#but like. how lost cassie is after and how intensely self destructive she gets

[pear1ridge-a]

thinkin so hard ab how fayes death fucks cassie up

[fallenandthefaithless]

Beyond the Road: Pilot

001 “Pilot” Written by Eric Kripke Directed by David Nutter

Plot Summary

In 1983, Mary Winchester was pinned to the ceiling of her sons bedroom and murdered. Twenty two years later her sons, Dean and Sam are reunited after several years apart when their father goes missing. They follow him to the town of Jericho where a string of men have vanished and though their father is nowhere to be found, the brothers continue the investigation which leads them to a stretch of highway and the local mystery that surrounds it. 

Sam

Normal vs Safe. A good chunk of this episode is dedicated to highlighting Sam’s decision to leave the supernatural behind him and try for a safe life. He makes the distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘safe’ when Dean accuses him of running. He doesn’t think he can have a normal life. This is an issue Sam will struggle with for the whole series, going all the way up to 15x16. In this episode however, he argues that his life isn’t normal but he wants a safe life. He doesn’t want a life where he is constantly looking over his shoulder but he won’t ignore danger. We get a glimpse of this when Dean breaks into the apartment - Sam can clearly still fight. In contrast to this, we do see Sam’s aversion to anything reminiscent of the supernatural such as Halloween. He doesn’t want to think about it as he doesn’t see how it could possibly live alongside the life he has chosen for himself.

Branching off of this, I wanted to make note of a distinction between Sam and Dean and their worldviews. As Sam and Dean leave the apartment they talk harshly about the way they were raised. Sam claims that they were “raised like warriors”. He talks about how, when he was scared of the ‘monster’ in his closet John gave him a weapon. He views this as something that shouldn’t have happened - that John should have told him not to be scared. Dean argues against this but it starts to become clear that Sam can only see the horror in the hunter lifestyle. This is a contention Sam and Dean will return to in the next episode and elsewhere in the series. Sam is only able to, at this point, see the negatives of a hunter lifestyle.

Sam’s resistant to the way he and Dean were raised, but an interesting idea begins to form during their argument on the bridge. Sam doesn’t see John’s revenge plan as something he is part of, unlike Dean. He doesn’t want to avenge Mary as he doesn’t remember her. He is very unsympathetic about John’s revenge plan which, I think it’s safe to say, stems from that manner in which he was raised. He was dragged around the country and his own life seemingly put on pause so John could hunt and get revenge. Sam has far more self-preservation than Dean and puts his own life over revenge. This is a theme that will come up again and again during the show.

Something else that I noticed during my rewatch was Sam listening to Jess’s messages in John’s motel room. He listens to her messages but doesn’t actually talk to her. In fact, during his time in Jericho, we never see Sam call Jess. The only person he attempts to communicate with is Dean. He will listen to her stories but doesn’t contribute anything himself. Just like their pasts; Jess has, as far as we are aware of, been honest and open to Sam about herself. Sam, on the otherhand, is keeping so many secrets from her that it comes across as a rather unequal partnership.

Dean

First thing to note for Dean is the Original Trauma of Supernatural; Dean carrying his brother out of the burning house. This has been talked about… everywhere. I felt like I still had to mention it and how this is the base layer of Dean’s personality and something that is embedded in his sense of self-worth. I also wanted to make note of how this continues through to the show through to 15x10. Dean is put in charge of looking after Sam and so much of his life is structured around his role as Sam’s protector. This affects other relationships in Dean’s life as he struggles to put Sam down long enough for himself to pursue anything or anyone not directly linked to hunting or Sam. This is something he will eventually grow out of by the time we get to 15x10.

There’s something else that has never really occurred to me but Dean probably relates so strongly to victims of the week because he himself was a victim of a supernatural attack. Sam doesn’t remember the night Mary died and doesn’t let it rule his life but for Dean that night changed his whole world. I’ve never quite made that connection until now but, as we’ll see starting the very next episode, Dean is more empathetic to victims than Sam is and it possibly stems from this.

