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Bruce knew Cass was having a nightmare when her back went stiff under his hand—she was sleeping, curled up against him, and for an hour she had slept restfully. Only the hour, and then her back was stiffening, and Bruce was shaking her awake and shouting, “Cass!” because Cass struck out in her nightmares, and had hurt herself in the past because of it.
But Cass didn’t wake up immediately—naturally, she wouldn’t, because she was exhausted after days of being awake—and then her fist flung out and clocked Bruce with incredible force for her position relative to him, enough force to knock out one of his back molars. He squirmed away from Cass, who managed to land another bruising hit to his ribs before Bruce was out of range. He spat out his tooth, pocketed it, and then managed to wrangle Cass into a hold where he held her close and pinned her arms by her sides while her legs flailed outwards—she was awake now, just panicking, and it took a few minutes of Bruce whispering good morning, sunshine into her ear over and over for her to relax, for her to stop hyperventilating. Bruce was sure his grip was crushing, but Cass didn’t mind—when she had stopped flailing, she twisted in his grip and held him back just as tightly. He felt her fingers scrape his back, wrap in the fabric of his shirt. Desperation, in those shaking hands.
“Bad,” she choked out.
Bruce pressed his cheek into her hair. Blood from his mouth dribbled down, soaking it, but it was better than Cass seeing what she’d accidentally done to his face. She would retreat further—she would disappear on him, she would stay with Barbara for days out of fear of hurting him, and it would take precious time to draw her back out again. Precious time. He needed to calm her down first.
“Water nightmare bad?” Bruce asked.
Water nightmare being, as close as Bruce could discern, nightmares involving drowning, which he believed to be induced by David Cain waterboarding her—horrific, but not out of the question for a man who shot his daughter when he was displeased with her. Not out of the question when Cass’s skin was blighted with scars from gunshot wounds that had stretched as she’d grown, not out of the question when David Cain was a monster in a man’s skin.
Cass made a noise that could only be described as a mewl.
“Worse?”
Cass nodded against him.
Bruce raised a hand to cup the back of her head and held her tightly. “Tell me,” he said.
“Ask,” she said. “He —he asked,” and she stopped, and he felt one of her hands slip between them and tap herself on the chest frantically. Me, me, he asked me, he asked me —after a moment she jerked her neck sharply to the side, and then worked her hand upwards to tap him on the back of the neck.
—to snap your neck.
“Did it,” she choked out. “I did it.”
And it was lucky, stars-aligned-lucky, fate-allowed-lucky, that David Cain was not in the room, or not even on the same half of the Earth—it was luck and luck alone that Bruce could not reach him, because if he could, Bruce would do to him something worse than death.
“It was only a dream,” Bruce said.
She twisted until her face was buried against his chest, and she shuddered with sobs. The strength she shook with was deceiving; all he could hear were tiny, wet gasps, even as she rattled in his arms. Bruce murmured mindlessly to her. He murmured nonsense, mostly, scraps of poems, of plays he’d read, but he kept talking—maybe it would differentiate from her childhood, the sound of a friendly voice. A lonely childhood it must have been, to have never heard a voice who cared for you at all.
"Done," she gasped out. "Done."
"I'm still here.”
She pressed a palm flat against his chest. “No. No. I was done.
I.”
Bruce rested a hand over hers, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles. “Done with?”
“It,” she hissed.
I did it, she had said. The pieces slid together. Something hard and soft like packed snow formed in his throat.
“It doesn’t end,” he said, his thumb stroking her toughened, calloused and scarred knuckles. “You’re not done, and you never will be. The things that Cain forced you to do live with you. Every day you will remember it, and every day you will have to move past it. Sometimes it is easier and sometimes it is harder. Eventually it will be almost always easier. But it is never over.”
There was something like a wail, a sound anyone else would have made when being stabbed—not her, never Cass, who took her hits as silently as the gargoyles that hung from Gotham’s towers took theirs through rain and wind and snow. Bruce cupped her cheeks and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Get dressed,” he whispered, his lips still pressed to her forehead. Don’t let her see, he prayed. Don’t let her see before I have a chance to wash off the blood.
“In.”
