Archive of Our Own ^beta

The attic in the manor is quiet, still. It is afternoon. Warm sunlight covers the boxes and dust drifts in the air. The place  is old, filled with history. Wayne family history. Her family history, now that she is a Wayne. It doesn’t feel like her history. She wonders if it ever will.

She falls asleep up there, in the warm, slow light. When she wakes, it is dark. Night has fallen. It is cool—cooler than she expects. She leaves the attic.

Cass walks down the stairs to find that the halls are wrong. They are dusty, but that is not why. Or at least not all why. The colors are different. The floorboards creak. The doors are in the wrong spots. She doesn’t like it.

Down another flight of stairs. Down another hall. It is still wrong, wrong, wrong. She’ll go to the cave, Cass decides. She can find Bruce in the cave, or call Barbara. They’ll know what’s going on, why everything is wrong.

The study is wrong, but the clock is there. Cass enters the time. It won’t open. She tries again; it’s still closed. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

What should she do? She could break in. There are other ways into the cave, but she doesn’t want to stay. Not in this place that is wrong. She’ll go into Gotham. Yes, that will be better. She can find Batman there.

She finds the garage (wrong) and takes a bike (unfamiliar). Cass drives. The skyline is different—almost familiar. It itches, in the back of her brain. The air tastes different on her tongue.

When she reaches the city, the streets are filled with half-familiar buildings. There is a tension in the air. Things are quiet: the calm before a storm. She sees a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. A cape.

Cass pulls over into an alley. Someone is watching her—Robin, she hopes, or Batman. She waits.

There is a rustle of movement. “You should go.” It is Robin—Tim. He sounds different.

She turns. Robin stands in the mouth of the alley, but he is a boy—dressed in red, yellow, and green. He is unsure. Nervous. Young.

“Robin,” she says. “What…?”

This is not Cass’ Gotham. This Tim is not her Tim. The city towering around her is a half-remembered memory from a time before words.

“Really,” Robin insists. “It isn’t safe.” The streets are silent. “Look, Batman, he’s… You don’t want to run into him. You should go.”

“Batman doesn’t scare me,” Cass says.

“He should.”

Something is wrong with this Gotham. Something is wrong with this Batman. Robin doesn’t recognize her. Cass needs to see for herself.

She turns her back on Robin and climbs. Quickly, up to the rooftops. It is easier to see, up high. Easier to be.

Gotham sprawls out beneath. In the distance, Cass can see the clocktower. It is still standing. Still whole. If she goes there, will Barbara be there? Will Barbara know her? Robin does not know her. She thinks it would hurt more with Barbara.

Robin is watching. He followed her up.

“Where is Batman?” Cass asks him.

“Who are you?” Robin asks.

She is Batgirl, but not here. Not in this Gotham that has not crumbled and with this Robin who is young and unsure. She is Batgirl, but it doesn’t fit like it used to. “Cassandra,” she says. “Cassandra… Wayne.”

Wayne doesn’t fit either, but she’d like it to. Someday.

“Wayne?” Robin is surprised. Interested. He’s trying not to show it. He isn’t doing a good job.

“He gave it to me,” Cass says. “Batman.”

He is worried now. “You… know?”

“Yes.”

He watches her differently. “When?”

She shrugs.

“He isn’t here,” Robin says. “If you’re looking for him. He left someone else in charge.”

“Who?”

He shrugs. “An ally.” He doesn’t trust her. He doesn’t know her. She wishes he did. It would be easier if he did.

“Where is he?” she asks.

—

Robin hems and haws. In the end, he leads her out over the city. He gives her his spare grapnel. She can see he doesn’t expect her to know how to use it. She wants to show off. Her Tim respects her. She is still a stranger to this one.

“He hasn’t exactly been keeping me looped in,” Robin says as they pause on a rooftop. “But I’ve been trying to keep an eye on what he’s up to. I’ve got some help to peek into what he’s doing in the bat systems—”

“Oracle,” Cass says.

“Yes…” he says. “Oracle.” He’s curious. She can see the way it eats at him. Still, he doesn’t ask. “Anyway,” he continues, “my best guess is that he should be around here. I’m not sure where.”

They settle in to wait. Robin keeps looking at her—quick glances when thinks she isn’t watching. It is quiet, mostly. Cass can feel the rumble of trains below the streets. She hears a car drive by. A window cracks open and music drifts out. It feels like the city is holding its breath. Next to her, it feels like Robin is holding his breath.

