#@doc-squash

Of all in the family, Damian found Cassandra to be the loudest.

When he'd first arrived, he'd expected it to be the ones that never seemed to be at a loss for words, always prattling on about inconsequential matters like Dick, or ready with a quip or comeback for every situation like Steph; but, no. It had been constantly watchful, deceptively quiet Cassandra.

This had perplexed him, at first. How could someone who had silence etched into her very breath still have such a cacophony of sound within her? It was like a flock of tamed birds, echoing in her every step and broiling at her slightest touch, yet, unless you were looking-- really looking--, remaining entirely undetectable.

Her eyes, he thought, gave it away best, full of expression and barren in their sincerities. They were bright spheres of unutterable thoughts, fierce opinions and relentless ideas that she couldn't, or wouldn't, destroy with the direct simplicity of words; thoughts that couldn't be heard, only felt.

The first time he'd seen her dance was the day he'd first met her, the day he'd allowed a bomb to collapse a building and tackled her to the ground, screaming for acceptance. Her eyes were a mystery to him them, sometimes they still were, and yet she'd silenced him with them anyway. She'd been angry, and the few words she'd said scathed just as much as they'd soothed.

"Don't forget what matters. You're alive."

When she'd come down to find him in the Cave, he'd expected her to reprobate, to inform him of the hundred and one faults and mistakes he'd already been repeating endlessly to himself. To talk as if she was his father. Instead, she'd dropped herself lithely down beside him and stared straight ahead as he continued to fill the subterranean arches with tireless scratches of pencil on paper.

Eventually, his barrier had relented and, in that biting way he'd been so prone to, he'd demanded that she just get on with whatever she wanted to say and be done with it. Her head had tilted fractionally to the side, hair spilling over her cheek like scattered pine leaves across the moon's river reflection, and she'd stated, quite plainly, "He says you're a good artist."

It hadn't taken him even a moment to know that she'd been referring to his-- their-- father. He'd realise later on that she'd been placating him, not wanting to distract him with his previous aggravation on bloodlines and biological rights. It also hadn't taken him long to assume she'd been lying.

He'd realise later on that she hadn't.

Damian had scoffed and turned back to his illustrated world, but it had been almost impossible to concentrate with her huge black eyes now trained expectantly on him. She never asked to see them, had simply waited patiently until the back of his knees had collapsed like a folded bridge on the harsh concrete, and the pages revealed themselves.

It was probably one of the few times he'd ever felt nervous displaying his art. He often held himself in appropriately high esteem, especially when it came to his artistic abilities, but, for reasons that he had not yet come to understand, it was important to him that she was impressed. The famous Cassandra Cain, who had lived up to and gone beyond what was foreseen of her, subjugating her biological father's teachings and overcoming the very League she'd been meant to lead. A mirror of his own upbringing, and the obvious choice for comparison to how little he'd achieved.

She hadn't said a word as her eyes studied the scrawls, pupils darting back and forth as they did while reading, excavating the sketches for some unknown, hidden meaning before flicking up to stare silently at him. If he hadn't been watching her equally as closely, he might have mistaken it for mockery, but, somehow, he understood.

"Thank you." It had been a stumbling mutter, clumsy in their lack of use, but they'd been said. She'd smiled warmly at him and leapt to her feet, dashing to the Monitor to pillage one of the many drawers it sat on top of. He recalled asking her what she was doing, and her lifting up a finger. "Wait."

When she'd returned, cradling a pair of satin shoes in her netted fingers, there had been a bounce in her step and a glow in her eyes. They were a simple pair, without trimmings or embellishments, yet she'd treated them as treasured ornaments, tucking her fingers into the box and ironing out the ribbons between her fingers before lacing them together. Readying herself, she'd taken a breath and begun.

There hadn't been a note in the Cave, yet, once Cassandra had taken the first steps, it had felt like there was an entire orchestra at her disposal. It was difficult to describe her motions, abstract, mesmerising and eloquent, each graceful sweep of an arm and lift of a leg leaving a stroke of meaning behind like paint strewn on by a brush. She'd soared over the pebbled floor on winged feet and wove the stagnant air with an undeniable electricity, molding the subterranean labyrinth into her performance theatre.

As she'd spun and dipped across the room with poise and alacrity fitting of how she fought, understanding had begun to dawn. She had, in the only way she truly knew how, painted for him; but rather than colour and fascinations of the mind, she'd shown him the depth of her emotions and the simple joy she'd found in conveying pictures and words to another person who saw the same way she did. She'd shown him connection and, where he'd found judgement and unattainable expectancy, she'd felt prehension and family.

