Chapter Text
Cassandra Cain padded down the corridor barefoot, a piece of paper tucked under her arm. Her mind kept drifting back to the rehearsal from earlier that morning, to her ballet instructor's voice about a special performance next Sunday.
Father’s Day.
She lingered just outside the study, listening to Bruce’s voice, low and thoughtful, as he talked to his phone. Not working at the computer in the Cave today. That was rare.
Cassandra pressed her palm to the edge of the doorframe and hesitated.
She wasn’t afraid. Not of him, never him.
But words still didn’t come easily even after a year since she was here.
Bruce had always said he didn’t need her to talk to know what she meant— but this was different. She wanted to ask and let him know.
Her toes curled against the rug. The whisper of her movement caught his attention, and he turned just slightly in his chair, eyes softening when they met hers.
“Cassie,” he said, a greeting and an invitation at once.
She stepped inside, the flyer clutched tight now, arms folded loosely around it like a shield. Bruce’s laptop was open, a case file half-drafted on one screen, a newspaper headline on the other: “Wayne Enterprises Pledges Grant for Gotham’s Youth Ballet Initiative.” She noticed that last part with a flick of her gaze and felt the smallest curl of warmth in her stomach.
“You’re done rehearsing?” he asked, closing the screen and giving her his full attention. His tone wasn’t overly curious or expectant. Just… present.
Cassandra nodded.
“Hard day?”
She shrugged, then shook her head. Then nodded once.
His eyes creased slightly, and he leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap like he had nowhere else to be. “What’s on your mind?”
She shifted from foot to foot, gaze dropping to the carpet. Then she set the paper down carefully on the table and stepped closer. Bruce didn’t speak again, letting the silence be hers.
“Next week,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. It rasped from disuse. “Sunday.”
He nodded.
“Father’s Day,” she added.
Another nod. “Yes.”
He could see she was searching for the words. That they mattered.
Cassandra looked up at him, her expression unreadable to most, but Bruce knew the tilt of her brows, the tension in her shoulders. She was afraid of the answer.
“There’s a recital,” she said, the words tumbling out as if they’d been waiting behind a wall. “At the school. A dance. Just us— girls from advanced class. I’m… performing. I—”
She paused. Bruce leaned in just a little.
“Would you… watch?” she whispered. Her hands clenched at her sides.
She didn’t say, I know you’re busy or You don’t have to. She didn’t give him an out.
But Bruce saw the doubt. The wish, sharp and aching, that he would want to be there.
He almost cried right then and there before masking it with a smile.
It was soft and certain, the kind of smile that reached all the way to his eyes, that held no hesitation.
“Of course I will,” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Cassandra blinked. Then blinked again. She wasn’t sure what she expected. maybe a pause, maybe a promise laced with scheduling or conditions. But her dad didn't even hesitate.
Bruce reached out and gently ruffled her hair. Her chin lifted just slightly in instinct, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips parted in a wide, beaming grin that transformed her whole face.
And then she hugged him with quick, certain, arms tight around his waist as he stood. It wasn’t like the careful hugs she sometimes offered the others, uncertain and practiced. This was immediate and whole.
He held her just as tightly.
“I’ll be there, sweetheart,” he said again into her hair. “You’re incredible. I’m proud of you.”
She buried her face into his chest a moment longer, then stepped back with that same radiant smile. Her eyes were shining, and her spine straightened like something heavy had been lifted.
As she left the room, a little bounce in her step, Bruce turned back to his desk. He pulled up his phone and called his secretary to cancel three meetings that were scheduled at the same time as Cassie's performance.
—————
The next morning began early in Wayne Manor, as it usually did. Alfred’s footsteps down the hall were the metronome of the house, steady and certain. He passed Damian’s door just after six with a tray of hot tea and toast, pausing only briefly when he heard movement from inside.
Damian was already awake. He had been for hours.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, the morning sun barely touching the corners of the room. Titus lay sprawled on the floor nearby, snoring softly. A sketchbook rested open on Damian’s lap, a pencil clutched in his hand, its tip worn down from use.
The page was filled with rough outlines. A portrait of Bruce with a bright smile.
The pencil paused as Damian stared at the figure.
