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Cass liked her new people. Her pack.
She had learned a lot since she had been stolen. Rescued.
A magic man-- a metahuman-- had rewired her brain and made it compatible with language. Before, she’d had no hope of ever learning. The way her brain had grown during her formative years should have made language impossible for her. And it had.
Until the magic man wanted to speak to her, and suddenly she was capable of that.
It had come with a price; it had taken her skills. It was a trade Cass never would have consented to. If she’d been given a choice.
She would give anything, to stay perfect. Nothing else mattered other than saving lives. Atoning for the wrong she did when she ripped that man’s throat out at age eight. She can never even the balance, but she’s going to die trying.
In a little less than nine months now.
She didn’t regret making the deal with Lady Shiva. Not in the slightest.
She would do anything to be perfect.
Now, though, now was the time to enjoy the days she had left. To be with her pack (her pack!) and to save lives and make her last days meaningful. That was all that mattered.
She was going to leave notes to everyone. Recorded messages. The day before she and Lady Shiva fought to the death. Cass wanted to thank everyone for being so kind to her.
Her first sixteen or seventeen years of life had been bad. But the final year and a half was so good, would be so good, that it was almost going to make up for it.
Cass burrowed deeper into the cuddle pile. All her packmates were there. And Steph. Steph wasn’t pack, but Cass loved her like she was anyway.
She was Tim’s girlfriend. And that was… fine. Cass was fine with that. It meant that Steph came over a lot.
Cass had dated Kon for almost a month. It was only fair.
Not that she chose to date Kon for petty reasons. She had dated Kon because Babs had seemed to expect her to. Nobody was happy when she explained that, though.
Anyway, cuddling. Cuddling was good. Cass was leaning against Dick’s side, wrapped up in his left wing. Warm black feathers over the wall of muscle that was a wing covered her like a blanket. In addition to the actual blankets they had.
Dad was on Cass’ other side, and then Tim and Steph were in a separate loveseat together. Which Cass didn’t care about.
And they were watching a Barbie movie. Dick had insisted. Said it wasn’t right for Cass to go her whole life without seeing any of them, or any other childhood classics, and so now family movie night was Cass’ pop culture catch up class. Every one of her packmates had a different opinion on what was essential for her to see.
Though they all agreed that her previous media diet of 2000’s era reality TV was the media version of absolute crap junk food. Cass disagreed strongly.
She had very intense opinions about acting as a profession, and the ways in which it impacts body language. Reality TV was much better.
And perhaps animations had some merit, too. Maybe.
Like now, for instance. The fake-human figures on the screen were… doing something. Like fighting, but without violence.
Cass tapped on Dick’s arm and raised one eyebrow, pointing at the screen.
“That’s ballet,” he explained. “It’s a type of dancing. Telling a story with motion. Dancing is… Bruce, help me out here.”
“Dance is rhythmic motion, either choreographed or spontaneous, designed to be visually appealing to the audience. It generally exercises the whole body,” Dad said.
Cass nodded. She gave a thumbs up.
Then.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why dance?” Dick asked. She nodded again. “To have fun!”
She watched the animated figures on the screen more closely. Fun had been explained to her several times by now. She understood it in an abstract sense. She thought she had experienced it? She wasn’t sure.
Fighting was fun.
The thrill of adrenaline. The knowledge that she was doing good. She enjoyed it. Yes. Patrol fit within the definition of fun as it had been explained to her.
She would have to test out dance to see if it was fun, too. Though she didn’t see how it could be. How could you have fun if you weren’t saving lives?
Cass wanted to learn how to dance. Therefore, she needed an expert instructor. Through some simple detective work (using speech-to-text to look things up online), she was able to identify her chosen target. The Gotham Royal Ballet’s prima ballerina, Chloe Medina.
Medina lived in a small apartment in a highrise in Tricorner. She practiced dancing every single day. In the official studio five days a week, but also down in the basement of her apartment building at night.
The apartment basement was an industrial, huge space, with plenty of hiding spaces. Prime stalking territory. Cass broke in easily and tucked herself deep into the shadows.
She had put special contact lenses into her eyes. The yellow reflected light back otherwise. Too easily spotted.
She waited, and at 7:00 that evening, Medina came downstairs to practice the routines that made her the best in Gotham.
Cass was enraptured.
Medina told a story. Without words. A story that Cass understood and could follow along to. With motion, with body language. It looked like fighting, but without the violence.
Cass watched for a half hour from the shadows before she began to copy the motions. It was… good. Her heart felt light. She felt like she was mid-battle, exertion burning in all of her muscles, mind racing to keep reading Medina’s body language and stay exactly in step with her. She felt energetic. Light.
This was… fun.
Cass had fun.
She stalked and watched Chloe Medina every night for the next week.
She learned so much.
She… enjoyed it. A lot. Dancing was fun. Ballet was fun. She found herself looking forward to her ballerina-stalking hours almost as much as she looked forward to patrol.
She wanted to dance more. No one had put rules saying that she wasn’t allowed to, like they had for patrol. Everyone had decided that Cass was not allowed to patrol or train or combine the two for more than twelve hours in a day. Babs had initially wanted to limit Cass to only six hours, but Cass had successfully argued for upping the limit.
