Chapter Text
“I’m in.”
Cass pulled herself through the tight window towards the back of the bank, unseen.
It was one of those fancy buildings near Downtown Gotham, the kind where the rich guys on Wall Street stored their imaginary money. The kind where all the visitors kept at least five thousand in cash on their person at all times. Which made it the kind of place where thieves arrived in droves.
Cass never quite understood how banks worked. Criminals, on the other hand, were child’s play.
“What are we looking for,” Red Robin asked, his voice loud and clear through the comm in Cass’ ear. He’d still be about a minute or two out, if his previous location was any indicator.
And it’d be a few more minutes for any other backup to arrive, though it wasn’t like they’d need it.
“Two people,” Cass said, scanning the scene below her. “Man and woman. Multiple hostages.”
She counted them off in her head, making sure not to miss anyone. The building was huge, but also very open—it’d be hard for any other robbers to stay out of her line of sight, at this angle.
The man paced up and down the foyer, keeping an eye on the hostages while looking large and intimidating, while the woman threatened a bank teller with a type of long gun Cass couldn’t immediately identify. It wasn’t automatic, at least, which was a good sign.
Eight hostages sat in the center of the room, huddled close together and frightened. The ninth was the teller dealing with the armed woman, shovelling wads of cash into her duffle bag, under the piercing stare of the gun.
“Two robbers, nine hostages,” Cass amended, receiving a sound of approval from Red Robin. “Woman gives orders.”
“Any weapons on them?”
She squinted down at the man for any evidence of a concealed weapon, but he looked pretty clean from this distance. He wore a fitted shirt under a tight vest—a slick and old-timey look. Both man and woman seemed styled and proper, like this was just a detour on the way to a dinner and a show. Very Bonnie and Clyde of them, actually—Cass remembered the names from the movie Duke suggested last week.
But no other weapons.
Cass doubted either was a pro at this, they very likely were just dressed for work and decided to try their luck at a bank robbery on a Tuesday night.
The woman kept her finger hovering over the trigger at all times, and Cass shook her head. Bad finger discipline. That could get someone hurt.
“Bonnie” gestured with it, making huge arm circles as she threatened the teller to move faster, but Cass couldn’t parse out the exact words. Tim had better hurry.
“One gun,” Cass said, while the woman was distracted by her own yelling. “He looks inexperienced.”
“Not too bad,” he grunted, and Cass could hear his harsh landing on a nearby rooftop through the comm. “I’m almost there, did you even want to wait for me or can you handle it on your own?”
“Wait,” she answered cheekily, but at the same time, hoisted herself from the ledge and moved closer to the crowd via barely concealed rafters. The man continued his circle around the eight hostages, staying away from his partner’s wild swings of her weapon. As an afterthought, she added, “Man guards hostages.”
“You know I came all the way from Chinatown for this?” Red Robin joked. “At least tire them out for me before I get there.”
“Left window open,” she laughed. “That is enough.”
And Cass could nearly picture Tim shaking his head at her, even mid-swing of his grapple. “Fine, which one?”
She paused to mentally retrace her steps. Her memory worked fine, but she had to take a second to remember the right words to describe it.
“North side. Thin window at the top.”
“Copy.”
And it was barely two seconds before Cass caught Red Robin’s shadow sweep across the large, east-facing window. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one.
A little girl shrieked as the length of Red’s cape brushed the glass. She curled into her mom’s side and pointed at the now empty window, but the damage had been done.
Bonnie opened fire at the glass.
“Shots fired,” Cass announced into her comm, dropping down onto the bank floor. That was her cue if she ever heard one. “He shot window. No casualties.”
“Yet,” Red Robin grunted. “I’m coming in.”
He flew in from the side window, coming in completely blind.
The hostages scattered along the floor, and the man, “Clyde,” panicked trying to corral them all.
“I have hostages,” Cass said, leaping between them and Clyde. “You take gunman.”
Tim didn’t do what she had expected, and time seemed to slow down.
Instead of immediately shutting down the woman with the gun, Red Robin locked himself into combat with the unarmed man. Sure, he was bulky, but he wasn’t an immediate threat, Cass told him that much. Why make things more difficult?
“Stay down,” she warned the civilians.
They nodded fearfully, but she didn’t have time to deal with heavy emotions while Bonnie was a millisecond away from realizing her partner was cornered by two Bats.
Bonnie’s arm raised.
“Red, down!”
Red Robin yanked himself off the man and dropped to the floor, rolling beside Cass, just as a flurry of bullets sprayed past them and into the ornately decorated concrete wall.
Cass sprang up from under Bonnie and checked the woman off her feet. More bullets rang through the air, these shattering a second and third window near the ceiling. But no one was hurt.
