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David Cain was a horrible man, and an even worse father. He raised his daughter as a weapon. An object whose services can be bought and utilized for whatever jobs his clients needed. But still, he raised her to be perfect. Her only fault was that her first language was violence, and the second was body movements. Even so, in his eyes, it was those flaws that made her so perfect. He was proud of her, and even prouder of himself for molding her. She was perfection incarnate, the Übermensch. And he was her creator. In his own way, David Cain loved his daughter. He loved her in the way he loved himself. It didn’t matter if he was supposed to love her as a child, love was love, was it not?
In the eyes of a child, there’s just a sense that something is not quite right. It felt so freeing to know she’d done a good job. To feel his arms wrap around her in a gesture she understood as safety. To be held in his lap as he walked her through the motions of how to use different weapons (not that she’d need to use them in most cases). Yet even in these moments, something was off, even if she hadn’t noticed it. Its not like she had any real frame of reference. So she accepted this as love. The gunshots he fired? He needed to make sure she’d be aware when she was in actual danger. The broken bones? She needed to be able to withstand pain. Most people never realize that Cassandra Cain was loved by her father. It wasn’t love the way a child was supposed to have it, but it was love.
This is why it took her so long to understand the woman she had begun to see as her mother did, in fact, love her. There were no surprise trainings to keep her on her toes. Instead of giving her broken bones, Babs tried her best to heal the ones she got while patrolling. Yet even that contact ceased after a bit. No matter how hard she tried, Cassandra couldn’t begin to feel safe in the manor or the clock tower, or anywhere really. She couldn’t blame Barbara or Bruce for not loving her. But at least Batman would tell her when she wasn’t enough, while Oracle… would say it was ‘okay’. But she wasn’t raised to just be ‘okay’, she was raised to be perfect. ‘Okay’, wasn’t enough. Why couldn’t Barbara just stop dancing around that fact? She was an asset, a robot, not quite human. She didn’t need her feelings spared.
It had come to a head before patrol. Batman had asked for Oracle to head on comms, while Batgirl would head towards the given coordinates. Neither of them really knew how it happened. It was another fight between B and Oracle. Cassandra heard her name a few times, each of them leaving a slight knot in her stomach she refused to acknowledge, but wasn’t yet connected to comms so she couldn’t hear the other end. All she knew was that suddenly Oracle slammed her firsts on the table before muttering some swears under her breath, and after a moment, beginning to cry. Cass- Batgirl wasn’t sure how to react. She was an asset, assets weren’t supposed to feel, yet it was obviously pertinent to help Oracle. She embraced the woman before her, and after a moment of debating whether to follow given commands, she decided to override.
“You are safe. I will not go with Batman, I will make you are safe. You more important”. After hugging her back and catching her breath for a minute, Barbara replied.
“No, if you want to help B, then go help B. I won’t be upset with you for choosing to go, even if he is being a bit more difficult than usual”.
“I… decide?”.
“Yes, Batgi-”, she paused for a second before taking out her ear piece. “Yes, Cassandra”.
“Choice is a reward for-”.
“Choice is not a reward for anything. You- you won’t always get a choice, but… we- I won’t ever force you to do anything. Even if I don’t agree with me, I respect your decision. You are your own person”. The younger girl paused at this statement.
“You… care more than Batman’s orders?”.
“What!? I- Of course I do! I- why would I have given you the impression that I didn’t?”.
“You don’t care to be mad when I do bad. Never want to touch me. I thinked you only cared because Batman telled you to”.
“I… first of all, me not being mad has nothing to do with me not caring about you. It has to do with the fact you gave it your all, and knowing you tried your best to do what’s right is enough for me. I don’t care how many fuck ups it takes… and I never touch you because you always seemed to flinch away, even when I was tending to your wounds”.
“You never gave safe.. Uh.. movement… We were not still training?”.
“No! Of course not! I-,” she took a moment to collect herself before continuing, “Okay, I think… I think we need to talk about… boundaries and feelings and… and a whole bunch of stuff. And maybe squeeze in reinstating your English lessons. You’re doing great, but there are just a couple of…. You know what? One thing at a time”.