Eat it, Too, and Get Your Cake
The old familiar aches still haunt his bones. He'd be tempted to take stronger pain medication if he didn't know first-hand that they dulled his mind. Besides, all that damn doctor would say was that it was all in his head and that he should really consider going to therapy.
Not in a world where Hugo Strange still lived and breathed, thank you very much.
Hugo's been reformed for almost three decades and he'd done wonders with Harvey Dent, besides. Furthermore, Bruce only had himself to blame for all the malingering issues from his injuries from when he was an irresponsible, globetrotting playboy who never learned to listen to doctors about his body's limitations.
So, if there was nothing for it then, why was Bruce paying her so much anyway?
Because she was the last doctor in town that wouldn't take his shit lying down. (Sometimes she reminded him so much of Leslie, it took his breath away.)
And now he had a therapy appointment that he would somehow have to get out of. Terry would be no help, naturally; he'd probably go so far as to try and carry Bruce into the doctor's office in a fireman's hold.
Regardless, the aches were there and sometimes Bruce could hardly thing straight, much less be of any help to Terry.
— —
He woke up in the early afternoon, already annoyed. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. That was happening more and more. He'd have to remember to bring it up at the next appointment with that damn doctor of his. Ace was alert at his knee, tensing and ready for action.
Suddenly, a familiar set of footsteps crescendoed across the floorboards above. It had been what had woken him. He couldn't exactly place whose they were or how long it had been since he'd last heard them, though. The information was there, to be sure, only it was buried just out of reach.
It couldn't have been someone he'd interacted with often, if he couldn't immediately place their footsteps. And it couldn't be someone who was a threat, otherwise he would have recognized them immediately, the way he did for all his old, misbegotten foes.
The footfalls darted from room to room, confident with the layout of the house, and surely looking for something specific.
Well, then that meant that he had the opportunity to choose the battleground.
He whistled three times to Ace and the dog obediently bounded out of the room, ready to lead the intruder to him. Bruce made his way to one of the front living rooms, away from entrance to the bat cave. Worse came to worse, he could lead the fight away from the house while Terry had time to suit up and fly here. As he went along, he made sure to shuffle; only slightly exaggerating his limp. He set himself up on one of the high-backed chairs, ready to strike or pretend to be a frail old man as the situation warranted.
However, when the door swung open, the blood drained from his face. Because there stood one of his greatest wounds: his Cassandra. She hadn't aged a day and she was looking at him— confused for a second before she visibly recognized him beneath his age. She looked at him dolefully, then; tears filled her eyes as though she was actually his Cassandra.
Bruce set his jaw. There'll be hell to pay—
He stood and reached out a liver-spotted hand. She blinked and fat tears slipped down her perfectly chubby, cherubim cheeks. She ran to him, vaulting with perfect form over the couch. She delicately perched herself just so on the wooden edge of the glass coffee table like that's what it had been made for, in exactly the way Alfred had always scolded the children for doing so.
She hovered for a second, clearly begging for a hug and Bruce's old heart ached for his daughter. His gentle girl that he'd lost and mourned and always remembered and never deserved. He hadn't immediately recognized her footsteps because she had so rarely allowed her footsteps to be heard.
He kept his face a perfect mask and his (hopefully she was his or he'd—) Cassandra's shoulders fell. She took his cold hand in hers, softly and mindful of his age. His knuckles clacked against each other like marbles, all the same.
— —
After verifying for the third time that this was, indeed, his Cassandra, Bruce slumped over into the chair. He wanted to weep. He wanted to rage. He wanted, and not for the first time, to sink into the ground over Cassandra's empty grave in her stead and drown in her grave dirt. He wanted to put on the batsuit and cover his knuckles in the blood of anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.
His Cass hopped down from the exam table after a half hour of awkward silence. (She'd always been so patient and comfortable with his long silence, his quiet child). He saw her approach him cautiously. Bruce wanted to hug her and never let her go, but he knew that he didn't deserve to. Bruce stayed where he was, still as a gargoyle.
Telegraphing her every move, she carefully laid her small, warm, calloused hand on his ever-stiff shoulder and quietly asked, "Baba, I'm me, right?"
Bruce turned to look at her head-on, then, and his hands flexed on his cane (his cane!) and all he wanted was to kneels down before her and beg for her forgiveness. But he couldn't. He was in too much pain even for that.
