Eleventh Unused Utility Belt | Video, Spam

[hellofist]

Um. I'm awake, now.

[Have a wave and half a smile, Barge.]

Didn't mean... to worry anyone. Sorry. I'm okay, though. I know... things have changed. Birthday passed. Was going to be... first one. Never knew it, growing up. Guess weapons... weren't allowed them. Merlin said, can have party. Don't know how, though. Could use tips.

Want to see everyone. Can meet somewhere, or you... come to Merlin's room. Staying here now, moved stuff already. It's... safer, this way. For my heart.

[That doesn't make a lot of sense out of context though, does it? She sighs and her smile fades, dissolves into a look that's somewhere between uncomfortable and just sad.]

There's a man here, David Cain. My father.

[She's truthful almost all of the time anyway, but this is when it becomes clear she's affected by this flood.]

Don't kill him. He's not... worth your time. Deserves a chance. Bad father, bad man, deserves to die, maybe should die, but... deserves his chance, too. Just leave him alone. Don't want people... getting hurt. Love you all too much.

That's... guess that's all.


Private to Bruce Wayne
Don't anymore, okay? Once is enough.

I love you.



Private to David Cain
Promise still stands. You kill anyone, I kill you.

... Hope this place... works, for you.



Spam for Dean and Barbara, separately
[Some people deserve to see her in person without waiting so she goes to them first, knocks and knocks and knocks on their doors until they open up, let her in. Once they do, they'll have an armful of Cass because there's no stopping her once she sees those faces again.]

Comments

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

I know. Told Bruce, no more. I think... he'll listen.

[Which is good, he'd been so close to graduating there for awhile, she could see it in him. Wanting to murder her father over and over didn't really help him reach that goal.]

There's... other people, though. I know... they won't all listen.

[ Spam ]

[surfaceshine]

[Dean is quiet for a long few moments, keeping what he wants to say locked behind his teeth. He wants to say good. He wants to say wish I could be one of them. He wants to say he deserves it. Dean can't make himself stop feeling any of these things, but he can stop himself from acting on them, and furthermore he must.

She's standing close enough that he doesn't have to think when he brings up one hand to smooth back a piece of hair from her face, carefully pulling it free from her eyelashes with his fingertips and then leaving his hand at the crown of her head, palm warm and steady. The anger is still making his expression hard, the line of his shoulders tense, but his touch is gentle, his eyes are bright; he loves her enough that he would go back and kill that man before he laid his claws into her if he could, and feel no regret for it whatsoever. He can't do that, of course, but he can do his level best to avoid causing her more pain by participating in the vicious cycle now.]

Iris is on his side for whatever reason. I told her I'd help, if she needed it; 's about all we can do right now.

[He hesitates, and normally he'd let it drop there, but there's something else pushing the words out, one after another until they're all out in the air between them.]

It was him, wasn't it. In that place. You were hearing him.

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

[She hardly has to read him to see all that love, all his desire - need, really - to protect her. This is what family is supposed to feel like, to look like. Not... whatever it was she got from Cain. Even if she saw his love for her, it didn't feel like this. Bringing up Iris makes Cass frown.]

Iris wants... to have sex, with him. [The way her face closes up should make it clear Cass doesn't like the idea, that she doesn't understand it at all.] That's... part of why.

[Iris is completely forgotten when Dean keeps talking, though. She'd tried not to think about Overlook after they left, it was too painful, too embarrassing. She still feels shame over being Batgirl... and hiding under a table. Batgirl isn't supposed to hide.]

Sometimes. Sometimes, was... Tim, Dick, Steph... Kon. Not- the Kon here. Kon from my world. He was... boyfriend, kind of. But, mostly Cain. Calling me monster, broken, weapon. Failure.

Killer.

[ Spam ]

[surfaceshine]

[Cass closes up and Dean isn't at all surprised by either the revelation or her reaction to it; he shakes his head, not exactly wild about the idea of Iris and Cain, but neither does he care enough either way. Not his business and he doesn't care.

Besides, he's far more interested in something else now, looking up while his eyebrows pull together and he listens. He's not happy, but he's not surprised; and maybe more surprisingly in and of itself, there's no blame in him.

Just an ingrained, bone-deep disgust with that entire affair. That fucking hotel, and how he should've been able to do something about it but couldn't.]

Yeah. That place was good for that. I don't... I guessed. Some-a the stuff you were saying, I just... I guessed.

You know he doesn't get to call you that, right? He of all the fucking people doesn't get to call you a monster or broken. He failed, not you.

