... [The Legacy of a Prima Ballerina] ◌ೄ
Part one
Word count; 5.273, trigger warnings; internalised abelism, grieving, platonic yandere themes (mainly Bruce), paranormal activities, violence, past neglect (intentional and unintentional), tell me if I missed any! main m.list part one
If you had a different body you would have been a prima ballerina by the age of 14. A truth Cassandra could spot from just watching your grandmother’s home videos of your mama playing the piano while you showed all you had been taught in ballet class. She had asked them for those videos with such desperate eyes that your grandmother couldn’t deny her request.
“You remind me of her,” your grandmother had said before Cassandra left with the tapes and DVDs, her voice wavering when she stopped in the doorway, the light illuminating her just as it done to you when she had confronted you about destroying your body. “don’t lose yourself as she did.”
Truly, who would have known your grandmother could predict futures? While watching one home video Cassandra had made the decision to go to the manor’s gym, she had put the DVD in a projector. It was your first performance of the nutcracker as the sugar plum fairy three years ago, your pain had just started. Something you had hidden from your company, from your family and most of all from them.
But did you ever truly hide it or where they too busy to see? It’s not something Cassandra should worry about right now, no, she wants to copy your movements. She wants to dance the way you danced, not because she thinks you are a better dancer than her. Even if it’s true, you had been closer to the title of prima ballerina than she could have ever been.
Yet had she known you, if your illness had flared up a year later you would have become your company’s prima ballerina. Something you knew, something that killed you inside. Yet you wouldn’t take an honorary title either, you wanted to become one with your own blood sweat and tears. Not out of pity.
Had she known you, she would know how your students call you the maker of ballerina’s. Even in your short two years of training many of yours students advanced to more difficult classes, you had directed ballet plays that were one of the highest rated within Metropolis and Gotham.
But Cassandra can’t replicate your performance of the sugar plum fairy. Sure, technique wise she was correct. But something just feel off, it didn’t matter how many times she practised that day. It just didn’t feel right, as if something was holding her back.
But it wasn’t that, no, it was something that you would have never wished upon her. Even as resentment ate away at you, even when you hated her for the fact that Bruce did go to her performances and not yours, you always made sure that she never experienced the same as you. You made sure she ate, even when you didn’t. You made sure she rested when she was injured, even if it was from the vigilante business, you would only ever talk to Bruce if it meant keeping Cassandra out of harms way. She had never known it was you that kept her from dancing so many times, something Bruce is planning to keep that way.
But Cassandra would understand why you did it. Because every performance since the first your last Sugar plum performance were branded by pain, branded by obsession and desperation. But they were also branded by your expressions, you always had a quite expressive face (something Cassandra loved, but now it confuses her greatly. You always had your emotions on your sleeve, how did she not realise you were hurting? How did she not realise that you were hurting and crying out for anyone to see, even if you wouldn’t have stopped…. She should have known, she should have seen your turmoil, your pain).
Your expressions also had a downside, you already saw fine lines at the age of 18, you hadn’t seen any on Barbara’s, Stephanie’s or Cassandra’s faces yet. You thought something was wrong with you, that you were ageing rapidly (you hadn’t noticed at the time that they were fine lines, not wrinkles), but you had something they didn’t. The freedom to make every expression possible, and you were chronically dehydrated at the time.
Besides fine lines are normal even at 18, don’t you know? It shows that you have lived, and it shows how you put your heart and soul in these performances. Those without fine-lines are often expressionless, at least that’s what your mama would have said had she been with you.
Something Cassandra would agree with, because no matter how hard she tries she can’t replicate your facial expressions. She just can’t use her facial muscles the way you did, she isn’t normal in the way she wishes to be. It’s why she repeats and repeats every solo scene of you religiously, she wants to have your face. She wants to have the ability to convey any message through her face, she doesn’t just want to read body language, she wants every side of humanity. She wants to have it all, just so that she can learn how you have walked through your short life.
She hadn’t even noticed how Damian was watching her from the side lines, holding his sketchbook close to his heart. She danced and danced for hours, repeating your performances over and over again until her eyes became red. Until Damian had to intervene.
“It’s alright,” Damian had whispered to his sister, gently tugging her towards the exit. But it was proven to be difficult, she wasn’t tearing her gaze from the projection. It was now one of the DVDs your grandfather had branded from old tapes, Cassandra has no idea how he did it. But your maternal family had been a mystery to her, they have something the Wayne family doesn’t have and Cassandra can’t find what it is. “you need to rest.”
Cassandra’s eyes snap towards him, he looks worried. He looks tired as well, it brings a small smile on her face. Had Damian not been trained by his mother and father he wouldn’t have seen it.
