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monaI AM STILL PATHETIC ABOUT BEING DW-ACTIVE, this is just a driveby fic drop. And really don't feel even a little obligated to read, oh rlisters I have lurked away from for so long. (I mean it. Especially considering this probably won't be enjoyable/make sense if you're not all the way caught up on Teen Titans v3, and it's TEEN TITANS V3. THOSE OF YOU WHO GAVE UP YEARS AGO AND NEVER LOOKED BACK = BETTER DECISION-MAKERS THAN I.) (Though! If you want the abridged version of the saga of Rose/Cassie without having to trudge through Johns and McKeever and Henderson, go here.) I just prefer archiving my fic here to pretty much anywhere else. :D:
Title: That Melt Into Spring [AO3 link]
Pairing: Rose Wilson (Ravager)/Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl)
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Teen Titans v3 through issue 89, paired with a complete disregard for the latest Wonder Woman reboot.
Summary: Rose and Cassie are hardly besties, but when push comes to shove comes to Circe's magical snow globe, they'll have each other's backs. It's what teammates do.
Warnings: some descriptions of racism/exotification, sexuality cluelessness
A/N: Written for Jingle Bells, Batman Smells 2010.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
milleniumrex requested: Stranded!fic where the two girls are trapped together and have to work out their issues. One of the girls is injured and hesitant to accept help. Bonus points for eventual femslash, but friendship is fine too. This isn't the streamlined Rose/Cassie I wanted to write (and still yearn for), so much as me synthesizing all of Rose's canon into a single "Krul's Rose makes so much sense/I am loving this new run!" treatise on the character. But luckily when Rose is anywhere in Cassie's general vicinity, shippiness is never far behind.
Silver White Winters
They were fighting a new villain coalition, the Head Witches in Charge - sorceresses and magician chicks bent on global domination, how very freaking original - when it happened.
Or rather, when Rose saw it happen, which was approximately eight seconds before it did happen, which was just enough time to rush face-first into enchanted witchy danger after their fearless leader.
One stop-motion flash of Wonder Girl crashing through a cave wall after Circe (the head witch in charge of Head Witches in Charge), another of Wonder Girl laying blood-spattered and still, so unnaturally still, on the other side, and in live time, Rose watched Cassie barrel ominously towards that very wall after her opponent. With no time to process how anyone, even someone with Cassie's powers, could fly straight through a wall of solid rock without some serious focus, Rose leapt after her on instinct, trying to warn her back.
And ended up in...a winter wonderland?
Picturesque trees with branches limned in white, gingerbread houses and snow men, cobblestone roads twisting through the snow: maybe this was a common sight this time of year in say, Nebraska, but they were in San Francisco, where snow was as extinct as the dinosaurs.
...Or they had been in San Francisco. Rose flipped around to check where the cave should still be, and instead of jagged red stone, she came up against slick, curving glass. She couldn't make out what was on the other side, long, blurry moving shapes with no distinguishable form, but if she followed the slope of the glass, the way it arched up and up over their heads, closing above them in some kind of dome - well, Rose was beginning to get the distinct sense they were encased inside a giant freakin' snowglobe.
Tch. Witches.
Rose was feeling for her swords, gearing up to smash the glass and get them out, when a weak moan behind her reminded her why she'd ended up here in the first place: Cassie.
The first time Rose saw her, Cassie was radiant: gorgeous and strong and bright, all whipcord muscle and whip-fast movements, gold-tipped power lashing through the sky. Robin had given them the broad strokes of Wonder Girl's year, back then, explained why convincing her to rejoin the team was so difficult, and what he told them made it sound like she'd be a gibbering, confused mess. Instead she was hard and mean and fierce and sure, wreaking hellfire on the bad guys in clean, sharp movements and telling off old friends without a shred of softness or regret, so certain of who she was and what she wanted. Rose was a champ at responding to pain by dealing out some of her own, and she could fake confidence with the best of them, but Cassie wasn't cocky, she was cocksure. She practically glowed with it, this absolute trust in herself and her instincts, every choice she made, from the world-shaking to the mundane, burnished with the same quicksilver resolve.
Radiant.
Rose had hated her on sight.
Even before Slade had pumped her full of drugs, pumped her full of cruelty and mania and needy, pathetic attachment to a man she barely knew...even before she was forced to second-guess every impulse she'd had since, question whether it was her own or the poisonous remnants of her time with dear old dad...even before all that, Rose really hadn't had a clue of what she wanted to do with herself or her life. Whether there was a place for her in the world, a use, a point. Why she was alive and Mama wasn't.
She wanted to make Wade DeFarge and men like him pay; she wanted to forget anyone who could hurt her, forget hurt itself, even existed. She wanted to keep other girls safe from going through what she had; she didn't believe anyone else could ever feel anything close to what she did. She yearned for friends and family, could tell she was already starting to love the Madisons; she knew down to her bones she would never feel the closeness and safety of her relationships in the brothel, ever ever again, so why even try?
She spent her days at school carefully mimicking every American mannerism she hadn't picked up with the Titans, unlearning every trace of her accent, so people would stop demanding to know where she was from, stop staring at her features and loudly trying to guess her ethnicity. Stop reminding her again and again of what she'd lost, of the home and women she could never return to, of what an outsider she'd always be without them. But doing what it took to escape that ceaseless, dehumanizing scrutiny felt the same as erasing Mama, every day the contours of her Khmer feeling a little less real against her tongue, words and phrases slipping away from her forever. And so it went: she scrubbed out anything that would make people focus on where she came from, but every time a teacher commended her on how good her English was, every time guys talked about how cute and meek Asian chicks were, right in front of her notoriously loud-ass self, she just wanted to start cursing and yelling at all of them and never, ever stop. Dye her hair black and speak in nothing but Khmer so people would get it already, because the father she'd never known and his big manly half of the gene pool - who were they to come in and define her identity? What was this country her mother had raised her in, to force Rose to wash away everything that mother had taught her of where she came from, of the home that had made Lili who she was, all just so Rose could get through the day?
Boys stared at her and grabbed at her and tried their stupid little pick-up lines on her, and she wanted to break their hands and smash their mouths in, and she would, she did. But a part of her thrilled at the attention, basked in the fact that there was some part of her she couldn't erase whatever she wore, however she spoke. There was some social currency, some power she could always draw on, if she ever needed it. Needed someone.
