office, but this particular one had been made to his personal phone, a number few people had.

"Is this Bruce Wayne?" Asked a gruff voice on the other end.

"It is," he confirmed as a knot formed in his stomach. He had gone through plenty of kidnappings before, most of them involving Richard being abducted on the way home from school, and they were always a pain. Even though he always found his children within twenty-four hours of getting the call, and he knew that they could defend themselves, each time he got a call he found himself feeling slightly panicked. He couldn't stop his mind from going to those places. What if the kidnapper panics and pulls the trigger? What if one of the boys panics and gets himself hurt? What if the kidnapper has a sick perversion and he doesn't get there quick enough to stop something from happening?

"We have your daughter here," the kidnapper interrupted the father's thoughts with the surprise news. Bruce hadn't before considered that possibility. Cassandra could easily fight her way out of any situation, and any kidnapper would certainly have his work cut out for him if he tried to knock out or restrain the 15-year-old.

"Oh my God," he feigned fear—well, some of it wasn't feigned—as he began tracking the call on his computer. "Don't hurt her."

He seemed to be talking to someone else in the room, and Bruce took advantage of the time to enter a code into the computer that would pinpoint the exact location of the phone the caller was using. "We want $5m, or she dies," he ordered.

"Alright, alright. But I want proof she's alive. Let me talk to her," he requested, though he was only vaguely fearful of what condition his daughter was in. He knew that the 15-year-old girl was completely capable of defending herself, but that didn't mean that accidents couldn't happen. He told himself that, once Cassandra spoke to him on the phone, he would set himself into 'Batman mode'.

He heard something that sounded like movement, and then a more disturbing sound: a harsh smack. His body tensed. He knew that she'd been through worse in sparring and with her biological father, but that didn't make him any less angry about it. If they hit her again—or if they had left her with any bruises—he would have to break some bones when he arrived. "Boss?" Cass asked on the phone after a moment.

He smiled at hearing her voice. She so rarely used it, as she only knew a few words anyway, and she had learned to assign him that particular title from her older brother Jason. "Hey, Cassandra. Are you hurt?"

"Yes." The knot in his stomach tightened. The boys had always lied when they were hurt, even if it was because it didn't hurt too much, but Cassandra never saw the point in lying. And knowing that she had a very high pain tolerance made the answer all the scarier to the father of five.

"Where, Cass?" He inquired, pulling up Alfred's contact on his computer to inform him of the girl's condition, knowing that the butler would be the best person to patch her up once she was back home. Cassandra gave no response, and he remembered that she hadn't yet learned those words.

Before she could respond—if she was going to respond—the phone was ripped away and the kidnapper spoke again. "Have the money here by 9...or we'll have some fun with her."

He gritted his teeth to keep from responding, feeling thankful as the kidnapper hung up. Well, Batman would have to make an early appearance.

* * *

"I assume you have already located Miss Cassandra?" Alfred asked Bruce through the radio in the Bat Mobile.

"Yes, I'm on my way to her now," he reported in an angry voice, eyes narrowing at the road ahead of him. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew that he was overreacting, and he knew that Cassandra was perfectly capable of fighting, but there was still part of him that said his reactions were completely warranted. She said that she was hurt, and she was almost never hurt. He didn't know what kind of people had kidnapped Cassie, and for all he knew they were Deathstroke-grade assassins. It wasn't likely, but he couldn't rule anything out after the all ordeals he'd gone through with Dick and Jay.

"...Be careful, sir," Alfred advised before hanging up the phone, leaving Bruce to the silence of the Bat Mobile.

Bruce arrived at the building shortly after, and the kidnappers didn't stand a chance.

* * *

Cassandra had wanted to see Bruce kick David's ass for sending kidnappers after her, but they had forced her into one of the other room's closets. She had tried to fight him off when he first grabbed her arm outside the Manor, but of course he was stronger than her and for the most part taught her how to fight. He hadn't bothered speaking to her, knowing that she would hardly understand him anyway, but when she looked at him she could almost feel waves of jealousy. He wasn't jealous of her, but she had a feeling that it had something to do with the adoption papers Bruce had begun filing earlier in the week. That would have made a lot more sense to the ex-assassin if he hadn't spent all of her early childhood hurting her.

She'd been angry at him, of course, and had even landed a few good hits on the kidnapper after she was brought into the building. David snapped her leg fairly easily for it, however, and he'd left her with some pretty good-sized bruises on her face as well. That didn't bother Cassie too much. She could guess from Bruce's anger at the harm inflicted upon her that Batman would return the favor.

She couldn't bring herself to stand up on account of her leg, so she contented herself with leaning her head against the closet's wood and listening to the sound of blaring sirens and urgent officers. She could hear some running up the stairs, others likely going after Cain, and some running into the room she was locked in. A moment later, and the closet door had been pulled open. Looking up, she saw Oracle's father standing over her.

"Hello," he greeted gently, kneeling down so he was eye-level. "What's your name?"

"Cassandra," she told him, taking advantage of one of the few words she did know.

"Do you have a last name?" He pressed.

"...Wayne." That wasn't completely the truth, but if it would get her back to the Manor she didn't much care.

"Bruce Wayne's your father?" He guessed.

She nodded. Again, it wasn't much of a lie. What else would he be after everything he'd done? He had acted more like a father than David Cain ever had, and he'd done more to earn the title than David as well.

Oracle's father looked down at her leg, the brown and blue spot revealed by the shorts she'd been wearing. "Can you walk?"

She shook her head, knowing that a 15-year-old powering through a snapped leg would be a bit suspicious, and possibly blow her identity as Batgirl as well as the identities of the rest of the Bat Family's members. Had she not had so much concern for the identities of her family, she may very well have powered through a snapped leg and waltzed her way back to the manor, where Alfred would no doubt be waiting to give her medical attention.

"I need paramedics in here," he yelled as he turned his head to address the group of officers that had gathered in the lobby.

Only moments later, and Cassandra was being carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. Paramedics had informed her that she was being taken to the hospital, and that they were notifying her father as to her location, but she hadn't heard anything they said. Cassandra was too busy staring up at the roof of the building, where the dark knight was overseeing the entire raid. He didn't jump down to her when she was brought out of the building, and he was trying to keep himself focused on the job, but the young vigilante noticed that he was watching her out of the corner of his eye with a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Reading his body language, she could get one message that made her forget about everything around her: he was proud of her.

* * *

It wasn't until at least two hours later, after Cassandra had been discharged from the hospital with a purple cast over her leg and a set of crutches, that Bruce had been able to ask the question that had been haunting him since he first got that phone call.

Why didn't you leave? After they put you in the closet, you just stayed. ...Why? He signed to her as Alfred began driving the car back to the home they had all been waiting to return to.

I didn't need to, she replied, I knew you'd come for me.