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The first time Peter saw Cassandra, he recognized something familiar in her. It wasn’t her posture—though she was rigid, muscles tense like an animal ready to fight. It wasn’t her gaze—though there was an intensity in her eyes that spoke more of instinct and survival than of thoughts formed into words. It was something deeper. An echo of something he himself had felt for so long that he had almost stopped noticing it.
It was the feeling of being out of place in a world that wasn’t made for them.
Peter didn’t have many memories of his childhood before Gotham. There were fragments of images, shadows of voices he couldn’t name. He remembered hunger, cold, fear. He remembered running, fighting, learning that being faster and stronger meant surviving one more day. He remembered it in a visceral way, the same way Cassandra did. She didn’t quite fit into the Batfamily either. Not because they didn’t love her, but because there were parts of her they simply couldn’t understand.
But Peter could.
At first, talking to Cassandra was difficult—though “talking” had never been the right word. She didn’t use words, not in the traditional sense. Not because she didn’t want to, but because no one had ever taught her to. Her father had raised her with the belief that words were unnecessary, that true language was in movement, in gestures, in the way a body could tell a story without making a sound. And Peter, who still struggled to read and write, who sometimes forgot grammatical structures or found words clumsy in his mouth, understood perfectly what that meant.
There were nights when they would simply sit on the mansion roof, staring at the city. They didn’t need to speak. Sometimes Cassandra would make a slight gesture with her head and Peter would mimic it. Other times Peter would lean a certain way, and she would respond with a subtle nod. A dialogue without words that said more than any conversation could.
The rest of the Batfamily tried their best to include Cassandra, but there were limits to what they could do. Bruce wanted to help her, but his way of doing it was structured, full of expectations about how she should integrate. Tim tried to explain everything to her patiently, but he talked too fast and sometimes assumed she understood more than she actually did. Jason… well, Jason didn’t have much patience, but he didn’t pity her either, which she appreciated. Dick was kind and understanding, but even he grew frustrated when he couldn’t communicate with her.
Peter never got frustrated.
Not because he had more patience, but because he understood how Cassandra felt. He knew what it was like to have people expect you to be something you didn’t know how to be. He knew what it was like when language wasn’t enough.
There was one day in particular when Cassandra disappeared for hours. Bruce was worried, Dick tried tracing her, and Jason said she probably just needed space. Peter was the only one who didn’t go looking for her. Instead, he climbed onto the roof and waited.
And she appeared.
She didn’t say anything when she sat next to him. She didn’t need to. Peter didn’t ask what had happened, but when Cassandra clenched her fists on her knees, he understood she was frustrated. Maybe she’d had a difficult mission. Maybe someone had spoken to her in a way she couldn’t understand. Maybe she was simply tired of trying to fit in.
Peter extended his hand and, without saying a word, gave her a gentle push on the shoulder. Cassandra blinked, surprised, and then pushed him back a little harder. Peter smiled. It became a quiet game, an exchange without words that helped release some of the tension in Cassandra’s shoulders. It wasn’t until she exhaled and relaxed her fists that Peter knew she felt better.
It was in moments like that when Peter understood that, out of everyone in the Batfamily, he was the one who could help Cassandra the most. Not with training, not with strategy, but with the simple understanding that they didn’t need words to understand each other.
Over time, Cassandra became Batgirl and found her own place in Gotham. She learned to read and write, though it was still difficult. She discovered how to navigate the world of words, even if she still preferred physical communication. Peter was there to watch her grow, to help her with the small things the others didn’t notice. Like making sure she understood the jokes in conversations, or reminding her that she could ask for help whenever she needed it.
And Cassandra, in her own way, was there for him too.
When Peter had bad days—when the memories were too confusing or when he felt out of place in Gotham—Cassandra always noticed. She didn’t pressure him to talk, but she stayed close, with the same patience he had shown her that day on the roof.
They didn’t talk about it. They never would. But they knew that, no matter what happened, they would always understand each other.