It's the curse of being a Wayne. No, not the 'Batman' thing. Cass is fine with that. She loves that, frankly. Not the crime-fighting, not the double life, not the danger or hard work or long nights. Cass would take all of that any day over this. No, the curse of becoming a member of the city's richest family: gala parties.
Nobody likes them. Nobody in the family, anyway. Well, Dick sorta pretends he does, but that isn't fooling Cass for a second. She's seen the shifts in his posture, the smile that doesn't reach the eyes. He hates them too. But Bruce is expected to attend them on the regular, and his wards and children are expected to make the occasional token appearance. He doesn't ask her often; he knows how she feels about them. But it's only fair she take her turn.
She's doing her best, she is. She's trying to put on a smile, trying to appear at-ease. But she's not. She's really really not. The room is crowded with strangers. The quiet, polite chatter is echoing from all angles until it sounds more like a dull roar. There's so many people projecting so many things in every move of their bodies and let's be frank: even rich gala-crowd folk don't all want to be at the gala, don't want to be talking to these other folk, and when Cass can read every little signal of discomfort or displeasure - well. She didn't need to know how many of these people were having affairs, or hated their 'best friends', or whatever the case may be. But she did.
It's overwhelming is what it is, and it's even worse whenever someone tries to talk to her, and she has to struggle through finding her own words and not sounding dumb or saying the wrong thing or forgetting how to talk altogether practically and... it's far too easy for it to just become too much.
So she takes the opening to beeline for the hallway as soon as she spots it. Just to step out for a minute. Just to re-compose herself. Get it together. Get a moment alone.
Except somebody else apparently had the same idea. Whoops.
"Oh, um..." Words again.
