Chapter Text
Today was the day!
Cass sat in her squishy chair, tying her shoes the way her mom taught her. Cross over, bunny ears, cross over. She pulled them tight with a satisfied smile and moved onto the other shoe.
It was still early for normal people, but Cass wasn’t normal. She used to spend most nights out on the streets fighting crime. She still did, but not as often as before. These days, she got to wake up like the average person 2 days a week, and go to school! And today was a very special day indeed.
After her talking, reading, and writing classes, Cass had a few hours to warm up for her very first recital! Her tights, leotard, and velvet slippers were already packed into her Batman bag from the day before. Batman made a funny face when he saw it the first time. It became her favorite because of that.
And Bruce promised to come! He, Dick and Tim were overseas on some big mission but they said they’d be coming back in time to catch her performance! He was going to see how hard she worked to be perfect at something that wasn’t hurting someone. Perfection at an art. Not killing. Not violence. She was more than the weapon that he found all those years ago, and she finally got to show him her progress.
She wasn’t good when she started, and she wanted to quit. But she didn't, and now she was more excited than she had ever been before! That anticipation made her feel real. Really real. Like she was a real girl. Because maybe she was.
With her bunny shoes all tight on her feet, she tromped over to the fridge to grab her lunchbox. Heavy with her favorite snacks, she packed it herself. Today was already going to be great. Why not make it better by eating only the most tasty treats?
Cass dumped it into her bag and darted towards the door.
“Hold your horses, Missy.” That meant stop, so she did. Barbara, sneaky when she wanted to be, wheeled over to her. Exuding sternness over fondness.
“What?” Cass asked, hoping she would just hug her and tell her to have a good day. Cass liked her mom’s hugs more than others. It was her mom!
“What did you pack?” She asked, amusement dancing across her face. Cass smiled sheepishly.
“Healthy foods!” She had not. Alfred had a definition, and she most certainly did not follow it.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Gimme.” Cass sadly put her Hello Kitty lunchbox into the grabby hands. She was almost away too!
Barbara eyed her, amusement still there, but now engulfed by a mother looking out for her child. A child determined to eat junk food. She pulled out 2 cinnamon rolls, 4 brownies, 3 donuts, 6 hard-boiled eggs, 2 cartons of strawberry milk, and the last slice of cherry pie that Dick brought over last week.
Barbara let out a theatrical gasp, exaggerated like when she found a “silver bullet” clue. She looked up at Cass with fake betrayal on her face, brandishing the pie.
“Cass! How could you! I thought Dick came by and swiped this from under my nose! I was looking forward to finishing it.” Acting. They went to a few classes together. It was a fun pastime they shared to act through these ‘scenarios’.
The young girl put on her best evil face, then filled it with faux rage as her plans were spoiled.
“Darn! And I was so close! I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids! And the dog!”
Barbara burst out in laughter, throwing her head back and letting the room ring with her delight. Cass joined her, practicing her own laugh as well. It was getting better. What started as a mimicry of whoever was also laughing blossomed into something she was proud to own. It was light and airy and came from the nose. It was sound. It was her voice.
“Love the quote, but you didn’t use it quite right. I’m older than you, and there’s no dog.” She said, laughter still in her features and singing in her voice. “Maybe next time reference my wheelchair. Or my giant brain.”
“Your head is very big.”
“Kids these days...” Barbara smiled, and to Cass, it was the sun on her skin after weeks of overcast. She returned the smile. Like her laugh, she was practicing her own. From the way Barbara’s eyes creased and her body relaxed to take it in, Cass knew she felt the same way.
“Peace offer? Share?” Cass asked, pointing to the pie still in her lap. She was looking forward to it after the ballet concert, a great day ending on a great dessert, but this was good too. Sharing a great treat with a great person.
“You want to bribe me with the pie you stole? You’ve been spending too much time with Jason.” Barbara admonishes but steers to put out silverware.
“He’s smart! And nice.”
“Mhm.” Barbara said, unconvinced. The conversation was turning to something not as light and soft as the pie would taste. Barbara did not want it there. So Cass didn’t continue it.
She sat on the counter while Barbara sat in her chair. They shared the pie, and it tasted like home. When it was gone, Barbara emptied her lunchbox of a few of the brownies and cinnamon rolls and added a banana. She met the fruit with a hard stare, trying to fling it from her grasp before it touched the rest of her food. It failed. Cass forgave her.