Another noise: soft, faint, almost imagined. It’s followed by another: louder, a crash. Cass is up, moving. Robin is behind her.

There is a garage: the skylight, broken. Inside there is fighting: a man who is Batman, but not, dressed in steel from head to toe. He attacks young men in bright colors. Some of them have guns, some knives, some just wrenches.

“The Speedboyz,” Robin says. “They’re car thieves.”

He’s holding back. He wants to jump in, but he’s anxious. Worried about the outcome. Not… not for Batman. Because of him.

This Batman is brutal. More than he needs to be. Bruce fights with control. Precision. This man does not. He does not fight to kill, but he does to hurt. To destroy. She does not think he wants to kill, but he could. By accident. She wants to jump in. To intervene. But she is not Batgirl here. She is not wearing a mask. She needs information. Wait, Batman would tell her. Observe .

She observes. There is something familiar in the way this Batman fights. His moves are smooth—separate from thought. He fights like a puppet. It is familiar.

The last of the Speedboyz falls to the ground. Not unconscious—choosing not to fight. Smart. Batman stands in the center, perfectly still. Like a man trying to remember who he is. Like— connection sparks.

“Azrael,” Cass whispers.

Robin turns to look at her. He is surprised. Weighing her again.

Below, Batman—Azrael—Jean-Paul, begins to move again. He leaves through the window—goes back into the street.

“He’s Jean-Paul… isn’t he?” Cass asks.

Yes. “How do you—”

“He was… my friend.” Her first friend after Barbara. He is dead now, in her Gotham.

“When?” Robin asks.

She shrugs.

“He’s changed a lot,” Robin says. “He’s probably not the man you remember.”

Cass remembers: he was… afraid to put on the mask. He was different with it on. She remembered him smiling. He was gentle without it. Careful. He cared. With it, he was colder. He fought like this Batman. Like a puppet.

Before, Cass didn’t know what it meant. To fight like a puppet.

“He isn’t himself,” she says, “is he?”

Robin shakes his head. “I don’t— No. He’s changed.”

“He needs help.” Cass remembers she danced for him.

“He needs to be stopped.”

Sometimes, she knows, you need to stop someone to help them. “I will stop him,” Cass decides. She had needed to be stopped, once.

—

Robin takes her to an apartment in the city. Cass doesn’t recognize it. It smells empty, like dust. Robin disappears into a room and comes out as Tim. He still wears the mask, but the costume is gone. He is more relaxed.

“Are you hungry?”

Her stomach growls. “Yes.”

Tim digs through cabinets. They are mostly empty, she sees. He pulls out a box, a pot, and sets the pot on the stove. He gives her a cup of water from the sink. She drinks.

Cass watches as he cooks. He swears under his breath as he stirs with a spoon that is too small. Eventually, he hands her a bowl. It is filled with lumpy yellow noodles. They are crunchy. She eats them anyway.

Tim takes a few bites before he finally speaks. “Bruce—he… wasn’t able to be Batman. So he left Jean-Paul in charge while he… went to take care of something else. There is something he doesn't say, she can tell. Tim always has something he isn’t saying.

“He was fine at first,” he continues. “I mean, he wasn’t B, but he was doing fine. And then he started getting more violent. He stopped listening to me, locked me out. He—” There is something he does not want to say. “I was supposed to watch out for him.”

“The mask,” Cass says. “It changed him.”

I’m different when I put on the costume, he’d told her once. I don’t always like it. Who I become.

Tim shrugs. “I don’t know. He used to have this assassin thing going on. I think we didn’t do enough to make sure it wouldn’t come back. And now I don’t know what to do.”

“Take off the mask.”

“Easier said than done. He beat up Bane. It won’t be easy to stop him.”

“I can beat him.”

“Are you sure?”

He is not her Tim. He doesn’t believe her.

“Try me,” Cass says.

—

They go up to the roof. Cass wins.

Her Tim can’t beat her. Because he knows that, he can put up a fight.

This Tim is young, fresh, simple. He goes down quickly.

She gives him a hand up. “You’re good,” he says.

She smiles. “The best.”

—

“The Batcave,” she says later. “We’ll fight there.”

“It’s a good idea,” Tim says, “but I’m locked out. I don’t know how to get in.”

“Don’t worry,” Cass says. “There are other ways.”

They wait until the next day to go. Cass sleeps on the couch. She dreams: puppets, strings. Needles. Blood on her hands. A pink dress. A man’s throat.