The applause he'd given, though suitable and true, had felt cheap in the wake of her elan, and she'd picked up on that, too. What she hadn't picked up, or rather ignored, however, was his desire to not join her in another performance; which was how Stephanie had returned to find him vehemently protesting his fate as she'd strongholded him into lifts and coaxed him into helping her perfect her saut de chat.

(Somehow, that had lead to a piano being carried into the Cave, and Damian begrudgingly assisting her with her ballet technique every Saturday morning.)

Tonight, Damian was sprawled on the carpeted floor in one of the Manor's living rooms, accompanied only by a crackling fire, the soft purring of Alfred the Cat lounging on the deep maroon Chesterfield, and a plate of barely touched cookies courtesy of Alfred the Grandfather. He'd shifted positions a total of eight times now, moving from lying across the sofa to hanging from the chandelier, all in an attempt to finely detail an appropriate gift, when Cassandra pattered in and stole a cookie.

His head lolled back to glare, accusatory, at her mischievous brown eyes as she took a large bite from the biscuit, catching crumbs in her palm and dropping lissomely beside him, daring him to take it from her. He refused, and turned away, a waft of a sigh escaping him.

Cassandra quirked an eyebrow at him, careful to not glance down at his page-- she never did unless he gave her express permission-- and he shook his head.

"Didn't you have plans?" He signed, not wanting to speak. Tomorrow would be a family day, which often meant that all the procrastinated upon plans and meetings that had been piling up would be taken care of today so as to ensure there were no interruptions.

Dick was out with Barbara, on a presumed official date (different from the impromptu ones they had nearly every day); Jason had to return a library book, which meant he was breaking in and probably spending the night; Tim was having dinner with his stepmother, a complicated relationship from before Damian; and Bruce was, unexpectedly, out shopping with Stephanie. To Damian's knowledge, he sought her help with a present, though why he still trusted her after the Catwoman themed Hello Kitty soft toy for Tim's birthday, Damian would never know.

(Granted, Tim had actually been quite thrilled with it once it was taken off the shelves due to parental concern, but that wasn't the point.)

Cassandra shrugged her shoulders and smiled lopsidedly in response. Her eyes trailed down to her nails, where Steph had helped her paint little black Bat symbols against yellow sheen at her request. The once clearly defined pictures were now chipped and smudged in an obvious attempt at fixing them. Her shoulders rounded, ebbing disappointment and childlike sadness at the loss.

As he'd found before, Cassandra was the most honest of them all, and this little display was no different. He felt his arms seizing up, and he trained his gaze firmly on his unfinished sketch, pencil tapping rhythmically on the floor. Her huge eyes, eyes that brimmed with a swirling life that he'd tried and failed to replicate, turned to him beseechingly and he scuttled a bit backwards, lips pursing, brows dipping.

"I don't work with nail polish."

Cassandra's mouth slanted upwards in a small smile, the same smile she'd given as she'd devoured the biscuit.

"Don't, or can't?"

His eyebrows furrowed a bit deeper, creating harsh contemplative creases in his forehead. It was obvious, more than obvious, what she was trying to do, but Damian found his pride prickling anyway. He snapped his notebook shut.

"Fine. But I'm not copying Brown's pathetic attempt at art."

The acrid smell of alcohol filled the air, Alfred the Cat lifting his head, ears flattened and eyes narrowed, to cast a disparaging look at Damian as he swabbed away the chipped remains of Stephanie's work, his own nose wrinkling. Cassandra rocked back and forth minutely, knees drawn to her chest as a soundless song propelled her motion.

He surveyed the array of colours, sunshine yellow, deep cobalt, violet, black, white, and a sharp robin breast red. Knowing his sister(s), the choice of pigments and the semantics connecting them to the family was intentional. How they had managed to keep one secret identity between them, let alone two, remained a mystery. Beside him, sat his surgical instruments of cotton gauze, toothpicks, and some strange metallic tools with spheres on their tips.

Damian would rather die than admit it, but he was actually rather excited. There wasn't any point in trying to hide it from her, of course, but he did his best to appear impassive regardless.

"What were you working on?"

He picked up the blue polish, watching the hue shimmer and glean iridescence in the warm light. "Nothing important."

That was a lie, and she knew it, too, her fingers playing an impatient rat-a-tat on the floor, but, as he'd expected her to, she didn't press. Cassandra was fairly private about her art, and she respected him when he chose to be about his.

It had to be perfect. All his other siblings, and his father, had received portraits that he was proud of, paintings that captured the vibrance of their laughter or the enigma of their eyes. He knew Cassandra wouldn't have minded one of similar merit, but it simply hadn't felt right to him. They were gentler in their emotions, more contained and subtle in their openness. Trying to paint Cassandra was like trying to sketch a storm while standing in its eye.