And on and on: every day was an expedition in conflict and crushing uncertainty, impulses and instincts constantly at war with each other, Rose a rudderless dinghy tipping through rushing waters. And that was before her dad got his hands on her, his drugs in her. Before she had blood on her hands, before she knew what real violence tasted like, before she had a whole new set of urges and instincts to contend with, gaping new chasms of regret and loss.
And then you had Cassie, acting like everything was so damn easy. Like the world was splashed out in nice thick strokes of black and white, and no matter how much pain you were in, no matter how confusing life got, it was always a matter of will to take that next step forward and know it was the right one. And it wasn't just that Cassie was so sure about everything - it wasn't just that Rose knew, the instant they met, that there would be no winning this girl over; she'd made up her mind about Rose and that was it, Rose had a better chance of making freaky little Robin like her than this chick - but that Cassie seemed to assume it was this easy for everyone else, too. Or that it should be, that all you needed were some wholesome, all-American values, and the right decisions would just sprawl out at your feet like a red carpet.
It made Rose itch, made her blood rush and her eyes burn. And all the while, Wonder Princess kept right on soaring through life, immaculate as polished gold, untouchable as a comet.
Fucking radiant.
...Well.
Cassie wasn't looking so radiant right now.
Whatever barrier they'd crossed to get here, Rose had jumped through it. Cassie, on the other hand, was flying at Circe, at topspeed, when the sorceress sidestepped her and sent them both into this sub-arctic terrarium.
Rose had stumbled a little on the landing, one leg of her pants dragging in the snow.
Cassie... to find her, Rose just followed the blood streaking through the snow to the human-shaped, thigh-deep crevice several feet back. Cassie was lying inside the cracked earth, limbs splayed out at unnatural angles, bleeding and shivering and not really resembling an invulnerable demigoddess even a little bit.
"Shit," Rose cursed, energy-slicing away the snow and frozen dirt as fast as she could so she could lift Cassie up from a safer angle, "talk about flying headfirst into danger."
Cassie groaned, and squinted up at her. "Ravager?" She turned her head to the side, coughing wetly while Rose worked to get a grip on her without twisting anything even further out of whack. "I think I've been depowered."
Rose rolled her eyes. "No shit, Prom Queen." Hurtling through a solid rock wall at jet plane velocity, getting depowered between there and here - yeah, that would definitely explain the blood, the giant hole in the snow, and how very much Cassie was not moving most of her limbs. Rose grunted, one arm flat under Cassie's back and one under her knees, a makeshift human stretcher, and balanced the other girl carefully as she started stalking up and out towards the houses.
"By the way," Rose muttered, scanning for any signs of life other than their own, "I'm pretty sure we're stuck inside a giant snow globe."
Cassie's eyes bugged out in a way that would have been hilarious under different circumstances. Then she seemed to remember something, and clacked her teeth together disdainfully.
"Witches," she sneered. (Well, more like 'croaked', but it was definitely a sneer she was going for.)
Rose couldn't resist the snicker. "I know, right? The ability to send your enemies to a hell dimension or turn them into pigs, and Circe picks 'snow globe'. Some future world dictator she is."
Cassie's teeth were chattering too hard for her to respond, and Rose set her attention to getting them indoors as soon as possible, but she was pretty sure disdain for Ms. Head Witch's methods was something they actually agreed on.
The first house Rose tried was unlocked and visibly unlived in. But keeping with the fuckin' a, this snow is cold realism of Circe's enchantment, there was a cute little fire burning away in the hearth.
Rose didn't want Cassie dying of hypothermia or anything, but the fastest road to survival had to be getting out of here and getting Cassie's powers back. So after she got Cassie laid out flat on the carpet near the fireplace, covered in the blankets hanging above the hearth, Rose rushed back outside to find the perimeter of this thing, and their ticket out of here.
The encasement hadn't, as she feared, faded away into Circe's magical world of make-believe; she retraced their steps and found herself right back up against the sloping wall of glass. It was too thick to see through clearly, but with enough force, Rose was sure it would break; she'd try slicing through it with her energy swords, and if that didn't work, maybe she could set up some kind of charge. Tentatively, she felt for the spot she'd try cutting through, but instead of the smooth, hard, solid surface she was expecting, her hand went right through, like there was nothing there.
Huh.
Rose tried pushing her hand in further, and watched her arm slip through up to her shoulder, just like that. Experimentally, she dipped her head forward, and sure enough, she was instantly out the other side and blinking at...lots and lots of snow. And gingerbread houses, that Rose would hazard were just as unlived in as the ones she'd passed already. And snow angels and postcard-perfect evergreens and yep - what was on the other side of the glass? Appeared to be exactly the same as the side they were already on.
Which meant "magical barrier", which meant "nothing to smash my way out of". Which meant "good luck escaping, ladies".
Fucking witches, man.
Rose started panicking a little when it occurred to her that just because she got through the glass once didn't mean she could make it back, and she'd left Cassie soaked to the bone and immobilized on the other side; spinning around, she rushed forward, not knowing what to expect. Thankfully, the glass was still right there behind her, and just as formless and easy to push through a second time; Rose's footprints and the now-familiar sight of the hole in the ground were greeting her instants later.
She was currently out of ideas, though, which meant she'd have to take care of her wounded teammate the old-fashioned way, and they could go from there.
Teammate. God. As she trudged towards the cabin, Rose considered just what a headfuck that was, that it was so easy to think of the other girl as her comrade, these days, fullstop. To call Cassie 'leader' and mean it. Trust in it.
Cassie inviting Rose to join the new team, all warm smiles and handshakes: that had been the surprise of, if not a lifetime, than at least the last few months. At first, Rose had made sense of the outlandishly uncharacteristic cordiality by reminding herself that Cassie's boyfriend was back from the dead; maybe Cassie was feeling spontaneously charitable toward the world at large. And Rose would rather be a charity case than searching for her mom without the resources Titans Tower had to offer. It was good to come in from the cold, too, and Rose figured if she could make a good impression on Kon (who was stunningly easy to impress), she could get him to vouch for her from the inside, to keep Cassie from regretting her decision.
