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Cass gulps down water, her thirst refusing to be quenched even as she sits on the floor of the sparring mat, taking a break from her training. Dizziness hides behind her eyelids, black dots dancing in her vision. The fan above her blasts her with cold air, providing minimal relief to her thirst and exhaustion. Her water runs out, Cass frowning at the sight. Did she drink all of that just now? She’s only been down here for half an hour, sweat barely even building on her forehead, yet her water is empty, despite being a fairly large cup. Her stomach twists uncomfortably, likely from the sheer amount of water she just drank. She can hear Damian and Dick talking a little ways away, not loud enough to decipher the words but enough to hear the voices. She stands up, regaining her balance before going across the cave to refill the cup.
“Did you forget to fill it up before ya’ started?” Dick asks when he sees her. Cass shrugs.
“No. Just really thirsty.” She replies. Dick hums.
“Don’t wanna get dehydrated,” he agrees before going back to talk to Damian. Cass beelines towards the training mats, but ends up taking a detour to go to the bathroom. Even though she just went not even half an hour ago. It feels like she has the bladder of a pregnant woman, despite never having been pregnant before. She chalks it up to drinking so much water, even if it feels wrong.
Not even an hour later, she gives up trying to train, after having to refill her bottle yet again and going to the bathroom two more times. She decides she’ll try again tomorrow, hopefully when she won’t be so dehydrated.
~~~
Cass stares at Bruce and Jason, the latter of which arguing about the best way to handle this case while the former is trying to calm Jason down while still implementing his own ideas.
“I’m just saying, if we wait too long we’re going to miss the shipment and they’ll get away!” Jason says, frustration causing his voice to rise. Bruce purses his lips.
“If we run into the warehouse with no precautions, they’re going to get away anyways!” He matches his volume with Jason’s. Cass’s eyes bounce between them. Anger bubbles beneath her skin, mixing with irritation and sadness about what’s going on. She hates seeing them fight, and she knows that it’s inevitable, with how much their personalities clash, but it still isn’t fun to watch.
“I never said that we wouldn’t take proper precautions, I’m just saying that we should stake it out for as long as you want!” By this point, he’s fully yelling and Cass is over it.
“Shut up!” She shouts before Bruce can retort. The cave goes silent, everyone looking at Cass with varying degrees of surprise, shock, and in Jason’s case, irritation. “You are both wrong! Stop fighting! I just,” she sniffles, “the poor kids are so scared and there’s no time to waste and you’re wasting and–” her words become incomprehensible, her family’s gaze turning from confused and surprised to concerned and worried. She wipes away her tears, wondering to herself why she’s so emotional all of the sudden.
~~~
Black Bat stumbles onto a rooftop, panting despite the early hour of the night. They just barely got out to patrol, yet exhaustion already weighs on her shoulders. Red Robin still seems energized, as does Spoiler, but Black Bat wants to crawl in bed and go to sleep already. The other two land beside her on the roof, laughing at one some guy said on the phone while passing them. Black Bat doesn’t quite remember what he said, but she remembers finding it a little humorous, and if she had more energy, she’d be laughing along with them. Instead, she smiles, trusting that they know her well enough to see it even under her mask. She thinks they do.
Batman says something through the comms, she thinks that it’s about an issue near them, given that both Spoiler and Red Robin run off almost immediately, Black Bat taking a moment to process it, lagging behind even when running and grappling as fast as she can. By the time that the other two stop, she feels like she’s about to collapse.
It was just a petty thief trying to steal a woman’s purse, not something that’s even worthy of all three of their attentions. Across the street, though, there seems to be two gangs getting in an altercation. Spoiler whispers something to Red Robin before running to wear the two gangs are arguing. Red Robin stays back, much to Black Bat’s surprise, but she presumes that it has something to do with what Spoiler is about to do. Within seconds, they’re all incapacitated and tied up to a lamp post, and Red Robin has a proud smirk on his face as Spoiler saunters back to them.
“They mentioned something about a larger riot going on in the diamond district, let’s head over there.” Spoiler grins, adrenaline likely still running through her veins. Black Bat starts to follow them, but she’s far too tired to continue.
“I’m going to head home for the night. Tired.” She explains vaguely. Red Robin and Spoiler glance at each other, concern prevalent in their gazes before nodding in sync.
“Get home safely, yeah?” Spoiler puts a gentle hand on Black Bat’s shoulder, the latter of which nodding before turning around in the direction that she knows her home is in.
As soon as she gets home, she groggily changes out of her suit and heads upstairs, nearly falling asleep in the elevator. Alfred greets her once she gets into the main house, clearly concerned with the fact that she’s home at the early time of 11 pm, just barely over an hour from when she left on patrol, but he makes her a cup of tea nonetheless, bidding her a goodnight before returning to whatever it is he does while they’re out playing heroes.
Despite how exhausted she is, she doesn’t manage to actually fall asleep for nearly another 2 hours.