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

Weird part is... to him? I'm... a success. Plan worked. He got... exactly what he wanted, making me. Perfect machine for killing. Perfect assassin.

To me? Do feel... like a monster. Am broken. Starting that little, seeing... death, so early... broke something, in me.

[She's looking at the floor as she speaks and it all pours out of her, thanks to the flood. Her face is pulled into a frown that suggests confusion, but her voice is soft. She's trying to sort through it all herself, hopes it makes sense to someone.]

Five, when he started... taking me. To his hits. Watched him, admired... how he worked. Faizul came later. He was mine. No one... questioned eight year old in pink dress. They laughed. I jumped on... his desk, tore out his throat. Thought it was a game. He didn't... no time to react. Read him, while he died. Felt like I died. Terror, and then nothing.

[She lifts her hands to look down at them, but there's no blood.]

[ Spam ]

[surfaceshine]

[It breaks his heart to hear her say those things, not the least because he knows well how no matter how many times he says she's not broken, she's not a monster, she can't believe him. It's not the type of thing anyone else can convince another person of, not when it's a belief that sinks all the way down to the core.

Not when she looked into the eyes of death and felt it look back. Dean doesn't read bodies like she does, but he's seen the impossible,

Dean lets her talk, and when she stops and she's staring at her hands, he lets his own slip off her head to take them. There's no blood, and he covers her palms with his, closes his fingers firmly but gently and dips his head to try to find her eyes.]

That isn't your fault. You were a kid, you trusted him, and he let you down. That's all.

[Normally he'd stop there, but he doesn't even notice himself going on instead.]

When I was four, my mom was killed by a demon, and my dad was never the same. He grabbed up me and Sam and never looked back - I was terrified. I thought he'd gone crazy. So did everyone else. And then he was right - there were things out there. Demons. Ghosts. Monsters. And I couldn't talk to anyone about it without risking being taken away from him, from Sam.

There was this hunt in Indiana. Shtriga. It was feeding on kids, it... Dad told me to watch Sammy, but I didn't, and it almost got him. I nearly lost him then. Dad blamed me, because I wasn't there to stop it. I was nine.

None of us were ever quite the same after that. 'Cept Sammy.

[He trails off for a moment, because he can't not; but he knows the way around that gaping hole, knows how to focus and put one foot in front of the other, and he does so now. Drawing himself back together, he breathes out.]

That wasn't my fault either. [He doesn't believe that. He's trying, but he doesn't, but he's trying.]

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

I wish...

[But she trails off, because she doesn't know what she wishes. She can't wish for another father, she can't wish she was normal, she can't wish for anything to change. If it hadn't been for David Cain, she wouldn't have been broken in the first place and needed the cowl, needed the skin of Batgirl to make her feel whole again. Being Batgirl has always felt like the bandage keeping all her broken parts from spilling out and shattering even worse.

She'd lost that, once. A psychic had fixed her brain, put the words in her head without her permission, fixed her for his own benefit because he wanted to understand her. She'd gotten words, speaking, it had unlocked the ability to move forward, but she couldn't read bodies anymore. She started losing fights. Batman took the cowl.

When it comes down to it, she'd rather be broken with a cowl than whole with all the words she needs to explain herself. Her father made that true. So what can she wish for when she doesn't want to change?]

Don't know. Just... hard to feel... good, with him here. He made me this. So now... everyone will know, what he wanted me for. To do. To be.

[ Spam ]

[surfaceshine]

[Dean waits patiently, wishing in his own turn that he knew what was going on behind her eyes when her face looks like that, when she's out of his reach and hurting. So he transfers both of her hands into one of his, uses his free one to push at her hair again, because that's the best way he knows to reassure.

The words are just a weak supplement.]

Sweetheart, anyone who knows you at all isn't gonna give a shit what he wanted. We know who you are. That's what this place is all about if it's about anything at all.

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

[That's true enough. The people who really do care about her know almost everything there is to know by now, or at least have a good idea. They've made the decision to trust her because she's never shown any desire to hurt them, because she doesn't want to hurt them.

She might be a weapon, but she's no gun to be pointed wherever her father likes, now. She's a monster, but she holds her leash. No one else. Nodding, Cass steps forward to hug Dean.]

Will try... to remember.

[ Spam ]

[surfaceshine]

[And Dean, in turn, welcomes her in.]

See that you do. I don't let anyone talk about my friends that way. You hear?

[It's a rhetorical question, full of mock severity. He just tightens his arms.]

[ Spam ]

[hellofist]

[She nods, awkward as it is with her cheek pressed into his chest.]

I hear. Will remember. [And then, quietly,] Thank you, Dean.