“You should rest as well,” Cassandra teases him, her voice sounds hoarse. She hasn’t drank water in a few hours, it’s an observation that makes Damian frown and at his frown Cassandra’s eyes twinkled. “I knew it, I am your favourite.”
Damian would like to think he doesn’t have favourite, he likes to think he has risen above such child-ish implications. But deep down he knows Cassandra is correct, she is his favourite. But not for the reason she might think, it’s a reason he’ll never indulge her. And neither will he indulge us, some secrets must be kept hidden or else they can unleash a chain of pain.
Too bad Barbara doesn’t believe in secrets, luckily for Damian it isn’t his secrets she’s pining for. No, it’s Bruce’s. And by extension yours, Bruce is planning something around your death. And it isn’t a wake or a memorial service, no, she had planned your funeral with Alfred.
Truly it had been her planning the funeral and Alfred crying his eyes out, Barbara hadn’t asked why he kept losing his composure. It seems rude to, but that’s why she’s looking at your secrets before she delves into Bruce’s. Something is was wrong with you, and she was the original Batgirl. The one who used to carry out Tim’s responsibilities before she became paralysed.
Not even you, Batman’s daughter, could keep anything hidden from her.
Yet at this point she wish you could have had, she had hacked into your laptop. Something one of your students had given her with the direct instructions of you to not show anyone. It makes Barbara wonder if she’s truly uncovering your secrets or if your handing them to her on a silver platter.
It makes her wonder if you had planned to die, and if she’s quite honest she doesn’t blame you. Barbara has done the same after all, the first years of being paralysed were hell, not just because everyone started to treat her differently. But because she knew all her dreams were over, her dream to continue being Batgirl, her dream to help Gotham become a better place. But she had found a different way to do that, she had become Oracle and you had found a way to achieve your dream as well.
At least in her eyes you did.
Because you became a teacher instead of a prima ballerina, you perhaps no longer performed but you were one of the reasons why other performances ran smoothly. You were the reason so many finally had the confidence to become the dancer you knew they were. As a young teacher you had a big impact, you had just recently left the ballet world. You knew how to act in the treachery of social circles, you knew how to play casting directors and you knew how to use your face as a way of story telling. You also knew how to make someone feel like there is still light at the end of the tunnel, one time Barbara had a particularly bad day. The Joker had broken out of Arkham again and Dick had been injured, it was before Stephanie had completely taken over her mantle. Before your pain had become chronic, before your illness had returned, you had sit with her. You had made her favourite tea, you listened to her ramble.
“I feel like I am useless to this family,” Barbara had whispered while talking a sip of her drink, her eyes full of tears and for a second it you had a look of familiarity on your face. “I can’t help the way I used to.”
“Yet they would have completely been lost without you,” you had told her with a slight smile, you had patted her shoulder in an awkward attempt to comfort her. If she had paid more attention would she have seen how you trembled when you did anything? If she had paid more attention would she have known how you wished to be part of their lives? Both civilian and as vigilantes? “there is no question in how you help this family. Without you there would be no batfamily.”
It was a short conversation, but it was one of the longest Barbara had with you. After that you kept avoiding her like she was the plague. She knew they had been neglecting you, but even after that conversation Barbara didn’t want to involve you with the family. Not when you seemed so emotionally stable, so perfect. She didn’t want to destroy the last bit of normal in this house.
It’s why she’s fearful off looking in your files, even after she took the time to hack in your laptop. You hadn’t given your student the passwords, you hadn’t thought you would die so soon. That showed that you were planning to live a little longer, something that greatly comforts Barbara. Because maybe than she still could have saved you had she just looked. Barbara might not be able to save any in the field, but she has saved many as a civilian. It’s not something she is proud of, because it causes the little voice in her head to whisper. It causes that voice to tell that it’s such a shame she’s paralysed because she could have been great.
But right now it’s important she gathers the courage to open the file with her name on it, and by everything magic and holy was she surprised when she did so.
The file wasn’t full of decelerations of hate, perhaps had it been that her eyes wouldn’t be watering as they were now, it was full of pictures from holidays. But not from when she could still move, no, specifically after she got her personalised wheelchair she refused to take pictures for quite a while something her dad absolutely hated.
There was one note on it and it was called; for if I don’t give you these personally.
It took her a while before she opened those as well, but when she did a laugh left her mouth.
‘Tim isn’t the only one with stalker-ish photography skills :P, your dad already has copies.’