But the resurrected-boyfriend-celebration theory flew out the window when Cassie went and broke up with that boyfriend like, two hours into the team's first weekend. And Cassie's weird new friendliness stayed put. And Rose was more confused than ever.
Just, whatever the reasons for Cassie's attitude makeover? The important thing was she had invited Rose to join her team. Cassie. Wonder Princess. Soccer mom of the teenaged hero set. Someone who, from all appearances, pretty much had the corner on the Rose-hating market; out of every white hat out there, Rose would have assumed she was the rotting hole in the wood at the bottom of the barrel, as far as people Cassie would voluntarily work with were concerned.
And yet here she was. One of Wonder Girl's elite. Fighting side-by-side with Cassie's best friends and the Titans veterans as if there was never any question that she belonged. She still stepped carefully, still did everything she could to make Bart and Conner keep liking her, keep them in her court so they were right there to reassure away Cassie's inevitable Ravager-doubts. That old, raw fear still flared up from time to time, that certainty that she was going to get thrown out of the tower just for having an unpleasant personality - no longer did she worry about Slade getting his hands on her, she'd love to see Dad try, but the Tower's tech had gotten her close, so close, to finding Mama. To get that close only to be left alone again without her - Rose couldn't bear it. But most of the time? Most of the time, Rose felt safe. Rose felt like she had a home, a real home. They'd fallen into a rhythm, this new team, and Rose was shocked to realize she wasn't missing all the beats.
Sure, she and Cassie still clashed, but: Cassie wanted Rose around. Rose didn't know why, didn't know what had changed or how, not when Cassie's hatred for her had been so opaque, rock-solid swordsteel, for as long as she could remember. But it had given her a family, in a world without Mama, without Wintergreen or Eddie Bloomberg, and that...yeah, that counted for something. For a hell of a lot.
Rose blinked at the sudden heat licking her cheeks as she stepped into the cabin. Cassie was sitting propped up near the fireplace, which was either a very good or a very bad sign, and she was glaring intensely at her communicator.
"Hey," Rose said, approaching carefully. "How are you?"
Cassie glanced up, and then went back to her glaring. "No reception," she grumbled.
"Okay?"
"No reception, no signal, no nothing! Not on the communicator, not on the dummy cell I carry around when I'm Drusilla, and I could've guessed as much because it's CIRCE but it means all I can do is sit here and bite my lips bloody while I break and re-set my own SUPER-DEPOWERED bones and wait around for rescue. This is SO - " Then she descended into a coughing fit, and Rose rushed over to pat her through it.
"Jesus, Wonder Wench," Rose muttered, feeling the shudders wracking Cassie's system even through her own armor. "You set your own bones?"
"Couldn't just...lie there waiting..." Up close, Rose could see just how glassy Cassie's eyes were, how clammy and pale she looked. Shit.
"I was only gone five minutes, princess."
Cassie shrugged sheepishly. And shiveringly. "I wanted to be able to reach my communicator. And move both arms." She craned her head back to peer at Rose. "Was gonna strip off the wet costume, too, but turned out I only had enough strength left to sit here and freak out...I forgot how much being mortal sucked."
Rose snorted. "Sometimes it's hard to believe you ever were." She shook her head. "Okay, well, now your big strong teammate is here to play nursemaid, so if you can stop being so hardcore, just tell me where it hurts and we'll get you fixed up." And Rose could also start cutting Cassie out of those sopping clothes - she couldn't believe she'd left it this long, but she hadn't wanted to jostle Cassie around when her bones were still all fucked up, and she'd really thought there would be a simpler way out of this to fast-paced, Olympus-styled healing...
Oh well. Cassie seemed familiar with Circe; maybe she could give them some insight into how to escape.
"Ribs are definitely bruised," Cassie muttered, "a few of my fingers are probably fractured, but I'll be okay...once we're free and I get my powers back..."
"And what makes you sure we're getting out of here so easily? Up," she maneuvered Cassie out of her water-logged jeans as gently as she could before reaching up to snap off her breastplate.
"It's Circe. There's been some trouble, Diana wouldn't give me the full story, but something with Circe's daughter and Themyscira...Circe has been threatening a hostage situation for a few weeks now, 'my loved one for one of yours'. It's why I took the job, so she'd focus on me instead of any of Diana's non-powered friends."
"Uh, and you didn't think any of this was worth letting us know before you got yourself trapped in a giant snow globe?" Rose angrily threw one of the blankets at Cassie, now sitting there shivering in her underpants.
"No, because if any of you let on that we knew she wanted me as a hostage, that Diana's expecting this and not even rattled, Circe would have found someone else to go after. Come on, Rose, it's not like it would have made a difference, the mission was identical either way - "
"The difference is that you don't trust your own teammates to keep your stupid tactical secrets!" Rose jumped up, started pacing agitatedly. "What the hell, Cassie? How bad at this do you think we are, anyway?"
"I can't believe this. I can't believe you're throwing a tantrum about this." Cassie had pulled the blanket tight around her and was huddling as close to the fireplace as possible, but Rose was done feeling sorry for her. Not that she looked like she wanted any pity. "This is bigger than you and your solipsistic inferiority complex, okay? Circe is a SORCERESS, if you haven't noticed, you don't have to just open up and tell her stuff for her to figure it out, and this is a mission we're on for Wonder Woman herself, so it's kind of seriously important. And - "
"Ooooh, Wonder Woman. I didn't know that when WONDER WOMAN enters the picture your team stops meaning shit - "
"Rose, would you just - "
"No, I won't just!"
"water, Rose, can you let this go for long enough to - " and then Cassie was hacking up blood and Rose was flying up the stairs to see if this place had a working tap, and dammit, why the fuck did Cassie have to be so stubborn, every single fucking minute? Why were they even talking about Circe and teams and missions when she was sick and alone with only Rose and her extravagant lack of medical training for company?
No taps, nothing upstairs but decorations in the windows - figured, the fireplace generated the smoke curling cozily out of the chimney, but what house needed running water, or like, a first aid kit, when its sole purpose was to act as scenery? - and Rose dashed outside instead. Hopefully this magical snow tasted as real as it felt.
Arms full of as much snow as she could pack together, Rose came back inside and knelt beside Cassie, scooping up a handful to let her sip at right away.
