*PLEASE READ THIS CHAPTER ON AO3
There's Something For Everyone at the Public Library, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Part 4: Cassandra (rough draft)
o.o.o
Bruce was tidying up the children's area when a little girl came straight up to him, grunted to get his attention, then grabbed her own crotch while pressing her legs together, making an urgent facial expression.
A little alarmed, Bruce guessed, "You need to use the restroom?" She jigged a little in what was probably acknowledgment.
The girl was beautiful but extraordinarily filthy, with long, tangled, greasy black hair, visibly grimy skin, thickly callused feet bare except for the dirt caked on them, and a brown dress that had once been pink. She smelled like wildflowers and old sweat. The only way she could have escaped staff attention all the way to the children's area was if the front desk staff were extraordinarily busy, and sure enough, both of the ones who weren't on break were helping patrons with the computers.
"It's this way," Bruce said, leading the child to the women's restroom. He was disconcerted when the girl strode to the closest toilet and hiked up her skirt without bothering to shut the stall door. Bruce spun away and pulled the restroom door completely shut.
Less than a minute later, before he'd even made it back to where he'd been working, the girl strode back out. "Wait!" Bruce cried when she passed him.
She stopped and looked at him inquiringly.
Bruce beckoned her over to his desk, rummaged through a drawer, and produced a granola bar, which he offered to her. "Are you hungry?"
Her eyes gleamed. She ripped the package open with her teeth so harshly that the food dropped to the tloor. Unconcerned, she scooped it off the germ-ridden carpet before Bruce could stop her and devoured the bar in three bites, carelessly letting the wrapping fall back to the floor. Then she gifted Bruce with a beautiful, bright smile that rivaled any of Dick's, leaving Bruce so dazzled that he didn't have the wits to stop her before she jogged back out of the library.
o.o.o.o.o
The next afternoon, Bruce was on front desk duty when he saw the little probably-homeless girl come in, unaccompanied. This time, she headed straight to the restroom without pause.
"Clark," Bruce said, rising out of his seat, "I'm going off desk."
"Of course," Clark said with a knowing smile. "You do need to tend to your future daughter, after all."
Bruce looked at him sharply.
"Oh, come on, Bruce. You adopted all three of your children from the library. Don't tell me you don't see the pattern."
"Hn."
Bruce just barely made it over there in time, but luckily, the little girl stopped before he even called out to her. She put her hands on her stomach and made a sad face.
"Yes, that's why I came over here." Bruce fetched another granola bar for her, this time insisting that she throw the wrapper away in the wastebasket by his desk. She looked like she didn't see the point, but she obeyed readily, suggesting that her littering was out of ignorance rather than uncouthness.
"Very good," Bruce praised in Mandarin, figuring that she was silent because she didn't know English. "Little one, where is your mother and father?"
Still no response or any sign of comprehension. Bruce tried again in stilted Cantonese and then in Japanese, and was about to make an attempt in Korean, which he was not as fluent in, when the girl clearly lost interest. She left the library, avoiding all efforts to stop her.
o.o.o.o.o
The little girl, whom Jason had started calling Cassandra when Bruce told the boys about her, did not appear at the library for two days, so, on the third day, Bruce was very surprised and relieved to see her trot into the room where he was conducting Story Time. "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]," he was reading at the moment.
Cass looked delighted. She watched avidly and started to make her way closer, ignoring the children and parents who complained when she pushed past them or made faces at her smell and scooted away.
"[*censored because FFN is stupid*]-" Bruce paused long enough to wordlessly gesture for Cass to sit down, and was pleasantly surprised when she obeyed (though she continued to scoot closer and closer). "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]"
He found himself getting more and more animated, as if he was truly acting rather than just 'doing the voices' while reading. The other patrons continued to look uncomfortable, the children confused and their parents annoyed, but Bruce couldn't help it. Something about Cass's rapt expression sucked him in, as if she was absorbing the entire story through sight and tone alone, and it felt right to tell the story in kind. "[*censored because FFN is stupid*]..."
