#i spedrun writing this so sorry if its bad :/

[burritowitch]

a character study ficlet on the idea of Goth Cass based on my Goth Cass playlist

Fingerless gloves with steel spikes on each knuckle, tall boots with thick soles, black denim jeans with holes at the knees, torn fishnet tights, loose leather jacket. She pulled on each piece in a methodical rhythm, following the music as it flowed around her, the sparse lyrics of Bauhaus settling into her bones as she moved to grab her brush. She teased her hair, shaping it as she’d shaped every other part of her, but this was her choice. 

No one made her do this. It was not brought upon her by blows and harsh words she could not yet understand. This was brought upon by music and dancing and community. This was something she’d chosen herself. No predetermined destiny. No fight to the death declared the day she was born. No grandiose title she could never live up to. Just music. Just her. 

Her little brother had been the one to first show her Darkwave on a car ride to Bludhaven from Gotham. She’d almost felt like she was floating, Pain by Boy Harsher flooding her very being and consuming her whole. And that was it for her, she was hooked. 

She put the brush down, running a hand through her hair and looking at herself in the mirror. The girl who stared back was her. Not a weapon, not a monster. The blood on her hands would never leave her, no matter how long she scrubbed, no matter how hard she worked to be better, but in this way she could take those foul hands and shape them into something new and better with needle and threat and music. In this way she was born anew. 

She was used to disguises. Cassie Wayne, the innocent little girl in the pink dress, someone with no blood under their nails. But here, head to toe in black and sharp edges, there was no disguise. There was simply Cass. Daughter of Shiva, daughter of Cain. Unabashedly and unashamedly her. There was no doubt in the power she held in each practiced finger, in the all knowing eyes wrapped in dark shadow and liner.

She radiated power, radiated energy, and yet… 

Maybe it was because she wasn’t hiding it, wasn’t hiding all the edges of her that were sharp enough to kill, that she was putting them all on display. She noticed that there was a large portion of people that looked more at ease when she walked into a room, onto the street at night. That older women would come up to ask her for help before others, citing that their friends from bingo had told them that ‘those gothic kids’ tended to be friendly and kind and willing to help when they asked where the nearest bus stop was and chatted about how they had a grandson just her age as she walked them there. That young kids would come up to her and tell her she looked even cooler than Batman. That girls who were scared and alone would come up to her like an old friend and talk meaninglessly until they were safe. 

It made her feel like Batgirl, even when she wasn’t in the layers of armor and weapons. Like a protector, a symbol. 

She’d go to a concert with Brenda, black lights bathing a sea of leather and metal and lace in purple and she’d get pulled onto the dancefloor by girls with neon hair as the bass and drums washed over them. She’d smile and laugh and dance to the music as it pounded in her ears. 

Since she’d taken up the title, Batgirl had become a sort of Dark Protector of Gotham. Despite how little she was seen, she was turned into a pop culture icon for the subculture, something honored, something seen. People saw themselves in the dark Batgirl with the twisted past, and she did too.