accomplishedAuthor:
__marceloE-Mail: mrinesi@fibertel.com.ar
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing: Tim Drake (Robin III)/Cassandra Cain (Batgirl III)
Spoilers: All DC storylines to the present.
Notes: Huge thanks to
calliopes_pen (who said somebody had to write this), brown_betty, smittywing, and jarodrussell. They are the best betas anybody could want. Tim Drake, Robin III. Cassandra Cain, Batgirl III.
For those not familiar with the characters, there's a risk of dismissing them not only as sidekicks, but as rehashings of sidekicks. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are key pieces of the overall Gotham mythos, and their relationship, both romantic and otherwise, is arguably one of the major factors that will influence the future of the Batman legacy.
They are also the most adorably matching potential couple in the DC Universe, a pairing that grows on you as you get to know the characters. So let's start with
Tim Drake
While The Editorial Powers That Be have done much to try and give Tim Drake a conventional motivation to wear the Robin suit, one rooted on personal tragedy and the loss of (several) loved ones, this is but a late addition to his story. In truth, one of the keys to understanding Tim Drake is the fact that nobody and nothing forced him to become Robin.
Unlike Dick Grayson, he didn't have a personal tragedy to sublimate/avenge, and unlike both Dick and Jason, he wasn't living under Bruce Wayne's roof. He did not, in fact, particularly *want* to be Robin. Having discovered as a boy -by a combination of luck and a deductive mind that Batman himself holds as potentially his equal- the identities of Batman and Robin (in the two incarnations that preceded his), he was content to stalk them from the shadows, drawn more by Dick's loss and personality than by anything else. He had been present at the circus the night Dick lost his parents, an event that deeply impressed him. When he later saw on TV a rare footage of Batman and Robin, showing Robin do a quadruple somersault (an exceedingly difficult gymnastic move), he recognized Dick Grayson's movements, and thereby deduced the identity of the Batman. From that moment, he would spend countless hours waiting in Gotham's rooftops for a glimpse of them, and gathering as much information as he could using his remarkable hacking skills.
Imagine that. A lonely boy, physically unremarkable, with a somewhat distant family but without much violence or blood in his past, stalking Batman and Robin out of fascination, a touch of hero-worship, and plain instinct.
While Bruce remade himself as Batman, the children who become Robin tend to become even more like themselves. Even as they adapt to the unwritten strictures of the half mythical role, they enrich it with their own uniqueness. Tim will learn much from Bruce and the rest of the mentors and enemies he'll later encounter, but his nature as Robin has always been a reflection of his inborn personality: his watchfulness, his reliance on his mind over his body, his comfort in stealth, his paradoxical search for connection from a distant point.
He didn't learn any of that as Robin, or to *be* Robin. As much as anything else, he brought these qualities to the Robin persona.
After Jason Todd's death, as he witnessed the psychological deterioration of Batman, Tim decided that Batman needed a Robin, and thus set himself to find him one. When Dick refused to retake his role, Tim took the mantle to himself.
Not because he wanted to. Not because he needed to. Because *Batman* needed somebody to, and Tim was adequate.
In that act we see exposed the basic motivation, the thing driving Tim Drake. As much as Batman is something Bruce Wayne does because he needs to, as much as Nightwing is a manifestation of Dick's emotions and desires, Tim Drake is Robin because he was watching, and he decided it was the necessary thing to do. Time and again his desires will conflict with this role, and time and again he will come back. Not out of love or hate, not because nightmares drive him to, or because he loves the lifestyle, but because somebody has to. And also because he loves his makeshift, unrelated-by-blood family, although the ways in which the Bat-family understand and express love aren't particularly healthy. Love, duty and necessity are not very distinct concepts in his mind.
While the recent, senseless deaths of his father and his girlfriend (Steph, who briefly took over his job as Robin) have drawn a veil of tragedy over his life, this is but a late addition to the complex psyche of a boy who -perhaps more than anyone else in Gotham- wasn't made, but born a Bat.
