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The moment the fight ends, Cass jumps up a fire escape to keep watch. The would-be traffickers and drug-runners are knocked out and zip tied on the ground. The handful of girls who hadn’t scattered at the first gunshot have been cornered, and look unhappy about it: Jason and Steph will handle them better. From her perch up above, Cass monitors the area, on alert for more goons, more threats. She observes, scans her allies’ movements, letting her eyes tell her what their words never will.
Steph is favoring her left ankle so slightly she won’t even realize it’s injured. She could just ignore it, walk it off, but Cass will try to make her ice it when they get done tonight. The bicep of her right sleeve is bloody, but not badly so, and she’s using it with only minor hesitation, so it’s only a scratch. She’s moving in a way that means bruised ribs, but not broken. So she’s fine, overall.
Jason is always a little bit harder to read than the civilian Bats: his League training means he hides injuries the same way Damian and Cass do. It’s not the same way Bruce or Tim do, no matter how much Bruce or Tim think they’re unemotional, above their bodies, no matter how much they think they’ve trained the same way.
But Cass is better at seeing what the body says than any of them are at hiding. She can tell that Jason thinks he’s fine. She knows he took a head shot to the neck seam of the helmet. He’s also not hiding the way he’s favoring his left leg quite well enough, not the way he usually would. Together, that’s a bad sign.
“Oracle?” She says, voice soft.
Babs will hear her. Babs is always listening for her voice. Cass doesn’t have to be loud for Babs to hear her.
“Orphan,” Oracle says, crisp and attentive. “Status.”
“Hostiles down. Spoiler and Red Hood are with rescued victims. I’m keeping watch,” Cass says first, because that’s the fastest way to get Babs out of what she thinks of as Batman Alert Mode.
“We’re okay,” she continues. “But Red Hood isn’t hiding a limp. He won’t let either of us help. Divert someone else past his route?”
Babs’ voice has a smile in it when she replies.
“Sneaky,” she says. It’s her approving voice.
Cass is learning her different voices, has been learning her people’s voices gradually. Strangers’ voices are still hard, but she cares more about her people than strangers anyway: she can usually see strangers when she’s dealing with them, and then she’s fine.
Down in the street, a girl’s body language shifts suddenly, and Steph’s confusion starts to change from confusion to anger.
“Yes,” Cass says. “Gotta go, Spoiler looks cranky.”
Babs laughs, and clicks off as Cass drops down into the alley between Steph and the skinny teenager, appearing out of nowhere as an all-black shadow. It’s a testament to how totally weird Gotham is that her masked, bat-eared form makes the girl immediately relax.
“I had this,” Steph grumbles, but her shoulders say thank you.
Jason’s helmet is off. His forehead wrinkles over the domino say worry and the stillness of his fingers say bad memories.
Cass looks at the skinny girl, at the other four, all very young, all too thin. Their bodies say need and scared and determined and lost and they also say get me the fuck out of here except for the one in the back who is looking at Steph with so much adrenaline-fueled lust that it makes the rest hard to see.
“You know about Dr Leslie’s clinic?” Cass asks. Her voice modulator makes her voice sound different. It makes her accent something deeper, less identifiable as Cass Wayne.
The skinny one in front flinches.
“No doctors,” she says. “They cost too much. We ain’t stupid.”
Her frame says fear, her hands say fight.
“It’s free,” Cass says, because she can tell Jason is having a hard time focusing. That means maybe the blow to the head was worse than she thought. “You know about Red Hood?”
One nods.
Her shoulders say hope when she looks at Jason, at Cass, at Steph. So she’s from Gotham for sure. Her peers shift in place, radiating fear, dread, doubt, flee, pain, fatigue.
Cass looks at Steph, and clicks her comm on briefly.
“Oracle,” she subvocalizes. “New plan. Get Hood to Leslie.”
