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Galas were usually a fun experience for Cass.
She didn’t have the best social skills, and a lot of the rich white folks weren’t the most accepting of that, when it came to her, specifically—but the rest of the nights generally made up for it.
This month’s charity gala (going towards preserving a local art museum) was being held by the Mitchells, an old money family with a reputation strong enough to rival Bruce’s, but they’d done a lot less with that fame and money.
Cass sat beside Tim in the limo ride over to the venue, careful not to squash the outer layer of star-embroidered tulle on her dress. She’d done her nails a sleek black and her eyes a light shimmery shadow to match the expensive, expensive dress.
Not that she knew it, personally.
She still, being completely honest, had issues separating the cost of a pricey watch and one bought from a street corner. Both were black and shiny and told the time, why was one eight dollars, but the other eight thousand?
Either way, she had the eight thousand dollar watch on her wrist, which came with a warning from Stephanie not to scratch it, because “that’s soooo much money, are you insane?” But Tim thought it looked nice, so she promised to be careful.
The driver pulled all the way up to the front staircase and opened Cass’ door for her.
“Pretty,” she said, glancing at the faint, yellow lights of the party that peeked through thick foliage.
She could appreciate a good front garden. Especially one with huge oak trees that framed the front door. Good for the aesthetics, but also for sneaking. Probably not good for any intruders or ne’er-do-wells lurking around.
She’d keep an eye out.
“Now,” Bruce said, looking each of his kids in the eye before they passed through the doorway. “Be good, try to mingle, and don’t get in trouble.”
“Don’t get in unnecessary trouble,” Jason said, crossing his arms and crinkling the maroon suede material of his suit jacket. “Got it.”
Bruce humored him, but frowned. “Not what I said.”
“We know, we know,” Tim said, patting Bruce’s arm. “Don’t get in trouble, and stay out of sight if we’re gonna down six flutes of champagne in a row.”
“You’re seventeen!”
“The legal drinking age is sixteen in Cuba,” he added.
“Where do you think we are?”
But both boys rushed into the foyer before Bruce could stop them—followed quickly by Duke, Dick, and Damian. At least one of them might intervene if something were to go down, which was some relief.
“I don’t know why I even try anymore,” Bruce sighed, defeated, but with a light glimmer in his eye.
“Have faith. We can behave,” Cass said. “When we want to.”
“That,” he said, and offered his arm to her, “is exactly what I’m worried about.”
She smirked as they walked in together.
The Mitchells had better keep an eye on all their important belongings. Damian had been eyeing their underfed hamster for weeks now, and Cass knew Sue Mitchell had a nice black dress on the floor of her closet in Cass’ exact size.
“Your English is absolutely adorable,” an old woman, Mrs. Abbott, oozed, grabbing Cass’ forearm and shaking her like they were old friends. “Where did you say you were from again?”
Cass rolled her eyes as she took another (heavy) sip of champagne. She’d never been so glad to be of age.
“New Jersey, ma’am,” she explained for the fourth time that night, already. “Like you.”
“Oh, no, but where are you from?” Mrs. Abbott repeated, like the intonation mattered or changed anything.
“My mother, she was Chinese,” she said, as resistance seemed futile at this point.
Even though they all lived in the same metropolitan area, some of these gala patrons acted like they’d never seen a person of color in their life. Cass might as well have been a celebrity of her own right, with how much the old white women ooh-ed and ahh-ed at her appearance and accent.
Mrs. Abbott nodded and smiled politely, then shared an astonished gasp and different nods with her crowd of fellow old women.
Their postures clearly said, “How odd!” “How foreign!” “So different from here!”
But with her physical voice, Mrs. Abbott added, “But you like it here in America much more, of course.”
“Oh,” Cass said, trying to decide if arguing was worth it. “I never lived in China.”
The perplexed looks on the women’s frown lines made it worth it.
“Rea-lly,” one of the other women spoke up, clearly puzzled, and expected her life story.
The tight pull of her smoker’s lined lips plainly asked the question, “Well, why are you… the way you are, if you’ve never lived in China?” but she was just on this side of too polite to actually voice the comment.