Cass gave her a hug, holding for a few seconds longer than usual to feel her body heat.
“I love you.” She whispered.
“I love you too.” Barbara whispered back.
Cass ended the hug slowly, then skipped out of the door.
It was still very early morning, the sun just barely cresting the horizon. The streets were vacant of people and cars. A perfect theater! Cass danced and spun around the street. Working through her movements, unafraid of anyone seeing. The golden sunlight made Gotham look so peaceful, nothing like what it was at night. Spinning, leaping, and dancing through the streets, Cass was alive!
A giggle of unbridled glee slipped through and out. She laughed at the thought of her family all together to watch her. Jason would be there too. She confronted him with an invitation so he wasn’t allowed not to go. He promised! The family didn’t like Jason but she knew he was a nice man deep down. And he would sit next to Batman, and they would both clap for her at the same time and see that they weren’t so different!
Then maybe she could convince him to get her more pie.
Today was going to be a great day! Nothing could bring it down!
***
“Sorry, Cass. I wish I could be there. Knock ‘em dead. I love you.” Oracle hung up. She was going to Las Vegas to sort something out with her company. She won’t even be there for the ice cream.
Cass hated phone calls. They were hard. The voices were different over them and it was difficult to hear what the other person was saying without seeing their face.
That was the third one she got today. Her recital started in an hour, and no one was coming. Everyone gave an excuse. Some big case. Out of the country. Jason hadn’t answered any texts or picked up any of the calls that she tried to make.
All of them seemed to think that someone else would be there for her. She couldn’t find the words to tell them that she wanted anyone to be there. To see her. She was finally proud of something she could do. Cass wanted them to see.
Cass was still dressed in her favorite black skort and turtleneck. Cass should be backstage for warm-up, dressed up in her beautiful blue-green leotard with puffy frills. Instead, she was on the roof. Watching the golden sun set.
She groaned and clutched her head to her knees. It wasn’t fair! She wanted to yell, excercise her voice that was so long denied to her as a child. Now, at 14, she can yell pretty loudly.
But it wasn’t their fault. They had important things to do. It hurt they weren’t there, but it would be recorded! She would still be seen! They all promised to come to the next one! When have they gone back on their promises? In that time, she could figure out the words that showed how important this was. How much it meant to her, as a person, to have her family there.
But right now, she had a recital to do. She made friends here. Dolly and Madison were looking forward to seeing her too. And she wanted them to feel seen as she did. Cass stood up, rejuvenated at her resolution. She swept her bag onto her back, and rubbed her neck instinctively as she felt a little bug land there.
Her hand found a dart sticking out of her skin. Cass plucked it out, but it was too late. The world slowed and spun. The last thing she saw was a man half orange and half blue mask.
Even beneath the covering, the one-eyed face that approached looked far, far too eager.
***
*2 years later.*
The Batcave was cold and empty. It had been for some time now. Batman hoped that would change in some small way. The operation was complete. Slade’s control over the league of assassins was put down, and with it, they got Cassandra back.
He stood next to Oracle to observe a blurry figure on the screens of the Bat-compter.
Batgirl was in the holo-room to their left. Working through a training simulation meant to adapt to any scenario and test one’s skills. In her time out of Batman and Oracle’s care, she had grown up. Not substantially, she only a few inches taller. But she clearly was eating well, as her body fat percentage was nearing 30%. A healthy amount, but shockingly high for her.
It made him wonder.
Less than 24 hours ago, she was administered the counter-serum to the mind-control drug that Slade used to kidnap and control her. Red Robin had to knock her out to do so. Batman, Nightwing and Red Robin were all overseas when she was kidnapped, a protracted investigation that, in retrospect, did not require all three of them. But Bruce enjoyed spending time with his two sons, and they seemed to enjoy it too. Then the unthinkable happened. Reflecting on his conclusion, he can see now that it was flawed. He thought his daughter turned her back on their oath of life, all because he neglected her one time too many. It was foolish. Shameful.
And when he finally got her back, when he learned of the deception? It’s only been a day, but he can tell that she was different. 2 full years passed, and his bright, endlessly cheerful little girl came back a despondent and traumatized killer. And she knew how it tore him up inside.