By the time he reached the end of the book, three parents had taken their kids and left. Some of the children had lost interest; one of the mothers told Bruce condescendingly, "I'm not sure your new style will stick, Mr. Bruce."
"Maybe," Bruce said, looking at Cass, who was looking back with her head tilted. He really wished he knew what language she spoke.
"*ahem* Someone's about due for a bath, I think."
"I've been thinking about it- No, Cass, wait!"
He was too late. By the time he reached the door, Cass had vanished.
o.o.o.o.o
Next time, Bruce was ready for her. As usual, Cass made a beeline for the restroom, then when she came out, she went to Bruce's desk and tried to pull the drawer open, making annoyed grunts when she found it locked.
"Cassandra."
She looked up and studied him for a minute, then shifted to a sideways glance as she gazed at Bruce with an aloof look. "I'll hear you out, but don't waste my time," it seemed to mean.
"Will you please come with me for a minute?" Bruce lead her to the staff bathroom in the lounge and retrieved the Katniss Everdeen backpack his sons had picked out the other night. Leaving the door open, he had Cass sit on a footstool, gave her a pack if crackers, then, as she chomped messily, he got on his knees with a wad of paper towels. He was tall enough to reach the sink and soap dispenser from that position, and he proceeded to start scrubbing at the child's filthy bare feet, checking her reaction to being touched by a stranger.
She seemed perfectly willing to let him handle her body, and didn't look alarmed or uncomfortable at all. On one hand, Bruce was glad that, despite the numerous scars on her flesh, she seemed to have escaped the sort of abuse that would have left her frightened of a man's touch. On the other hand, it was extremely worrisome that she might allow the wrong adult to touch her, not realizing what sort of damage she might suffer by being too trusting.
"You need to be more careful, little one."
He quickly realized that the grime was too ingrained, so Bruce fetched a bucket, filled it with warm water, and placed the child's feet in it to soak for a while. As he worked on scrubbing her arms, he spoke to her in various languages, but she responded to none of them, instead just watching Bruce with a curious, almost affectionate look on her face.
It soon became clear that the cheap paper towels were useless for the job, so Bruce fetched the sponge from the sink to use instead, figuring he could buy a replacement. He used the gentler side of the sponge on Cass's flesh. At one point, Clark came in to tell Bruce that he was needed at the front desk, but when he saw what was happening, he closed his mouth without speaking and went away again.
Bruce's coworkers continued to use the patron restrooms and cover his duties. Meanwhile, Bruce got Cass's arms, calves, and knees clean, and used paper towels for her face and neck. The only time she started to panic was when he reached to wipe her forehead and the paper towel obscured her vision. "All right, sweetheart, all right, I don't have to clean your forehead."
He carefully brushed her hair, taking the opportunity to check for lice and relieved to find none. He finally lifted her feet out of the bucket and was now able to sponge the loosened dirt off. Cass sat cooperatively the whole time; when he gave up trying languages and fell silent, she started to hum a cute little tune.
When she was as clean as Bruce could get her without violating her privacy, he motioned for her to stand, and she did so. 'She really does seem to respond better to movement than speech.' So he did a lot of pantomiming now, showing her the clothes that had been waiting in the Hunger Games backpack. He hadn't been sure if her current outfit had been chosen out of necessity or preference, so he had brought options: a bright pink dress as close to the style of her old one as he fould find, a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a long denim skirt, and a pair of leggings. "I will leave you alone in the room and close the door," Bruce said as he acted it out. "You pick whichever clothes you want and put them on. Then open the door."
Her face lit up. Bruce went out and waited, feeling suddenly exhausted. After five minutes, the door handle rattled, then Cass thrust the door open, standing proudly in the leggings and T-shirt (backwards, but there seemed no point in correcting her). Bruce smiled and knelt down again to pull the next items out of the backpack. He gently lifted one of Cassandra's feet, then the other, slipping sparkly pink sandals onto her now-clean feet. Then he straightened up and slipped a flower clip into her hair, which had little practical use, but sweet children should have sweet flowers.