“Your best,” he said. Her answer was a giggle, even as miserable and tired as she was, as she must’ve been. She slithered out of his arms and melted into the darkness of the room, and he followed, knowing by instinct rather than by sight where the study was in relation to the den, where the grandfather clock was, the height of the stairs on the Cave’s spiraling descending staircase. They got ready in silence, Cass donning an extra costume Bruce had made for the Cave, where her regular suit was still at the Clocktower with Barbara.
Being in costume with Cass was the constant and subtle awareness of something at the corner of his vision, something primal, something scarcely human. She transformed, in her costume, as he did; her mask was formed into a perpetual ghoulish snarl, and the way she moved became feral, unrestrained. There was so much leashed power in her movements, ordinarily, a practiced, constant awareness of her own ability compared to that of anyone else in the room. Fascinating, and in some deep part of him, terrifying, to see Cass express I am dangerous to you in her every costumed move.
Tonight, Cass was slower than usual—but that was alright. Nightwing and Robin could patrol a quiet Gotham just fine, with Oracle’s help; his plans for Cass tonight were special. She needed something different, tonight.
He used the momentum of his grappling hook to swing himself up on the rooftop of the Kelley Court apartment building. Cass skidded to a halt beside him a moment later.
“We’re here,” he grunted.
Cass was poised, tense, ready for a fight. Bruce raised a fist and let his fingers spread out slowly. You can relax. She grabbed his hand, balled her hand into a fist, and rocked it back and forth against his palm. Yes.
Bruce led her by the hand to the concrete parapet on the edge of the building. “Top floor, now,” he said. “They moved, recently.”
Cass’s gaze on him was heavy. He ignored the questioning look and lowered himself over the building’s edge as far as he could go, and then let himself fall the rest of the way—the fire escape rattled beneath him. He held out his arms to catch Cass, but Cass was crawling down the side of the building like a lizard in the summer.
Bruce smirked. “If only I could watch you pull that routine on some murdering scumbag. It would make my week.”
Cass slid onto the fire escape easily. It shuddered briefly under her weight. She bobbed her head at Bruce, and then shrugged.
“We’re here for someone special,” Bruce said. He leaned forward and knocked on the window, icy with frost.
There was a moment, and then a small, pale face appeared—blurred by the frost—and the window was pushed open just a hair. When it was clear the kid was struggling to open the window, Bruce hooked his fingers underneath and forced it open the rest of the way.
“Thanks,” Daniel Jones said, huffing. “Batman!”
Bruce knelt down, smiling. “How are you, Daniel.”
“M’good. Better now that you’re here. Is that—?”
“Batgirl,” Bruce rumbled. “Batgirl, this is Daniel Jones. He’s a friend of mine.”
Daniel beamed. “You’re my friend, too, Batman.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Cass cautiously knelt down beside Bruce. “Dan-iel,” she said, slowly.
Daniel waved. “That’s me. You know, you’re my favorite. Whenever I see you on TV, you’re so spooky, and cool.”
“Spooky,” she repeated.
“Yeah, exactly! Batman, Batman, did I show you my new dinosaur? He roars an’ everything!”
“I would love to see it,” Bruce said.
Daniel took off into the room, shouting aimlessly as he turned over drawers of toys searching for his dinosaur.
Cass turned to Bruce. “Why,” she said, in a voice like steel.
“Because he’s happy,” Bruce said.
“Why,” Cass said again, stronger. She was angry.
Bruce took her by the hand. “Because he’s happy. Enjoy it. I’ll explain later.”
“Explain what?” Daniel chirped.
“Nothing,” Bruce said. “Tell me about this dinosaur.”
“I named him Nightwing, after Nightwing,” Daniel said. “Sorry, Batgirl. I already named the polar bear Batgirl.”
Cass nodded. “Yes,” she said.
“But if you press this button on Nightwing’s back, he roars,” Daniel said. He demonstrated, and the dinosaur—small, but huge in Daniel’s arms—gave a tinny, electronic yell. “He’s my new favorite. James got him for me. I wasn’t s’pposed to have him ‘til Christmas, but I got him anyway.”
“And how is James,” Bruce said.
“The best,” Daniel said. “He’s the best.”
“Even after two years?”
Daniel nodded solemnly. “Yep. Do you want to play? Batgirl, I can go get Batgirl.”
