batlanguage (batlanguage) wrote in newalliance, @ 2013-03-15 02:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | [event] retro, batgirl ii, batman |
Fathers and Daughters
Who: Cassandra Cain and Batman
When: Late 2011
Where: Oracle's Clocktower, Gotham, NJ
What: Cass gets an unexpected visit from the Batman, who has even more unexpected news.
Rating: PG-13 (language, surprisingly)
Cassandra Cain was not a sulky teenager. Or at least, she wasn't usually. She tended to do things. After all, her language was movement, not words. So her head tended not to be filled up with chatter the way most people's brains were. Of course, the human brain was a versatile thing, so the more words she learned, the more they took up residence in her head. And she was reliably informed that those words were supposed to stay there, so she had to be careful not to push them out of her head with excessive training. There had to be a balance, she'd been told.
It was all very confusing, and it sounded hard, and Cassandra typically had a hard time sitting still through her English lessons at the Clocktower.
But right now? She had no energy. Any of her usual restlessness was nowhere to be found. Even the act of sitting up seemed like too much to ask, and this was a girl who perched on gargoyles and danced on rooftops sixty stories. Her body's default mode seemed to be stuck on 'Nap" -- or rather, it hovered in a state that was perpetually ready for a nap, but too troubled to sleep. She had been benched from Batgirl duty, and she couldn't even bring herself to care.
Other people were concerned, of course. She didn't even have to say anything for Cass to see it in her every movement, her every worried wrinkle. Cass would hear Babs talking to people over her headset as Big Giant Head. Robin and Nightwing would show up, wanting to know if she was okay. She didn't even bother with the [I'm fine; go away] gesture, because she wasn't, and they would just keep coming back no matter how many times she shooed them away.
She had visited her father in Blackgate. David Cain had sat in his cell patiently. His shoulders and eyebrows had asked her if she was there to break him out.
Her eyebrows and chin had asked what had given him that idea.
His shrug had replied that it was a natural conclusion to come to. He was her father; she was his daughter. And daughters shouldn't have to sneak into prison cells to visit their fathers, should they. Daughters were supposed to spend time with fathers.
Her clenched muscles had told him he wasn't going anywhere.
His wide smile had replied that he was only here because he chose to be.
Her angry stance had asserted that she was not going to let him murder ever again.
His smirk and receiving posture had challenged her to stop him the only way that could possibly be permanent: kill him.
The argument had escalated from there, and it had culminated in their idea of a father-daughter shouting match: a knock-down drag-out fight that had alerted the guards, who'd had no idea that Batgirl was in the prison, let alone in Cain's cell in solitary. It had taken six guards to break up the fight, which had become a PR nightmare for the Batfamily's alliance with the local law enforcement. Bats and Robins weren't supposed to beat up confined inmates.
So now Cass was curled up in her blankets, lying on the floor in her room in the Clocktower. She had a nice, comfortable bed right next to her, but she didn't want or need that. She'd lived for years as a street rat; she didn't need beds. She'd done just fine without parents, too, and she'd rolled over to end the conversation when she'd told Babs as much.
She'd done just fine without parents in the years she'd spent on her own, and if this was what the experience was like, she was better off without them.