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weekend-conspiracy-theorist · 11 months

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It was a rarity for Tim to hang around the Cave after patrol these days--half the time he never even came here in the first place, beginning and ending his routes around the boathouse rather than make the trek all the way back to Bristol. But his grappling hook was giving him grief, and Bruce hoarded all the best maintenance equipment (probably one of his emotionally constipated efforts to entice them all to stop by the Manor once in a while). Plus Dick was in town for a few nights to take Damian to some animated movie they were both excited about, and it was always nice to see him.

(So nice, in fact, that Tim had politely made fun of neither Dick nor Damian for being so excited about their weird little cartoon.)

Time zones were weird and the vast majority of his friends could fly and/or had superspeed, so he didn't even blink over the four AM phone call as he slouched sideways in the big chair at the Batcomputer, half fiddling with his grappling hook and half watching some YouTube video that Duke had forwarded to him earlier that day. Dick was the only other person still in the Cave, the two of them working in quiet companionship from opposite ends of the desk.

Tim swiped up to answer, cutting off the Beyoncé song that Bart had insisted they all set as their fearless leader's ring tone, and sandwiched the phone between his ear and his shoulder. "What's up?"

There was a long, pregnant pause, and it pulled Tim's attention away from the disassembled grappling hook on the table in front of him. "Cassie? Is everything okay?"

Dick looked up, sharply, and Tim glanced over at him, mouthing, "Sandsmark." It didn't completely remove the worry from Dick's face, but at least he was no longer on red alert over his little sister.

On the other end of the phone, Tim heard Cassie breathe out, the kind of breath that would have been shaky if it wasn't so exhausted. "Oh, you know," she said, finally. She sounded weird. Distant--in the emotional sense, not the physical one. "Got to play detective today."

"Stealing my schtick, huh?" Tim asked. The joke fell flat against the unease rising in his gut.

She hummed. "Even got to do the whole 'stand in the middle of the room and talk through the murder suspects one by one' bit."

"Someone was murdered?" Tim's feet slipped off the edge of the desk with a thump, and Dick's eyebrows nearly flew off of his face. "I thought you were in Themyscira."

"Yep."

Holy shit. Murder among the Amazons.

"God, Cassie, are you okay? What happened? Who--?"

"Artemis killed Hippolyta. Poisoned her."

"What?!?"

"It doesn't make sense!" she blurted. "I mean--she was the only one who could have done it, and she admitted to it, but I just can't understand why! It doesn't make sense. Artemis wouldn't just kill somebody--especially not Hippolyta. The tribes nearly ended up at war and--"

She started rambling, too fast and disjointed for Tim to understand--something about Doom's Doorway and a survivor and some guy named Jerry. She was getting dangerously close to hyperventilating.

Tim finished scribbling down the message he'd been writing, and he tossed the Sharpie down, holding the notepad up to face Dick.

HIPPOLYTA DEAD. ARTEMIS RESPONSIBLE.

Dick stared at the notepad for a lot longer than it should have taken him to read it, his expression uncomprehending. "I don't get the joke."

Tim shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line, and Dick cursed, reaching for his phone. Tim caught a glimpse of the screen--Donna Troy, head thrown back and nose scrunched up with laughter, at the center of a "Call Connecting" bubble--before Dick had the phone pressed to his ear as he darted off to find somewhere secluded to have their conversation.

"Deep breaths," Tim told Cassie, elbows on his knees, head tilted back to stare up into the moving darkness of the upper reaches of the Batcave. "You remember that breathing exercise you taught me back in our YJ days?" She didn't really respond, her breathing fast and harsh and wet, but Tim knew she was listening. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You can't tell anyone this, but I've always liked it more than the one I learned from Batman."

Cassie gave a broken laugh, and a smile tugged at the corners of Tim's lips. "C'mon, start your count," he cajoled.

He sat on the line as she struggled through the exercise, murmuring encouragement and feeling his heart break every time she nearly broke off into a sob. It didn't sound like she'd had much time to actually process what had happened--who she'd lost. How she'd lost her. The friend she'd been betrayed by in the process.

(How had that even--No. Shut up, Tim, he told himself sternly. He had questions (he had so many questions), but it wasn't the time.)

"Thanks," Cassie said, finally, when it had just been the two of them sitting in silence for five or ten minutes. She was hoarse but distinctly present for the first time on this call.

"Always," Tim promised. He sat back in the big chair, chewing on the inside of his lip. "Is there anythign I can... I mean." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know you've got the, uh, business side of things covered. But is there anything I can do for you?"

"I... no, there's... there's nothing." Cassie blew out a careful, shaky breath, resisting the impulse to start crying again.

"So that was the polite answer," Tim said. "What's the real one?"

