I didn’t have to.

I gave him an amused smile, but before I could explain, Mr. Kane interjected, “He accomplished his goal, without any casualties and allowed Ms. Jackson to protect her own assets. It is, indeed, impressive. Especially for someone whose only experience is as a GCPD street officer,” the boy flinched, turned, clearly tried to stand up to the older man and realized how outclassed he was.

I wondered why Intimidating Presence hadn’t had that effect on him, then realized he had no intention, or even concern about it escalating to physical ****, and so it hadn’t triggered.

Kane approached and offered me his hand, ignoring the others like they weren’t even there. I took it.

”Colonel Jacob Kane, Retired.”

It took all my focus to not react more than a flinch from the massive amount of information which was suddenly in my head. No mission operations, but given that I suddenly knew a massive amount about various ‘secure’ facilities in South America and the Middle East, none of which had belonged to the US, I was suddenly very sure that whatever Colonel Kane had been doing before he retired was not anything it would be safe for me to know about.

“Elias Cain, GCPD, retired,” I countered as best I could, hoping he’d think the wince was from his absolutely iron grip. I might have been able to match it, but I hadn’t flexed the moment we started to shake as I’d been too stunned by the knowledge dump and so my hand was weak in his grip. He released me with a slight sneer, confident he had my measure. I really wanted to push back, hint at my actual position by referencing Knight Security, but I didn’t, I didn’t want to be correctly estimated, even if that was a bit humiliating.

The only way out with any dignity was to pretend I just hadn’t been playing, which meant…I shook my hand out, “Hell of a grip you got there, sure you’re retired?” I joked.

“A man needs to find something to fill his time once he retires.” The emphasis suggested he knew that I hadn’t ‘retired’ from the GCPD, but I simply ignored that. “I’m sure you know Ms. Jackson and Mr. and Mrs. Jackson,” I introduced them, but couldn’t resist the little joke about the names all being the same.

He nodded politely to each of them, though there was some obvious contempt as he looked at the made-up Andre, but as Jasmine prepared to make her move, he introduced a woman who slid out of the crowd, “My daughter, Katherine Kane,” she was trim, fit and dressed in a white dress which perfectly sheathed her lithe body, but which she looked extremely uncomfortable in.

There was another round of handshakes, with ‘Kate’ as she insisted on being called, shook everyone’s hands and gave a somewhat subtler eye-fucking to Jasmine and Diamond than the teenage boy, but only somewhat. I was amused, until she shook my hand. She didn’t play the dominance games her father had, but given that I suddenly had a massive amount of information about bat tech in my head and the security (though not locations of) safehouses, storage points and Batman’s base of operations…fuck me, she had to be involved.

For a moment I assumed Knight Security was behind Batman, that would explain a lot…but no way would Mr. Kane remain out of the loop enough that I shouldn’t have gotten it from him, which meant Ms. Kane was moonlighting for the Bat…

Fuck. I didn’t know what to do about that information.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to do anything, but smile and nod as Jasmine descended on Mr. Kane, making a pitch for access to his clients and his own money, Ms. Kane descended on Diamond, pushing Andre away easily as she began to talk to her. I smiled at the woman’s optimism as I looked around. I didn’t see Alyce, but Penelope was talking to a few older women and didn’t seem to be doing particularly well, given the expressions on their faces and hers. Her dress was pretty, but not the right one for this event as it made her look like a teenager dressing up for prom, when she needed to look older.