The cameras struggled to keep up with her speed. Her entire body moved like an inhuman wave of violence. Her hands grasped wrists as Bat-a-rangs tossed milliseconds prior knocked guns from hands on the other side of the room. Her cape flared, perfectly obscuring her body for just a moment as bullets ripped past where she should have been. The holo-room was a perfect simulacrum of fighters, and Cassandra Cain was the perfect weapon to dismantle a fighter.
Batman’s eyes flicker to Cass occasionally, but he remains fixated on her statistics. Her heartbeat, blood pressure, and hormone levels. Everything he would need to identify faults. STAR Labs reported the counter-serum had completely neutralized Slade’s drug. But Batman wanted to be certain.
Preliminary screens and tests with recovered samples indicated no long-term damage or effects. Though Batman is not blind to possible psychological damages. Spending so long forced to kill and train killers would be mentally taxing for anyone. But for Cass… he knew her well enough to know that she would take it hard. That and killing Slade after all was said and done. Though, Batman had a theory that Slade wasn’t dead. During the clean-up, his body was misplaced for 2 hours. It was eventually found. Following standard practice, it was determined to be the real Slade by a medical officer, then incinerated. It was just a hunch, but it warranted investigation.
“Her combat metrics are stable. She shows no definitive decline or fluctuations that can’t be explained away by stress.” He concludes as Cassandra flips onto the simulacrum of a 7’ foot tall bruiser and brings him to the ground in a choke hold. Her metrics were in line with what the Bat-computer projected for a 2 years of missing data from a model of 14-year-old Cassandra. There were irregularities, but the Bat-computer flagged them as minor for combat proficency.
Oracle did not look at the data like she usually did. While he was focused on numbers and statistics, things that would determine if the girl would be safe in the field, she was focused on the girl.
“Stress she still needs to recover from. I cannot believe we are having this discussion. It’s been a day, Bruce! She doesn’t need fieldwork. She needs to talk to a therapist.” Oracle exclaims. “I don’t think I’ve even heard a word from her.”
Neither has he. It was worrying. In the year before she was abducted, Cass had been making progress toward speaking in leaps and bounds. Her social life was thriving. She had a few civilian friends, good grades, and aspirations to seek more schooling. Slade got her the day of her first dance recital. The dance recital that, he later learned, no one else attended. Except Jason.
Now she seems to have regressed to her nonverbal origins. Bruce would be lying if he said it didn’t sadden him to see the backslide. Less than 5 hours ago when she woke up, the first thing he did was interview her. It was standard, and she didn’t seem to take offense. But she also gave frighteningly little. She could not say a single thing, resorting to charades and fighting to convey her points. Cass was off balance, hurting, desperate to prove herself to him. Desperate to tell him how badly Slade hurt her, almost to the point of a panic attack. Despite the ache in his soul knowing that she killed, he knew that she needed a direction. He wouldn’t stumble in restarting the healing process. The monitors showed an effective fighter, desperate for redemption. And Batman sought to meet that desire. The rest would come after.
“Purpose drives recovery. Purpose prevents regression. We’ve had this discussion before.”
“Before she was kidnapped and drugged to lead the league of assassins instead of having a sweet sixteen party, Bruce. Slade forced her to kill people! That would mess up anyone. She needs time to process and heal.” Barbara looks away from Cassandra to stare him down. A task that many have tried and few have succeeded at. But Barbara ranks among the few.
“Cassandra isn’t like other people.” Batman breaks from the monitors to return her stare. “She needs something physical, a tangible way to do good to balance out the bad she was forced to do. I will not stick her in a room with someone who is going to force her to remember her greatest traumas and wrongs with no way to redeem herself. Not when she could be out there, making up for them. That is how she works.”
“This is your problem. You think survival and healing are the same thing. They’re not.” Barbara bites out, her fingers clenching on the arm of her wheelchair. “You are the last person who should be defining what a ‘healthy mental state’ looks like.”
His body shifted. His head was pulled further back as if for a proverbial headbutt. “I had nothing but anger and grief to drive me. Nothing but training and the Mission. I took in Dick and Jason and Tim and Damian and Stephanie and Duke and supported everyone else who needed it because I know the pain. She has a family to rely on. She will not be an island like I was.”
“A family of soldiers?” She retorts flawlessly, and it finds purchase as his jaw tightens. A thousand biting comments arranged themselves behind his lips. Their deployment was interrupted by the playful chime of the holo-room program concluding. The monitors show her skulking back to them.
“This conversation ends here.” Batman says.
