Être Parfait Spoiler Alert: You Can’t
Chapter 4- Disillusionment
Synopsis- Cass is perfect. In every manner. At least, she tries to be. So what happens when she meets someone who is like her? Only, an average Gothamite teenager.
Notes-Another chapter published!! My deepest apologies for the long wait and short chapterrr. Taglist is open! Anyways enjoy and feel free (please) to send in ideas and requests you have for future chapters! Dividers from @anitalenia and @saradika-graphics
Content- Cassandra Cain x fem!Reader, mentions of TimKon and DicKori, angst, fluff.
Disillusionment (n.): Disappointment from finding out that something is not as good as expected.
The thing with perfectionists is that they are not easily impressed; the end result is not always what they wanted and that leads to disappointment and anger. They can be quick to blame these mishaps on others people, rather than identifying what went wrong, sabotaging relationships and how people view them.
Being ten, you made fun of a lot of people. People who slept with nightlights, who were scared of Momo…
People who were hiding from two people inside a broom closet. Of course, it was never serious; you were ten. But you could never imagine yourself in these situations. I mean—you stopped sleeping with a nightlight at five!
You continuously bump your head on the wall.
It’s been 287 seconds since you’ve rushed in here, desperate to get away from certain someones. You groan into your hands. Why do you screw everything up?? Everything was perfect until Jonathan—
Jonathan. He’s the fucking reason for all of this. Why didn’t you clarify that you and Alvin—even thinking his name makes you gag—were not a thing anymore? You should get going, but you can’t risk running into Cassandra or him. There’s too many odds playing against you.
Looking around, you take in your surroundings. The broom closet is a bit darker than the rest of the building, but the builders didn’t make it any less sleek. The same walls and floors and lights. Modern shelves for top-tier, expensive cleaning products. Is the room getting darker or are your eyes closing?
Ah yes, consequences of all nighters. It won’t be so bad if..you just…go…take a…
Those are the words that David Cain, Cassandra’s father, once asked her many, many years ago. Unfortunately, she couldn’t answer that albeit having the answer somewhat developed in her mind; she couldn’t speak at all.
But now, Cassandra Cain has the ability to speak and answer that question. And she has one— a few, actually: people who flew from battle, have others do their dirty work,
and fools who hide in broom closets.
Yeah, imagine Cassandra’s surprise when she opens said closet to find a sleeping intern. Do people know sleeping on the job is highly unacceptable? Especially when the intern’s loud friend has begged Cassandra to find her?
She crouches down, ready to shake the intern’s shoulder awake, when she sees the name card— Y/N L/N. Oh?
Cassandra perks up a bit. So this is Lady Gotham’s hater. She must admit, she expected someone who looked more like they hunch over a laptop 24/7.
“Hey,” Cassandra mutters quietly, gently shaking your shoulder. That only gets a little nose scrunch and a frown out of you. A familiar frown. The angle of your eyebrows is also really familiar. You groan a bit, muttering something unintelligible, when Cassandra also realizes that voice also strikes up a memory.
That crazy Gothamite from a few days ago. Who knew you could look so innocent when your face didn’t look like you were ten seconds away from tearing someone else’s face off.
Is it a good idea to wake you up? You could possibly recognize her, yell at her, and add another bump in Cassandra’s day.
Whatever, she can handle it. What you can’t handle is possibly getting kicked out of the program for unacceptable behavior.
She shakes your shoulder a bit harder which eventually wakes you up.
As you open your eyes Cassandra can see how they shift the second you realise just who you are looking at. You scramble back and suddenly stand up, straightening your hair and clothes.
“I’m so sorry! I swear I didn’t mean to pass out in here I just—“
And the rest is just white noise because Cassandra isn’t focusing on your words, she’s focusing on your body language.
Tense shoulders, avoiding eye contact, flailed hands, rushed sentences.
That makes her frown. Why would you be scared? If anything, Cassandra should be the one scared of you.
“Let’s get you back to the main room. Unless there’s a reason you’re out here?” Cassandra questions without fail, a stark contrast to your frightened demeanor.
She can tell you don’t wanna tell her by the way that you instantly freeze when she asks the question. “N-no reason! Just jitters, I guess?” you hope she buys your lame excuse but your hopes are low.
And based on the unimpressed look on her face, you’d be right. “Ok. Let’s go then.”
It’s been about half an hour since you unfortunately had your inevitable interaction with Cassandra, who escorted you back to where the other interns were, much to your dismay.
On top of that, Jonathan tackled you into a hug, sobbing about how worried he was.
You haven’t seen Alvin since you ran away, though. But who’s complaining?
Currently, you’re taking some random papers from one room to another. Apparently this is a little quest that the employees love to give out to interns, given that you’ve ran into fellow interns with stacks of papers more times than you can count.
