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renaroo · 7 years

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Worthy

Disclaimer: Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon-typical violence & language Rating: T Prompt: ( Anonymous ) Due to a Dimensional Rift, Cass ends up in the Burtonverse and finds herself confronting a Batman who kills criminals.

A/N: I have a strange, strange relationship with the Burtonverse Batmovies because on the one hand I love them and then on the other hand the Struggle as a geek who cares about character is reaaaaaal. But this was a fun exercise and I really appreciate you sending me it, anon!

It started with watching. Observing.

Oracle had taught her that when dealing with magic and unknown forces, the most important aspect was observing. Learning.

Even when things seemed the same, dealing with dimensions and magic and alternate worlds could have their jarring differences.

Gotham looked similar, but it felt worse. There was a paleness to the city that was unfamiliar to Cassandra. She could see it in the gaunt faces of the everyday people, feel it in the way their muscles pulled tight and never relaxed.

There was fear that stunk throughout the city. Commissioner Gordon seem bewildered and unfocused -- bloated and preoccupied.

He had no daughter, Cassandra sneaked into his office as well as his apartment to make sure.

Never married. Never adopted. Never...

When she confirmed that there was no Barbara Gordon, Cass climbed onto the apartment complex’s roof and laid on her back. She was in shock and pain.

No Barbara, no Oracle. No Batgirl. And that meant that the very first person she would have turned to in that confusing time and place wasn’t there.

Cassandra didn’t know what to do next until the heavily set sky turned dark, clouds cluttering over the city.

It was then that a light came into the dark version of Gotham that was so unfamiliar.

Cass sat up and looked in surprise and relief.

A bat signal.

She knew where to go. Who to go to.

She kept her distance. Cassandra could see even at a distance that the Commissioner Gordon of the strange, unfamiliar Gotham was scared -- concerned -- as he waited by the Batsignal.

There was no Bullock. No Montoya.

He was by himself. Until he wasn’t.

But Cassandra saw him coming, even if Gordon hadn’t. She’d heard the cape in the winds of Gotham, the crunch of his landing. The shuffle as he masked himself in shadows before gradually revealing himself to Gordon.

He was younger. He was less skilled.

And, just by watching the tenseness of his muscles, listening to the gruffness of his voice, Cassandra knew... he was angrier, too.

“There’s a rash of crimes across the city. Riots,” Gordon said.

“I’ve settled some of them already,” the unfamiliar Batman replied.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Gordon grumbled. “Look, every case I’ve encountered so far have involved genuinely good people, normal citizens -- rioting and scared out of their minds. Manipulated somehow, hallucinating.”

“Mass hysteria is not a new phenomenon,” Batman said coldly.

“But at this rate? With these patterns?” Gordon was having to argue for his case. “Look, my boys are reluctant to call on you after you didn’t bring in Catwoman--”

“Then they can handle this phenomenon themselves,” he said resolutely.

“But there’s reason to believe a chemical is causing the outbreaks,” Gordon said desperately. “Someone might be taking a cue from that Joker you took out.”

“Then they’ll meet the same fate as their inspiration. History likes to repeat itself,” Batman replied. “I’ll look into the riots, Gordon. Get in contact with the Gazette. Get the word out that people should start spending their nights in.”

He left in the same abrupt manner. It startled Gordon, but it failed to impress Cassandra. It was stiff and uncomfortable.

Time travel along with dimensional shifting was looking more and more like a possibility.

She followed Batman’s lead, dissatisfied with what she had seen of him thus far, but hopeful for the man she knew to eventually shine through.

The man Cassandra knew, the father she had loved, did not shine through.

There were three men, wearing gas masks as they filled the gymnasium of the Gotham Knights with the fear toxin gas. They were working for the Scarecrow -- it was obvious enough in their actions and in their accented, neon orange pumpkin adornishments.

That was enough evidence for Cassandra to act, all in the shadows, a makeshift mask wrapped around her own head much like she had been forced to make due with on her failed cruise with Oracle.