Not in the mood to reveal her entire history with the English language and her neglectful father to some pushy old women, Cass nodded and readied an excuse in her head.
“I told Bruce…” she paused. “I need to check in with him now.”
She nodded again, cementing that excuse with the confidence needed to convince them and began taking minute steps backwards.
“Oh, what a thoughtful daughter,” Mrs. Abbott said, buying it, as expected.
“You know how those Asian girls are,” her friend chuckled. “Always obedient, to a fault.”
Cass was careful to hide her shock at that. Obedient. Sure, okay.
“It isn’t that late,” the woman continued, getting snippy, with Cass still standing inside their little circle, too. “And we were having such a nice conversation. She might be a good daughter but Bruce Wayne ought to teach that chink some manners.”
Cass opened her mouth to fight back, but didn’t have an insult at the ready. She’d need a second to think, but then the moment would pass.
Who said that kind of thing? Chink? Especially to someone's face? If anyone needed manners, it was this old woman, not Cass.
She clenched her fist around the fabric of her skirt. It’d be no good to deck an old woman in the middle of a party for charity.
Mrs. Abbott also looked like she wished to calm her friend down, but wasn’t willing to cut in.
“I mean,” her friend was in a full on rant at this point. “You shouldn’t bring those kinds of people over here if they aren’t willing to learn how to act civilized.”
Cass raised her fist—I’ll show you just how uncivilized I am—but a calm hand stopped her arm and pulled it into the crook of his own.
With his build, she figured it was Bruce, but his stance was all wrong and he held her all too close.
She looked up and met the warm brown eyes of a complete stranger, likely in his mid-thirties and dressed just as richly as any of them there.
“I’m sorry, ladies,” he said, all charm and politeness, just as kind as his eyes. “I’m going to have to steal away your lovely conversation partner here. She promised me a dance earlier, and I just love this song, now.”
“Of course, Mr. Lee,” Mrs. Abbott cooed, enamored with the man. “As long as we get to see you again sometime tonight.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
He smiled, and easily pulled Cass along with him as he parted.
“Mr. Lee?” Cass asked, unfamiliar.
Usually she had a good memory for faces, even when names failed her, but she had no clue who this man was. Same with some of the women in Mrs. Abbott’s pack; it appeared there were a lot more newbies here than usual.
Maybe because the Mitchells had opened their whole home to the party? It felt odd, seeing new faces, after all these months of attending. She supposed it had to happen sooner or later, with all these up and coming celebrities climbing the ranks.
“You can call me Allen,” he said, waving a flippant hand. “Those ladies seemed to be giving you a hard time, it looked like you needed an out.”
Cass finally let out her long-awaited breath. “Yes. Thank you.”
She could’ve gotten out on her own, maybe, but it was much easier on her reputation—and Bruce’s, by proxy—if someone else took the fall. So she was grateful, really.
“I was serious about the dance, though.” His face was stone cold for a second, but fell into shy laughter. “You don’t have to, but I really do like this song.”
Cass smiled politely, unsure of what to do.
Figuring the song was nearly halfway over anyway, she shrugged and took his hand. Seeing the two of them dance together would keep the old women off her back for longer, anyway.
It was almost a slow dance. The kind where you actually had to dance instead of sway back and forth, but just barely.
Over the faint music, Allen said, “Those women really are a piece of work, aren’t they?”
“Not always bad,” she said. Cass’ heels clacked on the wood floor in time with the song, but Allen’s loafers were somehow both milliseconds too slow and too fast. “Mrs. Abbott is nice.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
He took Cass’ free hand—the one not holding her half-empty champagne flute—and spun her into a twirl. The swishy material of her skirt encircled her in a flowy wave of fabric and Cass grinned.
“Little chatty, though,” she agreed, making Allen laugh.
“Besides that interrogation attempt,” he said, switching his dance game to simply stepping left and right, which was a lot more his speed. “How’s the rest of your night going?”