~~~
Cass walks into the family room, hesitance coating her every step as she sees her family holding what looks like an intervention. They’re all sitting on the couch, Bruce in the exact middle with Jason, Dick, and Damian on one side and Tim, Duke, and Stephanie on the other side. Alfred is standing on the edge of the room, as he so often does, but it’s obvious that he wants to be present. Cass stands near the doorway, looking at all of them in confusion.
“What… is this?” She asks, English heavy on her tongue. Bruce takes a breath.
“We are here to talk to you about your… recent developments, if you will. Is there anything that you’d like to tell us before we start?” Bruce asks. Cass shakes her head, still completely lost as to what is going on. Are they holding an intervention? She doesn’t think that she’s done anything recently to warrant an intervention, but maybe it was something she did without realizing?
“No?” She replies, but it’s said more like a question than an answer. Bruce nods seriously.
“Recently, we’ve noticed a few concerning signs from you. You’ve been more emotional than normal, you’re drinking a lot of water and going to the bathroom a lot, and you’ve been a lot more tired. We were wondering if you were,” he pauses, clearly trying to state his question carefully, “pregnant. We believe that you’re pregnant.” He finally gets out. Cass opens her mouth from surprise, confusion, and overall baffledment. She scoffs.
“I am not pregnant.” She states resolutely. Bruce nods.
“I’m sure that it’s easy to think that, but are you certain that you aren’t?” He questions. Cass stares at him, wondering how he has the audacity to ask if she is sure that she isn’t pregnant. She can’t be, it’s frankly not possible. Not only has she never slept with a man, she also thinks that she would know if she was bearing a child. Which she isn’t.
(She can’t be, right?)
“I am sure. This is stupid.” She states factually. Bruce nods.
“I believe you, but if you are, you can tell me.” Cass tries not to point out that he brought the whole family to confront her, but she restrains herself.
“Yeah, nobody is gonna judge.” Stephanie, sweet Stephanie, pipes up, and Cass really wants to kick her for saying that. She doesn’t even try, simply walking out of the room and pretending that they never asked about that.
~~~
Cass stares down at the scale, confusion twisted with worry clouding her thoughts. She shouldn’t be losing weight. She hasn’t been doing anything different, if anything, she’s been less active recently, so she doesn’t get why she would be losing weight. It’s not like she was overweight, if anything, she was a fairly average weight for her age and height, so she’s confused as to why she’s lost almost ten pounds in the last two months. She thinks that Bruce has noticed this, since he’s been a little more careful around her, which irritates her, but also she gets that he’s been trying to be more sensitive since the whole pregnancy thing. She appreciates the sentiment behind it, but she isn’t glass nonetheless.
She rests her hand on her stomach, some sort of comfort to herself, she supposes, but nonetheless, it helps to quell the nausea that she feels churning in her stomach. She doesn’t know why this is happening to her, why she’s feeling the way she is, but she’s so tired of it.
Why can’t her body go back to being normal? Why is everything going so badly in the span of a few weeks?
~~~
Cass sits in the bright white waiting room, Bruce sitting beside her with awkwardness present in his posture. Cass understands, she’s nervous as well, worried about what the results of her test are going to tell her. Someone, the doctor that took her blood a few weeks ago, walks into the waiting room and calls her name, leading her and Bruce into a different room, signalling to them to sit down before she speaks.
“We got the results of your blood tests back,” the doctor starts, “we have confirmed that you are type one diabetic. This means that your pancreas doesn’t quite work as it’s supposed to and–” the rest of her words pass through Cass’ ears in a blur, the girl unable to process what they mean. She knew that this was a possibility, that’s why she took the blood tests, but she didn’t actually think that she was diabetic. It’s what all of her symptoms pointed to, yes, but… she doesn’t want to be different, or have something wrong with her, but this just confirms that she does. They already told her what diabetes was, anyway, back when she took the blood test. She guesses that her doctor is telling her all of this to remind her, but she’d be surprised if anyone could forget something so vital, even if they don’t yet know if they have diabetes. SOme people are forgetful, Cass supposes.
She feels Bruce lead her back to the waiting room, talking to the receptionist and, likely, to confirm her prescription, or whatever one does when talking to a receptionist. Maybe to schedule her next appointment. That seems more likely.
~~~
Bruce places a few items in front of Cass. One is a syringe, another is a weird, square device laid next to a bigger one, akin to an old cell phone. There is also a tiny bottle with a label in the mix. Cass looks up at Bruce, confused.
“This is insulin, and it’s to help with your diabetes.” Bruce explains. He tells her about the dexcom, the square patch that’s connected to the old cell phone, which is actually a glucose monitor. He says that she can do injections, but having an automated pump would probably be easier. Cass agrees, but she’s too overwhelmed to say anything. Bruce shows her how to use them, drawing out some of the insulin and inserting it into the dexcom patch. Cass places the patch on her arm, feeling the needle surpass her skin, the sting going away after a few moments.
She has to do this every ten days for the rest of her life, she realizes. She’s never going to be able to do anything normally ever again, since she’s always going to have to watch her blood sugar whenever she does anything. She’ll never be normal again.