Of course, you would have done this with her dad scheming in the background. Now it does make sense, her dad had stopped complaining about her not wanting to be in pictures during holidays a few years ago. She thought he had just been giving her space, it seems she’ll have to tease her dad with the proof.
But her heart still breaks as she looks at these pictures, it shows how you looked out for them even when they didn’t look out for you. It makes her wish she had another chance, that she could sit as she watched you dance. It makes her wish for a timeline in which you achieve all you desire, besides with infinite universes shouldn’t there be a possibility of you having all you want?
There should be, but it seems that in all universes you are destined for suffering.
But this isn’t something to think about right now, no. She has to figure out what the fuck Bruce is planning, it’s why she’s hacking your laptop in her childhood home. It’s why she planted a bug on Bruce’s personal laptop, it’s why she made sure that she could see all he’s doing even from far away. Perhaps a bit excessive, but Bruce has never been known for stability. She must prevent him from doing stupid shit like he’s done before.
And by everything that’s holy it’s good that you hadn’t had the time to delete other files off your laptop, it was clear this was a burner one. That’s why it had been hidden in the stereo-box that hadn’t worked for ages, something that was weird for your student to tell Barbara. But that piece of information has proven to be great context.
It was full of theories about your mama, theories about your family. After you learned about the pit Barbara knew you spiralled. That you became irrationally fearful of it being used on you, and by your own theories and research it would be catastrophic if that were to happen.
“What the fuck,” Barbara whispers, and as if on cue her phone trills. One of the alerts she set up on her laptop went off, it was a money transfer to Ra’s Al Ghul. And with a sinking feeling in her guy Barbara decides that it’s time to confront the grieving father, before he puts you in that pit and kills you even more than death could.
But first she needs a plan, and she might not even have to confront Bruce because Jason is already punching some sense in his father. He knows your family in the way the others don’t, you two had always been a bit closer than the rest even with him still keeping you at arm’s length. On the Death day of your mama you two always went to the grave together, you two would cry together but you wouldn’t ask questions. No, that was an unspoken rule.
But that unspoken rule caused Jason to ignore you every day that wasn’t linked to your mama, it messed with your psyche. Something he could see now, because had he been a better brother would you have kept dancing that day with the Joker? Would you have kept hoping they would save you like he once did?
If you had just danced a small bit longer, perhaps than you would still be with them. It’s why he’s enraged by the fact that Bruce has wired money over to Ra’s Al Ghul. What? Did you think he wouldn’t be tracking his adoptive father after he lost the child he had with the women he loved as deeply as Thalia? The mothers of his children will always hold a dear spot in their heart, as long as they treated their children right, it isn’t strange he is spiralling this way. If he is to believe Dick’s word, Bruce was just as bad when he died.
“I will not allow you to dig up (Name)’s body and put it in that damn pit!” Jason had shouted when his last punch connected with Bruce’s jaw, he had been dodging before that. But when it became clear Jason wouldn’t stop until at least one landed, Bruce allowed his son to deck him. (Did he really? Or does he not want to admit that his son is stronger than him in every way?)
“Don’t you want to hold her?” Bruce asks, as he wipes the blood from his cheek. His gaze harsh, but his tone sweet. His tone longing, and it breaks Jason’s angry stance.
Jason does want to hold you, but he’ll do that in the same way he has been holding your mama. In his dreams, where you are safe and sound. Where you won’t suffer from pit-madness, where you won’t hate him for taking you away from your mother’s loving embrace. He’ll right his wrongs once he’s dead once more, if you would allow him.
But the longing look in Bruce’s eyes makes him hesitate, especially when he continues to speak; “Don’t you wish to see her dance? To look at us with her memorising eyes?”
Had Jason listened closer to his father’s words, he would have realised that he isn’t talking about your eyes. He’s talking about your mama’s.
“I can’t fail them again,” Bruce whispers to his son, his tone loving yet patronising as well. “don’t you want to make this right as well, Jaybird?”
“If you do this Bruce,” Jason sneers as he snaps out of his thought, as he pushes away the selfish desire to bring you back and lock you up where only the family can see you. Where only they can love you. “I will kill you myself.”
The threat was weak, but luckily for him if Stephanie finds out she’ll have a choice of words with him herself. But right now she is watching a documentary about you at a museum, it was in Metropolis so she had asked Tim along. But, of course, he is distracted by other things (cough your old ballet costumes) as he writes notes about all he reads.
It’s odd to see things of you in a museum, especially while knowing it was a favour from the museum manager to your ballet company. You often helped out here according to the director, it’s odd learning about your life a documentary.
“Miss (Last Name) rarely talked about her family,” one of your older students admit when the Wayne family becomes a topic. “I believe she had a falling out with them due to her inability to listen to her own bodies limits.”