They played, for a while—Cass spent most of the time watching, not quite understanding, until the very end, where she attacked Bruce’s wooden snake with Batgirl the polar bear, and Daniel shrieked with laughter when Bruce tossed the snake over the side of the railing and used his grappling gun to bring it back. When Bruce could tell Daniel was getting sleepy, he held out his hand for Daniel to shake. Daniel had always appreciated that gesture. Makes me feel like a grown up, he’d said, once.
“You’re happy here, aren’t you, Daniel?” Bruce asked.
“Yeah,” Daniel said. “Why do you always ask that?”
“It’s important to me,” Bruce answered.
Daniel offered his hand to Cass, who shook it maybe a bit too firmly. Daniel’s sleeve slid down, revealing a speckling of cigarette burns, and one of the injuries that had horrified Bruce the most when he’d met Daniel; a circular indention where someone had carved his flesh out of the top of his wrist. Daniel’s movements with that hand were still jerky, still uneven, although Bruce knew he’d been to physical therapy to help improve its motion.
Daniel left and Bruce helped him shut the window. Bruce knocked on the glass and pointed to the lock to remind Daniel to lock it, and the boy did. Then he grappled to the rooftop, Cass following on his heels, her cape flaring out like the wings of a great demon.
Bruce barely had time to turn around before Cass had her hands on his chest and was pushing him away. Bruce nearly tumbled to the ground. “Why,” she snarled. “Why!?”
“The mark on his wrist,” Bruce said, “I know you saw it. I trained you. It’s from his biological mother. She would chain him to the radiator and cut him, just like that, when she felt he’d misbehaved. That’s how I found him. I —expedited his placement with a new home. I visit him every month. It has been a personal joy of mine, to watch this boy go from a child too traumatized to speak, to happy.”
Cass ripped off her mask. There were tears in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks—there were dark circles carved under her eyes, and the red rims there had red rims. “Ex-peh-die-ted,” she said, haltingly.
“Sped up,” Bruce said. “It means sped up. The process of finding a new home is often… a long one. Too long. I greased the wheels.”
“Money,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You will be happy,” Bruce said. “It will take time. But you will recover, and be happy, because it is possible.”
She shook her head.
“Sweetheart, I—”
She held up her hand, and Bruce fell silent. He watched her, a muscle working in her jaw, her brows furrowed, her hair tumbling around her face, and then she said, “I… am. Happy, now. This,” and she traced the symbol of the bat on her own chest, “is happy. But. Nightmares.”
Bruce cupped her face. “You can be happy,” he said, “and hurting. What he did to you can still hurt even if you’re happy, otherwise.”
She turned her face so it was pressed against his palm. “Hate it,” she said.
“It will get better.”
She mumbled nonsense against his hand.
“The only thing you can do,” he said, tilting her head so he could see her eyes, “is the best you can do. If you wake up, every day, and try to be better than you were the day before, I will be happy. You don’t have to succeed. We don’t always succeed.”
Bruce swallowed, remembering; those days after Jason, when he had forgotten. Those days after Jason, where all he could taste was ash, where all he could breathe was smoke, when all he could feel was rage and guilt —my baby, that was my baby, he had all but screamed at the world. He had carved a bloody scour into Gotham’s criminal underworld, punishing the many for the crimes of one man. That was my baby, he’d think, breaking both arms of a murderer. That was my baby, he’d think, with his head pressed against a cold tombstone that read Jason Todd as if to say that was your baby. He had forgotten the most basic of tenets he lived by, he had forgotten the acts that made Batman special to him. Batman became a mask he almost couldn’t bear to wear because of how deeply, how truly, how entirely he had failed it, in those days.
Bruce tapped his chest, where the bat was. He focused on the weight of it, the weight of his cape and cowl, curtailing the memories of the son he’d lost. “Every person alive because of you is one step closer to happy.”
Cass raised her hands and cupped his face. Bruce startled, and then forced himself to relax. “Re—redemption,” she said.
Bruce ran a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face, feeling something tight and hot in his chest. “Redemption,” he said.
Cass leaned into him and cried for a while, after that; he had a feeling it was the emotional overload of the evening, rather than any one thing in particular. He held her, and quoted lines of poetry
—so desperate to prove, that our hearts aren’t alone—
that he could remember, and they sank to the floor of the rooftop in a tangle of limbs. She fell asleep in his arms, a little before dawn, so he held her as the sun rose and let her sleep. The light burned through him, but he let her sleep.