He'd been thinking about it since yesterday. ever since he overheard Cass in the hallway outside the library, rehearsing her words under her breath before she went in to talk to Father. He hadn’t meant to listen. But he hadn’t seen her look that nervous in a long time.
He’d watched the whole thing from the stairs.
And he’d watched the way Father smiled at her, the way she beamed up at him, hugged him tight like she knew he’d always be there.
It had made something settle warm and strange in his chest. Not jealousy. He doesn't do those things.
Father’s Day had never meant much to Damian before. Not when he was younger, trained and tested in the League. Not when “father” was a concept and not a person. But now there were things he wanted that he didn't know how to ask for.
———————
Bruce was in the garden, winding down from his morning run. His hair was damp, and a towel was draped around his shoulders. Damian found him leaning over a rosebush, carefully inspecting a cluster of white blooms with Alfred’s shears nearby.
He paused at the edge of the stone path, watching him for a moment before clearing his throat.
Bruce looked up immediately. “Good morning.”
Damian crossed his arms. “You’re up early.”
A soft smile. “So are you.”
“Tt. I wake up early every day.”
Bruce didn’t argue. He straightened up and let the breeze pass between them. “How’s Titus?”
“He drooled on the rug again.”
Bruce made a face. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Damian almost smiled. Almost.
There was a pause, it felt oddly sacred. Birds chirped distantly in the trees. The roses rustled. Damian’s fingers tightened on his sleeve.
“Father,” he said, abruptly, stepping forward.
Bruce turned toward him fully. “What is it?”
“After Cassandra’s recital,” Damian said slowly, deliberately, like he’d rehearsed it, “I wondered if we could… do something.”
Bruce tilted his head slightly. “Of course. What did you have in mind?”
There was a beat of silence, then:
“The zoo.”
Bruce blinked.
“I want to go to the zoo with you,” Damian said quickly, as if it had been dammed up for hours. “Not with everyone. Just us. For Father’s Day.”
Bruce said nothing at first, expression not changing.
Damian forced his arms tighter across his chest. “We haven’t gone anywhere like that since I was ten. And that wasn’t even real—it was undercover work in Belgium, and there were mercenaries involved, and—”
“I remember,” Bruce said, his voice soft, amused. “You cursed at a peacock 20 minutes straight.”
“He stole my earpiece.”
Now Bruce did smile.
Damian looked away, cheeks a little pink. “I just thought… you always do things for the others. You helped Grayson rebuild his apartment. You go to Todd’s community center events. You’re attending Cassandra’s ballet. I—”
He swallowed.
“I wanted something too.”
Bruce stepped forward and reached out gently, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you asked me,” he said.
Damian looked up at him, wary.
“You’re right,” Bruce said honestly. “We haven’t had time like that in a while. I’d love to go with you to the zoo.”
Damian’s eyes widened slightly. Then narrowed. “promise me you won't get caught up with the press?.”
“We’ll wear hats,” Bruce promised. “And maybe sunglasses.”
Damian snorted. “That never works.”
Bruce leaned down, squeezing his shoulder lightly. “We’ll make it work.”
The silence settled again comfortably. Damian didn’t move, but the weight in his chest had lightened.
He looked up at Bruce with something almost shy, a rare thing for him.
“Thank you.”
Bruce just ruffled his hair the same way he had with Cass yesterday. A soft, brief motion, warm with affection.
——————
The meeting had run late. Again.
Bruce stood at the front steps of the Wayne Enterprises executive tower, tie loosened, jaw set. His phone buzzed in his coat pocket for the fourth time in the last five minutes, but he didn’t look.
He knew who it was.
Cass had texted him that morning a little sun emoji and the words, “See you at theatre?” cass was never one for words but the message carried more weight than a full conversation.
And Damian, stoic as he was, had passed by Bruce’s study the night before and left a zoo pamphlet on his desk.
They’d both been so careful. So quiet in the way they asked for something so simple. His time.
And Bruce had promised them.
He’d made sure his schedule was clear. He’d told Lucius to cancel anything that tried to land on that time slot. But a shareholder had flown in unexpectedly, and suddenly “just five minutes” had turned into an hour and a half of tension and polite grit.
Now he was late.
Not very late if traffic held, if he skipped the press line, if he parked illegally in the staff lot. he could make it before Cass went on stage.
He’d told her he would be there. And he meant it.