Cassie looked grateful, but she also looked freezing, like all the blankets in the world wouldn't be enough to bring the color back to her cheeks. Without really thinking about it, Rose stripped off her own armor and left it hanging over the fireplace next to Cassie's costume, then grabbed the second blanket and shuffled up behind Cassie to share some of her body heat.
They sat like that, Rose just holding Cassie close beneath the blankets, only moving to reach over and feed her more snow, for several long minutes, and Rose had no idea if anything she had done so far was helpful - maybe Cassie "I enjoy snapping my own bones into place" Sandsmark was right to see her team as utterly extraneous - but at least Cassie wasn't coughing much anymore.
"Look," Cassie finally said, breaking the silence. "All I was trying to tell you is just, this thing between Circe and Diana...Diana plans to settle it diplomatically. And she's an even better diplomat than she is warrior, so really, we don't have to do anything but sit and wait. I'm sorry you got sucked into this but we'll be out of here as soon as they're done negotiating."
"Whatever," Rose said, feeling less satisfied than she should have that Cassie obviously felt at least a little bad.
"Um. And. You're right, okay? I tried to do the bulk of this mission singlehandedly because Diana was involved, and she always makes me want to be more than I am. Not because I don't trust you guys. I mean it."
The remaining snow was melting into the carpet, so Rose scooted their whole little bundle to the right, where it was drier. She swallowed, not really sure how to deal with the disconcerting phenomenon that was Cassie acknowledging having made a mistake. "Fine," she finally settled on, eloquently.
She sighed, grinned a little. "So what's so special about Wondy anyway? I mean, we've fought alongside plenty of Leaguers in the past, I didn't know you got so starstruck - "
"Shewasmyfirstcrush."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not repeating that."
"No, no way. You're like the straightest person I've ever met."
"Uh, excuse you!" Cassie punched at Rose weakly, but there was real anger there. "I'd say that's the pot calling the kettle het, but I know better than to make assumptions about people based on what they look like."
Rose flushed guiltily. "Look, I met you when Conner was the only thing on your mind, ever, so it's not like - "
"Or how they act around boys! Wow, Rose, it's so nice to know your shades of gray outlook on life doesn't actually extend to other people's identities."
Rose's face was getting really hot. "Are you telling me - "
"I don't want to talk about this. I shouldn't have brought it up." Cassie slid back against Rose, pressed closer against her. And writhed. "Especially not when we're both practically naked..."
"OKAY alright I get it you've made your point." Rose wasn't going to question why her breath was coming in in such short fast bursts, as if she'd snorted up a whole supply of adrenaline.
"I know. I know," Cassie squirmed. "I'm seriously sick and in pain right now, Circe might let us out of here any second and we don't want to look uncompromising in front of the team, and besides, before we can hook up you probably have to spend a few weeks fighting with yourself to come to terms with your deep-seated, painstakingly repressed attraction to me. But if I give you those few weeks....what do you say?"
Rose's arms were like lead. She wanted to jump away from Cassie, but she didn't want to her to know she was having an effect on her. "Is this your idea of a joke?"
A long pause, in which Rose considered forgetting about the image of restraint, shoving the loyalty to her wounded teammate, and just pummeling the shit out of Cassie or the wall or something, and then Cassie answered: "Ok, it is highly possible that I'm a little delirious right now."
Rose wanted to scream.
"But even if most of this would never have come out any other way...or at least not like this, I mean usually I'm waaay smoother, just ask Georgia..." A weird giggle-cough, and Rose was ready to crawl out of her own skin. "...No, Rose. This isn't a joke to me. Even when all I could think about was how much I wanted you out of my life, you were never, ever a joke to me."
Rose watched her suspiciously.
"See, lately, I'm just. I'm finally comfortable with who I am again, you know?" Cassie was totally oversharing. Oversharing to Rose.
At least now she knew she wasn't lying about the delirium. "Uh..."
"And I think I'm ready to start living again, on my own terms! With...with whoever I choose. If, yknow, they choose me back. So, like. When we get home." Cassie's voice had gotten all freakishly, frantically perky. "If I give you time to fight your 'I HATE HER, I HATE HER NOT' battles. Just...give me a chance?"
"Right." Rose found herself at a complete loss. "Right, whatever."
They sat there in profoundly awkward silence for a while, and Rose considered that Cassie might be wrong; nobody might be coming to get them out, they might be trapped here till she coughed herself dead.
And it was then that the full ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She was trapped inside a magical frozen toy, with a feverish Wonder Girl, formerly her arch-rival, who had just propositioned Rose and poured her heart out to her in the space of like, a minute.
Things had gotten weird, in her time with the Titans, but this had to be some kind of record.
Sighing, Rose settled back against the hearth, and drew Cassie, who had gotten all stiff and hunched in, back up under her chin.
"Let's just keep you conscious for now, and call it a day, okay?"
Rose could feel Cassie's tired smile against her neck. "Sure. Sure thing."
"And princess?"
"Mmm?"
"You honestly have the saddest timing out of anyone I've ever met."
Cassie laughed, and relaxed into Rose's arms.
Title: That Melt Into Spring [AO3 link]
Pairing: Rose Wilson (Ravager)/Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl)
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Teen Titans v3 through issue 89, paired with a complete disregard for the latest Wonder Woman reboot.
Summary: Rose and Cassie are hardly besties, but when push comes to shove comes to Circe's magical snow globe, they'll have each other's backs. It's what teammates do.
Warnings: some descriptions of racism/exotification, sexuality cluelessness
A/N: Written for Jingle Bells, Batman Smells 2010.
milleniumrex requested: Stranded!fic where the two girls are trapped together and have to work out their issues. One of the girls is injured and hesitant to accept help. Bonus points for eventual femslash, but friendship is fine too. This isn't the streamlined Rose/Cassie I wanted to write (and still yearn for), so much as me synthesizing all of Rose's canon into a single "Krul's Rose makes so much sense/I am loving this new run!" treatise on the character. But luckily when Rose is anywhere in Cassie's general vicinity, shippiness is never far behind. Silver White Winters
They were fighting a new villain coalition, the Head Witches in Charge - sorceresses and magician chicks bent on global domination, how very freaking original - when it happened.
