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“Shit, sorry, didn’t realise someone else was here!”
Framed in the door of Cass’ ballet studio is Jason, wet hair dripping and dressed in sweats and a t-shirt – just back from patrol, then. His shoulders are tight, indicating tension, embarrassment, but his posture is half tilted towards the room, as if he were… longing, perhaps. There’s a great deal of that.
Cass looks at him, at his large shoulders, appraising. She cannot perform the pas de deux on her own, and she would like to practise. Perhaps…
She lifts a hand, indicating the room. “You want to dance? I need…” she pauses, struggling. “I need… partner.”
“I’m not sure I know the piece. What are you practising?” His body reads run, reads fear, but he doesn’t move.
In answer, Cass simply presses play on the video. The music to Swan Lake Act II pas de deux fills the room. Jason moves closer so he can see the video, too, and the emotions move through his body so quick that Cass can barely parse their meaning; grief, anger, embarrassment, love… longing. Always the longing.
“You know this?” she asks, waving to the video. He nods slowly, still watching the dancers.
“I took dance, before – well.”
She begins to stretch, and he follows suit. She is surprised to see how flexible he is; it is evident that he has not attempted these stretches in a long time, but the lines in his body are fluid. They flow, like hers. There is muscle memory there. And relief too.
“Ready?” she asks, and he nods. The fear had disappeared, for a while, but it is back now. She can see it in the lines around his mouth.
He watches the video three full times before he finally begins, and Cass can see the recognition grow in his body with every watch-through. He begins unsure, but by the end his limbs flutter with every movement – just tension rippling through the muscles, but Cass knows he is practising this routine in his mind. He knows it.
“Ready,” he confirms eventually, and they begin.
Cass is not surprised to see his elegance on the floor. Not entirely. She had been aware that Jason knew his own body in a way that went beyond fighting; the way in which he extended a leg in a high kick, for example, or turned to punch an opponent in the face, had echoes of another type of training, another type of movement. She had thought diving, perhaps. But ballet makes sense. It is a nice surprise, this one.
The sounds of Cass’ pointe shoes thud faintly on the floor in a way she enjoys as she moves through each part of the dance. In a past life, every part of her body had been trained to be utterly silent. Even as Black Bat she is more of an asset when she disappears into the shadows. But as a dancer, she is made to be centre stage, to take up space, and so she chooses to make sound, even though she could be silent if she wished.
Jason’s arms are strong against hers; he steadies her with confidence. The run from earlier is gone. He is lost in the dance in a manner Cass could only hope to emulate. And the way in which he can disappear into the character… Cass can see the real Jason behind his eyes, but not as much of the person peeks through as in her usual partners. Jason is a better actor, she thinks. When he dances, he forgets how to be a person. She thinks it is a relief to him, even though the opposite is true for her; when Cass dances, she delights in becoming a person, in being something beyond a killing machine.
He guides her through the turns with expertise, just enough to steady her. He understands the signals she sends through her body innately, far better than her usual partners do, and he knows without having to be told that the support she requires is minimal.
Jason’s every movement is taut with perfect control, even the delicate way in which he touches her cheek. He does not grunt his way through the lifts like her partners always do; he lifts her silently, and there is not a hint of strain in his entire body. His bare feet pad softly on the ground as he moves through the poses, and Cass thinks her teacher would call his arches ‘beautiful’, the same way she praises Cass’.
There is a soft sound as she falls back and Jason catches her effortlessly, and in the mirror, Cass sees Alfred standing with his hand to his mouth, looking like he has just seen a ghost. His eyes catch hers in the mirror and she understands that he does not wish for Jason to know he is there, so she dances on.
*
When they’re done and sitting on the floor, Jason begins to talk.
“That was what I had always planned to do,” he says, voice rough. He pauses, sorrow in his bowed shoulders, but she remains still and silent. He needs her to be a listener right now, so a listener she shall be.
“Ballet, I mean. The vigilante lifestyle can be… rough, yeah, but I was a whole lot easier on my body than Dick ever was. Went to ballet practice for hours and hours every week. Only patrolled once or twice on weekdays, back then, and always on days I didn’t have practice.
“I was the lead that year,” he tells her, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “That’s why I know the pas de deux. We did Swan Lake, and I was the male lead. I was on track to go pro, you know. Thought I could do both.” He shakes his head, and she reads: bitterness from the tension in his jaw. “I was a stupid kid. Still. Ever since I toned down the whole Red Hood shtick… I don’t know. I guess I miss it sometimes. Now that I don’t have any recovering bullet wounds to focus on.”
He laughs, but it’s a shaky laugh, an uncertain one, like he’s not good at it. As though this, too, is something that needs practise. Cass presses her fingers over his and watches the two tones together; his dark, hers pale. He squeezes her hand once and then lets go.
“There are classes,” she says quietly. “Classes for… not beginners. You could join. Next showcase. If you want.”
Jason huffs out another laugh. “Doubt they’d want me now, Cass. Built like a bouncer with scars to match, and no training to boot.”
“But you can dance,” she says firmly, and his head turns, just a little. There are hope in those eyes.
“You think?”
“I know,” she insists, tapping a hand over her heart. “In here.”
He smiles, and she knows then that he will come.
Alfred is long gone by the time they leave, but that night, he serves Jason’s favourites, and Cass can read the quiet happiness in every inch of both of their bodies. She suspects, if she were to see a mirror, she would see the same in her own.