Ouch, that was your maternal family. But Stephanie supposes that you never specified your stories, after all to you your maternal family might have been your only family. She just wishes you could have been closer friends at least, she still remembers the few times that you walked past and correcter her homework and just continued walking to your rooms. You might have wanted their attention, but after a while you stopped trying so that you could stop feeling that hole in your heart. A hole you filled with dance.
Stephanie learned much from that documentary, and one of the things is that while she isn’t like her father she still hasn’t unlearned some behaviours from him. She isn’t the best in social interaction, she isn’t the best in expressing her feelings (something that used to get her in a lot of fights with Cassandra where Barbara had to mediate, Cassandra always called it out when she felt terrible even when she thought she hid it well. It often enraged her). Stephanie should have told Bruce that she felt like they were excluding you, but she became comfortable in the positive attention she got. She got comfortable in the silence that you carried, it was nice to have someone that felt different in the house. But it’s something she took for granted, she only acknowledged you when she needed something from you, something that wasn’t right.
But hey, even now that you are dead, she’ll work on it. She will become better, not just because she died. But because she once made a promise, she promised she would break the cycle of hurt. The cycle of resentment, that breakage starts with her.
While Stephanie is making another vow, Tim is looking at one of your teen ballet costumes. It hadn’t been for a play, no, it had been for a talent show. A talent show you had won, it was a dress made to flow with every moment. Meant to show how you felt like water when you danced, meant to show the highs and lows you felt while dancing. While, that is what Tim wants it to mean. Because if it meant that, you would have known how dangerous dancing was for you. If it meant that, your art would be telling your story even without you here. And by the universes, it’s something he wants to learn. He wants to learn all there is about you, not in the way Cassandra does, but in his own way. He wants to know all your habits, how you liked your coffee, how you liked to choreographed dances, how you liked to dress outside of dance classes, how you liked to approach new people to make friends, how you would have acted during Galas (had he just watched you he would have at least know this one, he would have seen how you kept the Wayne Company/Family from social ruin). He wishes you could be brought to live just so that he could study you, just so that he can mould himself in being the perfect brother even if it’s way too late.
I think you get what I am alluding to, Tim wants to know everything and this documentary Stephanie is watching barely scratches the service.
Something Dick agrees with, you are a performer. A performer that uses her own pain to tell a story that is sometimes her own, and sometimes a story written by someone else. He has seen your talent show performances, gods, how he wished he could have performed with you. If he had been any crazier he would be the reviving you. Perhaps that’s why he’s in the meeting with the board of your company, perhaps that’s why he hired screenwriters to write down your life in a way the documentary couldn’t.
He wants your life story to be told through a story, through dance. He knows it won’t be the same as a traditional ballet play, no. It would be more of a broadway play that mainly uses ballet as their dance choreography. That’s fine, but right now one of the board members is being a bit of a pain to put it slightly. But Dick knows this board member isn’t doing this without reason.
“While this is a great idea,” the board member says, his tone harsh and his scowl could rival Batman’s. Quite a feat, if Dick says so himself. “you know nothing about (Name). How could you help direct their story when the only place you have in it is as the villain.”
“Acheron!” the board member next to him hisses, slapping his arm. “Please excuse his comment, he’s still in mourning….”
But Dick tunes out the apology, besides this lady doesn’t have to apologise for a grown ass man. And they certainly don’t have to apologise for this, not when it’s an uncomfortable truth he still has to force himself to see. An uncomfortable truth he still needs to accept.
“It’s alright,” Dick whispers, his voice cracking ever so slightly and Acheron almost felt guilty. But he couldn’t, because if the Wayne’s had paid more attention to you perhaps you would still be here. Of course, the Joker is also to blame. But when it comes to you it was complex, blaming the Wayne’s is easier than accepting the fact that you wished to die long before your kidnapping. “it’s true. But even if it’s still true, can’t I fund a play about my sister?”
“You don’t need to fund jack shit,” Acheron curses as he stands up. “if you want a play, alright. But I will fund it, the Wayne’s have no right to any claim on (Name’s) legacy. Not even this.”
Damian could have swayed Acheron had he been in the room, but of course, Dick had to act on his own. It’s why Damian is so furious at him, but his father doesn’t seem to care. Which is odd, normally he would tell Damian that everyone grieves on their own and that none of the grief-ridden actions must be met with anger unless it harms others. Something that he knew quite well on his own, thank you very much.
He doesn’t like being treated like a child with no sense of morality, he wants to be a Wayne more than he wants to be an Al Ghul. Even if it comes with more privileges, the price of that privilege is not worth it.