Or rather, when Rose saw it happen, which was approximately eight seconds before it did happen, which was just enough time to rush face-first into enchanted witchy danger after their fearless leader.
One stop-motion flash of Wonder Girl crashing through a cave wall after Circe (the head witch in charge of Head Witches in Charge), another of Wonder Girl laying blood-spattered and still, so unnaturally still, on the other side, and in live time, Rose watched Cassie barrel ominously towards that very wall after her opponent. With no time to process how anyone, even someone with Cassie's powers, could fly straight through a wall of solid rock without some serious focus, Rose leapt after her on instinct, trying to warn her back.
And ended up in...a winter wonderland?
Picturesque trees with branches limned in white, gingerbread houses and snow men, cobblestone roads twisting through the snow: maybe this was a common sight this time of year in say, Nebraska, but they were in San Francisco, where snow was as extinct as the dinosaurs.
...Or they had been in San Francisco. Rose flipped around to check where the cave should still be, and instead of jagged red stone, she came up against slick, curving glass. She couldn't make out what was on the other side, long, blurry moving shapes with no distinguishable form, but if she followed the slope of the glass, the way it arched up and up over their heads, closing above them in some kind of dome - well, Rose was beginning to get the distinct sense they were encased inside a giant freakin' snowglobe.
Tch. Witches.
Rose was feeling for her swords, gearing up to smash the glass and get them out, when a weak moan behind her reminded her why she'd ended up here in the first place: Cassie.
The first time Rose saw her, Cassie was radiant: gorgeous and strong and bright, all whipcord muscle and whip-fast movements, gold-tipped power lashing through the sky. Robin had given them the broad strokes of Wonder Girl's year, back then, explained why convincing her to rejoin the team was so difficult, and what he told them made it sound like she'd be a gibbering, confused mess. Instead she was hard and mean and fierce and sure, wreaking hellfire on the bad guys in clean, sharp movements and telling off old friends without a shred of softness or regret, so certain of who she was and what she wanted. Rose was a champ at responding to pain by dealing out some of her own, and she could fake confidence with the best of them, but Cassie wasn't cocky, she was cocksure. She practically glowed with it, this absolute trust in herself and her instincts, every choice she made, from the world-shaking to the mundane, burnished with the same quicksilver resolve.
Radiant.
Rose had hated her on sight.
Even before Slade had pumped her full of drugs, pumped her full of cruelty and mania and needy, pathetic attachment to a man she barely knew...even before she was forced to second-guess every impulse she'd had since, question whether it was her own or the poisonous remnants of her time with dear old dad...even before all that, Rose really hadn't had a clue of what she wanted to do with herself or her life. Whether there was a place for her in the world, a use, a point. Why she was alive and Mama wasn't.
She wanted to make Wade DeFarge and men like him pay; she wanted to forget anyone who could hurt her, forget hurt itself, even existed. She wanted to keep other girls safe from going through what she had; she didn't believe anyone else could ever feel anything close to what she did. She yearned for friends and family, could tell she was already starting to love the Madisons; she knew down to her bones she would never feel the closeness and safety of her relationships in the brothel, ever ever again, so why even try?
She spent her days at school carefully mimicking every American mannerism she hadn't picked up with the Titans, unlearning every trace of her accent, so people would stop demanding to know where she was from, stop staring at her features and loudly trying to guess her ethnicity. Stop reminding her again and again of what she'd lost, of the home and women she could never return to, of what an outsider she'd always be without them. But doing what it took to escape that ceaseless, dehumanizing scrutiny felt the same as erasing Mama, every day the contours of her Khmer feeling a little less real against her tongue, words and phrases slipping away from her forever. And so it went: she scrubbed out anything that would make people focus on where she came from, but every time a teacher commended her on how good her English was, every time guys talked about how cute and meek Asian chicks were, right in front of her notoriously loud-ass self, she just wanted to start cursing and yelling at all of them and never, ever stop. Dye her hair black and speak in nothing but Khmer so people would get it already, because the father she'd never known and his big manly half of the gene pool - who were they to come in and define her identity? What was this country her mother had raised her in, to force Rose to wash away everything that mother had taught her of where she came from, of the home that had made Lili who she was, all just so Rose could get through the day?
Boys stared at her and grabbed at her and tried their stupid little pick-up lines on her, and she wanted to break their hands and smash their mouths in, and she would, she did. But a part of her thrilled at the attention, basked in the fact that there was some part of her she couldn't erase whatever she wore, however she spoke. There was some social currency, some power she could always draw on, if she ever needed it. Needed someone.
And on and on: every day was an expedition in conflict and crushing uncertainty, impulses and instincts constantly at war with each other, Rose a rudderless dinghy tipping through rushing waters. And that was before her dad got his hands on her, his drugs in her. Before she had blood on her hands, before she knew what real violence tasted like, before she had a whole new set of urges and instincts to contend with, gaping new chasms of regret and loss.
And then you had Cassie, acting like everything was so damn easy. Like the world was splashed out in nice thick strokes of black and white, and no matter how much pain you were in, no matter how confusing life got, it was always a matter of will to take that next step forward and know it was the right one. And it wasn't just that Cassie was so sure about everything - it wasn't just that Rose knew, the instant they met, that there would be no winning this girl over; she'd made up her mind about Rose and that was it, Rose had a better chance of making freaky little Robin like her than this chick - but that Cassie seemed to assume it was this easy for everyone else, too. Or that it should be, that all you needed were some wholesome, all-American values, and the right decisions would just sprawl out at your feet like a red carpet.
It made Rose itch, made her blood rush and her eyes burn. And all the while, Wonder Princess kept right on soaring through life, immaculate as polished gold, untouchable as a comet.
Fucking radiant.
...Well.
Cassie wasn't looking so radiant right now.
Whatever barrier they'd crossed to get here, Rose had jumped through it. Cassie, on the other hand, was flying at Circe, at topspeed, when the sorceress sidestepped her and sent them both into this sub-arctic terrarium.
Rose had stumbled a little on the landing, one leg of her pants dragging in the snow.
Cassie... to find her, Rose just followed the blood streaking through the snow to the human-shaped, thigh-deep crevice several feet back. Cassie was lying inside the cracked earth, limbs splayed out at unnatural angles, bleeding and shivering and not really resembling an invulnerable demigoddess even a little bit.