Cassandra Cain
Cassandra Cain, the third woman to carry the title of Batgirl, represents at some level the zeniths and sacrifices associated with the Bat-Clan. Trained from birth by her father, she is possibly the ablest hand-to-hand fighter on the planet, and her flawless, instinctual reading of body language gives her powers of observation that defy most people's ability to hide the truth, even when they can quite efficiently hide it from themselves. These abilities were gained at the cost of a very difficult and delayed linguistic development, and even as she finally managed to become fairly fluent in her speech, her reading capabilities are at best minimal, and her socialization skills are only now approaching some functional baseline.
And isn't the achievement of seemingly superhuman skill -at the cost of parts of one's soul- an integral feature of the Bat-family? This theme was explicitly addressed in a storyline where Cassandra gained increased verbal skills, at the cost of a huge drop in her fighting abilities. She later regained them, but the essential trade-off is still there: Gotham heroes are defined by their losses as much as by their abilities, and "getting better" often involves losing their edge as crimefighters (numerous storylines involving the Justice League of America, and Batman in particular, support the idea that this concept is central to DC's view of superheroes).
Yet Cass' situation is unique. Her father (although perhaps not her biological father) is David Cain, one of the world's foremost assassins and fighters (he even trained Bruce Wayne during his youth). He trained Cassandra to be the one killer that could replace him; before her eighth year or so, she proved his faith in her abilities was founded by killing her first victim.
The assassination proved so traumatic to the kid that she left her father, to survive for years in poverty and the direst imaginable solitude. She was, of course, too well trained to be harmed by the violence in the streets, but she was devoid of language and social contacts, and she had forfeited the only thing she thought she knew how to do: killing.
It was then that she managed to save James Gordon from her father, revealing herself and her abilities to Barbara Gordon, who -after the Joker's attack had made it impossible for her to continue as Batgirl- had remade herself as the Oracle. Barbara gave her a role as an agent in her exclusive network of operatives, and soon afterward her explicit support for Cassandra to take over the mantle of Batgirl under Batman's auspices.
Being Batgirl, fighting next to Batman and his allies, gave Cassandra the most important of the things she had lost: a way to be herself that she could live with. The means, even, to atone in her own eyes for what she had done.
This is what makes her stand part from the other members of the family: her life as Batgirl is an unqualified improvement over her past life. This is not to say that Barbara, Bruce, Dick or even Tim have come even close to fulfilling any realistic mentoring role to her, outside their crimefighting activities, but the little they have given her is much more than what she had (and much less than she deserves, but Cassandra's sense of self worth is probably too entangled to her role as Batgirl for her to perceive things this way).
Unlike the rest of them, being Batgirl is actually the sane thing to do for Cassandra. If her admiration and nigh-worship for the Bat (*not* Batman or Bruce Wayne, but that unique thing that breathes in all of them) is perhaps exaggerated, it's also true that it's a marked improvement over her last paternal figure, and she -alone among the Bat-family- has found that being Bat need not be an obstacle to human contact, but a place (a personal, ethical, almost spiritual place) from which to be with other people.
As of late, she has been "left" to defend Bludhaven with Robin. Being "left", in their world, involves spectacular secret lairs arranged by Alfred, practically unlimited amounts of money, and so little personal contact that it fell to the girl attending the coffee shop around the corner to help Cass manage her way around the menu. With Steph dead, Bruce, Dick, Tim *and* Barbara too emotionally traumatized to bother checking up on her, and Alfred too busy keeping Bruce marginally sane to do more than pay the occasional pantry restocking visit, Cass' acquaintances can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Amy (Dick's ex-partner in the Bludhaven PD), the girl in the coffee shop, and an slightly disturbing young man that watches over her secret lair and breathes with relief when he sees she has returned safely. Oh, and a dangerous smuggler and gang leader that she proudly refers to as "her first snitch".
This is the current "social support network" of a young teen who can't read and faces nightly the worst of a city that is deemed worse than Gotham. Bruce's early career as Batman comes to mind, but there's a world of difference:
For Cassandra, this is a good thing. She wants this, tries to expand it, is happy this way. Personal contact is not something that she shuns as Bruce does, or something to be endured and managed as Tim does, but a difficult, yet cherished thing.