He wants to be filled with insecurity, with doubts because it makes him like everyone else. He knows it’s foolish to wish for emotional hardships, especially when he already deals with memories of his past. Especially when he looks at your death, that live stream still on his phone hidden from the world when Bruce got it scrapped off the internet (or at least pretended to have, it’s hard to threaten news channels into compliance. As it should be).
He knows it’s wrong and terrible of him that he watches it every night since the day you died, but he can’t seem to let it go. He just wants to see you dance one more time, he finds that the peaceful look on your face just before the Joker kills you is comforting to him. Not as comforting as it could have been with your impending death hanging over it all. But before he can open the video he gets a notification, your company had already announced the fact that there is a broadway production of your life (specifically your passion for dance) is in the works. It angers him, he doesn’t know why.
But hey, now that it’s public he can ask his mother if she would like to go with him. He wants to share you with his mother, he wants to share your light with her even if she will never understand who you were. Not like he could, but his mother knows him well.
Thalia called Damian before he could call her. It’s a pleasant surprise but it does dampen his mood a bit. He wonders why she’s calling, hopefully not to recruit him back into the League. Their relationship only recently got back to unsupervised visits for his safety and he would prefer to keep it that way.
“Habibi, did you see that news about your sister?” Turns out she has been watching news about you just as closely as Damian, but Thalia’s question does catch him off guard. He makes a sound of agreement and his mother continues; “What if we went? Broadway shows aren’t usually as good as operas, but for this story it could fit.”
Thalia is trying to be supportive in her own way, something that makes him grin. Her words still sound condescending, but at least she’s showing an interest in his family. In her family, because would she asks Bruce would welcome her within their ranks without a second thought. Well at least as long she followed the code.
“I would be delighted,” Damian admits formally, if he could see Thalia he would have seen the frown on her face. The concern in her eyes, something she would never admit. “could we make it a just us day?”
“Of course,” Thalia promises instantly as she takes a sharp breath. She doesn’t know if she should tell her son about the money Bruce had transferred to her father, a small amount. Enough for Ra’s to travel to Gotham and the base. She had quite a hunch, a hunch that could tear about Damian’s relationship with Bruce. “just be sure to watch your father closely.”
Before Damian could asks what she meant she hang up, it was unexpected and unlike her. Normally they would talk for hours, normally they would catch up until he fell asleep. Something is wrong with his mother and it’s stressing him the fuck out.
But do not worry, even with your body now in Ra’s hands, you will not return. At least not in the way Bruce wants you to, no, you have severed the connection to your body. You will not have the option of reincarnation, but at least now your father can’t force you to return to that cursed body.
It’s just too bad it will drive him into a madness, a madness that will scare his children off as they will hide in the darkest corners. But he isn’t there yet, no, there must be a reason why you aren’t returning to your body. There must be a reason why you won’t return to him and his embrace.
There is, it’s why you came back down to earth for one thing, to haunt your father as his drinking finally forces him into a deep sleep.
“Hi,” you had greeted him, you look healthier. You look happy, Bruce believes his mind is fucking with him. There is no way he can hear your voice so clearly, there is no way he can see your face so clearly in his dreams when he couldn’t do so before. When he could barely remember your voice, when he often got jump-scared of videos of you talking to the point he thought they were voice overs by the posters. “I’m not coming back.”
Those words bring him back to this moment, you are smiling ear to ear while these words leave your mouth. While you await his reply.
“Why?” Bruce asks as he steps closer to you, cradling your face gently. Something that shocks you, something that makes you wonder if you had been fatally injured before would he have finally seen you?
“I am happy with mama,” you whisper as you nuzzle your head in his hand. A small piece of affection you will grant him, but it seems to be a mistake. His eyes are looking even crazier than before. “and because I severed the tie to my mortal body.”
It sounds like a joke, so Bruce laughs. He laughs hysterically, he can’t help it. After all, why wouldn’t he laugh like this? Why would his child that knows all the dangers of magic, that knows all the dangers of the universe (or at least should know) do something so foolish? Do something stupid.
“It’s true,” you whisper as you step back with a weak smile. “I was always terrified of you attempting to bring me back using the pit. I researched it quite extensively before I died, not as much as I would have hoped to-”
“What are you saying?!” Bruce suddenly shouts, but you just smile.
“Don’t you understand?” You grin, mischief clear in your eyes. “I don’t get a happy ending, so neither do you.”
But you are lying, you did get a happy ending. You will be remembered for your dancing, not for who you were connected to. And that's enough for you.
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