"Shit," Rose cursed, energy-slicing away the snow and frozen dirt as fast as she could so she could lift Cassie up from a safer angle, "talk about flying headfirst into danger."
Cassie groaned, and squinted up at her. "Ravager?" She turned her head to the side, coughing wetly while Rose worked to get a grip on her without twisting anything even further out of whack. "I think I've been depowered."
Rose rolled her eyes. "No shit, Prom Queen." Hurtling through a solid rock wall at jet plane velocity, getting depowered between there and here - yeah, that would definitely explain the blood, the giant hole in the snow, and how very much Cassie was not moving most of her limbs. Rose grunted, one arm flat under Cassie's back and one under her knees, a makeshift human stretcher, and balanced the other girl carefully as she started stalking up and out towards the houses.
"By the way," Rose muttered, scanning for any signs of life other than their own, "I'm pretty sure we're stuck inside a giant snow globe."
Cassie's eyes bugged out in a way that would have been hilarious under different circumstances. Then she seemed to remember something, and clacked her teeth together disdainfully.
"Witches," she sneered. (Well, more like 'croaked', but it was definitely a sneer she was going for.)
Rose couldn't resist the snicker. "I know, right? The ability to send your enemies to a hell dimension or turn them into pigs, and Circe picks 'snow globe'. Some future world dictator she is."
Cassie's teeth were chattering too hard for her to respond, and Rose set her attention to getting them indoors as soon as possible, but she was pretty sure disdain for Ms. Head Witch's methods was something they actually agreed on.
The first house Rose tried was unlocked and visibly unlived in. But keeping with the fuckin' a, this snow is cold realism of Circe's enchantment, there was a cute little fire burning away in the hearth.
Rose didn't want Cassie dying of hypothermia or anything, but the fastest road to survival had to be getting out of here and getting Cassie's powers back. So after she got Cassie laid out flat on the carpet near the fireplace, covered in the blankets hanging above the hearth, Rose rushed back outside to find the perimeter of this thing, and their ticket out of here.
The encasement hadn't, as she feared, faded away into Circe's magical world of make-believe; she retraced their steps and found herself right back up against the sloping wall of glass. It was too thick to see through clearly, but with enough force, Rose was sure it would break; she'd try slicing through it with her energy swords, and if that didn't work, maybe she could set up some kind of charge. Tentatively, she felt for the spot she'd try cutting through, but instead of the smooth, hard, solid surface she was expecting, her hand went right through, like there was nothing there.
Huh.
Rose tried pushing her hand in further, and watched her arm slip through up to her shoulder, just like that. Experimentally, she dipped her head forward, and sure enough, she was instantly out the other side and blinking at...lots and lots of snow. And gingerbread houses, that Rose would hazard were just as unlived in as the ones she'd passed already. And snow angels and postcard-perfect evergreens and yep - what was on the other side of the glass? Appeared to be exactly the same as the side they were already on.
Which meant "magical barrier", which meant "nothing to smash my way out of". Which meant "good luck escaping, ladies".
Fucking witches, man.
Rose started panicking a little when it occurred to her that just because she got through the glass once didn't mean she could make it back, and she'd left Cassie soaked to the bone and immobilized on the other side; spinning around, she rushed forward, not knowing what to expect. Thankfully, the glass was still right there behind her, and just as formless and easy to push through a second time; Rose's footprints and the now-familiar sight of the hole in the ground were greeting her instants later.
She was currently out of ideas, though, which meant she'd have to take care of her wounded teammate the old-fashioned way, and they could go from there.
Teammate. God. As she trudged towards the cabin, Rose considered just what a headfuck that was, that it was so easy to think of the other girl as her comrade, these days, fullstop. To call Cassie 'leader' and mean it. Trust in it.
Cassie inviting Rose to join the new team, all warm smiles and handshakes: that had been the surprise of, if not a lifetime, than at least the last few months. At first, Rose had made sense of the outlandishly uncharacteristic cordiality by reminding herself that Cassie's boyfriend was back from the dead; maybe Cassie was feeling spontaneously charitable toward the world at large. And Rose would rather be a charity case than searching for her mom without the resources Titans Tower had to offer. It was good to come in from the cold, too, and Rose figured if she could make a good impression on Kon (who was stunningly easy to impress), she could get him to vouch for her from the inside, to keep Cassie from regretting her decision.
But the resurrected-boyfriend-celebration theory flew out the window when Cassie went and broke up with that boyfriend like, two hours into the team's first weekend. And Cassie's weird new friendliness stayed put. And Rose was more confused than ever.
Just, whatever the reasons for Cassie's attitude makeover? The important thing was she had invited Rose to join her team. Cassie. Wonder Princess. Soccer mom of the teenaged hero set. Someone who, from all appearances, pretty much had the corner on the Rose-hating market; out of every white hat out there, Rose would have assumed she was the rotting hole in the wood at the bottom of the barrel, as far as people Cassie would voluntarily work with were concerned.
And yet here she was. One of Wonder Girl's elite. Fighting side-by-side with Cassie's best friends and the Titans veterans as if there was never any question that she belonged. She still stepped carefully, still did everything she could to make Bart and Conner keep liking her, keep them in her court so they were right there to reassure away Cassie's inevitable Ravager-doubts. That old, raw fear still flared up from time to time, that certainty that she was going to get thrown out of the tower just for having an unpleasant personality - no longer did she worry about Slade getting his hands on her, she'd love to see Dad try, but the Tower's tech had gotten her close, so close, to finding Mama. To get that close only to be left alone again without her - Rose couldn't bear it. But most of the time? Most of the time, Rose felt safe. Rose felt like she had a home, a real home. They'd fallen into a rhythm, this new team, and Rose was shocked to realize she wasn't missing all the beats.
Sure, she and Cassie still clashed, but: Cassie wanted Rose around. Rose didn't know why, didn't know what had changed or how, not when Cassie's hatred for her had been so opaque, rock-solid swordsteel, for as long as she could remember. But it had given her a family, in a world without Mama, without Wintergreen or Eddie Bloomberg, and that...yeah, that counted for something. For a hell of a lot.
