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“Keys, wallet, and shoes in the bin. Metal off. Any weapons need to be handed over.”
Cass moved quietly, untying her boots and setting them in the bin with her bag, removing her necklace and setting it alongside them. She knew if the man really wanted to, he wouldn’t need any of this to kill someone, but then, neither would she. They were both weapons, but they both knew she was the sharper blade.
He wouldn’t try anything.
Once she’d taken off anything that could be used against her, the guard let her step through the metal detector, sending her belongings through the x-ray machine. Blackgate had intense security, so after the metal detector, she stepped off to the side and allowed the woman to pat her down, checking for anything she’d managed to smuggle through the metal detector. Once she was satisfied, she allowed Cass to collect her things, tying her boots, slinging her bag over her shoulder, and doing up the clasp on her necklace; a small golden S that Steph had gotten her for her birthday, proudly showing off her matching C. Steph had explained it as something couples did, wearing each other’s initials. Cass didn’t completely understand it, but it made her feel closer to Stephanie whenever she touched it, so she wore it nonetheless.
She brushed her fingers across the charm now before continuing on.
“He’s one of our highest security prisoners, so he’ll remain handcuffed the entire time. There will also be a panic button underneath the table, you can press it at any time and a guard will be just outside.”
The guard from before grabbed her ID card as she walked, scanning it on the doors to unlock them. Cassandra just nodded, glancing around the halls they moved through, taking note of the security. It was on a similar level to Arkham, which was discouraging. Almost anyone with even a small amount of skill would be able to break out; he wouldn’t be here for long.
She moved through the halls silently, glancing in at the other prisoners as they moved from gen pop all the way to the elevator and down to the maximum security cells underground, where the most dangerous people were kept; living weapons like herself, who’d chosen a different path, or who’d walked it so long they didn’t know they had a choice left.
After a long and silent elevator ride, the doors opened with a faint ding, sliding aside to reveal yet another grey hallway. It was unremarkable at best, but at worst it was ominous, holding a conversation she wasn’t sure she wanted to have. The closer she got to him, the more she doubted the choice she was making. But she was already here, so it was time to face the music.
Her footsteps were silent in the long hallway, purposely not making a sound. It was important to remain quiet, to show no weakness, especially in his presence. He’d trained her, and part of her still craved his approval, his assessment that she was doing well. She wanted to make him proud.
The door swung open with a final beep of the ID card, revealing a metal table with two metal chairs, only one of them occupied. The man was older than Cassandra remembered, his hair grey and his face lined with more wrinkles than had been there before. His body still read the same, that confidence-arrogance-pride radiating from his every breath. He knew this room couldn’t hold him, and beneath the pride there was a hint of amusement at the attempt. But when he looked up and his eyes met Cassandra’s, his whole body flashed with a new kind of pride, a ghost of a smile flitting across his lips. Most of all, there was the emotion he’d always looked at her with, but one she didn’t have a name for until long after she’d left him.
Love.
“Cassandra,” the man smiled, his body open and confident, surprised by her presence here, but a happy kind of surprise. The door shut behind her, and she took a step towards him, keeping her own emotions off her face and close to her chest, somewhere he couldn’t reach them.
“Father,” she replied, and she saw his smile widen further, the happy surprised feeling in him growing with her words.
“I’d heard you’d learned to speak, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it. Unless of course you’ve only come to show me a word or two.” His voice wasn’t cruel despite his words being able to be taken that way, no malice behind his statement. If she had to put a word to it, she would choose ‘intrigued’, which meant fancy curious. Barbara had taught her that last month, and she’d liked the way it felt in her mouth when she said it, so she hung onto it.
“I can speak,” she confirmed, still standing at the back of the room, watching his every movement. “Understand too.”
Her father leaned back in his chair, the handcuffs that tethered him to the table clinking softly with the movement. The pride was there in every breath, though it wasn’t pride in himself. It was pride in her, in what she’d accomplished. Accomplished was a word Barbara used a lot when talking about Cassandra. It meant all the things she’d done, but in a good way. Accomplished meant pride, happiness, satisfaction. And clearly, her father felt those things about her too, just like Barbara and Bruce and Stephanie. He was proud of her like they were, he saw her struggle and her victory.
“I’m impressed. I’ll be honest Cassie, I never thought you’d learn to speak. I thought there was a chance that you’d learn a few words of League Dialect, but it would be more like a dog knowing ‘sit’ than anything else.”
Cass frowned at that, making her annoyance with being compared to a dog clearly known, but again there was no malice in his words. Only that same pride, and beneath it, the steady love. The love was the part that confused her most.
Bruce wore his love softly, with awkward words and slumped shoulders, unsteady in his admissions. Bruce’s love was fragile and delicate, not in its existence, but in its expression. He didn’t know how to say the words, and he didn’t know how to make them known either. Cassandra never doubted him, but that was because she could see it leaking out of every pore whenever he looked at his children. Even when he was mad at them, even when he was furious with Jason for another killing, the love still thrummed beneath it all.