Cass, obviously excited, started to hop around the lounge in her new shoes, relishing the sensation of the cushioning between her soles and the hard floor. Bruce, watching her, realized that Clark had been right. He didn't really know what romantically falling in love felt like, but if it was anything like this breathless rush of joy, pride, and protective anxiety, it must be amazing. Bruce had gotten this urge to pick up and cuddle close and shield forever exactly three times before, and the targets of each one of those urges were now living in his house. 'Mine,' he found himself thinking as he watched Cass.
When the girl had calmed down, Bruce set the backpack on her shoulders. "This is yours." Inside, in addition to the extra clothes, were some toiletries, snacks, small toys, and a little notebook with crayons. "Cassandra...listen to me, I want to talk to you about something."
Her smile faded, and she returned his serious, intent gaze.
"Honey, it's not good that you're all by yourself, that no one is taking care of you. Cassandra, I would like to take you to live in my house and give you everything you need."
No answer, of course. Bruce was beginning to wonder if she was legitimately mute.
The little girl, with a questioning expression, gestured from Bruce to herself and squeezed one hand over the other.
"Cass, I would never hurt you."
He could practically see her response in her movements and expressions: "You take me away with you?"
"Yes, but never to hurt you, Cassie, I- I want to be your father."
She backed away in alarm, and was gone before Bruce even finished getting back to his feet.
o.o.o.o.o
Cass was gone for good. Bruce hadn't seen her in three weeks, and judging by how his coworkers were tiptoeing around him, he kept getting into fights with Jason and Dick, patrons kept giving him offended looks, and Stephanie stomped her foot and demanded, "Stop being such a POOPYHEAD, Mr. Bruce!", he was grieving for the child as if he really had lost a daughter.
'You're a fool, Wayne,' he told himself angrily. If Cass had been abused by an adult male caretaker, of course she would flee the prospect of finding herself at the mercy of another father. She probably had no experience to teach her what a parent should be like.
Bruce lost it when he came back from lunch to find two patrons arguing vehemently by the computers, completely ignoring Clark's efforts to calm them down, their shouts and profanity audible throughout the whole building. Children were staring, clinging to their parents with frightened eyes. 'Not in MY library,' Bruce thought. He started marching over.
He'd only taken two steps when one of the men pulled a knife. Clark yelled and dodged a swipe, then the aggressor pulled back his arm to stab the other patron.
Something small and pink leaped out of nowhere. One second later, the man was laid out on the floor, the other man backing away, and Clark staring in shock as little Cassandra planted a sparkly pink sandal on the chest of the man she'd disarmed and knocked down with the speed and precision of a ninja. "No," she commanded. "No, no, no, no, NO."
Bruce had reached them by that time. He no longer cared about idiot patrons or knives; all he cared about was his little girl, who he couldn't believe was safe and unharmed after an encounter like that.
He seized her and sank back into a chair, arms tight around her. She struggled at first but soon subsided, maybe because she could feel the way he was shaking, his heart pounding, his breath coming short.
They sat like that the entire time, as the police came to deal with the perpetrator, weapon, and witnesses. Bruce held Cass, trying to reassure himself moment by moment that she was safe and that she was here, not suffering on the streets. She waited him out patiently, leaning her head on his shoulder and idly kicking her feet.
At last, he looked down at her. "Cassie."
She cocked her head.
"If you don't want me to be your father, I will not be. But please let me protect you, Cass. Please."
She considered, then wriggled to be released, and he let her go. She asked, with her face and body only, "You and I, fight?"
"No, Cassandra. Never." He found himself speaking with his body in addition to his voice. "You happy, safe, that's all. If you are happy, I am happy."
Cassandra beamed and put her hand in his. That same day, Bruce took her home to meet her brothers.