Okay, about Dean flirting with Jess. Obviously, at the very start of the series Dean is meant to be portrayed rather less thoughtfully than what Jensen actually did so this could be brushed aside as the writers just wanting to make Dean a fuckboy but this kind of behaviour does show up again later in the series but with more baggage tied to it. Dean flirts automatically. He makes cheeky comments laden with sexual innuendo all the time, including later in this episode to the police. It’s possible that he just finds this the easiest way to make a connection without actually opening himself up too much. Also, in recent years he has lost both Cassie and Lee so this flirting, which actually worked to distance Jess more, may have been a way of keeping out anyone he considered an “outsider” because the last two he let in didn’t stay.

Something else that was interesting about Dean’s thoughts on Jess is something I only really noted on this recent watch; he doesn’t think her relationship with Sam is healthy because Sam is lying to her. For someone who lies for a living Dean struggles to lie to people he cares about, especially people he enters relationships with. At this point Dean’s two biggest relationships have been with Lee, another hunter who worked with Dean and understood the life, and Cassie, who Dean told all about hunting and monsters and subsequently lost. As the series progresses Dean will have a serious relationship with Lisa who learns about monsters and hunting. His relationship with Cas becomes fraught when Cas lies to him in s6 and honesty becomes a central aspect of their bond, with telling the truth becoming the major story arc for their characters. 

The last point I want to make about Dean is about the bridge fight between the brothers. Dean says that Sam has “a responsibility” to their father which Sam scoffs at. In reality, Dean is the one who has tied himself to John out of a sense of duty. This line reads to me like Dean projecting onto Sam, something he will do again during the series. Dean is the one who tied himself to the family revenge crusade and his anger at Sam here hints at his own anger about his situation. This is something that will rear its head later on in the series.

Mary

The opening scene became more painful the longer the series went on for. From being sad about a family being torn apart to being sad about the loss of Sam and Dean’s mother and childhood innocence we can now see the scene from Mary’s point of view. Having lost her own childhood and parents to the supernatural Mary’s desire to run and live a normal life is understandable. In that manner, Sam is like her though unlike Sam, the price of running was paid by Mary and not an innocent bystander. The two deaths bookend the episode but also suggest a theme of continuing the cycle. 

Mary vs Constance. I’ve written about the parallels of Mary and Constance here. I do have one thing I wanted to add to this and that is something that occurs on the bridge during the brothers fight. Sam and Dean argue about Mary culminating in Dean shoving Sam against the bridge’s railing and that is when Constance appears. Symbolically Constance represents the ghost of Mary, haunting the boys even after all these years. She is summoned as they invoke her name, wearing a similar nightgown to what Mary died in. The death of Mary had a major effect on the boys and this episode begins to hint at it though we won’t see it fully realised until her return much later in the series.

“Angels are watching over you”. I know, I know. It wasn’t technically said in this episode but as it is confirmed in s2 that these were Mary’s last words to Dean I think I’m safe to talk about it. I won’t say a lot yet but this line does tie Cas into the original trauma of the show if only as the representation of the faith that Dean would learn to trust after having given up because of this trauma. Mary’s faith is something that became tainted in Dean’s eyes after she died. He never had the same faith that Sam did because of this until an angel proved himself to Dean. This imagery comes full circle in s12 when Cas does save Mary in 12x12 but more on that later.

The Story

So the episode itself is primarily linked to Mary’s death and the Trauma of the Winchester Family. It does set the characters up for their journeys moving forward as well though. The story is ultimately dominated by the brother, of course, learning to be brothers again. When the show started Sam was intended to be the main character while Dean was a supporting character. During the episode we start with Sam and don’t get much insight into Dean as a character. Knowing what happens in the rest of the series really highlights how Sam truly didn’t know his brother as well as he thought he did. Or rather, Dean managed to keep a lot of things from his brother. One of the most infamous moments is, of course, Dean’s “no chick flick moments” comment. This is something Sam will learn to see through later but in this episode he seems to take it at face value along with many other aspects of Dean.

One other thing to mention about the plot of the episode itself. One of those is the destruction of the Welch family due to the mothers actions. She acted out of intense pain and betrayal but her actions do lead to her children suffering. This theme not only pertains to the Winchester family (Mary, Dean and Sam) but also to Sam, Dean and Jack in s14. This kind of familial pain returns, again, in s15.

And with that we have 1x01 in the bag. Next week we’re off to Blackwater Ridge in 1x02 Wendigo.