“Not bad.” And that was the truth. She enjoyed listening to the music, spying on her brothers as they made fools of themselves, and catching the tail ends of all the awkward or intriguing conversations. Not to trap herself in yet another conversation, though, she added, “But I miss my brothers. A little.”
“Oh, who did you come with?” Something about the way he asked told Cass he already knew the answer, but asked anyway to be polite.
“My father, Bruce Wayne.” The song was already fading out, yet Allen made no move to let go of her hand as he continued his off-beat side-stepping. Cautiously, she added, “And all my brothers are here.”
She didn’t know what to make of this man. He seemed genuinely interested in talking to her, and his body language cemented the fact that he was nothing more than a goofy dude with nothing better to do.
But some parts of him felt threatening to her.
The faintly too-tight grip he had on her hand. The inquisitive tone in which he asked his questions. His eyes lingering on her for just a bit too long.
She still wasn’t the best at reading conversations, nowhere near her ability to read gestures, so maybe she was wrong. But something about him made her feel bad.
The song ended, though, so she had no further obligation to entertain him.
“Ah, the Waynes,” he hummed knowingly. “That makes you Cassandra, right?”
“Right,” she said, she should’ve introduced herself when he did, she’d rolled right past that step in conversation. Oops. She still needed to get the hang of that one.
“Thank you for the dance, Cassandra,” he said, again, looking kind and appreciative.
“The pleasure was mine,” she said, because that was what she was supposed to say in this kind of setting. Not because she wanted to ask for another dance.
Now that he wasn’t holding her hand, though, she wasn’t sure where to put it as he looked down at her from his towering height.
She held her glass between both hands, awkward, as it was meant to be held with barely a couple fingers.
“Oh,” he brightened, like an actual lightbulb had gone off in his head as his eyes locked onto her drink. “How about I get you another glass? I've been meaning to hunt down a waiter, myself.”
Though, not about to turn down yet another freebie in breaking social rules by over-drinking on her own, Cass nodded and followed him off the dance floor.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, as they passed a group of celebrity kids around Cass’ age.
Her bad feeling coming back, she latched onto his bulky sleeve. “I can come.”
Allen shrugged, almost roughly enough to shake her hand away, but she held tight not to lose him.
“Sure,” he said, agreeably, and led the way to the nearest waiter with a full tray.
Taking two new flutes of champagne, Allen thanked the waiter and handed one to Cass.
He hadn’t done anything to it, she’d kept a sharp eye out for it. So, she smiled graciously at him and took a small sip.
Nothing amiss with the taste, either.
Well, hopefully. She was on her fourth glass now, and it had only been a couple hours since they’d arrived at the Mitchells’ house.
She was surprised she’s as coherent as she was, with that amount so soon. Cass never was a big drinker.
“So, Cassandra,” he said, between light sips of his own glass. “I see you’re quite the dancer, but do you have any other interests?”
“Reading,” she said, unsure of what else to say. How much truth to give out here. “Playing with Damian’s pets.”
“Ah, pets!” he said. “What kind do you have? I’ve had my dog since I was in college, he’s a great companion. A German Shepard—my parents used to hate having him around the house, but I like to think they miss him now that he’s with me.”
Cass nodded politely.
“He has a lot,” she said, not wanting to get into the Batcow and Goliath. Jerry the Turkey was a bit out there, too, even for the son of an eccentric billionaire. “A cat, some dogs. You know.”
“I wish my parents had let me grow up with so many pets,” he sighed wistfully, like he wasn’t a thirty-something year old man with enough money to attend an event like this. He could surely get another pet, had he wanted one badly enough.
Cass still couldn’t get over how sincere he was. Hardly anyone could hide their true intentions from her, certainly not some no name rich boy at a Gotham elite’s gala.
Maybe she was just drunk, and the feeling of unease was her lightheadedness.
But as he rattled on about pets, his parents, his high paying job, and expensive hobbies, he put his large hand on her bare shoulder, and she knew that wasn’t right.
She hid her frown by taking a drink, and vowed to keep a better eye out for any further odd movements. Cass wasn’t that inhibited that she’d lost all sense of self-preservation. She was still perfectly coherent and functional.