In a family that has turned bleaker than ever (can you remember the days when Robin was a symbol of hope and light, not only to the people but also to himself?), she's the one whose heart still beats hopefully, this young, lethal Cassandra Cain.
Tim/Cass: Gotham
For the sake of exposition, it's convenient to separate Tim Drake's life as Robin in two parts, separated by the storylines War Games and Identity Crisis. The death of Tim's father during Identity Crisis, as well as that of his girlfriend during War Games, changed him so thoroughly that any analysis of his relationship with Cassandra cannot be applied to both periods simultaneously.
During the early period, the dominant note of their relationship was Tim's marked unease around Batgirl. Her effortless mastery of physical skills resonated strongly against Tim's self-confidence issues. While Tim has never seen Bruce as a father, he sets much psychological store on his role as Robin as a way of being useful to other people, and the incorporation to the family of a practically flawless fighter utterly devoted to The Cause couldn't but unnerve him. Not that a lethal, silent, leather-clad young woman wouldn't be unnerving by herself.
Cass' reaction to Tim was also conflictive. While she couldn't but notice his uneasiness and self-doubts, she was often in a certain sense awed by his analytical, technical and verbal skills. Tim's abilities in those fields are, when not world-class, certainly recognized as potentially so by the best in the "business", and the contrast with her own frustrations with even everyday linguistic tasks made Cass at times uneasy around him. With the morbidly high self-expectations that are so typical of Gotham heroes, each of them saw the other, in some sense, as a clear proof of his or her own "shortcomings".
Needlessly to say, a significant percentage of fandom found the pairing nigh irresistible. To seed the idea, of course, was the tradition behind the Robin/Batgirl pairing - Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon's relationship has long been legendary in the fandom, both for its romantic quality and for its sometimes byzantine complications and unpredictable developments. Aside from this precedent, there was something inherently endearing about the multiple contrasts between them: her self confidence against his doubts, his analytical smarts against her instinctive grace, her devotion to the Bat against his problematic relationship with him. Both extremely capable, physically attractive, and already sharing the unique bonding of being Bats, we all saw them as "just different enough" to make their possible relationship a lively, healthy and enduring one.
Think "Dharma and Greg," just with more martial arts and explosives.
Despite there being a good amount of high quality fanfic in this vein, they never developed a close relationship in canon. Tim started dating Stephanie Brown (first as the Spoiler, then briefly replacing him as Robin), then she died, and shortly afterward his father did. For vague reasons, this prompted both of them to move to Bludhaven, Gotham's smaller, seedier sister city. It had been Nightwing/Dick Grayson's chosen city, but with him hurt or otherwise occupied, Bludhaven became theirs. This began a new phase in their relationship.
Tim/Cass: Bludhaven
Straddling both Robin's and Batgirl's eponymous titles, the "New Blood" storyline chronicled the first days of their presence in Bludhaven. It was a climax of sort in their relationship, involving a half-faked (but also half-real) fight between them that made clear both their mutual respect and their misgivings about each other, and ending (in Batgirl 60), with a shipper's dream scene: Cass dressed Tim's wounds, and then they both had tea on his couch (Tim/Cass fans also appreciated the fact that they were both quite scantly clad).
Sadly, the scene finished with somewhat pointed words and an understanding to "split" to city in a way, defending it each of them separately. Since then, their interactions have been rare, and not particularly poignant.
A shipper's paradox
We are faced thus with a very paradoxical relationship: geography, tradition, their very differences, everything "conspires" to pair Tim and Cassandra (indeed, if this were a sitcom, their eventual relationship would be a given), yet the way in which both characters are changing sets them apart. Cassandra is growing increasingly confident and social both in and out her "job", while Tim has pretty much given up on his civilian persona, and has grown as isolated and unstable a crime-fighter as Batman himself during his "bad" periods. It's exceedingly easy to imagine them beginning a relationship, and at the same time it's clear that we won't see it happen.
Why, then, do we keep shipping them?
- Because hope never dies. Not this year, for sure, but maybe sometime DC will want to balance the lives of their main characters with some undoomed romance and light, right? Technically, it might happen.