Men of Letters Library

The initial summary of 1x01 The original pitch for the first five episodes The original promo for 1x01 1x01 podcast episode by @season14podcast​ A meta post on 1x01 with 14x20 in mind by @mittensmorgul​

[renaroo]

Promises (8/30)

Disclaimer: Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: One Year Later/Evil Cass allusions Rating: T Synopsis: For an entire year after the Crisis which threatened to wipe everything they knew and loved off the Earth, after so many hardships and loved ones lost, Cass and Tim find themselves battling on different sides of the globe not only for the fate of what’s left of the world, but for the sake of once again feeling purpose. [A One Year Later fixer upper]

A/N: This chapter took a while but Cass chapters always come out a bit thicker and more in-depth than Tim chapters. CAN’T IMAGINE WHY. But it’s finally here and I can’t thank you all enough for your patience!

Special thanks to @mitchthebat and @secretlystephaniebrown on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and support!

A Detective Without Words

There was no confidence in Cass’ own voice as she read out the words. There should have been. After all she had struggled through, after how hard they had worked in the last few days to make up for all the time they were about to lose — Cass should have found confidence in her own words. But still the tremble remained. The thoughtful pauses.

“She… sells… s…s…seeeeeshells… at the… seeeeee… sh… sh…” Cass stopped herself and took a breath, closing her eyes. She knew those letters. She could put them together. She could parse the sounds, but when put together it was so hard. So hard to— Her eyes snapped open and Cass looked reluctantly toward Helena.

The Huntress was taking notes, eyes on her clipboard rather than Cassandra. In the first few lessons that hadn’t been the case, she was very firm in watching Cassandra, encouraging her whenever necessary. And Cass used that to her advantage — reading Helena’s responses so carefully and so quickly she hardly had a stutter in reading.

Somehow Helena caught on. Cassandra hedged her bets on Barbara informing her of Cass’ abilities and how Cass could put them to creative use in order to avoid the frustratingly difficult tasks awarded to her.

It was such an annoyance to be known so well by someone so determined to parent her where Cassandra’s own parents had never even bothered before.

Resigned to the fact that she was not going to get a response from Helena until she was done with her reading, Cass took another breath and read the sentence again, out loud. But faster, to make up for the waver that existed no matter what efforts she put into subduing it.

“She sells s-seashells at the… seashore,” Cass finally read out loud.

“Very good, Cassandra,” Helena finally said, snapping her pen closed and uncrossing her legs as she looked up to meet Cass’ gaze. “You just have to keep reminding yourself, this isn’t a race. You can take your time sounding things out if you have to until you’re more confident saying them. There’s no problem with doing that.

Cass scowled. “Do… you sound it all out?”

“No, I don’t,” Helena responded flatly. “But I’m not you. I have been reading and writing for much longer, which means I have a lot of practice. It would be like—“

“Someone in self-defense wanting to train with Shiva,” Cass sighed, her eyes rolling all the way back in her head as she fell back and rocked against her chair. She had heard that particular sentiment at least a thousand times in the weeks that she had been tutored. And hearing it on the very last night that she would have with them was more aggravating than anything else.

“You might be tired of hearing it, but that doesn’t make it less true,” Helena answered. “Learning language arts isn’t a race, and that’s the bottom line. As you get better, you’ll become faster, just like anything else, but the important part isn’t that you read at a certain speed right now, it’s that you understand the content of what you’re reading. It’s just another way to communicate — with others, with ideas, with… just about anything.”

Folding her arms, Cassandra looked skeptically at Helena. “Who is she?”

Helena blinked. “Who is who?”

“She?” Cass stressed.

“She who, Cassie?” Helena pressed.

“She! She—“ Cassandra picked up the workbook she had been reading from and pointed at the sentence they had been practicing. “Who is she? Why… sell seashells? Is she important? Why do we need to know?”

For a moment, Helena looked utterly baffled. “Cass, there’s no… This isn’t about a person. It’s just a sentence that’s meant to challenge how you read.”

Throwing her hands in the air, Cass let out a growl. “You said… the important part is… understanding what it’s about! I thought—“

“It’s about learning,” Helena argued. “Sometimes when you read, yes, it gives you information you need and it might be about people or cases or anything else in the world. But the purpose of what we’re doing is that I’m teaching you so you’re learning. That’s the only thing you’re supposed to learn from the sentence.”

Annoyed and exhausted mentally, Cass threw back her head. “I’m done,” she declared for the night.