“No,” she said curtly, answering his next inane question to keep this one sided conversation going—about if she’d “been yachting” with Bruce Wayne before.
“Really?” he gasped, in the same tone that Mrs. Abbott’s friend had used about her living in China. “That’s unexpected. Maybe you can come visit mine, before the next gala. I’m sure you’ll love it, it’s a great time.”
“Maybe,” she said, without adding any polite charm to her words, making it come off harsher than expected.
She pulled her glass to her chest, in an attempt to look less obtrusive, and Alllen finally dropped his sweaty hand from her shoulder. From his palm fell a small pill, perfectly landing in her glass.
She gave it a quick glance, without attracting too much attention, as the powdery pill dissolved into the bubbles and foam, like it had never been there. The action had taken under two seconds—anyone other than Cass would’ve missed it completely, and the evidence disappeared too quickly to notice afterwards.
Unfortunately, her raising the drink gave the appearance of Cass going for another sip, and lowering it now would raise questions.
She put the rim to her lips and faked a swallow. Hopefully, the pill wasn’t so strong that she’d be affected by what touched her lips—she couldn’t rub the droplets left on her Cupid’s bow off with the back of her hand, she wasn’t a child.
Allen continued his small talk, leaving room for Cass to give her own comments or answer his questions. Really, Cass deserved an award for holding normal conversation for so long, both for her language skills and her temper.
He’d really drugged her drink and expected conversation to go on as normal, like he’d done nothing wrong. And he’d been planning it for a while, if Cass’ intuition told her anything. Maybe the entire time she’d been in Mrs. Abbott’s group.
“I need to see Bruce now,” she said, putting her foot down.
She’d faked sips three times now, every time Allen had gone for one, and his glass was looking a lot more empty than hers. He wasn’t an idiot, he’d realize she was onto him sooner or later. Likely sooner, if he was as interested in her, specifically, as Cass thought he was.
“He’s just over there,” Allen said, calmly, truly like nothing was wrong.
Now that she was looking for it, though, Cass noticed the slight tenseness to his posture, hidden behind his swaying to the music. He wasn’t some master of body language and deceit, he’d only gotten lucky that his overall charming awkwardness perfectly camouflaged his anxiety about getting caught.
Allen gestured across the ballroom with a flat hand, pointing to where Bruce was very much trapped in a conversation with three chatty businessmen.
“See?” he said. “And he looks a little tied up right now. Mr. Jeffreys always loves telling his stories.”
Almost sensing someone was watching him, Bruce shot a quick glance their way, and Allen nodded kindly at him.
Cass, on the other hand, stared Bruce down, and tried to convey her urgency with a single look, before Allen faced her again and noticed, because he would notice if she tried anything.
He was lucky they were in the middle of the grand ballroom and not out in the garden—where Cass had wanted to escape to, originally—because if there hadn’t been any witnesses, she would’ve whooped his ass thirty minutes ago.
Instead, she was trapped by societal convention. She couldn’t punch him in the face without attracting negative attention and having her picture on the front page of tomorrow’s paper.
And something told her a majority of these people would believe she was “asking for it,” in some way, if she did choose to cause a scene to save herself.
“Okay,” Cass agreed, and sealed her fate. “I can visit later.”
Allen took another long sip of his champagne, and Cass knew he’d caught onto her “drinking” whenever he drank. His glass was one more sip from empty, while hers remained nearly untouched.
She sighed and shut her eyes.
Well, here we go, she thought, and tipped her glass back to down half of it in one go.
The first seconds of drinking her roofied champagne weren’t the worst. It still tasted the same, still went down the same.
But at the one minute mark, she was already feeling faint and woozy. She’d thought she’d be able to fight the effects, drag out the rest of her glass for as long as she needed to until Allen got bored. But this—she didn’t want to take one more drink, let alone the three or four she’d need to finish off the glass.
