Barbara twirls her escrimas, one in each hand, and prepares to fight.
Across from her is Cassandra, in black leggings and a purple hoodie. She's also holding escrimas, and the two of them are sparring in Barbara's temporarily empty living room – all the furniture has been moved to the kitchen.
Despite the low stakes of the situation, it's the hardest fight Barbara has had in a while.
Cassandra steps in, just testing her movement, and Barbara rolls back by pressing the heel of her palms on her tires and pushing forwards – after all, she can hardly grip the handrim while holding her weapons.
Cass steps in again, this time with a swing of her weapon, and Barbara doesn't bother rolling back. She holds her positions, ducks, and swings a stick and Cassandra's stomach. There's a crack of wood meeting wood, Cassandra blocking the attack with her other arm, and Barbara attempts to wrap one of her arms around Cass's extended arm for an armbar, but Cass moves too fast – she turns it into a backfist to the bridge of Barbara's nose. The blow doesn't actually touch, but Barbara can feel the whip of wind by her face. Point for Cassandra.
They each move a pace back and prepare to go again.
"How's my telegraphing?" Barbara asks. If anyone can tell you what you're telegraphing, it's Cassandra, with her body-language reading ability.
"You're… doing it?" Cassandra says, voice raising on the end to indicate a question. She scratches her head a little. "Everyone telegraphs to me, Barbara. I can't not see it."
Barbara sighs. True, but not exactly what she was looking for advice on. "What's worse than the rest?"
Cassandra furrows her brow slightly. Barbara can already tell she's going to ask for clarification – they spent long enough together while Cassandra was still learning how to talk that their nonverbal conversations could be just as fulfilling as their verbal ones – albeit a lot less precise.
"I'm trying to improve my fighting," Barbara confesses. "You helped Dinah, I figured…" I figured you could help me. Would that sound fake or weak? After all, Barbara was supposed to be Cassandra's mentor.
Cassandra doesn't comment on it, though, she just nods intensely. "I see," she says. She gestures at Barbara's chair and says, "May I?"
Barbara raises an eyebrow, but Cassandra doesn't clarify, she just waits patiently.
"You want to use my chair?" Barbara asks.
Cassandra nods again.
Barbara sighs and rolls over to her sad couch, halfway in the kitchen and halfway in the living room. She transfers over and slides the chair to Cassandra.
Cass has asked to borrow her chair once or twice before. After she'd first become Batgirl, and she was a member of the 'family', she'd occasionally watch Barbara in her apartment as she rolled around, as if she were committing her movement to memory. Barbara had offered her the chair then – transferred over and slid it to her. Even without understanding the words Barbara was telling her, Cass had gotten the offer and hopped in, and started sliding it back and forth, spinning around, getting used to it and just… having fun with a new experience.
Now, Cass isn't looking to have fun. Barbara can tell as Cass, still holding her own escrimas, starts shifting her weight around, getting used to how it makes the chair move. Her eyebrows are set in determination as she's working out whatever her current idea is.
Barbara doesn't say so out loud, because she did come to Cassandra for advice, but she's not sure that if Cass has any idea for how to use a wheelchair in combat, she'll take it. To the best of her knowledge, Cassandra doesn't even know how to get up or down a curb in a wheelchair, much less fight in one.
"What are you doing?" Barbara asks finally.
"Trying to mimic you," Cass confesses. She stands up and rolls the chair back over to Barbara, who immediately transfers back in. It's not like she minds being out of her wheelchair, at least not around friends. But it's always more comforting to be able to move quickly if you have to.
Cassandra touches her hand to her chin and composes her thoughts. "You seem to telegraph more when you're about to move," she says eventually, "and I couldn't tell if it was because of the way you do it, or… a psycho – psych – mind issue."
Barbara sighs. A mind issue indeed. She doesn't know whether to hope that's the case, because then it will be easy to fix – with any luck, or to not because… well, who would want to hear that their problem with their fighting is their own head?
"I have some old tapes," Barbara says. "Of me fighting a year or so ago. Do you think you could compare them?"
Cassandra nods eagerly.
Barbara retrieves the tapes.
Some more tape watching and training later, and Cass has identified that it definitely is a psychological issue on Barbara's part. She didn't say so directly, but she did point out that Barbara telegraphed a lot less on her movement earlier. She wasn't thinking about being in the chair, she was just being in it.
Which is weird, because as far as Barbara can tell, she doesn't think about using a wheelchair to get around. As far as she knows, no long-time wheelchair user does, unless there's a tall curb or some asshole who parked the end of their pickup truck over the sidewalk, necessitating in some creative wheelie-ing through grass.
But, she supposes, like she confessed to Dick earlier, she was thinking about how it affected her in combat a lot lately. She sort of blames not having any mission to focus on, which she supposes was kind of her own fault – after all, she was there when the Birds disbanded and went through with it, mostly because she felt like she was making too many mistakes. And now with no Birds and the situation in Gotham is pretty much back to normal her life is pretty boring. She still keeps an eye on organized crime, obviously, but nothing takes up as much of her time as it used to. Some time to yourself is good, but too much of it, and you start getting cabin fever.
…
That probably shouldn't be something that makes you feel anxious.
She figures all of this would be making Cassandra feel extra anxious. After all, she hasn't seen Cassandra's Batgirl suit go online since they finished rounding up most of the escapees from Arkham, and Cass lives for Batgirl. Even more so than Bruce, she found absolutely no point in having a secret identity or off time. When Bruce turned one of Barbara and Cass's vacations into a mission, Barbara was pissed. Cassandra was relieved.
