Tendrils of steam curled up out of three small cups, placed on the floor. Raven watched them dissipate, entranced. There was nothing like tea to calm the soul. And she needed all the calm she could muster to not balk under the strangling presence of the assassin to her left.

Lady Shiva, she had been told, was the master of this court.

Raven was afraid of her. Shiva held all the high airs and discipline of the man that completed their trio, but with decades more refining. Damian had been her student, the empath could tell; he sat opposite Shiva with an old reverence guiding his posture, his aura.

He looked up at Raven, through a thin, smoky curtain; she suppressed a shiver. The remnants of a steamy dream heated the back of her mind. Raven tried to recollect the speech that she'd planned- her great proposition. But it was to her dismay that, with the delicate curls of steam, the words had escaped her.

Fuck.

Sandwiched between two assassins, each ready to slice her to shreds at will, Raven had forgotten the very thing that was keeping her alive.

Oh go to the assassins' guild, we said. Track down the murderous assassin, we said. She thought to herself, irate.

Folding her dark robes cleanly about herself, Lady Shiva began, in a voice as diplomatic as it was demanding, "You have a proposition."

"Yes." Raven breathed, ready to roll out whatever flailing excuse for an explanation she could muster, "I-"

Shiva stopped her.

"What are your motives for this proposition?"

She could have melted with relief. Shiva was firm, seasoned, and, to the empath's advantage this instance, insisted on dominating the negotiation. Raven had no complaints.

Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Think! Come on! She paused, wracking her brains,

Raven picked up her cup, its warmth fuelling her. Realistically, she couldn't say, 'I want to help because he's hot and it'd be a damn shame if that hotness died before I got a slice' because a millisecond later she'd be a spatter of blood on the floor and a rolling head. So she let her initial hesitation slip in to deliberate, pensive silence.

She answered plainly, leaving the comfortable brown of the tea to make eye contact with Shiva. It was imperative that Raven appear respectful; she made sure to look at Damian in turn.

"My motives are selfish. I want to save myself from an uncomfortable fate. And I want to emerge from that salvation a little...better connected."

"Connected how?" The man asked.

"Socially."

Damian raised an eyebrow and Shiva raised her cup to her lips. He took the cue, taking a cautionary sip and giving no indication of its temperature; Raven watched the steam float over her nose and forehead.

He put the cup down, "Do you want to know me, witch?"

The intensity excited a demonic something in Raven.

"I want you to owe me."

He started at that. Shiva turned her head, as if she'd never been surprised in her life. Surprise intrigued her.

"Explain yourself." She said, on Damian's behalf.

Raven had been overtaken by the sudden tide-turning of his aura; she grounded herself now in the master assassin's curiosity.

"I want to do you a service, Damian Al Ghul, so that you are in my dept. Because, frankly," she said, "I find you interesting. And because you are the sort of person that it's useful to have owe you."

He took a sip, looked to Shiva, then set his cup down.

"You've done your research."

"I certainly have." Raven answered his statement.

Shiva turned a new page, "Your proposition?"

"Lord Trigon is hunting you. I know why and I presume you do too." Damian nodded. "He hunts me also. I don't know what either of you know about magical law, but the premise for him being able to come after us is the same."

As if foreshadowing had rang its bell of having fulfilled its prophecy, Damian and Shiva shared a knowing glance. No longer than a week ago, when he'd first arrived at Shiva's fledgling court, Shiva had passed to him knowledge of the dealings of Trigon and the House of Al Ghul. Damian wonders how this knowledge had landed at the cambion's feet.

"The contracts?"

There was a twinkle in her eye. Damian liked it.

"Precisely."

***

Sleep played the devious wisp, escaping just as the man had almost caught it.

 Damian opened his eyes. It changed nothing of his vision, for a few seconds. He blinked, adjusting to the darkness, and sat up, still in the fresh night. 

The valley air was dewy to the skin and pure of mal-intention; Damian's nerves were volatile as an alley-cat's. The simile brought to mind endearing thoughts of his companions, Titus, Pennyworth and the like; a pang of longing for home rang through the man. He shook it off and threw the covers from his sweat-slickened skin, shoving a hand beneath his pillow and retrieving the faithful dagger that lay there. 

Lethal, poised, Damian moved towards the panelled door, refracted light slashing across his cheek. His chest rose and fell with a tempo decreasing by the second; no sound left his lips. 

He'd been in the grey-lands of half-sleep, jolted in to the world of the awake by a superstitious shiver down the spine. Edging towards the door, he felt it again and stopped, confused. With his free hand, Damian touched the ack of his neck, feeling where the hairs had stood on end, then checked his pulse. Adrenaline had elevated his heartrate, marginally. 

The shivers hadn't been unpleasant, in anticipation of some danger; it's that which threw him off. 