“Wow,” Allen said, and Cass felt the waves of his approval wash over her, even as drunk as she was. From this close, Cass could smell the offensive cologne wafting off him in waves. The scent felt nearly tangible, like the strong odor itself forced her in place. “Daddy’s not looking and you turn into a little party animal, don’t you?”
That wasn’t it at all, but anything to turn him off from her.
“I dunno,” she said, shrugging with what strength she had left. The action hurt her head, made the room spin.
A new fear struck her to her core.
She wouldn’t be able to fight him off. Her. Cass wasn’t coherent enough to fight off the equivalent of a businessman frat boy at a party.
She couldn’t hide the shock on her face and Allen noticed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but he wasn’t worried in the slightest. “Afraid of getting caught drunk?”
“No,” she mustered up the energy to rasp out. She wished they would get caught. That one of her brothers would swoop in and rescue her for once. She had like a hundred of them, where were they when she needed them?
“You don’t have to worry about that, there’s always a dozen people more famous or more scandalous to write about at these things,” he soothed.
And Cass hated that his voice was soothing. Like he was the good guy, and this was all some big misunderstanding.
“Maybe you should lie down somewhere.”
He looked around the room, unhelpfully, Cass knew they were in the middle of the ballroom, that hadn’t changed in the last thirty seconds. But he put his hands back on her, and she stiffened.
“Here,” he said, putting his arms around her and guiding her… somewhere.
She couldn’t look around without her head absolutely pounding, she swore she’d been through torture less painful than this.
Cass sighed, looking like she was giving up. Though, in her head, she knew, if the worst came to worst, she could at least bite him. She took pleasure in that idea.
In her last reserves of strength, she scanned the room one final time as Allen pulled her into a hallway.
All the bodies and faces seemed to blur together, and she could scream with how angry she was.
Come on, come on, come on, she fought tooth and nail for her brain to start working normally again. Gritting her teeth, she forced her eyes to focus on the room and the few people she could still see.
But all their features blended into a single, swaying being—all black suits, punctuated by a few colorful dresses here and there. Tears blurred her vision even worse.
Why couldn’t Barbara have been here? Why couldn’t she have latched onto Tim before they’d gotten separated all those hours ago? Why did Cass let herself get drugged—why did she think she could handle this on her own?
In a last ditch effort, Cass tried to remember what everyone had been wearing in the limo. Black, black, black, black—why did everyone have to come in a black suit and tie?
Jason. Jason’s burgundy suede suit jacket.
Her eyes flew open. Cass’ head throbbed like she’d already been shot, but she held onto consciousness long enough to hone in on the bold red color in the crowd and make vicious eye contact.
His gaping jaw was the last thing she saw as Allen turned the corner, half dragging her when her staggering steps couldn’t keep up.
They were out of sight now.
They were out of sight now.
Cass had one shot at this, because any more physical activity would push her past her limit.
She slammed her empty glass against the wall and took the shards towards Allen’s neck.
He grabbed her arm before the jagged edge could connect, and Cass’ heart fell.
Her heart hammered in her chest and her head swam like she was a mile under water. Gravity had its hold on her, and she knew she was going down.
On her way down, she managed to trip Allen and yank him onto the carpet with her.
Small victories, she supposed.
Cass was out before her head hit the ground.
She woke with an instinctual, wordless shout, and punched the face of the man hovering over her.
“Cass, stop. Cass, stop,” the voice said. And it took her another three seconds of helpless fighting back to realize it was Jason. “You’re okay, you’re okay. It’s fine.”
Jason’s nose bled, and Cass had fresh blood on her knuckles. She had some older blood on her hands, too. She wasn’t sure about how that had gotten there.
“Sorry,” she said, but her voice came out exhausted and small.
She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless. She’d never been one to give up on a fight, but she did here. Not even in the face of a terrible villain. Allen was just some guy.
It hurt her spirit more than her pounding headache, that a single guy with a date rape drug could take her down, when worse villains than him could not.
“It’s fine,” Jason sighed. He didn’t look fine. His hair was a rumpled mess, his clothes even more so, and his clammy, pale skin didn’t make the situation look any more “fine,” either.
