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Cass likes it when Steph comes to visit.
She rarely does anymore, which is upsetting, but Cass can understand why. Cass understands everything that Steph does, which she is pretty certain puts her in a minority.
Of course Cass understands. How could she not? Stephanie Brown, once Batgirl, now Red Hood, forever her best friend. Cass understands because in another world, one that isn’t so far away, Cass is Steph, is everything that Batman berates her for, is everything that she is pushed out from the family for.
So Cass likes it when Steph visits, because somebody has to around here. Ever since Tim moved out, Team Steph has just been her and sometimes Jason. Technically, that does put them in the majority, since the only one anti-Team Steph is Bruce, but Bruce is… Bruce.
His vote hits heavy. Everything about him hits heavy. Most of the time, it makes Cass feel safe.
Today, it just makes her sad.
She and Stepth are sitting in her room now, with the windows thrown open and the sunlight pouring in. Steph looks younger like this, sitting in the sunshine and wearing civillian clothes and letting her hair hang loose.
Cass says, “Sorry. About him.”
Steph smiles at her. “No problemo, Cassie,” she says with a shrug. “Nothing I haven’t come to expect.”
Steph’s easy acceptance makes it worse. Makes it sting more. Cass hates it.
“You shouldn’t have to,” she says. With Steph’s attention on her, she signs hurt. Sometimes the body just says things better.
Steph signs and reclines further onto Cass’ bed. Steph has this amazing power to look natural in any situation, an innate ability to belong. Cass has no such thing, and doesn’t want it, but it’s amazing all the same. Cass remembers seeing Steph again for the first time afterwards. She remembers Steph standing beside the League’s best and brightest. She looked like she belonged then, too.
Steph looks over and asks, “What are you thinking about?”
Cass sighs and puts her chin to her arms. She’s sitting backwards on a chair, leaning on the top of the backrest with her arms crossed.
She doesn’t know how to bring it up. Luckily, with Steph, the best way is the most direct way. Cass thinks they wouldn’t be as close if Steph didn’t see it like that.
“Do you remember the League?” she asks.
Steph snorts. “Of course I remember the League, Cass. Why do you ask?”
Cass taps her finger on the chair. “Was it… were you… how did you feel?”
She has to settle for those words, since she can’t put what she wants to say into proper ones. She doesn’t think that most assassin training is pleasant; she and Damian can both confirm that it’s kind of terrible, but Talia and the rest of the League had always seemed to treat Steph… well. Somewhat.
Steph rolls over onto her belly so she can get a good look at Cass. Cass lets her look. Everybody who has trained under Bruce’s careful eye is eerily perceptive, but Cass feels no fear under the scrutiny of her family. There is nothing she gives unwillingly.
Steph purses her lips and says, “It wasn’t… like you. Or Damian.”
Good. That cannot be anything but good.
Steph continues. “I was… when you come out of the Pit, there’s nothing. The Pit is endless.”
Her eyes flash green, but Cass has trained herself out of flinching at the sight.
“The League gave you something to hold onto?” Cass offers, trying to put it into her own words. She’s been doing this a lot lately, because of the new addition to the household. Dick’s only been here for a bit, and he looks at her—with obvious distrust. Everybody else has learned to translate her, to decipher her meanings even when she does not understand herself. With Dick, she has to meet him in the middle. There is no understanding there, not yet, but she thinks there will be. She thinks he might turn out to be the most perceptive out of everyone in the family.
Steph says, “The League gave me everything. I didn’t know who I was after the Pit. Didn’t know my name, my body, my feelings. Talia gave me routine and purpose and training until I could rediscover my own,”
The implication lies like a shadow under the water. The thought that Steph might not have found herself again. That she would’ve been a face behind a mask in the League forever.
“I am glad,” Cass phrases, “that you were there.”
Steph raises an eyebrow at her in question, but she’s smiling.
Cass smiles back. “If it let you come back here afterwards. I am glad it was not like Damian, or like me. I am glad you’re here now.”
Steph grins at her. “You know,” she says, “You don’t have to make up for your dad being mean to me. I appreciate it, through,”
Cass pouts. “Nobody should be mean to you,” she says. “I will fight everyone who is mean to you,”
Steph laughs now, and she is sixteen again, walking into Wayne Manor with Cass on her tail even though she’s her guest, and Cass has never seen anybody shine so bright. Cass is thirteen and has been pulled out of the darkness; she no longer cannot quite speak, cannot quite function, but something in Steph rendered her speechless all the same.
“That list is extensive and grows by the day, Cassie,” Steph says fondly. “The Red Hood doesn’t make a lot of friends.”
Cass shrugs. Neither does Black Bat. Neither did Batgirl, their shared mantle. “You don’t need friends,” she says. “You have a family.”
Steph’s expression wavers for a bit. It reminds Cass of just how similar they are. A parent is something you can never get away from, and nobody else in this family understands the weight that can be.
Even Damian, who has created his own category of parent issues, does not understand fully. He is a part of Team Evil Parents, but the way Damian feels about Talia, about being an Al Ghul, the mix of pride and regret and fear and betrayal and attachment and negotiation that constantly swirls in him, is unique.
Cass is not in two minds about David Cain. Cass does not agonize or deliberate. She knows that Steph does not either. So while it feels bad to leave Damian alone to stew in his issues, there is nothing that they can do to lift his weight. They can only lift each other’s.
“I don’t think I have that,” Steph says quietly.
Cass shakes her head. “You do,” she says firmly. “Nothing changes that.”
“Not even the legendary Batman?” Steph asks.
“Especially not,” Cass replies. Bruce is everything to her, but this is not his family any longer; it is theirs. Bruce’s pull is a gravitational one, and it drags people in, but it does not repel. You do not leave family. Cass knows this. It simply changes. In meaning, in significance, in size.
Steph does not say anything else. Cass loves silence, but does not like this one. It looms too large in her room. It threatens too much.
She says, “You haven’t met Dick.”
Steph, taken off guard, snort-laughs. “Oh god,” she says, “I don’t know whether that’s a bad euphemism or if that’s a person.
Cass smiles, but she tries not to. Dick doesn’t like the jokes. “A person,” she says. “Latest addition to the family.”
Steph sits up. She looks intruiged. “Nobody told me,”
Steph has been in California for the past two weeks, following up on the scattered traces of a trafficking ring that was operating out of Gotham. Still. Cass should’ve texted. Next time she will text.
“He’s wonderful,” Cass tells Steph. “You’ll like him.”
“Let’s go then,” Steph says with a smile. Not quite full strength. But getting there. “I have to get to him before Bruce starts giving him ideas about me.”
Cass shakes her head while grinning. “Unlikely,” she says. “He doesn’t like to listen to anything anybody says.”
“Oh,” Steph says, and there’s the full smile Cass wanted. “I will like him.”
Cass holds out her hand, and Steph takes it. It’s so Cass can pull Steph to the front and herd her through the mansion, but the contact pleases Cass all the same. She lets Steph take the front and stands behind her, nudging her towards the gym.
Steph strides through the Manor hallways like she belongs here, and the sight makes all the twisted parts of Cass from this morning unravel.
Not like she belongs here, Cass corrects herself. Because she belongs here.