- Because shipping is only tangentially related to canon - the fact that Tim and Cass will probably never be a couple in canon (Teen Titans 20 and later, for example, give us clear indicia about that) doesn't change a lot of fan's idea that they would be a good match (in fact, that's probably why it'll never happen). Fics can still be written, shipping meta can still be posted, etc.
- Because their relationship, whether it ever becomes romantic or not, it's still a key factor in the future of Gotham. Keep in mind that -by all indications, and at least until the next timeline-changing event- Tim will be the next Batman. Just as his relationship with Kon-El will be in many ways as pivotal to the DCU as that of Superman and Batman, Tim and Cassandra's relationship will to a degree determinate the legacy of the Batman. Oracle -although a Bat at heart- has grown enough to create her own mythos, and Dick... Well, Dick's behavior, at this moment, is just borderline understandable. When and how he'll get out of his current years-long psychological debacle is still a mystery, as is the direction in which his undeniably huge potential will ultimately express itself. At the moment, Tim and Cassandra are, willingly or not, the heirs designated to the Bat.
Their actions will help shape the future. We shippers hope it will be a relatively happy one in which they are together, both because it'll make for some great stories, and because they would, we honestly believe, make each other happier, better persons. But whether or not this crosses the tiny, abysmal gap between fanfic and canon, they are indubitably a couple to watch.
And there's also why I ship them - which are, partly, the reasons why I entered the DC fandom in the first place. There's something in the idea of "normal" humans outgrowing tragedy and their own limitations, not only to succeed in professional or social terms, but to walk and fight with and against "gods" and "demons," the superheroes and supervillains, that resonates strongly with me. They live in an universe filled with superhumans, but they have proved time and again that human is plenty enough. Their defects are many, their sanity at times questionable, their morals often suspect, but in their complete, instinctive refusal to even consider the idea that there should be anything outside the scope of human possibility, Bruce Wayne and his "family" are an unending source of inspiration for their fandom. Tim's "superpower" has always been his mind - not in the "scientific supergenius" sense, but in his dedication, his tactical abilities, his will, his cunning, his heart. In a real world where challenges require hard work more often that kevlar, there are worse characters to admire, worse standards to aspire to.
I believe that not all love ends in tragedy. That you can find light even in the darkest shadows. I believe that, damn it, sometimes when a good man meets a good woman, they do notice each other, and they do make the relationship work. That passion for your job doesn't preclude the capacity for happiness, and, yes, that the cool, sexy, deadly woman sometimes does end with the work-obsessed, always-worried nerd.
I don't need Tim and Cass to hook up to know any of that. But because I know those things to be true, and because I've come to care about the characters, well, that's why I ship them.
Come, meet them. They are cute, scary, bigger than life and utterly real. You'll like them too, and wish them best.
Recommended Reading
The best starting point I know for newcomers to the DC Universe is brown_betty's post at the newbieguide community. It will give you a list of communities and sites you might want to check out; for meta, reviews and comments about the DC Universe, I know few places better than the
dc_clocktower community. The main Robin title is going through a patch of somewhat generalized fannish displeasure related to its heterodox depicting of Tim's character, but you will find lots of material related to Tim and Cass (pay particular attention to reviews of Batgirl, of course, and Teen Titans, a team book that features Tim quite prominently in most storylines).For all your Tim/Cass needs, the place, as far as I know, is
aj's Themed Response archive of Tim/Cass (and tangentially Tim/Cass) fanfic. Stories in this archive sometimes focus on the lighter, more human side of the characters, and might therefore be a bit surprising if you come from a monotonous diet of Bat-angst. Don't let that fool you, though. Pieces like The Romantic Machinations of Timmy the Elf Who Didn't Want to be a Dentist, and his Faithless Sidekick, Yukon Cassandra are solidly based on Tim and Cass' personalities. The fact that DC Comics seldom publishes this kind of light-hearted romantic story is purely a matter of editorial choice, not a limitation inherent in the characters' nature.Ask any Tim/Cass 'shipper.