She was proud of that.
They had also told her she wasn’t allowed to live full-time in her private Batcave anymore, which was a bummer. She had secretly been breaking many Batrules in there, such as the time limit, and sleep requirements, and food regulations, and injury treatment standards.
Now she had to live in the Manor and answer to Cassandra Wayne, not just Batgirl, and pretend to be a human when other humans were around.
As if Cass could ever pass as anything other than a weapon. She didn’t know who the others thought they were fooling.
Maybe humans were dumb? Could be.
Anyway, she wanted to dance more, and nobody had said she wasn’t allowed to do that yet. So she found a big open room in the Manor and started to move.
She danced for hours.
Medina had a number of routines she typically went through. Cass didn’t know what the rules were for dance, so she copied them exactly. She exhausted all of them.
She came to a stop. Tim and Steph clapped and whooped from the doorway. They had shown up a half hour ago.
Cass smiled.
“Damn, Cass, when did you learn to dance?” Steph asked, stepping further into the big room with her. Tim followed just a step behind.
“Last week,” she said. Steph laughed, bright and beautiful.
“You should audition for the Gotham Ballet,” Tim said. “I mean, I have no frame of reference for dance, but you mastered escrima in one afternoon. If you’ve put a full week into this, I’m sure you’re good enough.”
“Ooh! Yes!” Steph said. “Also, you need music. You can’t just dance in silence.”
“Can’t?” Cass asked. She hadn’t known that was a rule. Should have figured, though. Medina always had earbuds in while she practiced. Cass hadn’t heard anything, but that didn’t mean that no audio was playing.
Medina had been using private comm devices. Of course.
“Well, I mean, you can, clearly, but it’s just kinda sad,” Steph said. “Do you own a phone?”
“Yes.” Dad had bought her one. Cass had yet to use it.
“Phones can be used to play music,” Tim said. Cass nodded eagerly. Finally, a use for phones.
She would have to dig through her Batcave to find where she had put the thing. It was probably stuffed in some drawer somewhere.
“Oh my god, we’ve been completely neglecting your music education,” Steph said. “This is a tragedy.”
Tim nodded gravely.
Teasing. Joking. Not actually a tragedy.
Cass gave a small smile.
“I have to introduce you to the good stuff before Tim ruins your taste,” Steph said.
“I have normal music taste,” Tim insisted.
“Your music taste is so exceedingly normal that it loops right back around to being deranged,” Steph said. “You’re like if a pod person was designed to have ‘respectable white boy music taste.’”
“Oh, it’s a bad thing to be respectable now?”
“Absolutely it is. Yes,” she said. “You listen to music that I would play for my parents in the car.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
They kept bickering. Cass smiled.
She loved her packmates.
She loved dance, too. Even if she would only have it for nine more months.
“Money won’t buy you a spot here,” Madame Braginsky said.
“We know that,” Dad said. He laid a hand on Cass’ back. “Cass is genuinely talented. All I ask is that you give her a chance.”
“Hmph,” the instructor said. “Alright, child. Show me what you can do.”
Cass nodded. She stepped out into the open space, away from the two of them. Closed her eyes.
She went through one of Chloe Medina’s routines. The most complicated one, the one that had been the hardest for Cass to learn.
She finished her routine, and opened her eyes.
“Where did you train?” Madame Braginsky asked casually. Her emotions were anything but casual, though. She was impressed. Excited.
Dad looked to Cass quickly. “Cass’ biological father gave her private tutors,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know who specifically, or anything much more than that.”
“Hmm. Well, you clearly did your research. Our troupe is performing Sleeping Beauty next month. The lead role is very much already taken, however.”
“Of course,” Dad said. Cass nodded.
“It is bold to attempt the Rose Adagio for your first formal audition,” she continued. “You danced adequately, but there is room for improvement. Ballet is about so much more than simply performing the steps.”
Cass nodded.
She would learn. She would.
“I suppose you would suit as Chloe’s understudy. For now,” Madame Braginsky said. “But this is a serious commitment. You must attend every rehearsal, without fail. I won’t hear excuses.”
Cass nodded.
That worried her, a bit. If there was a daytime emergency, Batgirl needed to respond.
Dad seemed to sense her hesitance. “Barring Rogue attacks or Arkham breakouts, I assume?” he asked, an edge of warning in his voice.
“Of course,” Braginsky said. “I can send you a contract with more detail later. For now, though, girl, do we have a deal?”
She held out her hand.
Cass shook it.
In the end, a different ballerina fell through. Family matters took her away for a while. Cass was reassigned from being Chloe’s understudy to playing Carabosse, the evil fairy.
She got to dress as dark as the night and glitter like stars. She got to perform on the stage, in front of everyone.
The house was packed. Newly-adopted billionaire heiress landing a prominent role in the Gotham Royal Ballet had made the papers, and gotten the production more publicity than it normally had. Cass’ name carried weight.
She didn’t know how she felt about that.
But she did know that a good number of these people were here to see her. And Cass would not disappoint.
The music began. Cass took her cue.
She went out on stage, and she danced.