She was silent for a long moment. Tim didn't really have a good idea of what Themyscira looked like, beyond being Grecian and idyllic, but he decided to picture her leaning on the stone railing of a balcony, staring out across the sea. "I just can't wrap my brain around it, Tim," she said softly. "I can't understand why she would..."

Ah. Yeah, that would be why she'd call him, instead of Kon or Bart or her mom. He spent a lot of time thinking about murder and the people who were capable of it.

"You're having a hard time letting go because it doesn't seem like you've really solved it," he surmised, with the sympathy of experience. He blew out a breath, folding his legs underneath himself, and pointed out gently, "But you know she did it, Cassie. And you don't know her that well, do you?"

"Yes, I do," Cassie snapped back, with a vehemence that made him blink. "We were together nearly 24/7 for weeks while we were looking for Yara, Tim. She's hot-headed and no nonsense and dedicated and she cares. She cares about the Bana-Mighdall. She cares about the Amazons. She cares about women and the daily injustices we're subjected to, and just because we don't always agree about how to handle that doesn't mean she's a cold-blooded murderer! She was Wonder Woman for a while, for fuck's sake!"

"Sorry," Tim said, contrite. "You're right."

Cassie huffed, then sniffled again, muttering. "At least you can recognize that."

"Diana giving you a hard time?" he guessed.

"Donna."

"Ah. Dick's on the phone with her right now, I think. Maybe he can calm her down."

Cassie made a doubtful noise. "She's grieving. Furious. And pissed at me for letting Artemis loose during the battle," she admitted. "So she's not really interested in listening to anyone right now, even her bestie." There was a quiet, staticky noise, like she'd scrubbed her hand over her face. "I'm going to have to stop her from killing Artemis once we find her."

Tim whistled, low and slow. "I'm sorry, Cassie."

"It would be easier if I just understood why she did it," she said, frustration roughening her voice. At a mutter, she added, "It would also be easier if Donna and I weren't sharing a tent."

Ah. No longer on Themyscira then. He revised his mental picture to Cassie sitting in the middle of a forest clearing, knees drawn up to her chest as she rested her chin on them moodily.

"If you're certain that Artemis wouldn't just... spontaneously commit an assassination..."

"You heard it when you said it, right?"

"Yeah," Tim agreed, drumming his fingers on his thigh. He usually tried to maintain stubborn ignorance to what Jason and the Outlaws were up to at any given time, but the explosions were hard to miss. He had a hard time imagining any of them at the center of a coldly calculating political assassination. And he knew that she'd eventually earned Bruce's deeply begrudging respect as Wonder Woman, even if he'd been pissy about her not being Diana the whole time. "Okay, so there's something you're missing. It didn't happen the way you think it happened. Maybe it was an accident?"

"She accidentally harvested poisonous berries from Brazil, followed Hippolyta into her bedroom, and slipped them into her tea?" Cassie asked dryly.

"Well. Okay, no." Tim huffed a laugh, even though it wasn't really funny. "Mercy, maybe. If we weren't talking about immortal Amazons, I'd ask if Hippolyta had a terminal illness or something."

"Why would she involve Artemis instead of Diana or Phillipus? Or even Nubia? And the timing--this almost caused a schism, Tim. Things have been weird for a while because Hera's up to something and the Esquecida are so new and strange, so this was like striking a match next to a leaky gas pipe. " Cassie's hair brushed the mic as she shook her head. "No. Even if Hippolyta had been cursed or something, that doesn't make sense."

"I don't think I know enough about Amazonian or Olympian politics to hazard any further guesses," Tim admitted. "This one's gonna have to be on you, Wonder Girl."

"Yeah," she sighed. "But talking to you helped. Got my thoughts in order a little, if nothing else."

"Good."

They were quiet for a long moment, Tim's mind musing over the concept of murder on Paradise Island. It sounded like the tagline on a mystery novel from the 40's.

"I could use a hug right now," Cassie admitted, her voice growing wobbly again.

"Bart would probably wake up if I called him," Tim offered. "We could be there in two minutes, tops. Maybe Kon, too, if he's not busy with farm chores already."

"No, that's--"

"I already told you, I'm not accepting polite answers tonight," Tim broke in sternly.

"...Two minutes?" Cassie said, hopefully.

"What good is having a speedster on the payroll if you can't shamelessly abuse his powers to orchestrate a group hug on minimal notice?" Tim stood up, stretching. "I'll rally the troops. Text me your coordinates."

#tim drake #cassie sandsmark #the trial of the amazons #I'm probably the only person in the world still thinking about this event #anyway I simultaneously liked cassie's role in the event and found it kind of unsatisfying #give that girl a breakdown and a hug from her besties!!!#set between trial of the amazons 2 and artemis: wanted

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