She wakes up to the sun streaming in. Outside, it is still not her Gotham.

They wait until the evening when Jean-Paul will be gone. That way they have time to prepare. Cass leads Tim out to the edge of the property to an abandoned barn. Underneath the floorboards there is a crevasse. It is smaller than she remembered.

“That’s your way in?” Tim asks.

She nods. “Follow me.”

It is cramped. Dark. She feels her way forward with fingertips and memory. Her father entered the cave once this way. Now it is her turn. They go down, through water, up again. At last, there is light at the edge of the darkness. They emerge.

“We’re here,” Robin says.

It is smaller than the cave she knows. The ceiling is lower. She can see a computer, cars in the distance. In one corner: a workbench, cluttered in parts. In another: a target range.

Robin whistles when he sees it. Cass looks closer. There are batarangs, razor sharp. They aren’t good shots: risky, dangerous. Shots Batman shouldn’t make.

“He’s really done a number on this place,” Robin says, voice low, almost a whisper.

Cass shrugs.

They wait. There is not much to do. Robin pokes around on the Batcomputer. Cass paces. After a little bit, something starts blaring—an alarm. She looks over. It is coming from the computer.

Robin shrugs sheepishly. “I guess it’s a good thing we want him to come back.”

It isn’t long after that. First, there is a rumbling in the distance. It grows louder and louder, and finally stops. Then, in the shadows across the wall: Jean-Paul.

“Batman,” Robin whispers.

Cass steps forward. Jean-Paul locks on her.

“Jean-Paul,” she says. It echoes in the cave.

He freezes then: turns to her. He draws himself up—trying to intimidate. He doesn’t.

“Who are you?” he demands. “What are you doing here?”

“A friend,” Cass says. “I’m here to stop you.”

“Stop me?” He’s on edge—ready to lash out. “Robin,” he hisses. “This was your idea, wasn’t it? I told you I didn’t need you and now you’re jealous. Get out!” he shouts. “Get out!”

He is charging. Cass intercepts. Robin gets out of the way. Good.

A swipe with his claws. Metal flashes. She dodges easily. Riding the momentum, he stumbles forward a few steps. He is surprised; he turns.

Cass still stands. “This was my idea,” she says. “Not Robin’s”

He roars in frustration. He is not Jean-Paul now. She can tell.

Again: he charges. Again: she steps aside.

“Take off the mask,” Cass says.

He laughs—cruel, desperate. “I am Batman ,” he shouts. “You are nothing!”

Another attack. He can’t hit her.

“You’re not,” she says. “Take it off.”

“Make me.”

“I will.”

They fight. It comes like breathing to her. She can see way after way she could kill him. She does not. Jean-Paul is not in control. She could end this quickly. She does not. Instead, she toys with him. She wears him down. She frustrates him. 

She must destroy Azrael to save Jean-Paul.

Cass lets him close enough to graze. She hits the clasp on his gauntlet—pulls it off. She kicks it to the side before he can reclaim it.

“You’re not going to stop me like that!” He says. He’s breathing heavily. Azrael will not let him stop.

Cass says nothing. The fight continues. She gets the second gauntlet off. Then the cape.

“Jean-Paul,” she says. “Take off the mask.”

“I’m not Jean-Paul!” he shouts. “That man was weak!”

“He wasn’t,” Cass says.

The fight continues. He is faltering. She still won’t let him hit her.

The armor is slower to come off, but there are weapons in the cave. Cass uses them and peels it off, piece by piece.

“Who are you?” he demands. He’s desperate.

“A friend,” she says again.

“I don’t know you!” he cries out: anger, frustration, pain.

“You will.”

The metal he wears has fallen away—only the mask is left. He is a puppet. A broken man, dragged by strings, ready to collapse.

“Please,” Cass says. “Take it off.”

Finally, he does. He crumples to his knees. Cass crouches at his side. She takes the helmet from his hands.

“You can stop now,” she says.

He laughs, tired. He’s Jean-Paul again. “I don’t— I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Cassandra,” she says. Behind her, Robin is creeping out from his hiding place. Outside is Gotham, unfamiliar and strange. Batman is far away. The world she knows is far away. But in front of her is Jean-Paul. He is alive. He is not Azrael. He is no longer the man he should not be. “I stopped you.”

The rest will come, but this is important. He is her friend, he is here, and she stopped him.