#like it popped up on my dash | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comphetkoncass · 1 year

Text

one-plus-one, easy math cass&kon, fake dating (no, really, she's a lesbian, this is a fake date) word count: 2557 also on ao3

“You… want me to be your plus-one?”

Cass nods. She’s started talking lately, according to Tim, but she’s still pretty quiet. Kon thinks even when she gets more comfortable with speaking, she might still be a woman of few words – she seems the type to choose them carefully, the same way she’s precise with her movements.

“Well…” Kon rubs the back of his neck, thinking it over. “I thought we weren’t dating anymore. I thought you were happy about not dating anymore.”

Cass tilts her head to the side, and Kon knows she’s probably reading his entire soul. He squirms a little under her intense gaze. Then, “I am.”

“Then…” He frowns. “Why are you asking me to be your plus one, if we’re not dating?”

It’s a longer phrase, and Kon thinks she might struggle. But to his pleasant surprise, though she takes some time to consider her words, they don’t seem overly difficult. “...I need someone outside the family.”

“And I’m the best choice?” he asks. “...Really?”

“I was surprised too.”

Kon barks out a surprised laugh. She’s learned enough for jokes, then, that’s great. She smiles, and he’s glad she’s comfortable enough to joke around with him still – he missed making her happy. As whirlwind and short-lived as their romance was, making her smile was a definite perk. He always got the feeling that joy was a rare experience for her. He just hopes she’s happy in Gotham. To him, it’s always been stifling – not least because Batman is an asshole.

“So?” Cass asks, looking at him with intense brown eyes.

“Ah, what the hell,” he finally says. “Sure. But I need to go shopping, I don’t have anything fancy enough for this kind of thing.”

Cass smiles then – and holds up three separate cards in Bruce Wayne’s name. Stolen, he thinks, given the mischief on her face. Kon quickly discovers that, actually, there is a superpower better than his TTK, and it’s called money. He whoops in delight, and it doesn’t take long for them to explore Gotham’s downtown, going from shop to shop until they find the perfect outfits to blend in with high society.

(Or, rather, how they think they could blend in with high society. Cass’s dress is probably too loose and flapper-style for the current era, and Kon’s probably has too much satin, but they match, and they make for a fun duo.)

////////

In the end, Kon probably wasn’t the best choice for the Gala. But Dick and Tim are both gone on a mission outside Gotham, leaving Cass the only Wayne child to represent the family alongside Bruce. Kon probably wasn’t the first choice, either – and privately, Kon wonders if Cass is testing boundaries with Bruce, given he’d been all but banned from Gotham. If she is testing boundaries, he hopes she gets whatever she’s angling for, even if it’s just a little more freedom to hang out with friends.

It’s not until halfway through the Gala that Kon starts to wonder if maybe Cass had ulterior motives after all.

They’ve been talking and tasting the overpriced snack table for most of the night, almost-goofing-off but not blatantly enough to catch Bruce’s ire (or so Kon hopes). Kon’s been monopolizing Cass’s attention, something he’s pretty good at, if he does say so himself – he’s always been a charmer.

But eventually, it wears off; that, or everyone waiting for a chance with Cass finally get bold enough to interrupt them. And while Cass is trying to throw a wad of caviar into Kon’s open mouth, at that.

“Ahem,” a young man about Cass’s age says. “So terribly sorry to interrupt. May I?”

“May you what?” Kon asks, straightening up. He wipes the tiniest trace of caviar from the corner of his lip – Cass is an excellent shot, and Kon’s pretty good at catching, so it’s not like she ever missed.

Cass, meanwhile, stands up a little straighter.

“Interrupt,” the young man says. “Miss Wayne, I don’t mean to take you away from… present company. But I was hoping for a dance. Perhaps a bit of light conversation.”

Kon stares at the guy, raising a brow.

Kon’s no body language reader. Not like Cass. But he knows her heart’s a little faster, in the bad way. The blood pressure raising way. He glances between her and the new guy, and ultimately decides, nah, he’s not going to let this happen.

“Sorry,” he says. “Her dance card is pretty full. I could try to rearrange, but she and I, we’re pretty busy.”

Cass looks up in surprise – an expression he’s not used to seeing on her face.

The new guy, too, looks surprised. Kon thinks he can see his eye twitching. Kon bets his name is something silly, like Macadamian Rosegarden Cavendish the Third, and that he’s not used to being told no.

All the more reason to say no, then.

Kon sends him a friendly smile, then looks back over at Cass and extends her a hand. Time to go somewhere a little less approachable. “Speaking of dancing though – Cass and I should probably practice a little. I’ve got two left feet, see, and she's the best dancer I know. Cass?”