“But we’ve only gotten through…” Helena paused and began gathering her books. “Okay. You’re right. We should break. You’ve done very good lately and I know you can get discouraged when we move up reading levels. Which is fine, I promise you. I’ll just adjust the lesson plan I’m leaving for you while we’re away.”

While Cass knew she should have thanked Helena for understanding, she didn’t feel the sentiment enough to give it. She only watched her instructor quickly gather her things before glancing off toward the cockpit’s door. The massive jet had been much homier before they were making sure to buckle things down and hide things away for inevitable travel.

Rising to her feet, Cass looked back to Helena and pointed toward the door. “Oracle?” she asked.

“Barbara is in there, yeah,” Helena replied with an arched eyebrow. “You two… okay?”

“We’ll see,” Cass said before marching toward the door.

Barbara was the same as always, sitting in the navigator’s chair with her eyes locked on the screens around her. Her eyes were fierce and thoughtful — plotting. There were so many words and so many of them moving so fast on the screen that had it been anyone else, Cassandra would have not believed they were reading a single one of them.

Thoughts of how much of a liar Helena had to be to say that speed didn’t matter with reading. It was amazing how inadequate a few moments with Barbara could make Cassandra feel after even hours of drilling.

It didn’t take long for Barbara to finish up, however, and the scrolling stopped as she turned in her chair to face Cass.

“I was hoping you’d stop by before leaving. I was going to have to come to the Manor in the morning if you didn’t,” Barbara greeted her with a genuine, though tired, smile. “Probably still will.”

Cass looked at her before glancing toward the maps around Barbara’s work desk. “Not the one leaving… just everyone else.”

When she looked up, Cass could see how hard the words had hit Barbara she was looking off, chewing on the knuckles of one of her fingers. But it wasn’t going to be the kind of guilt that would make anyone change their plans. And Cass wasn’t even sure she wanted the plans to be changed.

She just needed it to hurt someone to leave her as much as it hurt her to be left, just for once.

“I didn’t know about Bruce’s plans to leave. And I definitely didn’t know he planned to leave you here,” Barbara assured her. “I don’t know what he was thinking. Or even if he was thinking. He’s so… off lately and I can’t…” She stopped herself and shook her head firmly. “No, this isn’t about Bruce.” Her eyes shot back up to Cass, holding Cass’ gaze with their intensity. “It’s about you, Cassandra. The way it should be. And… I’ve been thinking about it… You should probably come with us. You’ve never really been part of a team long term before. I know Dinah would love to have you, and it’d be easier for both you and Hel to continue your lessons if you stayed with us. It’d be good for you to see more of the world than just Gotham—“

For a moment, Cass was surprised. She had not been expecting the offer. But whatever emotion the offer should have given her was obviously not there. And without those flighty emotions, she could cut through to the meaning of the over abundance of words everyone used. Even quicker than she used to.

“If I go… Shiva would never learn,” Cass pointed out, eyes hardening on Barbara. “You would… have to take her off the team. That would break our promise.”

“Cass,” Barbara sighed, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose.

Slowly, Cassandra blinked at Barbara. Took in the heaviness of her sigh, the weariness in her shoulders. There was disappointment there. She had wanted Cassandra to go with them, she really had.

She had also wanted the relief of not taking Shiva as her responsibility.

“It’s a promise,” Cassandra reminded her.

“Your need to make Shiva see the light is going to leave you bitterly disappointed, Cassandra,” Barbara argued, looking back up at Cass fiercely. “She isn’t half the person you are.”

“Every person is the same,” Cass argued, eyes narrowed. “She can change. Because… I changed. Okay?”

“Not everyone makes the choice to change, Cassandra, and it has to be a choice,” Barbara pleaded. “I know you believe everyone deserves a second chance. You helped me to believe that everyone deserves a second chance. But if you don’t grant people the autonomy to make that decision themselves, then when they don’t meet your expectations, it’s going to crush you more than if you had never tried. And you can’t believe that what you did — which was not your fault — could ever measure up to the conscious death and destruction which Shiva knowingly unleashes on everyone—“

Taken aback, Cass opened her mouth but found no words to match the surprise which overtook her with Barbara’s words. Not until her mentor stopped and Cass felt the one thing that always stirred itself back up from the numbness.

Rage.