He pulled thin strips of evening sky over her cracked nails, forming a hazy image of a star speckled canvas lit by squares of light from a sleepless city in his head.

He'd decided he was going to do Gotham, complete with their family crest waving in the mist on her ring finger. Never mind the fact that this was his first attempt; he would get this right, even if he could not the other.

She watched patiently as he went about his painstaking task, only occasionally curling her fingers or arching her brow to speak to him. "Two layers", "You need to use the clear one now", "Careful, it drips", and on and on. Particular nothings that stirred the silence.

After an eternity and several back cramps later, Damian set back on his heels and scrutinised his handiwork. It was indelicate, lacking in the fine shading and minor refractions of light he had pictured in his head, but it was, in its own way, beautiful and true. Cassandra, for one, was thrilled, her feet swinging from left to right as she impatiently waited for them to dry, lifting her fingers up to blow on them every couple of minutes.

"Stop it," Damian chided, with a raised palm, fighting back a pleased smile, "If the paint shifts, I'm not doing it again."

She stuck her tongue out at him and then, taking advantage of his fear of ruining his hard work, wrestled him into a hug. He made sure to wretch as her lips connected with his forehead, but even he couldn't stop the bubbles of laughter that burst forth when she tickled him once her nails had dried.

"You're as bad as Richard sometimes," he gasped after, as he tried to heave her carelessly sprawled legs off of his torso. It was meant to be an insult of sorts, but she grinned at him, gratified, and he knew she had caught the fondness behind it. Allowing his back to go flat, he stared up at the spots of light bouncing across the ceiling, watching as they blurred from simple bulbs to drifting fireflies that mingled together. From the corner of his eye, he saw the canvas edges of his discarded pages.

"I was trying to draw you," he said suddenly. "It didn't turn out the way I planned for it to."

Cassandra shifted her weight off him, pulling herself into an upright position. He felt her gaze resting on him, and could map the puzzlement in her unseen frown. His lips compressed, twisting in on themselves. Sometimes, words felt as difficult for him as they were for her.

"I wanted you to know that I know why Father chose you. And that I think it a fine choice."

The others had had the liberty of conversation, of explanation and, to an extent, permission of granting the duty to her; but they'd never been one for wasting words. Occasionally, though, words became necessary, even if they only to gave clumsy tangibility to things already known.

She'd reached her page, he heard it in the abrupt pause between turns, and, just like that, he was two years younger, an unsure child trying to live up to a fictional ideal in a cold and damp cave. His stomach was a Gordian knot, and he twisted to look as her fingers traced over the inky charcoal lines.

It was similar to the images he'd done of Dick and Bruce, but it didn't take much scrutiny to recognise the slender frame and the mix of Cassandra's Batgirl costume with the epitomise Batman one. He'd attempted several versions of her: going between a full cowl and one that only shielded her eyes, a cape that was shredded strips of cloth to the usual one that allowed for gliding, gauntlets or bandages. Though likely the least important part of her evolution, Damian wanted it to be right, to fit her the way it never had Dick, in all her controlled wonder and idyllic wishes of hope.

It was a deceptively unprotected sort of costume, the cape kept from fully covering her front by the pauldrons they were attached to. Her cowl, or helmet rather, was a mix of cloth and armour, with plated stitches connecting the two halves. There were many elements taken from her Batgirl costume, but, in a way, he felt she'd always carry Batgirl with her, even after Stephanie had formally claimed the post.

Cassandra's grinned wryly at him, her fingertips going white on the spine.

"Almost perfect."

"Hah. Far from it."

She rolled her eyes, the way she did when she admonished him, and picked up his pencil. Cassandra was no artist, but he always appreciated her cards and doodles. This time, though, he glowed.

On the page, in a small untouched corner, she'd drawn what could only be a Robin hunched over, a wobbly 'Tsk!' written above him. She tapped the figure and drew a line connecting them to the Batman, then to her heart. "Perfect."

His jaw clenched as he turned away from her, ignoring the warm chuckle that illicited, and cleared his throat loudly. "Well." A touch high. "That does not fulfill the requirements of a gift, so you might as well choose something else."

She tilted her head. "Anything?"

He nodded, then almost immediately regretted it as her gaze darted to the glass vials by his side.

The next day brought with it sloppily matching nails and teasing ridicule from his brothers, but that hardly mattered when they, too, had been thrown to the floor and made the subject of Cass's practice. She didn't make a sound throughout it all, yet her glee and affection was clear for all to see, doubly so when their father obligingly fanned out his fingers to her touch. When the time came for her to make her oath, kaleidoscopic colours layered on top of one another and seen all around, her eyes said all that needed to be said, and her heart was a symphony.