Sorry for the huge leave of absence. Life is different now and so are my life goals. I still write, but it's harder to focus on side projects when I have much larger ones in the works. But you guys aren't here to listen to all that. So on with the show!

Characters owned by DC, ruined by me. Enjoy.

Damian's Proposal.

Gotham was known for its lavish things, and the restaurants were no exception. Cassandra Cain had at times wondered what eating a meal worth tens of thousands of dollars would taste like. The White Raven was Gotham's most expensive five star restaurant, making more money in a fiscal year than many small countries. And it was always full. So was it good? As it turned out the food was only as good as the company you kept, which was why everything tasted awkward.

Across the table from her, which was intimately small, sat Damian Wayne, inheritor to the multi-billion dollar Wayne Industry, current Robin, former ninja, and heir to the League of Shadows...if he so desired. It dawned on Cassie that if life had been just a little different, he might have ended up being her master and she would've been a potential bearer of his children. After all, that had been their parents' original plan.

At eighteen Damian alarmingly resembled his father, only more slender, youthful and with a far deadlier edge which could be seen in his blue eyes and whenever he grinned. Like Cassandra, this Wayne had been taught since birth to kill, and had spent the last several years resisting that tendency. And not always successfully.

Cassandra had to admit she had been surprised when the young Wayne contacted her through the back channels several days earlier, asking her if she would be willing to meet and talk. She accepted. However, the fancy restaurant and expensive set up wasn't what she had in mind.

"If the lobster is too cold, I can send for another one." Damian said around a mouthful of well-done Japanese beef. He still wasn't great on manners. "Or if you rather a table with a window view, I can arrange that too."

"No. No. Everything is fine." Cassandra ate a mouthful as if she needed to prove her words.

"~tt~" Damian sounded. "I expected you to be much better at lying than this."

"I have a tell?" Cassandra asked.

"No. I just know you better." Damian replied.

"A lucky guess." Cassandra countered.

"Grayson get's lucky...repeatedly. I'm just that good."

Ms. Cain rolled her eyes, ignoring how uncomfortable her backless dress was. Damian took a bite out of a roasted potato before speaking again.

"You did very well tonight." He said, referring to the earlier Iceberg Lounge incident.

"Nothing either one of us haven't done before." Cassandra took a sip of white wine.

"Efficient, strong, decisive, intelligent." Damian listed off all the qualities as though reading a list. "It makes what I'm about to ask next all the more...earnest."

Cassandra's training kicked in, her honed instincts and practiced body reading skills hitting her with such force she gave a start. The sudden call from Damian, his multiple compliments, his insistence on going to a over-priced and over-rated restaurant. This night wasn't about business, it was about pleasure.

"Hold on..." Cassandra almost gasped, keeping her voice hushed. "You want me to date you!?"

Damain's dangerous grin returned. "Very intelligent. Though I had in mind something a little more...final."

Cassandra realized she had been thinking too small, to obvious. Damian wasn't speaking about courtship. That would take time and Damian's personality was practically built on being impatient. He was taking about marriage!

"Would monsieur and madame be vanting anything else?" The waiter suddenly intruded, his french accent more than just a little forced.

"Wine." Cassandra said, not breaking eye contact with Damian. "...A lot more wine."

They waited for the man to leave before continuing.

"Well?" Damian asked.

"Are you crazy?"

"Considering our 'day' jobs, more than likely..."

"What on earth would ever compel you to even consider this?" Cassandra asked with as low a voice as she could manage. The last thing she wanted was to make a scene.

Damian lowered his fork, put his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers, looking at her very intensely.

"With father away for the foreseeable future I thought it would be best to have a partner to help with...what needs doing." The secret of remaining unknown vigilantes was to never talk about it in public and broad daylight. "Dick has his own responsibilities, Tim and Jason are out of the question. Steph and Babs are too...Steph and Babs. That left only you."

"But this goes a little beyond all that. You would never ask Grayson to..." Cassandra actually needed to pause to get in a steady breath before finishing her sentence. "...to marry you."

Damian held his gaze. "Yes...yes it does."

Silence.

Cassandra asked the next obvious question. "Why?"

"Have you had a single relationship since Bruce took you in? And I don't mean normal, social relationships. I am talking romantic. I bet that tonight is the closest you've ever come to a date in your entire life."

Cassandra realized Damian had no clue about Conner and decided not to bring it up. Besides, the boy of steel had been too good for her.

"And you think the kind of man I need is you?"