“So… now promises don’t matter? Because they’re… hard?” Cass demanded angrily. “Because… people aren’t as good as you and as good as Bruce. We can forgive you… and me… but we’re exceptions.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve seen death, Barbara. It doesn’t have… exceptions. Only life changes.” She looked at Barbara at last. “That’s what… I want you and Batman to change.”

Barbara’s eyes were moving the same way they did when they read quickly on a screen, as if even her brain could write out a response without paper while Cass struggled to make letters and numbers face the right way.

“You think I’m judging you,” Barbara finally surmised. “You think Bruce is judging you, and that’s the reason we’re going away. That it’s because we’re disappointed or think you’re wrong. And that’s not the case, Cassandra. I’m not judging you. And I can’t speak for Bruce but I fully believe that his actions lately… they’re because we’re flawed, Cass. Because we make mistakes and have to be forgiven for them too. And I’m sorry that you feel like we need to learn this lesson from you — and maybe we’re right. Maybe we do. But it’s not because we’re judging you. It’s the opposite. It’s because we love you, Cassandra.”

“You love me. You just won’t keep your… promises to me,” she folded he arms and looked away.

“No, I’m keeping it,” Barbara sighed, sounding worn down and resigned more than pleased about her circumstance. “I’m keeping it. I’ll oversee Shiva becoming a better person and… and leave you here. To protect Gotham.”

Cass glanced back at her. “Good.”

There was still a frown on Barbara’s face. “Shiva doesn’t deserve the sacrifices you’re making for her, Cass. I don’t know that you can fully comprehend how different the two of you are.”

“You’re wrong,” Cass said firmly. “You… don’t know how… much we’re the same. Trust me.”

Inhaling sharply, Barbara forced a nod. “Okay.”

Cassandra ignored the way tears were welling up in Barbara’s eyes as she leaned forward and kissed her mentor’s forehead. “Okay.”

Before the signal was even lit for the first time that night, Cassandra felt the length of her patrol catching up with her.

She had known of emotional baggage and how exhausting it could be prior to the Lazarus Pit, but since her revival it seemed as though any forceful emotion that bubbled its way to the surface was equally exhausting. Emotions could make tired what bones and muscles never did for her.

Still, the moment she saw the signal in the sky, her heart pounded with the knowledge that it was for her. That it was her signal to answer and that her first opportunity to truly prove herself as Batman’s stand in had come up.

She swung through Gotham with somewhat reckless abandon, growing more eager as the familiar path to the police department opened itself up to her.

Forty feet away and swinging through the sky, Cassandra could already make out the figure of Jim Gordon standing in front of the signal, stalwart and stiff. He was making a show of standing without a cane those days and his fingers twitched at his side without a cigarette. But taking back his position as a leader in the GCPD had come with requirements he was forced to fulfill once again.

Cassandra could very much sympathize.

She landed as silently as she could on the rooftop, her grappling hook recoiling quickly before she tucked her arm under her cape and the grappling gun into her belt under its cover. She slowly rose to her feet and stood at full height in front of Jim Gordon, keeping her gaze narrowed on him and trying, desperately, to not think of him as the man who made a production of getting mashed potatoes stuck in his mustache at Barbara’s Thanksgiving dinner last year, or the kind man who continued to thank her for saving him during the No Man’s Land crisis that felt like just so many, many years ago.

Behind his glasses, Jim raised a heavy eyebrow at her and looked her over. He was expecting something, perhaps an introduction or a clarification as to why she was there instead of anyone else since they had never interacted like this without someone else to buffer before.

No Batman. No Robin. No Nightwing.

Only…

“Batgirl,” he finally broke the silence. “Thank you for coming.”

She nodded carefully. There was a word — a title she was supposed to call him by. All the others did. She knew it was important. That it… was respect and trust. He wore it the way she did her mask. But her brain still ached from all the vocabulary earlier in the night and she was tired and her brain hurt from searching for the proper word.

“Right,” he said, reaching up and fiddling with the glasses on his face. “Is… someone else…?”

“You have me… Sir,” she attempted to assure him.

“Okay,” Jim continued, mustache twitching in discomfort. Not from mashed potatoes. “We have a string of murders we have been dealing with. Our people are stumped, and since they seem fairly ritualistic we’re already negotiating with the Bureau to have some specialists look things over. Obviously, I’d still like for your own special perspective… since you work with Batman. And he usually has a larger thumb on the pulse of the Underground than anyone from the capital is going to.”