She saw it all, of course. She'd have seen it all even if he'd tried to hide it beneath his perfected mask — and he was so very, very tired — so he didn't bother.
"Baba," she whispered soothingly, and she bent down to fiercely hug his older, aching body.
Bruce dropped his cane and held onto her for dear life. He hid his face in her perfectly frizzy hair and tried to keep it together enough so he wouldn't scare her.
"Baba, don't worry," she reassured. "I'm me. I promise."
"Cass," he choked.
"No, Baba. Don't be sorry. Things you did not do—because you did not know, could not know—are not your fault. You taught me that. I love you, too, Baba. Please don't hurt."
And Bruce could only shake in his daughter's arms.
— —
"Hey," Terry said from the top of the stairs, "who the hell is—?"
"Cassandra," his daughter introduced herself, smiling uncertainly at him and refusing to let go of Bruce's hand.
Or maybe it was Bruce that didn't let go of her's.
Terry climbed down the stairs with deceptively calm steps, as if everyone in the room couldn't tell that he was tensing for a fight, "Correct me if I'm wrong, boss, but isn't that the name of—?"
"Run your own tests if you want," Bruce said evenly. He turned his back to Terry and pretended to analyze something on the computer.
After a beat, "I think I will," Terry muttered darkly.
Bruce wanted to roll his eyes.
Cass leaned into his side the way she'd done at galas when she was starting to get overwhelmed. Bruce held onto her hand even tighter. He didn't want to even think about the possibility that she wasn't his daughter. But, for Terry's sake—for Batman's sake, he had to.
And Bruce could tell that Cass knew that he was doubting her existence, again; that he had to.
Bruce leaned into her side.
— —
"Well…" which was as close as Terry could come to admitting that Bruce had, indeed, run the tests correctly.
Bruce grunted a soft hum.
Cass, sitting perfectly still on the arm of the computer chair the way he'd never trusted any of his rambunctious boys to do so, allowed herself to blink sleepily and lean closer into his side. She graciously held his hand on the arm Bruce had around her waist so that his shoulder could relax.
"I still want to take her to J'onn," Terry continued, frowning. "And maybe S.T.A.R. Labs? Just to double check," he glanced Bruce's way.
Bruce frowned.
(Well, deepened his frown, really).
"Then do we call in the rest, boss?" He seemed uncertain in a way he shouldn't be if he was going to be the next Batman. The better Batman.
Cass shifted and Bruce looked up to see her smiling down at him, wobbly in a way she should never be, "Everyone else is okay?"
Bruce nodded but he must have faltered. She caught it, of course, and winced painfully at him.
Bruce looked down and sighed at himself.
She leaned over to hug him sideways, tighter than before.
He pretended it didn't hurt.
They both knew otherwise.
— —
Dick almost had a conniption. He gave her one of his octopus-hugs like he was still that twelve-year-old that had stuck to Bruce's side like glue.
It was… nice to see that he hadn't totally ruined Dick.
— —
Barbara had wept silently while she hugged Cassandra.
Bruce and Barbara were really too much alike.
— —
Tim had apparently smirked and ruffled her hair. Cass later admitted that his eyes had been empty, though, as he'd reminisced with her.
Bruce tried not to think too much about that. It didn't bear thinking about.
— —
Damian had actually managed to catch him unawares, but not Cassandra. Never her. With his own sword to his throat, his Damian had laughed and dropped his fighting stance to embrace his sister.
It lightened his heart to see Damian still capable of having fun.
— —
Bruce was a selfish man. He liked his secrets almost as much as he liked his pain. They drove him. It's what had ultimately ruined all of his relationships. Or, so Diana had coolly said when she'd quietly stormed out for the last time.
He was at a crossroads.
Find a way to send Cassandra back into the past the same way that Superman was able to come back after Toyman's ray had sent him to the future. Or…
Or keep her here, secure at his side, for the maybe seven to fifteen years he had left. She could help him train Terry. He could probably eve build her a new Black Bat suit. Or even a Batwoman suit. (It was only right to continue Kate's legacy, too, after all). Terry could help her navigate this strange new Gotham and Cassandra could keep Terry safe once Bruce had died.
For his part, Terry was currently sulking at the other end of the couch with Ace, pretending to do his homework. Cassandra had effortlessly bested him during training. Even when Terry had been in the suit and Cass had only been in her workout clothes.