Right now, with Barbara's still looking over her tapes at the kitchen table. Cassandra finished moving the furniture back about fifteen minutes ago and is now sitting at her kitchen table and picking at an exceptionally interesting piece of white paint on Barbara's wall – well, it used to be white paint. Now there's just a hole of the color from the previous paint job – green.
"Are you nervous?" Barbara asks, because she has noticed that Cassandra gets fidgety when she's nervous. But Cass just shakes her head.
"Is something wrong?" Barbara asks.
Cass presses her lips into a thin line. She shakes her head, then stands up quickly enough her chair is shoved back. "I should go," she says. "Training."
"Wait."
Cass waits, and Barbara tries to think of the right thing to say. "I didn't just ask you here so you could do a favor for me," she says. "Cassandra, I've… missed you."
Cassandra furrows her brows slightly in a question.
"We haven't seen each other much in the past two years," Barbara says, because they haven't. Not since Barbara moved out of Gotham and Cassandra started operating more independently.
"I've… missed you too," Cassandra says, almost echoing back her exact cadence. There's a pause at the end, though, Cassandra's still holding a breath like she's about to speak but not saying anything. Barbara waits for the but.
"But," Cassandra says, "We have work to do."
"What work? I know you haven't been Batgirl lately, the suit hasn't been online for the past week."'
Cassandra sighs heavily and purses her lips. Barbara can tell something's on her mind, she's just not saying what. With Cass, she never knows whether she just doesn't want to talk about it, or she can't find the words.
It must be the second one, because instead of speaking out loud, Cassandra signs in ASL do you think Batgirl is enough?
Barbara doesn't answer. When Cassandra was making name signs for everyone, she suggested the one relating to their superhero identities - Bruce was always Batman (fitting), Tim Robin, and Barbara Oracle. So in this case, Batgirl could also mean Cassandra.
Is Batgirl enough? Or am I, Cassandra, enough? Barbara wonders. Which one is she asking?
What makes you ask that? Barbara asks eventually.
Cassandra shrugs. Nightwing obviously doesn't think that Nightwing is enough.
Barbara sighs. The Dick as Batman thing. Of course.
You're just as scary as Batman, trust me, Barbara says. You don't need a costume change. You can just be Batgirl.
Cassandra shakes her head.
Barbara sighs. Okay, why not?
I gave the costume away.
"What?" Barbara asks out loud, unable to contain herself. She rubs the bridge of her nose, sliding her glasses up her face, then signs, Why did you give the costume away?
Cassandra shrugs, but the way she looks away tells Barbara that she does know, she just doesn't want to tell her.
Cassandra walks over to the window, keeping her back to Barbara, leaving spoken words as the only option for communication at the moment. Or maybe, she'd prefer no communication. She's just looking down at the traffic.
"Cassandra," Barbara prods her after about a minute.
Cassandra turns around in response, and there's an uncomfortable familiar tension in her face, eyebrows pitched up in the center and knitted with worry, eyes widened slightly with a slight sheen of tears, mouth pressed in a straight line like she's trying to stop herself from saying something and she looks so sad for a moment that Barbara can't help but wheel towards her. She offers a hand out towards her, and Cassandra wavers slightly. She reaches towards her like she's about to accept the gesture of comfort and then steps back, rubbing at her face quickly like she can just wipe the expression off.
She starts trying to sign something You – you think – and her hands keep jumbling up. Eventually, she leans against the wall and slumps to the floor.
Barbara leans forward, but doesn't step closer to her – she doesn't want to overwhelm her, and Cass is obviously on the edge of being overwhelmed right now.
Cassandra leans her head back, takes a deep breath, and then tries again: Do you think that if we were there for Spoiler, she wouldn't have gotten injured?
Well, if that isn't a punch to the gut. Barbara takes off her glasses and rubs her own eyes not because she has no answer for the question, but because she does and the answer is –
Probably, Barbara signs, hating that she has to say it.
Cassandra rests her arms on her knees then her head on her arms and sighs sadly.
Barbara blinks back tears.
She can't forget. It's impossible for her to. So she remembers each time Stephanie came to one of them for training, clearly wanting to help and be helped and included so damn hard, and –
Well, eventually, everyone turned her away. Bruce had issued various multiple edicts forbidding people from including her, he took her in as Robin then fired her for disobeying orders. She wanted to learn and be included and prove she could do it so bad … and everyone told her she couldn't. At the time, Barbara thought that it made sense.
Barbara taps Cass's shoulder, trying to get her attention. When she looks up at her, Barbara signs What brings this up?
Cass shrugs a little.
Batgirl… Barbara signs
Cassandra sighs heavily again. I gave the Batgirl suit to her. Spoiler.
Barbara blinks. You what? she asks, spreading her hands further for emphasis.
Cassandra just repeats herself. I gave Spoiler the Batgirl suit.
Why?
Cassandra purses her lips.
Barbara rubs the bridge of her nose. She can't believe Cass did this. She says, But she could get killed – for real this time!
Cassandra shakes her head and stands up. Not this time. This time, we do it right .
Barbara supposes this is her fault for admitting they did it wrong before. But…
What does right entail, Batgirl?
Help, Cassandra signs. Training. She starts another sentence but trails off before Barbara can tell what she was going to say.
Yes? Barbara asks.
She was my friend, Cassandra says.
And Barbara sighs heavily and shuts her eyes. That's what this is about, isn't it? A chance to see her friend again, but this time, do it right.
I'll see her, Barbara says. I'll see Spoiler. But Batgirl…?
Cassandra merely nods, indicating Barbara should continue with her question.
What will you be doing?
Cassandra grins and opens the window behind her, ready to scale down the side of the wall. And as she leaves, she signs Secret.