Silence follows as Cassandra makes her way to the Bat-compter. Neither Barbara nor Bruce said a single word to each other.
***
Cassandra Cain was many things. She was a weapon. A killer. A tool. A soldier. A doll. And now, Batgirl again. But one thing she was not was an idiot. Both Batman and Barbara had tension in their entire bodies that betrayed their frustration. And the way they were turned away from each other indicated it was towards each other. It did not take a linguist to jump to the conclusion that they were fighting. And the topic of that discourse was even more apparent.
Bruce stood like a storm, while Barbara sat like a hurricane. One battered, while the other endured. The force of the conflict still reverberated in the walls by the way they tried to hide it.
Barbara’s face softened when she caught sight of Cass’s form approaching. The anger dulls into a weary desperation that Cass never liked seeing on her face. It tightened the knots in her stomach. She always wrinkled under scrutiny. Now that she was so…different, it was worse than ever.
“Cass, we were just talking about… Your vitals are great, a little low, but that’s to be expected.” Barbara unconsciously glances at Batman, who does not interrupt. “What do you want to do? What is it you need right now?”
Cass looks between them, and what they want has never been clearer. Bruce wants her to be strong and join him back on patrols. Redemption. Barbara wants her to be weak and to speak. A different type of redemption. Both want her to heal. But the real answer to the question eludes her. Within, she feels a clawing hollowness, a void that hungers and screams even when her tongue doesn’t work. It only quiets when she protects. Fights evil to prove what she isn’t. When she bleeds.
She looks down at her hands, an unconscious tick; she’d begun to notice her own more often now. They are still scarred and calloused and belonged to a killer, but they are capable. They can still be used for good. They have to be. She does not know what she wants. Only what they want and what they will give her. She doesn’t know how to ask for the clawing void to be filled. How to erase the past completely. To be good. To get His hands off her. For the nightmares to stop.
She couldn’t even conceive of dancing again. Of classes. Life.
Her throat constricted when she tried to speak. Two days ago, she was still drugged and speaking like a normal person. The drugs forced the words past her lips and now that it’s gone, it has become impossible again. It’s been an entire day since she returned to the Batcave, and she still can’t force blood from that stone anymore. She could decide anyway. She made a fist and struck her palm. Batman smiled; it was the correct one. Barbara’s face was ignored. The painful hollow inside her throbbed in happy anticipation.
“Good. Suit up. I want you to link up with Red Robin tonight; you’ll be patrolling with him for the foreseeable future.” He steps away, his cape swirling like wings.
Cassandra’s heart, a bleeding, wounded thing, unclenches at the dismissal. So she was still worthy of redemption! Even after everything, he still saw what she could never see in herself. Her body hums with enthusiasm and readiness. For the first time in years, that glow does not prelude something she feared.
Until His hand grabs her elbow.
Cassandra freezes stark stiff. She smells hot breath, and feels hands pressing hard on her collarbone. Alcohol. Sweat. Sex. Blood.
Her stomach churns as it thinks it’s more full than it actually is. Stuffed with food she was long glutted on.
Her mind goes blank white as it tries to wrestle out of the panic. When her body finally remembers it is alive and safe and can fight back.
It does.
***
Barbara watched Bruce saunter off, frowning her disapproval as if he had eyes on the back of his head. She’d moved her entire operation to Las Vegas for her company, Clocktower Systems and flew her on a dime when she heard the truth about Cass. She’d been awake for almost 30 hours and hadn’t had a cup of coffee in 10.
“Ass…” She muttered. “Cass, I know it’s been a while, but if you want, I can–”
Barbara grabbed Cass’s arm to get her attention so the girl wouldn’t speed off and change into her costume immediately. She was going to propose staying in Gotham for a few weeks to help Cass settle back in. She still wanted her to at least consider the idea of therapy or talking to the rest of the family. Barbara, as Cass’s longest standing guardian if not legal one, knew very well how liable the now 16-year-old was to throw herself into something. Fighting crime, especially. What she didn’t expect was for Cass, who she thought loved hugs, to grab her wrist and twist it almost to breaking.
The movement flung her out of her chair as Barbara gasped in shock, her hips slamming into the hard stone of the floor. She was too stunned to speak, even when Cass dropped her hand with wide-eyed terror.
