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This used to be Cass’s favorite rooftop. Tall enough she could take her mask off if she wished and breathe for a minute, but not so tall that she wouldn’t hear screams down below if someone needed her help. It’s a block away from her favorite taco stand. If she stands on the ledge, she can even get a glimpse of Wayne Tower from here.
It was her favorite rooftop.
She thinks he’s a jumper at first. In a city like Gotham where everyone is either a criminal, a victim, or simply too poor to move anywhere else, it’s an occupational hazard that they’ll run into a suicide jumper or two during a normal patrol. Someone else usually handles it, but Cass is on her own tonight.
He stands at the roof’s edge. His jacket is folded neatly on the ground next to him. “I’m not going to jump,” he says, looking back at Cass as she approaches. A normal person wouldn’t be able to hear Batgirl until she’s already reached them, but Cass made sure to scrape her heel on the gravel so she wouldn’t spook him into stumbling off the edge. She’s good at that—at scaring people. No one would ever look at Cass and see comfort.
“I saw a TV episode once,” the man goes on, undeterred by Cass’s silence, “about some guy who jumped off a building and fell on a bird. The guy survived, but he must have felt bad for killing it. I wouldn’t risk that. I just wanted a good view.”
It only takes a second’s search for Cass to see the gun in his hand.
“Don’t,” she says quietly. That’s all. She doesn’t know what else to say.
The man looks over his shoulder again, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. His eyes stay dead. “That’s all you’ve got? ‘Don’t’? You must not do this a lot.”
“Don’t.” Cass creeps forward. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, Batgirl. I know this is your job and all, but could you please just…not, right now?” The man sighs, hanging his head. The gun is still in his hand. “I really don’t want to do it like this. I wasn’t expecting an audience. I don’t suppose you’d listen if I told you it’s okay to leave me alone?”
It’s pure bad luck that he chose this specific building to kill himself on. Cass comes here when she wants to be alone, too.
“Why?” she asks, not knowing what else to say. She’s not good at this. Not at talking, and especially not at talking down a potential suicide victim. She is the worst possible choice for this. This man is going to succeed because of her.
Man, she keeps calling him in her head, but he can’t be older than twenty-five. He’s young. They both are.
“I’m not rushing into this or anything,” the man says. “So don’t…don’t tell me to think about it. All I’ve done is think about it. I’m tired of thinking.” His shoulders quake like it’s taking all of his self-control to keep from crying. “It’s the…logical thing to do, I guess. I’m broke. My landlord is five minutes away from evicting me. Can’t hold down a job because I’m off my meds, but I can’t afford insurance to get new ones. I’ve tried, okay? I tried to make my life work, but I can’t. This is the next step.”
It sounds logical. Makes sense. Cass doesn’t know this stranger well enough to provide a good counterargument. She can’t do anything. She could surge forward and seize the gun from his hand faster than he can react, but then what? What’s to stop him from jumping off right then just to spite her? How will she keep him from killing himself tomorrow, or the day after? How can she help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?
“I’m not an asshole, okay?” he goes on, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I slipped a note under my neighbor’s door with my house key so she can feed my cat. The other notes are all at my apartment so my loved ones can get them after I’m gone.”
“You don’t have to,” Cass whispers. Please. She can’t explain why. She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t know her. If she hadn’t come to this rooftop tonight, she wouldn’t even know it had happened at all. His problems would all go away, and Cass wouldn’t have to be traumatized by what’s about to happen. Everything would work out.
“I…wanted to be dead. Once.” It’s the best thing she can think of to say. “I thought…no point in living. I was too bad. Didn’t deserve it. I tried to die, but…I was saved.”
The man’s tears are silent. “Do you ever wish you hadn’t been?”
She should say no. A hero would say no. A sane person would respond, Of course I’m grateful to be alive, and you should be, too. Put the gun down.
But Cass can’t lie to him. She can’t confess to this suicidal stranger that honestly, some days, she wants to be dead more than anything in the world. Sometimes she sits on this very same rooftop and just…stares down at the sidewalk while people walk home from their jobs, eager to see their families, and she wishes she could feel less empty inside.