Cass looks at Kon’s hand, then his face. Wordlessly, she takes his hand.

Kon sends the guy a two-fingered salute, then is quick to walk with her to a less occupied part of the Gala. There’s a balcony nearby, one just big enough for the two of them. Kon makes a little more room by hopping up on the ledge, swinging his legs around so he can face Cass and the party inside the windows.

Cass is quiet for a while, but she looks less tense out in the night air. He almost didn’t notice it beyond her heartbeat, but she’d gotten a little more tense when Macadamian Rosegarden Cavendish the Third had approached – a tension that hadn’t been there when it was just the two of them enjoying themselves.

It takes a moment, but finally she finds her words again. “...Thank you.”

“No problem,” Kon says. “Is it like that a lot, at these things?”

Cass shrugs one shoulder. “Second gala,” she says. When Kon doesn’t quite understand, she pauses and elaborates, just a little. “...I don’t come to many. Not sure.”

Kon nods. That makes sense. “I hope you don’t have to go much more often then, because it must suck having to reject people so much.”

Cass looks at the ground.

Kon frowns a little. The wind disturbs her carefully ironed bob, and when she doesn’t try to remove it from her face, Kon reaches out with just a hint of TTK and does it for her. She looks up, equal parts confused and startled.

“Sorry,” he says, putting both hands up and stopping his powers. “Just- Sorry. Got distracted. Wanted to help.”

Cass crosses her arms in front of her chest.

Kon finds his train of thought, then, and asks, “Do you usually get to reject them? Or do you end up dancing with them anyways?”

Cass’s silence speaks volumes.

Kon lets out a slow breath. It fogs in front of him in the chilly night air. “I’m sorry,” he says, sincerely. “That sucks.”

“Not your fault.”

“Well… I’m glad I could come with this time,” he says. “So you don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t want to.”

Cass nods. There is the tiniest hint of a smile again, and she tucks a lock of hair behind her ears. Then, quietly, “Even you?”

It takes him aback for a second. Then, he understands what she means, and nods. “Well yeah, I only said your dance card was full to lose that jerk. You don’t have to actually dance with me – even though I will say, my dance moves are great, I’m an absolute party animal. I can do the Mashed Potato like nobody’s business.”

Cass blinks, serious instead of laughing. “Mashed potato?”

Kon grins, standing on top of the balcony ledge. “I’m so glad you asked, I’d be happy to demonstrate-”

He’s pretty sure he’s not doing it exactly right, but Cass looks almost hypnotized by the way his heels click and his knees move in sync with an imaginary rhythm. He’s definitely doing the hands wrong, but he’s having more fun with it this way.

“Dancing with yourself?” Cass asks, grinning up at him. "Not a waltz?"

“Way more fun,” Kon says with a grin. “I could show you how to do it yourself?”

Cass just laughs at him. She’s already imitating his movement – in a way that flows better than he’s doing. Right – almost forgot, movement was her first language. Of course she’s better than him already.

Instead of feeling put out, Kon just grins at her.

She looks like she’s having fun again – and really, that’s all he wants.

When she looks back up at him, her smile is everything. Kon knows she isn’t interested in a relationship – or at least, not one with him. Kon checks in with himself, gives himself a stern reminder not to read into anything. He’s here to make sure she has fun, and that’s all.

Eventually, after teaching Cass the Twist, the Shopping Cart, and an attempt at the Moonwalk – all of which she masters immediately – Kon hops down from the ledge and moves to sit again.

He looks up at the sky, and mourns the fact that Gotham doesn’t really have stars. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says sincerely. “It’s been really fun tonight. I haven’t gotten to go to something like this in a while, and the ones I went to before – they weren’t that fun, either, even if they were a lot less fancy than this.”

Cass looks a little surprised. “But you’re so… exciting?”

Kon chuckles a little. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s still more fun here with you.”

It takes her a moment to chew on that. Eventually, she moves to sit on top of the ledge next to him. They both look inwards at the party, watching ladies in fancy dresses dance with well-dressed men in suits. The fake laughter, the champagne glasses. Kon’s never been that familiar with the super-rich, but he’s had his fair share of parties. Especially back when he was Just Superboy.

Ever since getting his name, and especially after moving in with Ma and Pa Kent, life’s been a lot slower. More balanced. He has room to breathe.

Kon doesn’t know much about Cass’s life before being adopted by Bruce Wayne. But he hopes it’s been a relief for her, too. That whatever her life was like before, that she can breathe in this fresh start, too. He hopes it’s not constant vigilante work all the time. She deserves a chance to have fun and be a real person, too.