“Spoiler,” Babs says. “Why don’t you suggest that Red Hood walk them to the clinic, stay with them to be sure nothing funny happens. He could even get checked out by Leslie first to demonstrate how it works, if they want.”
Steph grins behind her mask, Cass can tell by how her eyes crinkle up at the edges.
“How about this,” Steph says, locking eyes with the hopeful one, the one who nodded.
Steph doesn’t read people the way Cass does, but she grew up around here, and she’s better at people than some of the other Bats.
“Red Hood can walk you to the clinic, and make sure no funny stuff goes down. You don’t like the look of the doctor? He’ll do a checkup first, show you how it all works.”
Then Steph glances at the horny one, and winks.
“He’s got abs that don’t quit,” she says. “I bet you can make them give him a full physical. Just to see how the process works. You know?”
Behind her, Jason is leaning against the wall and hissing into his comms. His shoulders say fuck off and grudging respect and Babs’ idea, dammit, which is a very specific look that Cass learned recently when Babs and Dick ganged up on him for a prank.
“Thanks,” Cass subvocalizes into her coms, while keeping her eyes on the girls, on the sky, the alley entry.
Babs taps back You’re welcome in their code, the one they worked out back while Cass was still figuring out words, the one they use because nobody else knows it, so it’s better than Morse Code.
“For the love of—” Jason swears, and flings his hands up into the air, shoving away from the wall with a jolt.
One of the girls startles at the gesture, squeaking slightly, silencing herself immediately.
Cass puts herself between all of them and Jason, instinctive, immediate. All five of them settle when she does, because Gotham is weird, weird, weird, but also because Cass’s body says protect and Jason’s says frustration and anger and because Cass is small and Jason is a very large man. (Cass is much, much more dangerous, but these strangers’ bodies don’t know that.)
Almost as soon as Cass has moved, almost before the girl has put a hand over her mouth to muffle her squeak, Jason has his hands up in apology.
“Sorry. It’s not you — disagreement with a friend.” He cocks his head to one side and taps at his ear, like he’s got an earpiece there, in a motion that makes sense to most people, telegraphing meaning clearly. “She’s a little bossy is all. I’ll get you to the clinic, if you’ll feel safe coming with me?”
The girl who squeaked steps forward first.
“It’s really free?” She asks, and she looks at Jason, at Steph.
They’re the Crime Alley vigilantes, after all, not Cass, even if Cass is the one with bat ears. Cass melts back into the shadows, lets the two of them handle it.
“Yeah,” Steph says, “It’s free.” She looks uncertain, lost, longing at the mention of Leslie’s clinic.
Cass thinks she really needs to talk to Leslie, but it must look like Steph is lying, from the outside.
The dubious one coughs, and Cass can see her wavering, the tiny motions that are tipping her from maybe trust to get out of here, getting ready to run. Maybe Jason can see it too.
“If the doc tries to charge you,” Jason says. “I’ll foot the bill. You know I do that, right?”
She glares at him, changing focus.
“And what do you get out of that?” She demands.
“Come on,” Jason says, gesturing for her to step beside him, between him and the buildings. “Let's walk and talk.”
He’s hiding his limp better, now, but he’s a League-trained Gotham vigilante: if it’s still visible, he needs it looked at. Cass watches him, watches everyone, catalogs the scene and makes sure the zip ties around the goons’ wrists are plenty tight just in case the cops take their time showing up.
Steph trails the group on the sidewalk, answering a handful of questions and preventing any stragglers from breaking away. Cass flits across the roofs and keeps an eye out for other trouble.
By the time they get within a block of the clinic Steph has peeled away from the group and Jason has gotten the suspicious one a lot calmer, less skittish, more settled. He looks tense now, all raw edges and open memories. He looks the way he is after nightmares, on the kinds of nights when he and Cass sit across from each other wrapped in blankets and he makes them too much spicy hot chocolate and they absolutely don’t talk about it.