Damian shrugged. "Considering our backgrounds, I think we need each other."

Instinctively Cassandra understood what he was talking about. Shared life experience was a way for couples to bond, to understand one another. And who better to understand an assassin than another assassin? Not only that, but they had received almost identical training from the same organization.

"Look," Damian began to explain. "We're both brooding, emotionally stunted loners. Can you honestly say we would make great life partners with anyone remotely normal? I'm older now and I want an intimate relationship, but I don't want to be the kind of husband that makes her cry over and over again because I can't be sensitive enough for her. And I'm more than reasonably certain you would like to have a husband who doesn't always want you behaving like a blushing otaku school girl."

"That's...oddly specific." Cassandra noted. "But to make the leap from dating to making lifelong vows..."

"I've always been an admirer of animals that mate for life. There's a kind of nobility in it, an instinctual understanding that they will never betray one another. That's what I want to have." Damian explained.

"I recall the other 'proteges' tried this all well. None of them are still together." Cassandra remarked.

"But we're extremely self disciplined. Tim and Steph, Dick and Babs, they're amateurs compared to the iron will we have. I firmly believe we can show them how it's done." And then Damian said something that surprised Cassandra yet again. "I...I've never considered anyone else."

Cassandra stared back, eyes wide. "How long have you felt this way?"

"Not important." Damian said dismissively.

"Give me an answer." She insisted.

"Pretty much from the start." The young man admitted.

"Well...that explains...everything, I suppose." Cassandra said thoughtfully. "The cutting remarks, the sudden anger, always trying to outdo me at everything. All that was just-"

"A stupid teenage boy dealing with his first, huge crush." Damian admitted.

"You're still a teenager." Cassandra pointed-out.

"Is that a problem?"

"You think out of everything you've proposed that your age is the only problem? Damian, we hardly know each other. Not only that, but you yourself pointed out how different we are, that our upbringing has hardwired us to be unaffectionate killers, like monsters. You honestly think we could make this work?"

"Honestly? I think our odds are good." The young Wayne answered.

It felt like hours as Cassandra just sat there, looking at Damian from across the table, mulling everything over and over. There was merit to what Damian said. They were both highly trained, first by assassins and then by the world's greatest detective, with strong willpower and common goals.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but...if we do this, it's going to cause an uproar. Not only will we be dealing with living together as partners and lovers, but we will have to deal with the Family and everyone else we know. They will all tell us the same thing; that we're being reckless, foolish and idiotic. Because that's exactly what it would be."

"True." Damian admitted. "But I also think it's going to be a lot of fun."

Cassandra waited until the waiter brought the wine. She drank the entire bottle over the course of the next hour, then ordered another. Once that one was finished and she felt more than just a little light-headed, she gave her answer. "Very well...I accept."

Damian nodded, a grin on his face. It appeared to be one of excitement, but leaned more toward mischievous. He reached inside his pocket. "Then we'll do this as loudly as we can, for social media, of course. Ready?"

"You bought the ring already?" Cassandra asked, impressed at his confidence.

"You better believe I did. I'm a billionaire playboy's spoiled rotten son about to asked his ditzy girlfriend to make the biggest mistake of her life. You think I'd miss the chance to do this at the most highbrow restaurant in Gotham? Don't forget to be in character."

Damian's face suddenly changed into one that Cassandra recognized as a false persona. Bruce would use one whenever he faced the media and large social gathering. It seemed Damian had perfected his own. Face seemingly red with wine, Damian rose up from the table, walked around it until he was standing right in front of her, revealed a small box in the palm of his hand and knelt down on one knee, eyes bright with worry and expectant hope.

"Cassie." He said loudly enough for those near by to hear him. "Will you marry me?"

Cassandra, who could slow her heartbeat till it could be read as a flat-line, was certainly able to conjure up some crocodile tears, place her hand over her mouth and squeal with delight. "EEEEEE! Oh Damian!Yes! Yes I will!"

As she leapt into his arms and they began to do what could be best described as typical young people lip mashing, the rest of the restaurant guests, their meals now interrupted, broke out into polite applause.

Despite the acting, deep in the back of her mind, Cassandra Cain found herself enjoying her very first kiss with Damian Wayne...

I must've written 8 different versions of this scene. Everything hinges on this one idea that Damian can convince Cassandra to do this one thing that is pretty much absurd. I'm still not convinced I got it right, so I understand if this is where you decide to get off. For those of you still around, I'll try to get the next chapter up before too long. I hope...