She kicked the gun away from Bonnie’s limp hand and scowled at Red Robin under her mask.
He’d already subdued Clyde, cuffing his thick wrists behind him and sitting him down on the paint chip-lined tile floor. Their work was done for the night, both robbers subdued and civilians free to go, the local cops would handle the rest.
Cass followed Red Robin’s lead, swinging up and out of the building and towards the more familiar, high rise part of Gotham they knew.
But Tim quickly released his line and dropped himself onto a random building in the middle of the Diamond District. They weren’t even halfway home, what was he doing?
She dropped down beside him. “What.”
It was barely a question. Their lack of communication seemed to be a trend for tonight. What happened?
Tim turned and looked at her like tonight was her fault. Hands on his hips, disappointed sneer, words on the tip of his tongue she knew he wouldn’t say.
“What,” she said again, just as flatly.
“I get it, if you’re tired,” he said, in a light voice, like he was talking down to a child. Cass didn’t appreciate his holier-than-thou tone. It didn’t sound right on him, not to her. “I’m tired all the time.”
She took a firm stance, squared her shoulders and shifted her boots in the rooftop gravel. “I am not.”
“Look, if you’re gonna make bad calls, you should just stay home, okay?” he said, like she should know what he’s talking about. “Because that back there? That’s going to get someone killed.”
“What did I do?” The crackle in her earpiece tuned in and out. Someone else was on the line and did not want to be heard. “You do not listen. You act fast.”
“There were already gunshots, someone had to move,” he said, the scowl not leaving his face. If they were at home, around the dinner table, his face would’ve made a hilarious Batman impression. Here, alone in the middle of Gotham, it wasn’t a laughing matter in the slightest. “And you told me the man had the gun.”
“No.” Cass clearly remembered everyone in the room, she remembered taking careful mental notes to relay everything accurately. She might’ve still been a bit new to working with partners, but she wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Not with something as simple as a bank robbery. “I said man was guard. Woman was inexperienced. She had gun.”
“You said there was one gunman, and he looked inexperienced. And immediately after you said the man was guarding the hostages. What was I supposed to think?”
“I explained!” They’re going in circles, talking semantics, all because Tim didn’t want to admit he was wrong for once? “Woman was inexperienced, man was guard. Two people! I described two people!”
“Then say what you mean!”
“I try!”
Did he think that she made mistakes like this on purpose? That she was trying to ruin their patrol? Get people hurt?
She’d been working with Batman for a good while now, she wouldn’t put innocent people in danger on purpose. And Tim should’ve known that.
Cass wasn’t an idiot, she knew what Tim was implying and she knew what she meant to say, but words didn’t always come out perfectly for her. It wasn’t her fault her brain was wired differently.
“I try. So hard.”
She didn’t look at him, instead she put her eyes along the Gotham skyline. She could see the ocean from here. Huge and dark. As dangerous as anything else in Gotham.
Solemnly, she added, “Nobody yells you for depression.”
“I don’t bring my depression out into the field!” Back to the yelling.
Tim bared his teeth—offended and hurt. Cass didn’t mean for it to hurt him, she was stating a fact.
“Bruce benches you.” Another fact.
“Fuck you.”
Cass thought he was about to swing away, but at the last second, he stilled, keeping his back to her as he faced the edge of the roof.
Neither spoke.
“Whatever, yeah,” he said, more calm than before. He raked his hands through his wavy hair, all tangled and knotted from the trip over here. “I get benched sometimes, but who doesn’t? No one can be perfect all the time.”
She didn’t answer. Tim wasn’t expecting her to.
“Maybe you need to get benched more,” he added, staring at the neighboring building.
Her turn: “Maybe.”
They returned to the Batcave in total silence. Awful, uncomfortable, stinging silence.
Usually, traveling in silence with Tim was fun—Cass could enjoy his company without feeling pressured to make conversation, similar to how she could be with Steph. But where Steph filled the empty space with her own voice, Cass knew Tim enjoyed the silence as much as she did. He could get chatty at times, but also needed some times of peace, like her.
This time was anything but.
But she wasn’t about to start of a conversation just because she felt a bit guilty. Tim could apologize first.
He didn’t.
Dick was waiting for them at the Cave entrance, looking not very pleased with the two of them.
“What now?” Tim groaned, voicing Cass’ exact concerns—though sounding much more boyish and young about it than she would have.
“What happened out there?” Dick asked. His face was tight as stone, but Cass knew it was out of worry, not anger.
Tim didn’t seem to get the memo, though.
“Nothing,” he muttered, and attempted to brush past Dick without further interrogation, but that never worked in this house. At Dick’s hand on his bicep, he shoved him back and added, “You’re not Bruce, you don’t have authority over me.”