Cass thinks she heard him say my mom and pay it forward and community college and fuck if I know, lady. The girl laughed, sharp and honest, at that one, and that might have been when her spine went a little less sharp, and when Jason’s motions went jagged.
“Not going in?” Cass asks, as Steph hauls herself up onto the roof next to her, even though she already knows the answer. Steph hasn’t gone in, and her back and hips say absolutely not right now. But Cass is trying to use her words.
“Nah,” Steph says. “Let’s wrap this up, we’re almost done for the night.”
“Overtime,” Cass corrects. “Done already.”
Steph pouts, exaggerated, and Cass cocks her head to the side and thinks about what’s left on their route that Steph wants not to miss.
“Ice cream tomorrow,” she says. “Home now.”
“Fine,” Steph agrees, and Cass knows that means she’s admitting her ribs and arm hurt.
They get back to Cass’s second-favorite apartment not too long later, the high-ceilinged warehouse studio conversion that’s close enough to the docks to remind her of home a little bit. Tim and Babs helped set up the shell companies and identities to buy it, and Tim set up security. Cass mostly likes it because sometimes it almost sounds partly right, when ships are coming into the harbor at the dead of night.
Steph unlaces her boots just inside the front door, habit finally kicking in without Cass having to remind her. She leaves them in an untidy heap, but that’s still progress. She leaves a trail of costume pieces behind her as she heads for the first-aid kit.
Cass, whose boots and costume are a bit less of a piecemeal removal operation, watches Steph’s pale skin and new and fading bruises emerge from beneath black and purple fabric and armor while she methodically unlaces and unbuckles her way out of the Orphan suit.
Steph looks comfortable in Cass’s space, motions fluid and unselfconscious in a way she never is in the Batcave, in Wayne Manor, even in Babs’ Tower or in spaces shared on Justice League missions. Cass likes that comfort, that fluidity, that trust.
“Ugh,” Steph says, poking at the gash on her arm. It’s her dominant bicep. Her words say annoyance; her gestures say fatigue. “This one’s gonna be so annoying to dress.”
Inside the door, Cass steps out of her costume, folds it carefully, and makes a note to check it tomorrow — she always runs her hands over all the straps and laces as part of getting out of it, but it’s important to triple-check your gear. She learned that long before Bruce tried to teach her anything.
“Let me,” Cass says, stepping over the pieces of Steph’s costume barefoot, being careful to make noise as she approaches.
Steph looks up with a smile, and her eyes skate over Cass’s briefs and sports bra, utilitarian, black, her slightly rumpled hair. She shifts. Fatigue is still there, but so is interest.
Cass bops her on the nose with one finger: gentle, gentle, gentle.
“Steph, no,” she says.
“Steph, yes!” Steph grins, as Cass knew she would, and nips at her fingertip, arching an eyebrow.
But leaning in like that pulled her ribs, and Cass can see the suppressed pain in the way she stops moving, the way she breathes slower, more carefully.
“Tomorrow,” Cass says. “And ice cream.”
Steph blows a raspberry at her, but she doesn’t object again, just holds out her arm to be sterilized and wrapped. When Cass kneels to look at her ribs, she doesn’t protest.
“Rough night for Jay,” Steph says, and Cass knows they’re probably talking about both Steph and Jay, because the two of them have more in common than they like to admit. “He was talking about his mom — Catherine, not that Sheila bitch — with that girl, on the walk. He doesn’t do that a lot. He’s shook up, I think.”
Steph’s ribs are only bruised, so they’ll just need time.
“Babs sent Tim,” Cass says, and kneels to look at Steph’s ankle.
Steph makes a sound then, and Cass looks up. Steph’s face is crumpled up, but her body says guilt and blame and regret and Cass doesn’t know what to do with all of that, so she just follow’s Babs’ advice, and tries to use her words, the same words everyone else has to rely on.
“They’ll help each other,” Cass says. “Tonight. And I’ll help you?”
Steph looks down at her, and nods, sinking to her knees and pulling Cass into a tight hug.
