Chapter Text
It all started with a driver’s license, a rope, and two empty boxes of firecracker popsicles.
It ended an hour later with a broken arm, a confiscated mustang convertible (with a freshly dented driver’s side door), and a threat to ruin the summer just one day into summer break.
Dick tosses a sympathetic smile and a new box of tissues to Cass as she plugs her bloody nose for the millionth time. Setting Tim’s arm had been the priority, and she’s sure Bruce was more than happy to let her stew and dread whatever consequences he was about to rain down upon her, Duke, and Tim.
“I never should have let Tim convince me to—“ Duke starts for the 800th time before Cass whacks him in the arm.
“Not Tim’s idea. My idea. I drove. My car. Remember?”
Duke heaves a sigh, slumping in the horribly uncomfortable chair of the hospital waiting room. Jason takes this opportunity to scoff. “Yeah, as if B is gonna believe that his 'Perfect Princess Cassie' could have ever come up with a stunt so massively brain dead that it landed two of you three buttheads in the emergency room.”
The glare that Cass gives him could have melted him down into nothing right then and there if she’d had superpowers like the ones in Tim’s comic books. Dick snickers at the two of them, “Jay, you know your ass would have been right there with them if you weren’t such a dork spending your first day of summer in the library.”
Scandalized, Jason shouts, “Summer reading lists are important, and I wanna get mine done ASAP!”
“Kids,” a steely voice starts, and everyone but Cass shrinks down in their chairs, properly chastised for the moment. Bruce comes to stand behind Dick’s chair, and levels a frustrated look at all four of them. “No fighting in my waiting room. Cassandra, let’s go.”
As she follows her father through the emergency room doors, she can hear a quiet “Oooh, someone’s in trouble…” followed by, “He never breaks out the full name for her, she’s so doomed.”
They pass bed after bed of patients before Bruce leads her into a private room occupied by her little brother. Cass pushes past her father to get to Tim, who now sports a bright red cast on his left forearm. He looks up at her with big eyes and she can tell he’s pretty out of it when she gives him a soft kiss on his cheek, then wipes the blood she left with the sleeve of her hoodie. “Don’t worry, Cassie, I’m peachy keen. Right as rain, even. Doctor Bruce-Dad fixed me up reeeeeal pretty,” he slurs, closing his eyes as he continues to mumble things she can no longer decipher until he goes completely quiet.
“End of the bed, sit please, Cass,” Bruce orders softly. She does as she’s told, watching him roll a stool over and sit down right in front of her face. He quietly checks for a concussion, and after finding no sign of one, prods around her very swollen nose. Anyone else would have been crying and hissing at the pressure and tenderness, but Cass stays silent, neither wincing nor moving a muscle as Bruce finishes the exam. “Definitely broken, something I can fix right here, if you’re ready. Does that sound okay?”
Cass nods just once, not shutting her eyes as her father presses his hands on either sides of her face and sets her nose, a fresh torrent of blood cascading down her face, barely caught by the tissues she has clutched in her hand. Her ears are still ringing from the snap of pain, but Cass still refuses to make a sound. “You did good, Cass,” Bruce whispers, handing her an ice pack and patting her hair softly.
Tim gives a quiet whine in his sleep, and after a nod from Bruce, Cass crawls up the bed and tucks herself between Tim and the side of the bed, one hand lazily carding through her little brother’s hair while the other holds the ice pack to her face.
Looking back at their father, Cass needs a tiredness that her brothers might not notice. “Dad, I’m sorry. This wasn’t… supposed to happen. We were just playing. It was my fault. Not Duke’s. Not Timmy’s. Don’t be mad at them. Please.”
Bruce has met her eyes through her whole stilted speech, not interrupting once. After years of speech therapy, they’re lucky to have gotten this far with her speaking ability. Though they both know Cass has more words through sign, her hands are too busy at the moment.
“Cassie, I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at any of you. I may have put too much faith in you, and you broke my trust, but I’m not angry. I’m hurt and disappointed in you three, but I’m not angry.” Suddenly, Cass relaxes, not realizing how tense she had been. She knows what angry fathers are, knows what they can do. Bruce found her in this hospital 8 years ago because she had a father that got too angry too often. “I think we’re all very lucky that the surgery I had was canceled so I could look after you both myself. And we’re certainly lucky that you both weren’t hurt more, and that Duke wasn’t injured as well. I certainly would have no clue how to tell his parents that their fifteen year old son was injured in some joyriding-skateboard-towing accident that my usually careful and responsible daughter was behind. I just don’t understand what you were thinking, Cass. I really don’t.”
Shame washes over her entire being, eyes welling with tears as she finally loses the ability to look Bruce in the eyes. “I don’t, either. I’m just… sorry.”