The girl took a minuscule step back, like Barbara were a bomb that Cass had just armed. Her lips and jaw were trembling as she tried to articulate something. An apology, an explanation, whatever it was, it came out as low moans and barely perceptible syllables. Tears were streaming down Cass’s face as her hands trembled with a contradiction. The desire to help her up warring with the fear of getting close enough to be hurt or hurt her again.
“Hey. Hey, look at me. It’s okay.” She said. “It’s alright, I touched you without warning. That’s my bad. Could you please help me up?” She extended her other hand, the one Cass grabbed, still hurt and probably had a red welt on it already.
Cass gingerly took her hand and helped her off the ground, placing her back in her wheelchair. Barbara resisted the urge to rub her bruised and possibly dislocated wrist in front of Cass. But Cass saw the urge anyway, and her eyes soaked up the injury on her wrist as well as any doctor worth their salt.
A fresh tear fell down her cheek as she took a large step backward. Her eyes ripped across her own shaking hands.
“Hey. Cass, look at me.” Barbara said, a quiver in her voice that Cass couldn’t catch. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. Those hands saved my life a dozen times. They’ve saved a thousand lives, maybe tens of thousands. They aren’t your enemy.”
Barbara took Cass’s trembling hands with infinite gentleness and care. Ignoring the sharp sting of pain from moving her definitely sprained wrist. Cass had a thing for hands, her own especially. She figures it’s because of the way she killed her first person. By tearing his throat out.
“I know you think you are bad. That it’s your fault for what Slade made you do. You aren’t. Trust me, Cass. You are a good person. You are a hero.”
Cass couldn’t hold Barbara’s eyes for long. She kept looking down at their combined hands. Her heart bent at the sight because Barbara knew what Cass saw. Damager and damaged. Abuser and abused. She was trying to find a way to blame herself, to feed her guilt. But Barbara wouldn’t let her go as Cass tried to back away.
She let herself be pulled along as Cass hit the desk of the Bat-compter. She sat on the hard stone ground with no more room to run. Desperate for more walls, more safety, she hides behind her knees, drawing them up to her chest. Cass did not let go of her hands either.
Barbara’s heart breaks at the sight of her. Her breathing rapidly picking up pace, even as she is wheezing to slow it down. She doesn’t leave her side, rubbing circles on her palms with her thumbs and whispering tender guidance and encouragement to the panicking girl.
Each minute of never-ending tension, Cassandra tries to fold herself tighter or squeeze into the wall. But Barbara endures. She fights the anxiety harder than any bomb-refusal or hostage situation. The stakes are higher here. Because the victim is the girl she raised that she just got back.
Slowly, Cassandra’s shoulders still, and her breathing evens out. Her fingers cease their terrifying trembling and start to clench on Barbara’s experimentally. As if she is testing how strong she can be without hurting Barbara.
When her head comes up above her knees, her face is red and her eyes are bloodshot. Her hair is matted over her forehead. But still, Barbara smiles encouragingly.
“Hey, there you are. Do you want a hug?”
She expects Cass to nod furiously and dive into her arms like she had done before. Cass had 2 bad panic attacks when she still lived with her. Both times, it was something that reminded Cass of her capacity to hurt those she loved. Barbara would always be there to let her know that the ability to kill was not the desire to kill. And Cass could never hope to turn down a hug with someone she cared about. The touch-starved little girl learned how to ask for hugs before almost anything else. It warmed Barbara’s heart to watch her ask for a hug from Dick whenever he came over, then get scooped up by the man and giggle like a perfectly normal, gleeful little girl.
Instead, the question hangs in the air like smoke on a battlefield. Barbara realizes too late that it was the wrong direction. The tremor returns with a forceful aftershock as Cass’s eyes expand to the size of dinner plates. She shakes her head. A jerky motion that explains how far away Cass’s mind was from her body. Her hand finally rips from Barbara’s with a force that surprises her. They wrapped around her knees and squeezed herself tighter, eyes focused on something a thousand yards away.
“Okay. That’s okay!” She said steadily, but it was cracking. “When—whenever you’re ready. No pressure.”
Barbara could only watch and whisper and hope with her entire heart that what she is doing is helpful as Cass rocks side to side. She finds herself asking the same question she and Bruce did when they first took her in. When they found out the extent of David Cain’s ‘training’. But this time, it was directed towards a direct man, a different assassin.
“What did he do to you?”
Barbara knew for certain, whatever the answer, she was not letting Cassandra go out on patrol tonight.