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Wayne Manor's circadian rhythm was somewhat similar to a roulette wheel. When Duke had first moved in, he'd expected that life would happen during the night; after all, everyone who lived here was a nighttime superhero. By the time he moved back out again, he'd realized it was a bit more complicated than that. True, most of the life happened at night, but everyone still had day jobs (or, in Damian's case, day school). They couldn't afford to sleep all day, so the result was a weirdly complicated schedule of naps unique to each person. No matter what time it was, there was always someone awake, and always someone asleep.
So it wasn't that he was surprised to find Cass in the kitchen at 5 AM, not in and of itself; it was how he found her that was surprising.
"Morning," he said at rote, without even really looking at her. He was still groggy himself; he'd only been doing this daytime superhero stuff for a few months, and he still wasn't used to getting up this early. Especially not after training with Batman for almost a year, which very much happened at night. Honestly, it was a miracle Jay hadn't caught him sneaking out yet; it was too early for him to be careful.
So he wasn't really paying attention to Cass at first. Not until she flinched.
His hand paused in the middle of reaching for the coffee pot, and his eyes narrowed. Take in the situation. Thanks to the whole 'being raised as an assassin' thing, Cass couldn't take on a job yet, or go to a regular school. Because of this, her sleep schedule was one of the steadiest in the manor; she simply slept during the day. Her being awake at 5 AM was unusual. But she was here in the kitchen, making herself a piece of toast. Not to mention, she'd been caught off guard and flinched.
Take in the appearance. Dark circles hung underneath her eyes: she was tired. But not just from a lack of sleep; she smelled like sweat and moved slowly, much slower than she would normally allow herself too. As she reached out to pluck her toast from the toaster, Duke noticed two more clues: 1) her knuckles were busted, and 2) her communication wristband was red.
Conclusion: she hadn't slept for at least a day, she'd been working through whatever the reason for that was by relentlessly training without even wrapping her hands, and she felt like absolute trash as a result.
He switched to sign. "Should I leave?"
Cass paused in the middle of biting her boring, plain toast, then shook her head. She moved to sit at the table and winced when her chair scraped across the floor. Sensory overload? Or was it just a bad day? Probably the latter. He wondered if she'd patrolled tonight, or if she'd skipped it for more training.
Since she'd picked a seat with its back to him, he had to move around into her line of vision again. "You should eat something better."
She shrugged and kept eating her toast.
"Do you want cereal?"
Shrug.
"Eggs?"
Shrug.
"I'm making you pancakes."
A nod. Otherwise, she didn't move.
It was quiet. It looked like the rest of Wayne Manor was asleep, or maybe still out on patrol. The only sounds were that of Duke cooking, though he tried to keep the clanging to a minimum. Cass had buried her head into her arms and covered her ears, and stayed in that position until Duke put the pancakes down in front of her.
While he'd waited for the pancakes to cook, he'd taken the liberty of making her some hot cocoa, too, exactly the kind of monstrosity she liked, with whipped cream, mini-marshmallows, smarties, and chili powder, for some reason. He sat it down on the table and shoved it towards her, before making a dramatic flourish towards the pancakes. Cass just stared at them, listlessly.
He straightened up. "You need to eat," he signed. "You'll feel better afterwards."
Cass glared at him, but reached out for a pancake. Duke ate with her. After the first pancake, it was like a dam had broken through. Six more pancakes disappeared onto Cass's plate, and Duke ended up eating only two. Not that he minded. He sipped his own hot chocolate and watched Cass devour her food, before drinking the cocoa in three gigantic gulps.
He put his own cup down. "Better?"
She nodded. Before he could raise his hands to sign again, she held up a finger and got up. A little while later, she returned with her PECS binder. It had some commercially available cards, but most of it were ones that they'd made themselves. With their... let's say 'unique' lives, it was pretty much impossible to find the types of cards they needed. On better days, Cass could communicate in ASL or in English; on really bad days, like this, English confused her too much to be worth it, and although she could understand sign, it was easier to use PECS herself.
She sat back down and pulled out a card with a pitch black thought balloon and the word 'Nightmare' underneath. Then she put down the 'knife' card and the 'wound' card, before finally pulling out a commercial card. 'Father'.
"You had a nightmare about getting stabbed by your father?"
She nodded.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She gave him an irritated look and gestured towards the binder. Duke rolled his eyes.
"It's called being polite, Cass. Was it a memory or just a nightmare?"
She held up one finger. The first one; a memory.
"Is there a reason why he stabbed you, or was he just going for the Father of the Year award?"
She pulled out the 'training' card. Of course it was. 'Training', what a joke. Batman had managed to train him just fine without stabbing him even a little bit.
Cass was staring at her binder, frustrated. The downside of the PECS system was there were only so many cards. Often, what you wanted to say was impossible to communicate.