Bruce looked down at his Cassandra, curled underneath his arm on the couch as he read the news. The way she smiled at Bruce (like he was something worth smiling at) made the decision for him.
— —
Superman had the audacity to look betrayed when he learned that Bruce hadn't called him immediately to tell him about Cassandra. As though he himself hadn't told anyone about Jon until he absolutely couldn't hide him anymore. Turnabout was fair play, after all. Besides, this was a family affair, and it wasn't like Clark had ever actually considered himself a part of Bruce's family. No matter how many times Bruce's children had called him, 'Uncle Superman.'
— —
She smiled sweetly at him before she turned to leave.
— —
Once the lights faded, Bruce blinked and the real smile he'd contrived to smile for Cassandra's sake slipped from his face. So, he thought, alternate universe it is.
He ignored Terry and Superman and everyone else. Terry gave him his space, too. He was a good kid like that. He wasn't going out on patrol tonight. He had a make-up-date to plan for his girlfriend, after all. Bruce didn't begrudge him a single bit. Life was far too ephemeral. Terry was shaping up to be the better Batman, of that Bruce was sure.
Bruce drove home alone in the civilian car that still faintly smelled like her. He parked the car in the driveway; he'd make Terry park and clean it tomorrow. He limped back into the emptier house.
— —
A persistent ringing woke him. He slowly hobbled downstairs, Ace shuffling loyally at his side. He actually needed his cane after he'd been hunched over in the reading chair in Cassandra's old room all night. He opened the door.
His perfect girl stood before him, taller and with smile-lines creasing her face. Her hair was graying at the temples, and she'd somehow only become more graceful with time. He could only stare. His hands flexed uselessly on his cane. When she was done fiddling with the contents of her purse, she faced him and brightened to see him,
"Hey, Baba. It's just me, I promise." She hugged him like he was a person worth hugging. She kept her warm hands on his aching shoulders when she pulled back, "I hacked your doctor's files and I saw something in there about a therapy appointment?"
The world shifted itself around Bruce exactly one centimeter to the left. In the space of a few seconds, a lifetime of memories hit him like a thundering, inescapable avalanche.
Cassandra had been Black Bat for a total of almost five decades. She'd been a ballerina as part of her civilian identity. A prima ballerina, at that. He'd made it a point to go to every one of her shows possible.
Once, Bruce had gotten so sick after Mr. Freeze in the harbor that he hadn't been able to take her to Hong Kong like he'd promised for her seventh adoption-day present. Cass had just smiled and curled up in bed with him and listened to audiobooks, following along on her e-reader and quietly sounding out all the words she didn't know, while he'd convalesced.
For the past three and a half decades, she had been married to a lovely, foul-mouthed, ride-or-die woman, Stephanie aka Spoiler. Neither he nor Alfred had cried at the wedding, no matter what Dick claimed was on the blurry photos he'd taken. (Dick himself had been crying at almost five-minute intervals). Instead of children, Cass and Steph had decided to adopt cats and proceeded to spoil each and every one of them to within an inch of their little lives. They currently had five; Mittens, Señor Stinky, Dracula, Romeo, and (of course) Alfred IX.
Cass had been worried about him being all alone in the Manor, so she and her wife had forced Ace on him as a puppy three Christmas-Hanukkah's ago. Looking at Cassandra's rosy face lit by the Christmas tree (and Stephanie's protective, murderous scowl), he hadn't had the heart to give Ace back to the animal shelter.
Cass and Steph were volunteering nowadays, teaching ballet and gymnastics to at-risk children. She was usually at the community center when she wasn't helping him train Terry. She loved being his, 'Auntie Cass,' and Terry loved her in kind for being a more patient and more talkative teacher than Bruce.
After an awkward moment, Bruce came back to himself and opened the door further and got out of her way. She floated past him to scratch Ace behind his ears and turn Bruce's stoic guard dog into a yipping puppy. Bruce pushed all his aches to the back of his mind for her. Looking at her lead a bounding Ace further into the house, the way she'd done dozens of times before, and Bruce could almost convince himself not to begrudge his medication. Not if it gave him more time with her.
His Cassandra paused in the hall when she noticed that he wasn't following after her and Ace. She turned to smile her perfect, cherubim smile at him,
"So, Baba," she put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to the side, "how're we gonna get you out of that?"
