Faye Feng → Dick Grayson ✔

Threat

The morning light cast hazy shadows across her carpet – the sun had realized the curtains hadn't been drawn the night before, so it had taken full advantage of their absence to explore every inch of Faye's room. The silk from Faye's crumpled emerald dress twinkled at him, as did her heels that were still on her feet. Her phone was lying on the armrest beside her, and he figured it was probably the last bit of comfort she had remembered to provide herself with before she passed out.

He was about to place an arm around her, sure that Faye would remain in her slumber as he carried her back to her bed, when she jolted.

She blinked, eyelashes fluttering sleepily. "Klarion?"

"Hello, Faye."

He watched as she grabbed her phone. "It's nine a.m."

"God," she ran a hand through her hair, attempting to flatten it. "I fell asleep."

"Doing what?" Klarion asked. He knelt to undo the straps on Faye's shoes. She exhaled as her feet came free.

"Waiting."

"For me?"

She shrugged, standing up to stretch. "I got worried."

Faye arched her back like a cat while Klarion chuckled. "What could have possibly gone wrong?"

"Batman and Robin were out last night."

"Your mother told you?"

"Live updates for the last twelve hours."

Klarion shook his head in awe. "Does being a control freak run in the family?"

"I've got good reason to be a control freak, K. They had eyes on Deathstroke."

"Slade?" He scoffed. "Just because they saw him doesn't mean they're on our backs."

"Yes, it does!" Faye argued. "Deathstroke doesn't operate in this city."

"He operates everywhere. He's a mercenary – he goes where money sends him."

"I mean, he isn't a Gothamite. Batman is going to investigate why Deathstroke was here, and that gets him closer to the truth."

"You're paranoid," Klarion rolled his eyes. "Batman isn't going to find a thing, trust me."

"Trust you," Faye mocked. "We trusted you to be professionals! We trusted you to be good enough to take out the people we wanted you to and leave no trace!"

"That's what we did – every name you put down on that list is crossed off!"

"All this means nothing if it's blown out of the water!"

"Now that's just a lie. Even if that happens – which it won't – those people will still be dead!"

Her eyes flashed. "When we told you to kill, it wasn't for the sake of it. For you, it might have been sport. For us, it's more than that, and secrecy goes hand in hand with the job."

"Faye - "

"Now that secrecy has been compromised," she continued, ruthlessly cutting down his interruption. "And that puts a knot in our partnership, because we were assured we wouldn't have to do damage control. Whether or not Deathstroke talked is irrelevant – we wanted a simple covert job: in and out without anyone ever seeing. That's what the contract said. That's what we agreed on."

The snarling steel in her voice stunned him. Klarion realized that her commands at the masquerade weren't anger, mere urgency. Now he recognized a mixture of both in her words, and it was powerful enough to render him momentarily speechless. Although indignation followed not a second later, Klarion wondered what her full fury would sound like.