The man sighs again at her indicative silence, nodding to himself. He fiddles with the gun, checking that the safety is off. It is. Cass doesn’t move a muscle. “I know you’re probably not allowed to answer this, but…what’s your name?”
Cass isn’t supposed to, but she says, “Cass. What’s yours?”
He smiles thinly and shakes his head. “Sorry. The faster you have my name, the faster the authorities will call my mom to tell her I died, and I don’t want to wake her like that. I left my wallet at home on purpose. She can find out in the morning after they’ve identified my body. She’ll be more rested, then.”
“Please. Don’t.”
He takes a deep breath. “Can you turn around, please, Cass?”
“Wait—” Cass moves forward, reaching for him.
It’s too late.
Cass hasn’t spoken in four days.
Batman showed up minutes after the man’s body hit the rooftop. He died quickly. Cass reached him just in time to watch the light disappear from his eyes and his face go slack. A bullet through the brain is one of the quickest ways to go. He didn’t feel anything.
Cass saw it, though, in that split second before the life left him for good. She saw truth. He didn’t regret it one bit. He died relieved.
Batman took care of everything. He called the right people to collect the body. Then he called Stephanie to collect Cass.
On the fourth day, Steph plops a bowl of cereal filled to the brim with marshmallows on the coffee table in front of the couch where Cass has been curled up for days. She’s made a nest in the corner with blankets and stuffed animals from her room. She’s sat here watching TV for so long that her eyes feel scratchy, but she doesn’t try to sleep, hasn’t taken up the offers to go out and get some fresh air.
“Time’s up,” Stephanie says decisively. “I’m officially pulling the plug on this pity party.” She sits down on the couch facing Cass, mirroring Cass’s position with her knees pulled up to her chest. “I can’t watch you do this any longer. Talk to me.”
Cass stares at her blankly.
“Look, Cassie, I know you’re hurting. I’m sorry you had to see it up close like that. It never gets any easier, but you can’t let it stop you from living your own life. We can’t save everyone.”
Cass shakes her head, pillowing her chin on top of her knees. She scrunches her eyes tight. “No.” Her voice is rough after so many silent days.
“Even Batman couldn’t have kept that guy from pulling the trigger. If not that night, then the next one. You couldn’t watch him twenty-four-seven.”
But Cass shakes her head again. “Maybe…shouldn’t save everyone.” At Stephanie’s rightful confusion, Cass says, “He was…heavy. Until he pulled the trigger. When he died…he was light. Happy. He didn’t want to be saved.”
Cass killed a man once. She was eight years old, but she remembers it like it happened yesterday. She watched him die. She saw death through his eyes, and she saw fear. It was raw, ugly, terrifying. She’s witnessed death many, many times since, but never like this. Never so…peaceful. It was horrible, watching his brains splatter from his head. His blood got on Cass’s uniform. But inside…he was peaceful. He was content.
Stephanie flounders for a moment. “Jesus, Cass. I’m—”
“It’s…okay. I won’t—” She can’t follow him. Batgirl is too important for her to kill herself. Cass had a death wish—has one still, some days—but she fulfilled it, once. She died. She was brought back. Mission accomplished.
Peace.
In the years since, Cass has saved enough lives to vastly exceed the number of lives she ruined. She should be content.
But Cass never stopped wanting to be dead. It was quiet, when she was dead. Those brief seconds in which she ceased to be Cassandra Cain, the monster. The killer. The hero. She ceased to be anything but light. It felt right, like an ending.
Cass misses that feeling most days, but she has a job to do.
Cass exhales deeply, and then she uncurls enough to wrap her arms around Stephanie in a hug. “Oh,” Steph says, hesitating only for a second before she hugs Cass back just as crushingly.
“I’m okay,” Cass murmurs into Steph’s shoulder. “Promise.”
Because even when she isn’t, she has her family by her side to bring her back from the edge, and that makes all the difference in the world.