#269: a time you were outsmarted
Angry, very very angry. So much so that it had clouded my judgement, so maybe he hadn't been wrong to tell me to give up the Batgirl suit. Still, I refused, I patrolled on my own, I did my job and he tried to stop me. Only he didn't. Not really. Rather he did something else to...facilitate things.
He arranged for both of us to be dosed with a designer drug called Soul, which removed one's inhibitions among other effects. It brought down a lot of emotional barriers. For me at least. I'm not sure it did for him, perhaps he'd already taken the antidote before exposure. That wouldn't surprise me.
The result of this was a city spanning brawl between us. To this day I'm not entirely sure what I meant to accomplish as I attacked him. I could have hurt him, even one as skilled as he, but I didn't. Part of me wanted to kiss him, but not in a romantic sense. I not only had to face my feelings for the Bat; I had to live them.
One thing I realized is that I wanted a father, but a father is a man. He is flawed and he can fail. The Bat can't. The Bat is safer because I know what to expect, always. Or so it seemed. Still he surprised me. I never would have expected him to gamble on what Soul would do to me, though perhaps I should have.
He has a name when he's not wearing the Batsuit. Bruce. Bruce Wayne. And he makes mistakes. He showed me as much that night. But he also showed me that he did so because he needed to do something for me, to help me. I can't hate him for that, not when the result is I know myself better now.
I want the Bat, I want to be worthy of what the symbol represents. But...that's not enough. That would be a step backwards, to what Cain had thought to make me. Simplistic, two dimensional. The Bat is not that, so in order to be worthy, I need to be whole in myself. I need to be...Cassandra.
At one time that idea scared me, because I had no idea who she was. Now it's rife with possibility. Maybe I should drug the Bat--Bruce--so that he can learn his own lesson.