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The battle finished, Bruce led the way to the plane. They’d all arrived separately -- with the Justice League, Titans, Young Justice, and others -- but without a word they all knew they were leaving together. Cass trailed along after Bruce, muscles still thrumming from exertion.
She settled in next to Steph on the plane, Tim on her other side. Steph was practically buzzing with excitement; she’d fought well and she knew it. Cass pulled off her mask and high fived her. Tim leaned his head back and relaxed, the tension that had been radiating off him throughout the battle -- worry for everyone’s safety, concern about leading his friends, fretting about the ankle he’d twinged early in the fight -- melting away as the jet took off.
They were safe -- the threat was gone, the earth safe from destruction, and they were together. One of Cass’s favorite things was seeing how much softer everyone looked when they were together. Sometimes wary, sometimes-- prickly, filled with ragged emotions -- but always safe.
Damian was beside Dick across from them, pulling away as Dick checked him for injuries, loudly narrating his actions to the rest of the plane. That was for Bruce’s benefit -- Cass knew how much they worried for Damian. It radiated constantly from them whenever he was in the field.
“Just bruises and scrapes,” Dick proclaimed proudly, digging into a med kit for bandages to put on the aforementioned scrapes, cheerfully offering Damian the choice between Superman or Wonder Woman bandaids.
Damian scowled, refusing to choose, so Cass chose for him, reaching into a pouch on her utility belt and handing Dick two Batgirl bandaids. Steph had stocked it for her, and it had made Babs smile when she saw Cass decorate her scraped knees and busted knuckles with them.
Jason laughed and snagged the Wonder Woman bandaid for himself to stick on a cut over his eyebrow, using his phone’s selfie mode to apply the bandaid properly. Duke leaned into the frame for a pic, and Steph, unable to resist, threw her arms over both their shoulders, flashing a peace sign as Jason took another pic. No one wore masks; Bruce would call it a security risk, but Cass knew that Babs kept a special folder full of images of them all being silly in costume. Good memories, to counteract the bad.
Damian accepted the Batgirl bandages with minimal grumbling, and Cass patted his head lightly.
“Good fight,” she said, and watched him light up.
Damian flourished under praise, especially from those he knew could better him -- he’d once told her he’d grown up hearing about her, sometimes even being compared to her. She’d known from the angle of his shoulders that he’d never measured up, and it had bothered him until he’d seen her in action. The thought settled oddly within her -- pride in her abilities, that everything she’d gone through had been respected by those who had inflicted it upon her, warring with the knowledge that it hadn’t been worth it, that she deserved more, that Damian had deserved more.
The exhausted silence in the jet was comfortable, as everyone cataloged minor wounds. Tim was pulling off his boot to put a wrap around his ankle, Steph casually picking bits of gravel out of her elbow, where a hard hit had sent her sliding and had given her costume road rash. Dick had stopped fussing over Damian long enough to notice that his leg was bleeding, and Jason -- having already bandaged his only visible wound -- was crouched beside him, squirting antiseptic into the wound with no small amount of glee as Dick winced.
Damian, noticing this, immediately struck, giving Jason a sharp jab in the side intended to make him lose his balance, which he did, leaving him on his ass while Damian snickered. Jason made a face at him, but Cass could tell that he was proud that Damian was acting like a real boy, as they tended to say.
Cass wondered if she acted like a real girl enough.
Duke was rubbing his shoulder, and Cass went to him. “I’ll help?”
Duke nodded, and Cass lifted his arm, moved it, watching for both his reaction and the feel of the muscle and bone under her touch. It wasn’t a bad injury, probably a strain, and she pressed a few likely spots that would ease the pain until he could tend to it. Relief and gratitude radiated from him, and Cass smiled.
Her own injuries were insignificant, a few twinges and pulls that reminded her that she was alive. That she had won.
She moved to the front of the plane, checking on Bruce -- piloting with seeming full attention, though she could see that his attention truly was on his family. It was rare that they were together without true tension. She laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Bruce told her, his voice a soft, comforting rumble. He was telling the truth -- he was sore, and would favor his right side for a few days, but nothing was causing him true pain. Cass squeezed his shoulder, pressed a kiss to the top of one of the bat ears of his cowl, which he still wore. He couldn’t feel it, but the action made him smile, which brought a fizzly sort of happiness to her.
Babs was in the copilot’s seat, feet propped up on the dash and a tablet clutched in her hands. Cass could see that she was sorting through the information from the fight, trying to figure out how to stop a battle like that from happening again. She was always thinking five steps ahead; Babs and Bruce were far more similar than either were willing to admit. Cass could read the lines of Babs’ shoulders and knew that she was fine but worried about something she’d discovered, but Cass thought that it could wait until after everyone had slept and eaten.
That was a lesson she’d learned early: there was always another battle looming in the future, and you had to take moments of peace where you could find them.
She returned back to her seat, dropping lightly beside Steph, who offered her half of the candy bar she was eating. Cass took it happily, especially when Tim protested that Steph hadn’t been willing to share with him. Both their eyes held an undercurrent of teasing-happy-affection.
Steph shrugged, cheerfully unapologetic, while Cass smugly took an extra large bite. Damian, never one to miss an opportunity to mess with Tim, held a hand out and asked Steph for some of her toothrot, please.
Steph broke off another piece and handed it to him, and Damian looked Tim straight in the eye as he shoved the whole thing in his mouth. Jason cackled at Tim’s expression -- Cass loved seeing joy on him, it seemed to lift an invisible weight off his shoulders -- while Dick opened a compartment on the back of his seat and unearthed gummy worms, which he immediately shared with Tim.
“How long have these been in there?” Tim said doubtfully, though he took them anyway.
“I mean, does it matter?” Dick replied with the tone of someone who had no idea how old the candy actually was, taking a handful and tossing the bag to Jason, clearly had no intentions of sharing the rest with anyone. Duke leaned over his shoulder and snagged a few, earning a swat from Jason and a small smile and shake of the head from Bruce when he tried to give him a gummy worm. Babs took it instead, saluting Dick with it before eating.
“Dibs on the aux!” Steph called out as the candy ran out, pulling out her phone and scrolling through her music.
“There is no aux,” Jason pointed out. “I’ve tried so many times to get Bruce to--”
He cut himself off abruptly as music began piping through the speakers cheerfully. Steph stuck her tongue out at Jason and said, “You’re just cranky because I called dibs.”
“That is totally unfair. Bruce, tell her she can’t hijack the speakers with this garbage.”
“She didn’t, I did,” Babs called out from the front.
Jason grumbled, while Cass giggled. In the pilot’s seat, Bruce’s body language showed the rest of the family annoyance and exasperation, but she could see that it was carefully choreographed. Really, he was happy -- happy to be surrounded by his family, relieved that they were unharmed, joyous to hear laughter and bickering.
Content.
Around her, her family continued to throw jabs and jokes at each other, giddy with being alive and well as the adrenaline wore off. Cass ignored the words in favor of what they were actually saying with their bodies -- they were safe, they were happy, they were at home with each other.
She curled up in her seat, knees pressed gently into Steph’s side, letting the moment wash over her. When they arrived in Gotham they would go their separate ways, but right now-- right now, things were perfect.