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
Steph’s hair is still damp when they wake up the next morning, wavy when she takes it out of the french braid she shoved it into after her hasty post-patrol shower.
Cass stretches and goes out for bagels and coffee; Steph grudgingly does homework while Cass works out and checks gear. It’s a good day. It’s gray and overcast, a little chill for the season. But neither of them is injured, no Rogues are loose, and nothing’s actively trying to kill their family, end the world, or destroy the multiverse.
Steph would call that a low bar; Cass calls that a good day.
“Okay,” Steph says, puffing out a few breaths, giving up, and pushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “Ice cream.”
Cass has just finished checking all the buckles on the right side of the Orphan suit, so she’s at a good stopping point. She nods, and gets to her feet.
There’s an ice cream place a few blocks away, but Steph shakes her head, and drags Cass to the closest bodega.
“We’re making sundaes,” she declares.
When they get there, the owner’s grandson is behind the register, behind the pock-marked plexiglass, reading a comic book, bored and resentful, but also impatient. Cass hopes he doesn’t have another plan to get rich quick, get his grandma out of Gotham.
Stephanie grabs sauces and jarred fruit and canned whipped cream and ice cream and bananas and microwave popcorn and — Cass stops looking, because she’ll find out soon enough, and Steph looks excited, familiar, comforted in this store.
Steph takes one bag, gives the other one to Cass — Cass makes a point never to let her companions have both hands encumbered if she can help it.
Steph is already planning her sundae: bananas and vanilla and chocolate ice cream, caramel sauce and chocolate fudge and Reese’s pieces and chocolate chips and whipped cream and cherries and sprinkles, and she’s digging through the bag to see if she remembered miniature M&Ms when Cass spots Tim and Jason around the corner, sitting side by side on a stoop in the shade.
Tim catches her eye, and shakes his head.
Cass takes in the scene in an instant, as if sizing up a combat situation: Jason is slumped, slightly towards Tim, clearly listening to whatever Tim is saying. His shoulders say exhaustion and his leg is stretched out in a way that means he’s injured. He hates other Bats seeing him when he’s hurt. He especially hates it when it’s a surprise, and when he’s not in the mask. That Tim is here, and that Jason clearly wants him to be here, means something. Cass memorizes the lines of them, the way their bodies turn towards each other, as something to think about later.
For now she just nods and winks at Tim.
“Mini M&Ms,” Cass asks. “The small tubes?” This draws Steph’s attention to her, away from the boys.
Cass is happy to be a distraction for Tim’s sake, and for Steph, and for Jason. Everyone wins.
Steph is happy right now, focused on ice cream, on her comfort foods: she did good last night, she helped her people. She’ll be sad if she sees Tim here, if she sees Jason is hurting. Cass doesn’t have the words to fix their friendship, or to make them fix it, but she can’t fix everything.
What she can do is be a distraction, and give them some time.
She holds up the mini M&Ms, and watches Steph’s face break out into a wide grin, listens as she describes a sundae that sounds like a sugar-coma waiting to happen, and also like exactly what Stephanie wants right now.
“Come on,” Cass says, wiggling the tube between her fingers. “Loser has to use big M&Ms”
And she takes off running towards her apartment, absolutely booking it with no warning.
Cass wins the race, but she still lets Steph have the mini M&Ms.
“Have to scare Dick with all the toppings,” Cass tells her, seated on the floor and checking the second half of her suit’s buckles and straps while Steph assembles her sundae. “It’s a team effort. I give you the mini M&Ms, you eat them.”
Steph laughs, and gives Cass a bowl of vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and nothing else, and settles down across from her with a salad bowl, a serving spoon, and a huge grin.
Steph ends up scream-laughing with brain freeze, wheezing so hard she strains her bruised ribs, and whacking Cass with her right arm, maybe re-opening the gash on her bicep. But every line of her says happy, relieved, good day, so Cass will take it.
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