Cass tapped the 'training' card again, then promptly threw a punch at his face. His reflexes took over and he managed to dodge. Barely.
"So. Was he training your reflexes?" Duke signed, once he'd righted himself. "Also, remind me to make a new card for you."
Cass's grin was way too smug as she nodded.
"And what do you think about that?"
The grin faded. She cocked her head.
"I mean, do you agree it was just training, or was it abuse?"
For a moment, nothing happened. Cass raised a finger, then formed a fist again, then raised two, then formed a fist again. Her brow furrowed, and she shook her fist up and down.
"It's okay if you don't know yet." It really, really wasn't. Duke didn't like to swear, but honestly, what the fuck had David Cain done to her. What the fuck kind of monster took their child and tried to mold her into a weapon. What the fuck.
Still, none of that was Cass's fault, just like it wasn't her fault that she had complicated feelings towards her father. It was normal, or so the google searches he'd done on abuse recovery had told him. She's need time to come to terms with things, and pushing her didn't help at all.
So he signed: "Take your time. Do you want to watch a movie? With the sound off, of course."
She shook her head. Hesitated. Pulled out the 'father' card again, and added the 'mother' card. Then the 'sad' card.
"You're sad about your parents?"
She made a 'go on' symbol.
"...because you... miss them?"
She shook her head, then changed her mind and made the 'so-so' symbol with her hand. She flipped through the binder, and finally settled for pulling out the 'happy' card and putting it over the 'father' and 'mother' one. Then she tapped her own chest.
"You're sad because you aren't a happy family? No, wait. You're sad because you never could have had a happy family."
She nodded. She was barely even looking at him now, as if ashamed of the admission. Duke moved slightly so that he knew for sure she'd be able to see his signs.
"Hey, it's okay, I get it," he signed. "Well, not really. I got lucky, you know? My parents were great. But that was before the Joker got to them."
His hands fell still for a bit while he tried to find the words. "I miss them a lot, even though they're right here. And I'm scared..." again, his hands fell still, before he got the courage to pick them up again. "I'm scared that they'll never recover, and I'll never get them back."
Cass had turned towards him now, and was watching carefully. There was no hint of judgment in her face, and it wasn't that he'd expected it, but still. It was nice. Comforting, to be listened to so carefully, even though he was supposed to be comforting her.
"And I mean, I know it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Me and Jay don't always understand each other, but he loves me, and I love him. And even if I didn't have Jay, I'd still have you guys. So like, I know I'm lucky. I was in the foster system long enough to know that a lot of kids without parents don't have anyone to fall back on, no family to replace them. But I just -" Oh great, his hands were trembling now. Crap. He was supposed to be comforting Cass, not having his own mental breakdown. Way to go, loser.
"Nevermind," he signed, and moved to stand up, but Cass was quicker. She grabbed his arm and made him sit down again. Still grabbing his arm so he couldn't move, she pointed at his chest, and then at herself.
After she let his arm go, he signed: "You too?"
She nodded, and God, it was embarrassing, but that was all he needed to break.
"I just feel so ungrateful," he signed, so fast it must've been difficult to follow, but Cass didn't motion for him to stop, so he continued. "I'm so incredibly lucky, a millionaire superhero took interest in me and trained me, I have a house I can come back to and I never have to worry about food, and I have all these people who love me, and that's way more than a lot of other people can say, but I just -" he balled his fists, then flexed his fingers. "I miss my parents. I just want to be a family with them, not anyone else, them."
Cass nodded, tapped her chest again, then flung herself over the table and into a hug. Her arms squeezed him tight and her face nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder, and he buried his head in her hair. Sweaty as it was, it was comforting, the smell and slippery texture actually grounding, helping him to hold back his tears. Cass was a steady weight in his arms, and he hugged her tighter, as if just holding her could bring his family back.
And in a way, it did. He'd found a new family with her, and with the other Waynes, and with the former Robins, and even with Jay, although they'd really always been family. Messed up as it was, losing his parents had allowed him to join the Robin Collective, to meet Batman and his kids, to bond with Jay.
But he wanted his parents. He wanted nights in front of their crappy TV, he wanted his mother calling him her baby bird, his father pointing out the various architectural flaws in Gotham buildings as a car ride game, he even wanted the evenings spent filtering coupons to see which ones had expired, the weird meals they'd make because they couldn't afford to do groceries. He just wanted his family back, the first one, the original.
Cass had never had any of that. All she'd ever had was Cain's abusive 'training', the streets, and a mom she barely knew. And yet, as her arms tightened around his waist, he thought she felt the same. Maybe she missed her parents too, not the real ones, but the ones that she should've had. The ones who'd have had inside jokes and baby names and family rituals, who'd always have been there for her no matter what, who'd have noticed when she woke up from a nightmare and comforted her.
Neither of them had their parents. But still, as they hugged each other close, they could almost be enough.