Another sigh, and the sound of the stool rolling away as her father stands up. “I have another appointment in thirty minutes that I need to prep for. Duke’s mother has already collected him, Alfred will be on his way to pick you all up, and we’ll finish this discussion after dinner. Please keep that ice on, and be gentle with your brother. I’ll send for the boys to keep you company. And, Cassie?” Bruce pleads, forcing her to meet his gaze again, “I love you very much. I’ll see you at home.”
With that, Bruce leaves, and moments later her two older brothers come crashing into their room. She doesn’t even have time to dry her eyes before they notice, and both stop dead in their tracks.
Dick is the first to unfreeze, making his way to Cass’ side and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “You alright, kiddo? Need me to give the old man the good ol’ one-two?” Dick punches the air, and it startles a small laugh out of her. She shakes her head, then leans it on his hand.
“I’m okay. Dad was nice. Just… diss- dissip- um—“
“Disappointed?” Jason offers quietly. Cass nods. “That’s rough. If it makes you feel better, he’s ‘disappointed’ in me and Dickie at least four times a week. Like, I totally get that he’s never disappointed in you because your perfect, and you actually didn’t even do anything except make sure Tiny Tim didn’t end up a massive splat on the road, and—“
“Jay!” Dick snaps, “Not helping,” he motions his head over their sister just to see more tears creeping down her cheeks. “Cassie, you don’t have to take the blame. You can tell B that Duke took your car when you went into 7/11 to get more popsicles, and that when you noticed them gone, you chased them down. You can tell him that you broke your nose catching Timmy when Duke lost control and slid into that dumpster. You can tell him everything, and he won’t be disappointed, and you won’t be in trouble, and you won’t have to feel like this anymore.”
Big, wet eyes meet her eldest brother’s, and she softly asks, “Would you?” Dick’s face pales in shock. “If it was Jay… or me… would you tell?”
In the long silence that follows, Jason answers for him. “No, he wouldn’t. Neither would I, by the way. It’s what big siblings do. It’s just that… Look, you were the youngest for so long, and we only just got Timmy, that it’s weird for us to see you be the big sister. We’re still always gonna look after you, ya know?”
Cass squirms under the heavy gaze of her brothers, catching a glimpse of her snoring bedmate as she avoids their eyes. He looks so young, baby fat still clinging to his cheeks. She remembers finding him in the hospital waiting room one night five months ago as she dropped off Bruce’s dinner. He’d gotten held up by an emergency surgery, and Cass begged Alfred to let her bring a tupperware of pot roast to the hospital so Bruce wouldn’t go hungry.
Tim was sitting in the waiting room, barefoot and clad in strange pajamas. When she came closer to him, the pattern of the pajamas wasn’t the problem at all. It was the shards of glass and the spatter of drying blood that caused the strangeness of it all. She remembers standing him up, brushing the glass off, and pulling her hoodie over his head. She remembers Alfred coming to look for her and finding her cradling thirteen year old Timothy Jackson Drake in her lap on the bench of the waiting room while his gaze was a million miles away.
She’d forgotten all about the tupperware of pot roast by the time the hospital’s social worker came down, followed by Bruce himself, to deliver the news that Tim was the only survivor of the car accident, and that they couldn’t locate any other next of kin to care for him. She remembers carrying him to the car, just like Jason had done for her, and holding him tight until they got home.
“He needs me to help him. He doesn’t know Bruce enough. He could be scared. He should never... be scared again.”
A chair scrapes against the floor as Dick drags it next to the bed, and the mattress dips where Jason sprawls out, laying his head on Tim’s legs. The T.V. turns on and The Magic School Bus softly fills the air until Alfred comes in to announce their release.
They’re having pot roast for dinner.
“A job? Seriously, Cassie, they’re making you get a job?” Tim looks outraged, his face nearly as red as his cast. “Bruce is, like, a total bajillionaire, why the heck do you need’a get a job?”
Cass can hardly contain her laughter. “I need to pay to fix my car. And to learn ress-ponse-ability.”
Tim’s face scrunches up, clearly frustrated. “That’s dumb. What am I gonna do all summer without you? You don’t expect me to be stuck in the library with Jay all summer while he drones on and on about The Hobbit or whatever, do you?”
At that, Cass does laugh. She squishes Tim close, mindful of his arm, and replies, “Just the mornings. Then you both can come see me. I got a job at the Metro-Goth Mall.”
“Really? Heiress Cassandra Wayne, working at the mall, that sounds so bogus. What are you even gonna do there?”
Narrowing her eyes and putting on her most serious face, Cass leans down and whispers, “How do you feel… about ice cream?”