Damian pulled a shirt on and slipped out of the room, sliding the door close behind him. Barefoot, he slinked across the light floors of Shiva's court, past the assassins' barracks and Shiva's own, humble quarters. She could sense the falling of a leaf in the far distance blindfolded; Damian moved with trepidation past her door. Where he was going, Damian couldn't say. Instinct had increasingly taken control of his decisions in recent days, much to his frustration. 

At once, Damian looked up and found himself resolutely arrived: a door faced him, of the same pale wood as the rest of the Japanese guild. Another quiver rattled his nerves. He slid the door open, an inch, and peered inside. 

It's safe to say, the word 'fuck' is becoming a staple of this story.

The woman shuddered awake and saw him, wide, haunting eyes staring, baffled. Damian swore again. 

He'd tragically stepped in shite and, a deer caught in headlights, was void of any thoughts of what to do. In the name of the gods, he wasn't an awkward child, but he didn't know whether to run, to apologise-

"What are you doing?" Raven asked, glancing pointedly at his dagger. 

She'd lost all signs of sleep. Damian struggled to read her; to his bemusement, the cambion, messy hair, purple eyes and all, didn't seem angry. 

What was he doing? Frankly, snooping.

An eyebrow appearing permanently raised, Raven climbed out of her sleeping roll. Damian's mouth went dry. He'd never come across someone who could make three-quarters length pyjama trousers and a top imprinted 'Five More Minuteszzz' look.. well, attractive. And by that genteel, diplomatic term, Damian of course meant ' seething with the kind of sheer sex appeal that would turn a nun on'. 

"I did ask you a question..." she said, in a voice noticeably changed. 

Changed of course, because Raven had been met by the double onslaught of looking past the dagger in his hand and at the man himself -vest clinging to glistening skin and his face sculpted beautifully by the moonlight- and then facing the sensation of his aura shifting to a lilac cloud. There was no science to empathic powers, only understanding gained with time. Some of the colours were easy to attribute to emotions, others had taken experience. It wasn't until after a few relationships that Raven learned lilac's meaning. 

Years of interrogations (from both criminals and Batman) had aided Damian in the perfection of skills in utter bullshitting. 

"Before we leave tomorrow to retrieve the Scissors I wanted to be sure," Damian thought of their deal forged today, "that you are hiding nothing in this enterprise. Iron out the details." He forced his eyes up and regretted it instantly.

Raven cleared her throat and folded her arms, "So, you thought that if I'd kept secrets, you could, what? Get them out of me now?"

"I have ways of making people talk."

He said it without thinking, and internally curled into a ball and begged the earth to swallow him whole.

"Oh, do you?" she stepped forward.

Here came the first moment of positive swearing in this book.

Oh fuck yes I live to die another day. She'd heard the unintended meaning and went with it. 

It would be a lie to say Damian didn't, admittedly, have a type. And Pride, the tall, purple-eyed demon of hell with a silver-tongue sharp enough to trip Loki, god of mischief, ticked an awful lot of boxes. 'Interesting' she said she'd found him; the feeling was reciprocated. Damian had had casual things while on missions before (though not to Batman's knowledge of course), and he wasn't in the mood to draw up reasons why they shouldn't let off some steam before a potentially life-risking task. 

That out of the way, the woman lifted her hand and, surrounded by a purple glow, the door slid firmly closed. 

She began, "And how-" and the rest was smothered in a soft, slow kiss.

Raven held on to his shirt and he rested his hands on her waist, beneath the cotton and on her bare skin. He felt the cold tremble down her spine and she pressed harder in to his lips. Relishing in the dispelling of unexplored tension, Damian melted in to the kiss. 

They separated for air and he smiled, "Getting the picture?"

Raven hummed against his lips, satisfied, "Keep painting." and looked in to his eyes.

Eye-contact was her last straw, she knew, and when he smirked back, by Azar she was in love. Raven began to pull up her top and Damian met her halfway, tugging it all the way off and colliding once more.

A long, long way away, Zatanna closed a keyhole-sized peeping portal and cleared her throat.

"Well, what is it?" Batman asked.

"Oh he's fine, he's fine." Zatanna said, patting Bruce on the arm. "Just winding down I think. He isn't- well- in the arms of assassins." she cleared her throat as well, resisting a coy smirk and the shout of 'get it girl!'. "Let him have a little time...alone."

A.N:

Well that happened, hehee. Sorry for the late chapter my darlings, but here we are! It's kicked off! Damirae is in motion and goodness there's been payoff on that sexual tension eh? I wont be writing smut scenes my loves, I'm just not comfortable going THAT far, but don't worry we'll still be getting some heat in this book ;)

I hope you've had some fun this chapter- and that the wait has paid off! Thank you :)

-Bats