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Cassandra Cain laid on the cricket spring mattress in complete silence, her eyes focused on the fly that had landed on the rafters above, one arm draped over her head, the other draped over her stomach with the thin novella clutched by her hand. There were many things she should have been doing, many things she could have been practicing, perfecting, preparing.
But ultimately she laid in wait, frozen by nervousness that she did not encounter in training or battle or patrol.
In fact, thinking back on past missions, Cassandra would have very much liked a second round with the Monster Men that had attacked Gotham City only a few weeks beforehand rather than what she was dealing with then and there.
Frustration and sorry only came to Cassandra in things she was uncertain of. Her ability to fight, her ability to win, was never something she felt worried about. Those things, moving with speed and efficiency, seeing the snap of muscles and the ability to predict just where and what to hit or block at once, was not something that worried her. Sometimes she fought good foes, ones that could dodge or mask that one hit she needed to make, but in general she did not get more than frustrated. She was never embarrassed by performance in battle.
Frustration for Cassandra knew no truer form than what she felt in what she could not do and what she could not do was something so simple, so basic, that it burned her eyes with tears to even be reminded of it.
She clutched the book against her stomach tighter. It was thin — so much thinner than the things read by her family and friends. It was so simple. It was nothing. And yet it was everything. If only she could master it, just to prove just to say what her vocabulary still failed to really say.
With a deep breath, Cassandra stopped studying the fly and lowered her chin enough to see the book against her stomach, waiting to be opened. The book marker still visibly flagging the page which her friends had helped her select.
There was a clock on the wall that Cassandra had set up, but even if it had told the actual time, she wouldn’t have noticed. Instead she looked toward the window, seeing that there was still an orange hue to the sky, light seeping through the cracks and crevices of the city skyline.
It meant to Cassandra that she still had some time to prepare herself.
Taking a deep breath, Cassandra sat up on her creaky bed, grabbed the hair scrunchie from her bedside table, and pulled up her hair.
With little time on her side, she opened her book dutifully to the marked page and cleared her throat for another practice.
Her heart twisted and fretted, hoping that somehow she managed to do everything she planned justice.
Christine came up the moment the last of the ballet instructors and students had left the final practice. She had laid low, going quiet and seemingly busying herself with changing from her practice clothes to her regular wear while others chattered, but it was a ruse to help her hang back and hide behind the curtain until the others were all gone and the lights all out.
Cassandra had watched things play out that way many times for many nights, but never before had they come with such heart pounding worry and concern. She wasn’t sure if, as normal as the night was beginning for their routine, it was worth divulging from to explore the unknown. The unspoken.
She wasn’t certain if it was going to break their spell of what they had had together so far or reinvent it.
She didn’t know if it was something she even wanted reinvented. For any reason. Even for good reason. It nearly made her feel ill to consider such things.
But as Christine climbed the stairs and headed toward Cass’ loft, the vigilante steeled herself for change like she had never steeled herself before. Then she stepped forward and true. Swiftly moving through shadows to arrive at her room before Christine could.
And, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm, Cassandra flung the door open when Christine was only two steps away from it herself.
the surprise was clear on Christine’s face, she blinked a few times before smiling and tucking back her curls behind her ears. “Oh! Hey. I’m sorry, were you about to head out? I thought I was on time tonight, guess I dallied a bit too much downstairs…”
Listening to Christine’s voice was like a song without instrument. She spoke every word, every syllable, with a confidence worthy of a piano’s key. It was the sort of voice that Cassandra imagined herself waking up to in the mornings or at the very least falling asleep to in the evenings. She spoke with pitches and tenor that would make even the most well spoken of heroes feel Appropriately faint.
At least, that was how every word felt in Cassandra’s chest when she listened to Christine. Ever since the first moment that they finally met, exchanged names, when Cassandra owed the ballerina her life. And for every encounter since when Cassandra began to owe Christine all the more — owe her for kindness and patience and words.
Even at that moment, sweaty from her recent practice, a duffle bag slung haphazardly over her shoulder, Christine was holding three books in hand, with a plan to read at least all of one to Cassandra, out loud, that night, rehearsing verse for verse, and weaving characters and lands even more spectacular than what Cassandra’s strange and amazing life had already seen.
Taking that breath, feeling that appreciation owed, Cassandra almost froze up. Almost forgot where she was or with whom. It was just Christine and bad idea ad nauseam.
It was then that Christine’s gaze grew even more concerned, and she began to put the books away, reaching out for Cass’ cheek, delicate soft fingers dancing across Cassandra’s own scarred and thickened skin. “Hey, are you alright? Is everything okay?”
That touch grounded Cassandra for a a moment and she leaned into it before realizing that she was making the moment weird. And that was the last thing she wanted to do. Not after all the careful planning.
She reached up and took hold of Christine’s hand. “Christine,” she said reverently.
“Yes?” Christine repeated, brows knitted in concern.
“Inside,” Cass said, wrapping her hand around Christine’s and beginning to take her toward the door. “Have something.”
Christine tilted her head and followed on in. “For me?”
“Yes,” Cass answered, shutting the door behind them and walking hastily toward the bed where her book was ready, pages opened and laid flat against the mattress so she could turn directly to her marked page.
“Oh, Cass, you don’t have to do anything for me. I enjoy reading with you,” Christine began before pausing and looking at the novella. “Do you want to read something different than what I brought?”
“Yes,” Cass answered at last, taking a few steps back from Christine, looking meaningfully into her eyes. “I read.”
For a moment, Christine was merely looking blankly back at Cassandra, head tilted in confusion.
So Cassandra cleared her throat and looked down to the marked page she had gone over nearly a hundred times.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wanderlust in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
When Cassandra looked up, clearing her throat again, she found Christine clutching her chest, mouth slightly agape. It was a new expression, one lost on Cass for the first time in her life. She had never seen such awe given to her, and it made her quickly snap the book closed in fear.
“You learned a sonnet?” Christine asked. “You learned a sonnet for me?” she asked, stepping closer. “You… read for me?”
“You’re… teaching me,” Cass clarified. “You… You do so much. To help me read. You… I wanted to show… I don’t always… Words are hard.”
“Words are hard,” Christine agreed with a small laugh.
“I needed to borrow… to let you know…” Cass trailed off, rubbing at her neck. “A friend… he helped me choose… Seemed… right.”
“It seemed right to say to me?” Christine still tried to understand.
“Yes. Because. Because…” Cass continued, no longer stepping back as Christine approached. “I want you to know… I am learning. But I can’t. Speak so pretty. The right words are. Hard. But I can read them now. Better. Because of you. Because you’re teaching me the… right words. The hard ones.”
Her face felt as though it was on fire, but she finally met Christine’s gaze, and all of those nerves, all of that apprehension seemed to finally melt away.
“Those words, reading them, I think of you. And that’s why they’re right,” Cassandra explained further. “I… hope that’s okay.”
“Cass,” Christine said, wrapping her arms around Cassandra’s neck and leaning in, resting her forehead against Cassandra’s, “it’s the most beautiful gift I’ve ever gotten.”
Taking in the moment, taking in the warmth of Christine’s touch, Cass was hesitant to move in response, but she at last did. Because like the moment itself, the change was right, it was good. It was terrifying, but it was what was needed.
And Christine did not break away or stiffen as Cassandra wrapped her arms around Christine’s waist and they held each other, forehead to forehead, like pieces of a puzzle that learned how to fit.
They just took the moment to take a terrifying step forward. As easy and as difficult as learning a sonnet.