Another person kneeled beside her, Dick, she realized, and it took Cass another minute to notice the three of them were alone in the same hallway she’d collapsed in.
“Where…?” There wasn’t enough blood on any of them for them to have killed Allen—despite the splotches here and there on each of their outfits, mostly camouflaged by all the dark colors—she was pretty certain of that. But him getting off scot-free wasn’t exactly a reassuring thought, either. “What…?”
She didn’t know what to ask. Her head still wasn’t fully functioning, and each frantic thought made her fading headache spike again.
“Don’t worry,” Dick said, the same amount of panicked as Jason. Which was to say, quite a bit. “We tied him up and hid him in a guest room.”
“We roughed him up a little, first,” Jason said, panic turning to quiet anger in a split second, as he clenched a fist.
Apparently, Jason hadn’t gotten in long enough or tough enough of a beating for his liking. The thought comforted Cass, somewhat.
“You were only out for twenty minutes,” Dick said. “We worried it’d be longer, Jason said you hit your head.”
“It was a pretty sick move,” he said, making a jabbing motion, like he was in Psycho—although her swing had been more of an underhand movement. “With the champagne glass.”
“Not my best work,” she said, grumpily, and sat up a bit more from where she’d been propped up against the wall. The Victorian rug was soft beneath her fingers. Sheepishly, she asked, “Bruce?”
“I caught Duke and told him to track everyone down,” Dick said. “And do some crowd control. I doubt I was the only one to watch Jason follow you guys out of there in a full sprint.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Well, did you want me to walk after them?”
Dick offered both hands up in a placating gesture.
“You did the right thing. Cass is okay, everything is okay.” Looking at her, Dick added, “Are you okay?”
She wasn’t physically injured, not besides her headache, which would heal. And she wasn’t mentally injured, other than her pride, at needing to be rescued. Which would also heal.
“Yes,” she decided. Cass was relatively fine—could be better, but could be a lot worse, really.
She probably should’ve been concerned at her numbness towards the events of the past hour, and the hollow pit that filled her stomach instead—she was compartmentalizing, she knew she was—but she could live with that discomfort for the moment, and sort out her emotions later. Once they all got home safely.
Dick got to her side as she attempted to stand, ready to ditch this party already.
“All right,” he heaved, letting her hang off him, as Jason parted the crowds ahead of them.
Luckily, nobody paid them too much mind. Allen had been right, in that regard, there would always be someone more messy for people to focus on.
Bruce and the others met them at the car, looking just as concerned and unsure as Jason and Dick had. Cass’ head was still a little too floaty for her to make any concrete statements on it, though, like declaring she was okay or telling them not to worry, because she wasn’t too certain on those facts, herself.
She was fine. She was.
So that left her with Bruce sitting next to her in the backseat, nearly pulling her into his lap, if mandatory seatbelts hadn’t been a law. Jason was on her other side, flat-out refusing to end his self-appointed guard dog duties for her, and Cass wasn’t about to argue with him over it.
The others kept looking over their shoulders at them, and Cass couldn’t fault them for that, either. She doubted Duke had gotten the full story, which meant everyone else had gotten even less.
A terrible game of Telephone, which ended with everyone on edge and probably one or two details of misinformation each. Hopefully, Cass wouldn’t have to be the one to give the debrief at the end of the night—she’d make Jason do it, she could survive owing him a favor, just this once.
But it was endearing, having all their attention on her in this car. Comfortable. As long it was them.
And, somehow, being squished between two full grown adults in the back seat of a stranger’s limousine was just the thing she needed tonight.
The warm pressure on both sides took away the icky feeling of foreign hands on her and replaced it with this family’s equivalent of a comforting hug. And it stopped her from jostling too much when the car bumped, which helped her migraine more than she’d anticipated.
Cass still woke up with a raging hangover the next morning, but she wouldn’t count this as her worst gala experience. It had gone bad, don’t get her wrong, but she’d been to a number of celebrity events at this point, and famous people got insane.
It definitely made it into the top three, though. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to steal the Mitchell daughter’s cocktail dress.