She made quick work of the man nearest her and broke down the exit with a solid kick, shoving the man’s body to the other side of the stadium bleachers so he would be out of the way of the rampaging crowd clambering for an exit from their own nightmares.

When Cassandra looked across the gym, she saw the Batman doing much the same, knocking out one of the Scarecrow’s men nearest her with a brutal elbow to the face. It lacked finesse, aiding to her theory that he was still new, but it most importantly of all lacked compassion.

There was no empathy from the man that Cassandra was watching.

He shot with his grapling hook toward the rafters above and he swung from his position toward the top of the bleachers where the last man still stood, spraying gas from the contraption hooked onto his back.

She should have moved. In reflection she should have been making her way toward the third man already.

Should have. Could have. Would have.

But there was no way, until moments before, watching the Batman she did not know, Cassandra could not have predicted that he would kick the henchman through the glass window and let him drop, screaming, down the nearly three story building.

“NO!” she screamed, tears in her eyes for the man from another world, a crueler world, who she did not know.

But it was too late for the henchman. And the so-called Batman was gone.

All that was left was for Cassandra to teach -- for Cassandra to make things right.

Getting equipment was difficult, but fortunately Wayne Enterprises was as expansive in the strange, unfamiliar world as it had been in her own home. And Cassandra had watched her family string together the various resources from the industrial complex before in order to create their equipment before. And Cass had always used the least resources possible.

There was a matter of stealing and relative guilt where that was involved, but Cass and stolen before being adopted by her family in order to survive herself.

That day she was stealing in order to ensure that others were going to survive against the threat she could have never imagined before.

Constructing what she could without raising full alarm from either the company or its owner, Cassandra recreated herself as a Bat.

But the next part was specifically more difficult.

She looked into the mirror and assessed her new look before reminding herself with boistered confidence.

“It’s... okay. I’m a detective.”

Then she went after Jonathan Crane.

By the time that Batman had found his way to Professor Jonathan Crane’s home, Cassandra was there. And she had only begun what she intended to do when she had taken Crane down and left him handcuffed for the police she had already called.

She had a leg up, of course. As different as their worlds may have been, she had had the benefit of knowing the Scarecrow’s identity already.

Still, she managed to feel disappointed at how long it took for this version of Batman to make his way to them.

When he did, Batman seemed just as stunned to have no conflict left for him to resolve.

None except for the fact that Cass stood, fully donned in the outfit of her own creation, towering above him in balcony of the Scarecrow’s laboratory.

“What?” he asked curiously. Then, more angrily. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“You,” she answered darkly. “But better. You. But justice. You. But I do not kill.”

Behind his mask, Batman’s expression was unreadable to others. But to Cass he said everything. There was confusion, there was anger, there was an impulse to lash out.

“Death brings nothing. Makes you no better,” she answered the argument that Batman had yet to verbally form.

“You’re wrong,” he answered. “It brought justice to me. It saw the woman I loved saved. It saw the man who took everything from me dealt wth permanently. And it keeps the streets clean today.”

Cass was surprised. The one crime which Batman had never solved in her own world was that of his parents -- the murderer who brought life to Batman. “Who?” she asked, heart pounding. If the Scarecrow was the same, just perhaps...

“If you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably have heard of the Joker,” he growled out.

Confused, Cass shook her head. “No... not possible,” she said out loud, because it couldn’t have been within her own world. She was certain of it.

“You say you bring justice. That’s what I bring as well,” he continued.

Cassandra glared at him. “Death is not justice. Death is... pain. And then nothing.”

“Who are you?” he demanded again.

“I am worthy,” she answered, pointing to the emblem she had sewn to her suit’s chest. “I am the Batman my father taught me to be. And I will not leave this... world, until sure that it has a worthy Batman, too.”

#writing #batfic #Cassandra Cain #Batgirl #Batman #Bruce Wayne

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