Beneath her mask, Cassandra exhaled sharply and couldn’t help but form a frown. Yes. Words. So many of them.

After an uncomfortable silence, Jim straightened his glasses again. “It’s… pretty gruesome stuff. I’m not sure if you’ve worked on something like this before… but we need to find who’s committing these murders. And we have to stop them.”

A smirk finally found its way back to Cass’ face and she punched her own palm. “No worries,” she promised him. “I’m… a detective.”

That seemed to do little to appease Jim as he reached out with a file he had been keeping in his free hand. “Right. Well. I know you aren’t really… I mean you’re kids. But you’re trained by him. So I trust…” he trailed off. “I’d still like your opinion on the case.”

Cassandra reached out and took the file, flipping it open with her thumb and glancing at a lot of the pages.

Lots of words. More on a page than even Barbara had been reading on her screens. Words longer and with more syllables than Helena had even begun to teach her. The sort of thing that, once confronted out in the wild, caused Cassandra’s insides to twist in discomfort and inadequacy. Maybe she should have stayed for the whole lesson with Helena after all.

All that out of the way, however, Cassandra buried the feelings and took a breath. She was prepared, as Batgirl, for difficult measures. She rarely worked with others in the past, and to confront such issues was not new either. She hid the file beneath her cape.

That seemed to make Jim’s eyebrows raise in alarm.

“I am on it,” she assured him, switching out the file for her grappling gun and turning to leave the rooftop.

“I… Well I figured we could go over the case together…” Gordon was continuing, a little more than confused by that point. “You seem to be doing things differently.”

“No time,” Cass half-lied, shooting off her grappling hook and leaping off the rooftop, files held close against her side.

“Those were the only printed copies. Everything else is digital. It was for me— Ah, alright then,” Gordon tried uselessly to call after her. “I suppose I was going to have to get used to using computers for everything at some point.”

The homing beacon on her newly customized Batcycle worked with the sort of efficiency that Cassandra was sure Tim only dreamed of with his Redbird. It was already pulling around the corner and into the alley she had directed it toward by the time she was landing down within.

With the motor rumbling, Cassandra glanced down to the files she had taken from Gordon. For a moment, she considered flipping through the files more intently, actually soaking in the words that she could, trying to work them out. It was enough to make her hesitate in her step before she shook her head and moving toward the back of the Batcycle.

Part of the modifications that Barbara had built into the bike for Cassandra involved a file scanner, something that was supposed to accurately digitize the letters and numbers of any papers or clues she would find. With them in the database of the Batcomputer, Cassandra would only have to go to the Cave and have the monitor read them out loud for her.

It was the best solution, she told herself constantly.

Swallowing dryly, Cass fit the file into the compartment of the Batcycyle which immediately lit up in the signature Oracle green. It brought almost as much comfort to Cassandra as it had shame, still she closed her eyes and took a breath. She was a detective. She was going to be able to do this. Alone.

She just needed to do it her way.

Just as Cassandra prepared herself to get on the Batcycle and race back to the Cave and whatever snack that Alfred had ready for her, Cassandra was pulled away from all her thoughts by a mortified, blood curdling scream only a short distance away.

Alarmed, Cass moved fast, shooting her grappling gun before her body had even turned and double pulling on the trigger to send herself jettisoning up past the building’s edge. She flew through the sky a short distance before ending her arc, right foot extended first to land in the opposite alley.

Her speed and precision were beyond compare, but the screaming had already stopped, and the woman who had unleashed the scream was already at the edge of the alley as Cass landed.

Confused, Cassandra took in the sight.

There was a husky looking man, laying in a heap on the alley’s pavement, moaning and groaning, with his face already swelling and red from a hit. A nearly perfectly delivered punch directly to the corner of his jawline, surely shattering it given the amount of pressure that it apparently had had.

When Cass looked back to the woman in the alley, it was clear even with a casual glance that the petite woman shaking and nearly vomiting had not had the training or power to deliver such a hit.

Cass could hear her motorcycle rumbling on idle just an alley away, scans no doubt completed, but for her, she knew that Batgirl had just found a second mystery to test her detective skills on.

It seemed that she was not patrolling Gotham alone…