He stepped back, more of that genuine worry pouring out into his expression, and said, “I’m asking as your concerned brother. Not as Batman.”
They stared each other down for a long moment, Tim giving nothing away with his whited-out, masked eyes, and Dick giving the exact opposite.
Cass doubted they’d notice if she left right now, but that’d only cause problems for later, especially since there was barely a problem now. Leaving would imply guilt. The only thing she was guilty about here was insulting Tim, and that wasn’t anyone else’s business but theirs.
“Miscommunication,” Tim huffed. He kicked a pebble in the driveway. Under his breath, he added, “You were a shitty Batman anyway.”
Dick laughed though, conflict resolved. “Yeah, I bet I was. Cass?”
“You were a good Batman.”
“You know what I meant.”
She did know, and snickered behind a hand.
“Miscommunication,” she repeated, a syllable or two getting stuck in her throat. She wasn’t going to reveal anything more, not when Tim was still clearly frustrated with her. And, if she was being honest, Cass really didn’t want to talk to him for the rest of the night, either.
Dick would make them hug it out. She could wait on that for a few days.
“I’m glad you’re both able to admit it. But that’s not everything,” he said, and Cassandra worried this would happen. “What about the argument you two had on the way home?”
“What—? Ugh, you were listening ?” Tim sounded appalled, violated. “Why are you even here? Don’t you have a day job to get to in a few hours?”
“Would you rather have Bruce come down?”
Tim glared harder, taking it as a threat when Dick didn’t mean it as such. He was too on edge from the gunshots. No one got hurt, but they could’ve—Tim tried to hide it, but he had just as much of a bleeding heart as Dick did.
“Some advice,” Dick started. “So I can tell Bruce I lectured you and not feel like I’m lying.”
“Go ahead,” he said, hanging his head and giving up the fight entirely.
“Just so you both know, neither of you are at fault. You’re not in trouble.” He met both their eyes before continuing. “Cass, if there’s time, ask a teammate to repeat what you said, so you know everyone’s on the same page. Tim, if you don’t have enough information, ask, and don’t jump in without knowing what you’re getting into.”
He paused, grinned, and added, “I mean, who do you think you are, me?”
That got a small chuckle out of Tim. And Cass appreciated the honesty.
“And no more yelling at each other,” Dick added. “There were some low blows in there, and I didn’t stick around to hear everything. Assume everyone’s always trying their best, anything less is an insult to your family. Just keep that in mind.”
“Are you sure this isn’t a Batman lecture?” Tim mumbled. “Because this feels like a Batman lecture.”
“Maybe, but when was the last time Batman did this —” Dick took Tim’s head in the crook of his elbow and ruffled his hair. It only lasted a second before Tim fought back and Dick released him without protest.
With a softer rustle to Cass’ hair, Dick said, “Go to bed, both of you. It’s late.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tim said, but found his way upstairs anyway.
And it wasn’t that late. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet. And they were all adults here, technically.
But Cass shrugged and followed the same path upstairs, bidding Dick goodnight and avoiding the hallway to Tim’s room for now.
It wasn’t until a few nights later, with both of them benched, because life was poetic in that way, that Tim approached her unprompted.
She had an open case file spread across the living room coffee table—technically against the rules, but no one was home and people rarely checked up on what she was reading anyway. Only finding kindergarten-level reading assignments got boring after enough times, people stopped trying to spy on her readings long ago.
Tim lowered a warm mug onto the table, almost making a ring on one of Bruce’s documents. Cass bristled and pulled the pages away from him.
“Is that a case?” he asked. Not accusatory. Curious.
She nodded and settled the papers back down nicely, leaving a space for the mug, a steady flow of steam still rising from its lip.
“Need any help?”
It was then that she realized he had another mug still in his hand. The one on the coffee table was extra.
“Mine?” she asked, nodding at the cup. It looked like tea, though she wasn’t sure what kind based on sight alone.
He nodded back. “It’s all yours.”
Cass accepted the olive branch that it was, and Tim sat beside her on the carpet, craning his neck to read her shaky handwriting.
She tipped the mug back, humming into the steamy ceramic as she took a sip.
White tea. It was nice.
They didn’t talk after that, but they didn’t need to. Tim pointed out small things in the notes every so often, as they made marks up and down the papers. Cass drew arrows and circled details to come back to.
And if the night ended with them passed out on the living room floor, under a mess of fieldwork notes and snack wrappers, no one said anything.
Especially in the morning, when all of their organized chaos disappeared. But Alfred’s conspiratory smile let them know all there was to know.
Everyone had been forgiven.