David wore his love violently. He was a harsh, volatile man, and his love reflected that. His love was all sharp edges and fine lines, forged into a blade. His love was loud and explosive and cruel, training her until she broke because he loved her enough to make her strong. He’d wanted to create a weapon, someone that could never be defeated, never be killed, and he’d chosen his daughter because he loved her. He’d dressed her in a little pink dress, made sure her pigtails were even, and told her to kill a man because he wanted her to be strong.
She didn’t understand how they could be the same emotion, but the feeling underneath was the same in both men. David’s love was violent in that he would kill for her, that he’d burn the world to make sure she was okay. Bruce’s love was soft in that he would die for her, would sacrifice himself to make sure any one of his children lived to see the sunrise. The outcomes were different, but the love was the same.
“I learned,” she said simply, looking at her father where he sat in the chair. He looked smaller than she remembered, though maybe that was just because she was bigger now. She no longer came up to his hip, craning her neck to look up at him with admiration in her eyes. Usually Cassandra was good at naming her emotions, at knowing what she was feeling, being in control of her body and her mind. Today though, she didn’t have a name for what she felt when she looked at him. It sat curled in her chest, baring its teeth at anyone that got too close, not wanting to be seen. It cried, and it wailed, and it screamed, and then it was small and quiet and hidden. It was sad, and it was love, and it was angry too.
“Well, good for you,” David said, and she could tell he meant it. That somewhere within him, much closer to the surface than she thought possible, he was happy for her. Happy she’d learned the very thing he didn’t allow her to learn. Forbade her from learning, which meant didn’t let, but angrier. Harsher.
“Come on Cassie, sit down,” he offered, cuffed hands gesturing to the seat across from him. The nickname – a shorter form of her regular name that friends used, as Barbara had explained it – sounded odd, coming from his mouth. Too familiar, for someone she hadn’t seen in years, someone who’d caused her so much pain and who she’d be nothing without. He’d molded her, hammered her into shape at the smithing table and sharpened her every edge until all she could do was wound.
It was Bruce, who’d finally been able to be near her without being cut. Who’d taught her not to dull herself, but to use her sharp edges as a shield, to defend instead of just attack. David wielded her like a kalis, harsh slashes and brutal attacks, focused on nothing beyond a quick death. Bruce wielded her like a chakram, thrown to keep her opponent at bay, never letting them get close enough to do any damage. She kept them away from their target, never letting them get a hit in. She was still a blade, but a blade that protected.
“No.”
David sighed, leaning back in his chair, the chain on his handcuffs clinking as he moved. He nodded, looking up at her the way he used to, like he was trying to read her. But he’d never been as good at bodies as she was, and he couldn’t find what he was looking for. He had to rely on words. “Why are you here, Cassie?”
For a moment, neither of them moved, just looking at each other. Cassandra stared at her father, and that same unnameable feeling welled up inside her. Angry and sad and love all fighting for her attention, fighting to be the one that came out of her mouth, that spilled out of her like a flood. But they all met the carefully built dam that Bruce had helped her construct, and instead all that came out was calm and detached.
She reached into her bag, and she could see the alarm-caution-worry out of the corner of her eye, the way her father tensed ever so slightly. But she didn’t pull out a weapon. She found what she was looking for, pulling it out of her bag and taking a single step forward, placing it on the table between them. A card, one she’d picked out from the drug store, a cartoon moustache printed on the front.
“Happy Father’s Day.”
The caution shifted to shock, then quickly to pride as he picked up the card and looked inside. There wasn’t much written, just Happy Father’s Day and her name, signed in rough lettering. Her handwriting still wasn’t great, but it was hers, and she was proud of it.
“You can write,” he murmured, looking over the pen marks inside the cardstock. She nodded, watching as he read the words again and again.
“I learned,” she said quietly, and he looked up at her with that same pride shining in his eyes.
He smiled slightly, closing the card and setting it on the table in front of him, looking up at her. “I taught you well.”
No regret. No acknowledgement that it wasn’t him that had taught her this, that it was her own hard work and late nights and hours upon hours of practice that had taught her the alphabet. No recognition that she should have learned language when she was little, should have babbled and trilled and had her first word be ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, instead of ‘stop’ when she was seventeen.
“You didn’t teach me this.”
“I taught you all I could,” David shot back, though there was still pride in his eyes.
“It wasn’t enough.”
A moment passed where neither of them spoke, the silence stretching across the small room. Eventually, it was her father that broke it, his voice slightly quieter, body slightly smaller. “It was all I had, Cassie. You’re the best fighter in the world. No one can hurt you. I gave you that.”
He had given her that. He’d seen his newborn daughter, squishy and raw and fragile, and decided to make sure no one could hurt her. He’d deprived her of language, of peace, of family, but never of love. His love was twisted and cruel, but it poured out of him in every action he took, every step that made her better, faster, stronger.
“I know.”
She turned, pressing the button beside the door. Immediately, the metal swung open, two guards having waited outside. She stepped out of the room without looking back, walking down the hallway and back towards the car idling outside the prison, to the man sitting in the front seat.
Her father was waiting for her.