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Cass hated this day. This…whole thing. It felt so ridiculous.
She was climbing to the highest point on that stupid boat in that stupid dress, the freezing wind making her exposed shoulders grow numb. As the wind whistled in Cass’s ears, She told herself it was for the mission, that it was all for Batman, that it was all for the lives she would protect. As Cass pulled herself over the top of the ladder, she told herself she wouldn’t have gone to see him otherwise.
And there he was, waiting for her, like the smile on his face told her only a few minutes before.
When Cass took a few tentative steps towards him, he smiled again, somehow even bigger and brighter than the first few times he smiled at her, and she tried to pretend she didn’t know what this one was telling her, too.
“Tai’darshan…” Like so many times in her life, Cass found herself at a complete loss for words, but unlike those times, she wasn’t afraid of being misunderstood or being disregarded. She was afraid of something else.
Tai'darshan took that small, barely noticeable breath that indicated he was about to say something. Cass noticed that with many things, Tai'darshan didn’t seem to mind Cass lack of knowledge, or a lack of instinct. He seemed so happy she was talking to him at all.
Like he was content to fill in the things she was missing.
“Little black bat…I recognized you straight away. A woman like you stands out from the crowd.” Cass’s heart pulled strangely at the nickname as Tai'darshan kept smiling at her like it was his favorite thing to do. At this point, Cass was getting that impression.
His long black hair swam with the wind when he spoke again. “And at last, I get to see your face. You are even more beautiful than I imagined…”
Cass didn’t know how to feel about the way Tai'darshan spoke to her, like she put the huge silver moon and its dark side in the sky. Despite her fear (of what, exactly? She still couldn’t put a name to it), despite her determination, Cass felt her heart stuttering and her cheeks genuinely growing warm from Tai’s words. Beautiful was never a word she even thought applied to herself, and until a few moments ago, she never wanted it to, remembering the…way that Carl looked at her. The way that made her stomach twist.
When Tai'darshan looked at her, though, her stomach still twisted with that anxiety of being seen, but it all felt so…different. Cass felt like he was seeing everything, or at least that he wanted to see everything, simply because Cass was worth the effort of knowing. Like she was worth the effort of smiling at.
Other people had smiled at her like that, too. Other people had wanted to use her, too.
Her heart was pounding so hard and she needed to get her thoughts off of him and everything else now, before she lost sight of the mission.
Cass turned her head away from his bright smile and said, ”Don’t…don’t touch me.”
Tai’darshan took a small step back, but his shoulders stayed in place. “As I said before, I don’t want to fight you.” And with the way Tai’darshan held her balled fists closed with a surrendering smile in their first meeting, and with the way he was tilting his body into the current of the wind, Cass could believe it. So, then, why did he want to see her again in the first place?
She walked closer to Tai'darshan, until she could look right into his shining eyes. ”What do you want?” Cass felt so cold, and worse yet, she felt so… behind, somehow, like she missed the important part of a story, or the first step in a routine.
She couldn’t stop thinking of the conversation she had with Stephanie on that night. The night when she left Cass alone on that rooftop, even if she didn’t feel quite as cold in her Batgirl suit compared to tonight. Tai’Darshan obviously liked Cass, but she had never even been kissed, let alone been called beautiful. She felt so out of her depth. And just like those times with Stephanie, Cass felt like she wanted more than she should.
Tai’darshan’s face suddenly darkened, and Cass tried to ignore her immediate need to see him smile at her again.
“You know what I want.”
Tai’darshan put his hands on his hips and turned away from Cass’s burning gaze. “I’m here for Namali. He is an enemy of my people—a war criminal. I would see him brought to justice.”
“Justice…?” Cass knew she understood that better than herself, sometimes, but…wasn’t Tai'darshan here to kill someone?
As the stars sparkled in Tai’darshan’s eyes and as the wind swept his hair out of place, he said, “That is what I do, little bat. I am the Black Wind—the spirit of vengeance.”
And that was all it came down to, wasn’t it? Justice, vengeance, a mission to be completed, a goal to be met. A price to pay, or a secret to bury that rots your heart from the inside out.
Cass thinks that this is the first time she has seen Tai’darshan looked genuinely confused. “But you…what are you doing here? I don’t understand why a woman like you is protecting a man like Namali.” He said, looking the smallest bit hurt. Cass couldn’t stand it, letting someone down like that. Letting Tai'darshan down like that.
“I’m not…protecting him,” she added quickly. A war criminal to his people, that’s what Tai'darshan said Namali was. How did Namali hurt him? His family?
Tai'darshan tilted his head like he was trying to decipher a puzzle. “Then…why are you here?”
For the first time in so long, Cass didn’t feel alone, didn’t feel like she should be something else entirely.
Cass tilted her head to the side. “Um…holiday,” she said nervously, testing the waters.
Tai’darshan abruptly stopped all movement and stared.
He blinked once. Twice. Internally, Cass was growing terrified. She couldn’t read him at all.
And then he started laughing, honest-to-god hunched over laughing. Tai’darshan put his hands back on his hips and tilted his head back as his laughs brightened the night breeze around them. When he started to regain composure, Cass felt like the wind was sweeping his laughter away, and she resisted to urge to fly into the wind to chase it and make it hers again.
She snorted back and could feel a smile start to creep onto her face. “What?”
Tai'darshan wiped the corners of his eyes and tilted his head down to look into Cass’s eyes. She could see her reflection in them. ”It’s just…you’re brilliant, do you know that?” His smile got even more lopsided.
Cass lost her words again. What was with this guy and taking her so off guard? She abruptly looked away from his face. She did not want to see her probably-red face in his eyes.
Cass could still feel Tai’darshan smiling and watching her, and she found that she actually preferred when he looked at her. Like it was where he should be as much as possible.
She kept thinking of Stephanie. Steph would be…proud, maybe. Ecstatic for sure.
Cass missed Stephanie terribly. She missed laughing with her and she missed chasing her and teaching her and she missed when Stephanie would steal a look at her from across a room or rooftop, when only the stars could catch them.
But maybe Cass can make this last.
She sighed and tilted her head. Tai'darshan watched her closely, mirroring her moments.
When their lips met, Cass felt like she was whole. Tai’darshan’s exhales and the strands of his hair falling into his face were as soft as the currents of wind around them.
He whispered something to her in his native language, like it was a secret. Cass didn’t recognize the words, but she knew what they meant like they were a part of her heart.
Jo vamo e.
As Tai’darshan cupped Cass’s face and brushed her bangs out of her face, she understood what he saying better than she understood herself, sometimes.
I love you, I love you.