Rose blinked at the sudden heat licking her cheeks as she stepped into the cabin. Cassie was sitting propped up near the fireplace, which was either a very good or a very bad sign, and she was glaring intensely at her communicator.
"Hey," Rose said, approaching carefully. "How are you?"
Cassie glanced up, and then went back to her glaring. "No reception," she grumbled.
"Okay?"
"No reception, no signal, no nothing! Not on the communicator, not on the dummy cell I carry around when I'm Drusilla, and I could've guessed as much because it's CIRCE but it means all I can do is sit here and bite my lips bloody while I break and re-set my own SUPER-DEPOWERED bones and wait around for rescue. This is SO - " Then she descended into a coughing fit, and Rose rushed over to pat her through it.
"Jesus, Wonder Wench," Rose muttered, feeling the shudders wracking Cassie's system even through her own armor. "You set your own bones?"
"Couldn't just...lie there waiting..." Up close, Rose could see just how glassy Cassie's eyes were, how clammy and pale she looked. Shit.
"I was only gone five minutes, princess."
Cassie shrugged sheepishly. And shiveringly. "I wanted to be able to reach my communicator. And move both arms." She craned her head back to peer at Rose. "Was gonna strip off the wet costume, too, but turned out I only had enough strength left to sit here and freak out...I forgot how much being mortal sucked."
Rose snorted. "Sometimes it's hard to believe you ever were." She shook her head. "Okay, well, now your big strong teammate is here to play nursemaid, so if you can stop being so hardcore, just tell me where it hurts and we'll get you fixed up." And Rose could also start cutting Cassie out of those sopping clothes - she couldn't believe she'd left it this long, but she hadn't wanted to jostle Cassie around when her bones were still all fucked up, and she'd really thought there would be a simpler way out of this to fast-paced, Olympus-styled healing...
Oh well. Cassie seemed familiar with Circe; maybe she could give them some insight into how to escape.
"Ribs are definitely bruised," Cassie muttered, "a few of my fingers are probably fractured, but I'll be okay...once we're free and I get my powers back..."
"And what makes you sure we're getting out of here so easily? Up," she maneuvered Cassie out of her water-logged jeans as gently as she could before reaching up to snap off her breastplate.
"It's Circe. There's been some trouble, Diana wouldn't give me the full story, but something with Circe's daughter and Themyscira...Circe has been threatening a hostage situation for a few weeks now, 'my loved one for one of yours'. It's why I took the job, so she'd focus on me instead of any of Diana's non-powered friends."
"Uh, and you didn't think any of this was worth letting us know before you got yourself trapped in a giant snow globe?" Rose angrily threw one of the blankets at Cassie, now sitting there shivering in her underpants.
"No, because if any of you let on that we knew she wanted me as a hostage, that Diana's expecting this and not even rattled, Circe would have found someone else to go after. Come on, Rose, it's not like it would have made a difference, the mission was identical either way - "
"The difference is that you don't trust your own teammates to keep your stupid tactical secrets!" Rose jumped up, started pacing agitatedly. "What the hell, Cassie? How bad at this do you think we are, anyway?"
"I can't believe this. I can't believe you're throwing a tantrum about this." Cassie had pulled the blanket tight around her and was huddling as close to the fireplace as possible, but Rose was done feeling sorry for her. Not that she looked like she wanted any pity. "This is bigger than you and your solipsistic inferiority complex, okay? Circe is a SORCERESS, if you haven't noticed, you don't have to just open up and tell her stuff for her to figure it out, and this is a mission we're on for Wonder Woman herself, so it's kind of seriously important. And - "
"Ooooh, Wonder Woman. I didn't know that when WONDER WOMAN enters the picture your team stops meaning shit - "
"Rose, would you just - "
"No, I won't just!"
"water, Rose, can you let this go for long enough to - " and then Cassie was hacking up blood and Rose was flying up the stairs to see if this place had a working tap, and dammit, why the fuck did Cassie have to be so stubborn, every single fucking minute? Why were they even talking about Circe and teams and missions when she was sick and alone with only Rose and her extravagant lack of medical training for company?
No taps, nothing upstairs but decorations in the windows - figured, the fireplace generated the smoke curling cozily out of the chimney, but what house needed running water, or like, a first aid kit, when its sole purpose was to act as scenery? - and Rose dashed outside instead. Hopefully this magical snow tasted as real as it felt.
Arms full of as much snow as she could pack together, Rose came back inside and knelt beside Cassie, scooping up a handful to let her sip at right away.
Cassie looked grateful, but she also looked freezing, like all the blankets in the world wouldn't be enough to bring the color back to her cheeks. Without really thinking about it, Rose stripped off her own armor and left it hanging over the fireplace next to Cassie's costume, then grabbed the second blanket and shuffled up behind Cassie to share some of her body heat.
They sat like that, Rose just holding Cassie close beneath the blankets, only moving to reach over and feed her more snow, for several long minutes, and Rose had no idea if anything she had done so far was helpful - maybe Cassie "I enjoy snapping my own bones into place" Sandsmark was right to see her team as utterly extraneous - but at least Cassie wasn't coughing much anymore.
"Look," Cassie finally said, breaking the silence. "All I was trying to tell you is just, this thing between Circe and Diana...Diana plans to settle it diplomatically. And she's an even better diplomat than she is warrior, so really, we don't have to do anything but sit and wait. I'm sorry you got sucked into this but we'll be out of here as soon as they're done negotiating."
"Whatever," Rose said, feeling less satisfied than she should have that Cassie obviously felt at least a little bad.
"Um. And. You're right, okay? I tried to do the bulk of this mission singlehandedly because Diana was involved, and she always makes me want to be more than I am. Not because I don't trust you guys. I mean it."
The remaining snow was melting into the carpet, so Rose scooted their whole little bundle to the right, where it was drier. She swallowed, not really sure how to deal with the disconcerting phenomenon that was Cassie acknowledging having made a mistake. "Fine," she finally settled on, eloquently.
She sighed, grinned a little. "So what's so special about Wondy anyway? I mean, we've fought alongside plenty of Leaguers in the past, I didn't know you got so starstruck - "
"Shewasmyfirstcrush."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not repeating that."
"No, no way. You're like the straightest person I've ever met."