“Gosh, baby, it really feels like you’re avoiding me today.”
You freeze once you hear that slight Jersey accent and feel an arm around your shoulders. Turning your head, you see an approximately five foot ten inch-tall shadow swallow you up.
Ugh, Alvin found you. It was bound to happen, considering how all the interns are always near eachother.
“Why’re you ghosting me, baby? Hm?” Alvin uses the hand around your shoulder to caress your cheek with his fingers. That act would have been comforting months ago, but now it just repels you.
“I have a right to ghost you.” you hate how weak your voice sounds around him. Alvin always has had that affect on you, and not in a good way.
He frowns a bit, not in an offended way, but a mock-sympathetic way. “What are ya spewing about now, N/N?”
You stop walking, Alvin halting his steps as well.
“Are you kidding me? Have you forgotten literally everything you’ve—“ you suck in a breath and put your fingers to your temple. “Alvin look, I stopped talking to you for a reason. I’d really appreciate it if you quit—“
“You stopped calling me ‘Vi’, baby?” he pouted, “I wanna cry now.” You grit your teeth. With Alvin, everything goes in one ear and comes out the other. It’s a miracle he even landed this internship, given his lack of knowledge in, well, anything. But then again, money can do you wonders.
He’s so careless he didn’t even bother to dress properly; he’s clad in a shirt not even buttoned up all the way and pants that needed ironing.
“Is there a problem here?”
Yes! Thank the lord for Luke motherfucking Fox! No one, not even Alvin, would have the courage—or stupidity— to cause problems with him.
And you stand corrected, watching Alvin shrug his way out of this.
“Alright then, Y/N I can take those papers. You two head on back, okay?” You both let out a unison okay.
I’m Cassandra’s defense, you were a bit annoying the first time she met you.
Who wouldn’t want to avoid that again? Besides, you looked shaken up when she found you in that closet— why? Does she look scary? Were you just caught off guard?
Whatever, that’s a problem for another day. The problem for today, though, is the incompetence of the interns.
To sum it up, two boys got into an argument about god knows what and Jonathan tried to intervene. She doesn’t know why.
But Bruce put her in charge of taking care of matters like this so what did Cassandra do? She grabbed both by their collars, shoved their faces so they’d overlook an indoor balcony, and demanded them to make peace or else she’d drop them.
She wouldn’t actually; that was just a threat. But they don’t need to know that. Bruce heard of that and just let out a sigh. A sigh at threatening people’s lives.
Cassandra walks out of his office after a lecture when someone skids to a stop right in front of her. Jonathan looks like he ran two laps around the entire building in the scorching heat, my god that kid is concerningly unathletic.
“Miss Cassie!” Jonathan clings onto her shirt. Not to mention he’s pretty short for a guy in high school.
“Cassie?” Cassandra repeats. Only her family—not biological—has ever given nicknames so this is a bit strange. “Oh I wanted to thank you, Miss Cassie. Arthur and Jack are always bickering about dumb things!”
“Arthur Holmwood and Jack Seward?” she always memories names of people, even if they aren’t significant.
Jonathan nods vigorously, “yeah! They were fighting over this one girl, Lucy Westenra, from school.”
This is weird. Why would two boys get into a close to physical altercation about a girl? Was it love? Did love make you do dumb things like that all the ti—
“Anyway I see you found my bestie Y/N, thanks!” he hugs her from the side while they both are walking back. “Right, I didn’t know you two were friends.” to be honest, you guys weren’t friends. Jonathan here just came along and clung onto you.
“She’s the best, most sweetest girl I’ve ever met! And very hardworking! I don’t know why she ran off after I found her boyfriend for her.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like him,” Cass said it absentmindedly. She doesn’t mean anything, but Jonathan does.
“Ya think so?? Oh my gosh that explains it,” he looks at Cassandra, “it’s almost like you know her better than me! You guys should be friends too!”
And she just listens to him ramble on again.
“You guys would be such good friends! Ok so she likes painting an’ drawing an’ tv an’ is really really smart! Whaddya like to do, Miss Cassie?”
Cassandra’s first thought would be to just stay silent, but she decides to humor him.
“I like ballet. I do it a lot,” this is weird. She’s barely ever spoken to people about her interests. “I like running. And martial arts, and my family.”
“Yeaaah you have a big family, don’t ‘cha? Tell me more!” He looks genuinely interested in what she has to say and that gives her a boost of confidence. “My siblings and I love to have game or movie nights when they’re all in town. And uh,” she thinks about a way to vaguely sum up her vigilante life, “we like to work out. At night.” Who knew talking about what you like could make you this happy?
Jonathan, get this, literally bounces up and down in excitement. “This is so cool! You two will be best friends now! All of us! Yay!” he begins to take off running.
“Where are you going”, Cassandra shouts after him.
“To go tell Y/N all about youuuu!!”
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