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A break from fighting, Bruce had said, with that edge of uncertainty Batman never had. Cassandra doesn’t need a break. She can’t explain, though. It isn’t that she pushes herself to the breaking point like they do. It’s that her breaking point is so much farther away.
She could still go out. Sneaking or not, Batman couldn’t stop her.
But he’d been searching for words, the right words, and he couldn’t find them. She understood that. (She might leave before lunch anyway. Alfred has too many rules about eating. “Table manners.”)
So she sits on the couch with puzzles - Tim’s idea. Sounds come from the kitchen, light clanging and the muffled murmur of Bruce and Alfred - indistinguishable words, comforting even without meaning. She shakes the rubix cube. Tim had told her to turn it until the colors match on each side. She only turned it a few times before deciding that his way is too tedious. Maybe she can break it apart and put it back together.
Before she can decide to throw it, Nightwing - Dick - sweeps into the room. “Hey, Cass.”
“Hi.” She drops the rubix cube on the couch. Puzzles are boring.
“Babs said you were interested in taking dance classes.”
She nods. She’d watched the ballet dancers rehearse in their building. They’d spoken with their bodies. They’d spoken without words and without hurt. She’d wanted to reach out. To respond to the language she could understand.
“How about a practice run?” He offers a hand. The intention is clear and she grins. Much more interesting than puzzles.
She fights because that’s what she knows. Turns it into a dance, and he dips and turns, every strike brushing past him like wind. He doesn’t anticipate her the way she could him, but he moves with the practiced elegance that adjusts to an unrehearsed partner. He doesn’t push back, he takes what she offers, improvising into her movements. It lacks the refinement of ballet, but there is an ease to it. There is a stumble. Clumsy, but easy even so. Like a conversation, she realizes. Casual words strewn together between friends. Meaning without aim.
He is her opposite. His body was born for this. Art and expression. He reshaped it into violence, turned his performance into a fight, because, because, because-
He smiles, moving with intent to spin her, and she acquiesces.
Because it’s part of what he is, what she is. Scrapes and bruises and blood and anger and-
She twists around, spins him outward. He laughs, surprised, but turns into it.
Anger born from hurt. From injustice.
Because someone has to care. To fight.
Love is complicated, but it’s part of who they are.
One last dip and they freeze.
The sound of light clapping. “That was something else.”
Dick’s breaths are deep and full, brimming with the joy of exertion and expression. “Family acts usually are.”
Bruce smiles, soft. His shoulder is pressed to the doorframe, unusually relaxed. If someone strikes, he isn’t ready. “I suppose so. What do you say we move the family act to the kitchen, though?”
Whoops. Stayed too long.
Dick stretches his arms and back, catlike. “Ooh, are you finally granting me permission to dance on the countertops?”
Bruce shakes his head, fond. “You can take that one up with Alfred.”
“Shall we, then, Ms. Cain?”
No escape. She nods and follows him and Bruce into the kitchen.
Eating “polite” is still a pain, but she makes a game out of pulling faces with Tim when Bruce and Alfred aren’t looking, so it isn’t the worst. Dick tries very hard not to smile.