"Uh, excuse you!" Cassie punched at Rose weakly, but there was real anger there. "I'd say that's the pot calling the kettle het, but I know better than to make assumptions about people based on what they look like."
Rose flushed guiltily. "Look, I met you when Conner was the only thing on your mind, ever, so it's not like - "
"Or how they act around boys! Wow, Rose, it's so nice to know your shades of gray outlook on life doesn't actually extend to other people's identities."
Rose's face was getting really hot. "Are you telling me - "
"I don't want to talk about this. I shouldn't have brought it up." Cassie slid back against Rose, pressed closer against her. And writhed. "Especially not when we're both practically naked..."
"OKAY alright I get it you've made your point." Rose wasn't going to question why her breath was coming in in such short fast bursts, as if she'd snorted up a whole supply of adrenaline.
"I know. I know," Cassie squirmed. "I'm seriously sick and in pain right now, Circe might let us out of here any second and we don't want to look uncompromising in front of the team, and besides, before we can hook up you probably have to spend a few weeks fighting with yourself to come to terms with your deep-seated, painstakingly repressed attraction to me. But if I give you those few weeks....what do you say?"
Rose's arms were like lead. She wanted to jump away from Cassie, but she didn't want to her to know she was having an effect on her. "Is this your idea of a joke?"
A long pause, in which Rose considered forgetting about the image of restraint, shoving the loyalty to her wounded teammate, and just pummeling the shit out of Cassie or the wall or something, and then Cassie answered: "Ok, it is highly possible that I'm a little delirious right now."
Rose wanted to scream.
"But even if most of this would never have come out any other way...or at least not like this, I mean usually I'm waaay smoother, just ask Georgia..." A weird giggle-cough, and Rose was ready to crawl out of her own skin. "...No, Rose. This isn't a joke to me. Even when all I could think about was how much I wanted you out of my life, you were never, ever a joke to me."
Rose watched her suspiciously.
"See, lately, I'm just. I'm finally comfortable with who I am again, you know?" Cassie was totally oversharing. Oversharing to Rose.
At least now she knew she wasn't lying about the delirium. "Uh..."
"And I think I'm ready to start living again, on my own terms! With...with whoever I choose. If, yknow, they choose me back. So, like. When we get home." Cassie's voice had gotten all freakishly, frantically perky. "If I give you time to fight your 'I HATE HER, I HATE HER NOT' battles. Just...give me a chance?"
"Right." Rose found herself at a complete loss. "Right, whatever."
They sat there in profoundly awkward silence for a while, and Rose considered that Cassie might be wrong; nobody might be coming to get them out, they might be trapped here till she coughed herself dead.
And it was then that the full ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She was trapped inside a magical frozen toy, with a feverish Wonder Girl, formerly her arch-rival, who had just propositioned Rose and poured her heart out to her in the space of like, a minute.
Things had gotten weird, in her time with the Titans, but this had to be some kind of record.
Sighing, Rose settled back against the hearth, and drew Cassie, who had gotten all stiff and hunched in, back up under her chin.
"Let's just keep you conscious for now, and call it a day, okay?"
Rose could feel Cassie's tired smile against her neck. "Sure. Sure thing."
"And princess?"
"Mmm?"
"You honestly have the saddest timing out of anyone I've ever met."
Cassie laughed, and relaxed into Rose's arms.
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Date: 2011-01-05 01:45 pm (UTC)LIKE YOU. <3
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Date: 2011-01-05 03:07 pm (UTC)*clings to you don't leave nooo*
Date: 2011-01-05 04:44 pm (UTC)AHHHHHHHHHH
AHHHH THIS IS PERFECT
What I mean to say is that I haven't enjoyed a comics fic in AGES as much as I enjoyed this one. You've got a voice for Rose that not only reads beautifully but also makes me enjoy reading her, hair-trigger temper and all, because you've also given her introspection and something even approaching gentleness in how she feels about people.
Not to mention how you've totally made me fall back in love with Cassie again due to Rose's starstruck descriptions of her.
BEST EVER and now I'm going to totally double down and write this Titangirls fic I've been threatening to write for ages because you've inspired me. I am so full of glee and hearts right now, I can't even.
Re: *clings to you don't leave nooo*
Date: 2011-01-05 06:23 pm (UTC)AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH RIGHT BACK AT YOU omg omg omg best news I've heard all day
And, hahaha, my friend and I were JUST discussing how like, getting attached to Rose and starting to identify with her has made us fall in love with Cassie EVEN HARDER because we start picturing her through Rose's eyes and she's just the strongest dreamiest most intimidatingly untouchable girl ever. (And of course we know what Rose doesn't, that Cassie really does have her gaping fair share of vulnerabilities and insecurities and massive life-halting areas of confusion, so I super-identify with Cassie too. Just. Now I superidentify with her in YJ/WW while simultaneously super *________*ing at her in TTV3, lololol ty Rosevision.)
ANYWAY <3333 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING you are actually someone who, like gloss, I pretty much expected NOT to read this because WILSONS HELLO so it means a lot that you gave it a try at ALL, and I'm so glad you liked it since you are someone who is as overinvested in Cassie as I am and in my HEAD this was as much a love letter to her as to Rose, even if it um came out less that way in the execution, haha.
:D :D :D!
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Date: 2011-01-07 03:40 pm (UTC)MONA THIS IS THE BEST. omg I want to leave you the long gushy rambly feedback this deserves but I am too sleepy at the moment to make much sense (I didn't see this at first because I've been shamefully hiding from my rlist - THANK YOU FOR POSTING ON TUMBLR ABOUT IT!!!! - but I needed to tell you IMMEDIATELY how lovely it is rather than wait for a more coherent time) but seriously, seriously, this is perfect. Your Rose voice is wonderful and makes me adore Cassie EVEN MORE thanks to seeing her through Rose's eyes, and all of it, both of them, feels so real and tangible and it makes me miss the Titans in a way I haven't in quiiite a while. Long story short: this is the best, you are the best, I cannot express how much I loved this in words. <3333
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Date: 2011-01-24 07:50 am (UTC)but nonetheless, have a verrrrrrry belated thank you!!!! Thank you for reading and for feedbacking (esp. when I know how tough it is to comment AT ALL ahhh), and thank you for using that sexy icon. <3 <3 <3