When Kon looks back, he finds Cass staring at a young woman with a particularly daring backless dress in crushed velvet Prussian blue.

Her cheeks are pink, he notices.

And he thinks, maybe he’s reading into this too much. But if he’s not, he thinks he understands her a little bit better. And maybe why she seemed to have a lot of fun on their date, and liked the idea of a romance, and a TTK castle in the sky, and a spark of real love with someone – but why something was missing.

“She’s pretty,” Kon says, looking at the young woman, too. “Do you like her dress?”

Cass turns to him, brows furrowed. She glances between his body language and his lips, seemingly puzzled. “I wouldn’t want to wear it.”

“Sorry,” Kon says, realizing he might be confusing her by being subtle. “I wouldn’t expect you to, yeah, it’s not very practical.”

Cass looks at him again, still confused.

“...But,” he says, “It’s okay to like how it looks on her. It’s okay if you think she’s pretty.”

Cass doesn’t say anything for a little while. Her face is still a little pink.

“Pretty doesn’t matter,” Cass says, but her eyes don’t leave the blue dress. “It’s not supposed to.”

“Sure,” Kon says. “But dancing doesn’t matter either. And it can still be fun. Pretty – sometimes pretty can be fun. Sometimes people like to look pretty just to enjoy it. Like art, or whatever.”

It takes a moment, but finally, Cass nods. “And she?” she asks. “She wants to look pretty so that someone sees her as pretty?”

“Something like that.”

“Her date,” Cass says. Her eyes are laser-focused on the man locking arms with her. “She wants her date to see her as pretty.” She pauses for a moment. A long one. Then, in a smaller voice, “Not me.”

Kon is quiet for a moment, not sure what to say to that.

Cass’s shoulders slump. “I shouldn’t look. I wouldn’t want her to feel-” She frowns, looks over at the boy who had asked her to dance earlier, who Kon had helped her reject. And Kon recognizes her dilemma. The fear of looking, of asking to dance, when it’s unwanted. When there is a fundamental incompatibility.

Cass shivers, and Kon sheds his jacket to drape over her shoulders. It’s satin, so it doesn’t do all that much to protect her from the cold, but Kon likes to think it at least helps. She pulls it closer, and looks more at ease immediately.

“You don’t have to look if it makes you worried to think about this kind of thing,” he says, carefully. “But it’s not wrong to think she’s pretty, regardless of who she’s trying to be pretty for.”

She looks up at him, still unsure.

“Trust me on this,” Kon says, adding a wink for flair. “It’s okay if you don’t like boys. It’s okay if you like girls – hell, it’s okay if you only like girls. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

Cass looks in through the window, of the sea of wealthy Gothamites. Kon follows her eyes to the small, formal dance floor – where the only ones dancing are men-and-woman pairs. How they lean in close to each other; how the man leads the woman, how they’re pushed close together, how it’s impossible to miss the intimacy in the way they hold each other, even in formal dances. The way men’s suits cut neatly to their waists and flatter masculine figures; the way the women’s dresses accentuate whatever she believes her best features to be. The way they all follow the same type of dance, with no room for new steps. No room for fun.

He thinks it cuts quite a picture against two vigilantes, teaching each other how to dance with themselves in the cold night air.

“Someday you might get to dance with a girl,” he says. “Sorry if it might not be tonight. But someday.”

Cass laughs a little, pink to her ears. “And you?”

“What, who am I going to dance with?”

She nods.

Kon lets out a long breath, leaning backwards, elbows brushing the railing. He’s not sure himself. “I like dancing, just not the boring, stuffy kind,” he finally says. “As long as my partner’s having fun, I don’t really care how I do it, or who I’m dancing with.”

Cass follows his eyes – the way he watches everyone inside the window, his eyes not particularly caught by any one person.

“Okay,” she says, and accepts that as an answer. Kon thinks she reads something different in his body language – but if she does, she doesn’t tell him any different.

"Let's stay outside a little longer, yeah?" Kon finally says. "I think I remember the Electric Slide. I've got the song on my phone and everything."

Cass grins, and Kon pulls up his phone. The Electric Slide clashes horribly against the orchestra inside, but he doesn't care. They've got their own dancing to do, and they'll be doing it to their own rhythm.

#cassandra cain #kon-el #conner kent #batgirl #superboy #cdw writes #casskon fake dating my beloved #i included a few details that have popped up on my dash lately like bruce being an asshole about no metas in gotham #but mostly the lesbian cass + kon fake dating au ive been craving

99 notes · View notes