She wasn’t one to ask twice. Neither was Damian.
Bruce got into the car with too much urgency in his step. He’d opted not to bring Alfred along, he knew Cass would be more at ease with just her siblings in the seats. This was her night. He was supposed to be just another seat in the dark, watching quietly.
He started the ignition. The low purr of the engine filled the silence, and he glanced once at the small folder tucked beside him on the passenger seat— Damian’s zoo brochure and a handwritten note from Cass she’d left on his desk weeks ago after a sparring session.
“I’ll try harder if you come. I want you to see.”
Bruce’s throat tightened.
The city blurred past the windows. The Gotham skyline stretched dark and heavy as the sun lowered, casting gold and copper through the smog. People crossed intersections in a hurry, headlights gleamed, and the radio crackled in the background, forgotten.
He checked the dashboard clock.
He had just enough time.
Maybe a few minutes to spare.
Bruce exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders.
He could still make this right.
——————
Cass paced backstage, her pointe shoes whispering against the floor as she twisted her fingers behind her back. Her costume was pristine. black and violet silk, her hair tightly coiled into a bun.
Her eyes kept flicking to the side curtain, to the doors, to the time on her phone.
The others were sat in the front row, saving Bruce’s seat with a folded program laid across the cushion.
Everyone was here.
Except him.
Cass glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
He promised.
——————
Bruce turned onto 5th and Narrows, the fastest route to the theater. The streets were slick with rain from earlier, tires hissing against the pavement as he wove through the final stretch of traffic.
He could see the high-rise lights of the Performing Arts Center just ahead. He was almost there. A left turn, a quick jog through the staff entrance, and he’d be in his seat before the curtain even lifted.
He allowed himself to breathe. To ease the grip on the steering wheel.
He wouldn’t miss this.
He wouldn’t break this promise.
The intersection ahead flashed yellow.
He started to accelerate—
And a scream of tires broke the moment.
Headlights. Too close. Too fast.
A delivery truck skidded out of control through the red light, spinning. Bruce had half a second to react. he swerved, slammed the brake, heart leaping into his throat as metal screamed against metal.
Everything went white.
Glass shattered. The world spun.
Pain bloomed across his chest like fire.
And in that fractured second before everything went black, Bruce thought about the promise
Before everything went black.
——————
The lights dimmed.
A hush fell over the audience like a blanket pulled too tightly, smothering the last few whispers and rustles of paper programs. The curtains shifted slightly, still closed, and the stage manager gave the five-minute warning backstage.
Cass stood in the wing, as her eyes flicked once more to the audience. Just enough to confirm that the seat was still empty.
Her breath caught.
Then she nodded to herself. She had known the second she stepped out of the dressing room.
He wasn’t here.
He wasn’t coming.
Her hands curled at her sides, trembling for a heartbeat before she steadied them. This was the role she’d rehearsed for months. Every movement sharpened, every step deliberate. She had chosen this piece. She had chosen it for him.
But the seat was still empty.
———————
In the front row, Damian sat with arms crossed so tightly over his chest it looked painful. The sharp line of his jaw was drawn tight, face filled with a scowl.
Steph leaned closer to whisper, “He’s probably just caught in traffic.”
“He promised, Dami,” she added, quieter now. “You know he wouldn’t miss it if he could help it.”
His gaze didn’t leave the stage. “We said the same thing when he missed Drake’s science fair because of the league meeting.”
Tim, seated on Damian’s other side, glanced down at his phone for the nth time in as many minutes. Still nothing.
Tim set the phone on his knee and rubbed his face with both hands. “Okay,” he muttered, trying to stay calm. “Maybe he got stuck at a meeting. Or his car got held up in street construction. He’ll be here before she goes on.”
“He’s running late tho timmy,” Dick called down gently from the edge of the chair, voice low but hopeful.
Jason was seated next to steph, arms slung over the seat next to him, watching where Cass would be behind the curtains. His foot bounced restlessly, and he kept glancing at the entrance doors, waiting for that familiar broad-shouldered figure to slip through like always. coat a little wrinkled, hair windblown, face carrying that tired but soft look he always saved for them.
He wasn’t showing up.
Something was wrong.
Jason didn’t say it aloud, but the thought itched at the base of his skull like a storm coming in. Bruce had never ghosted them like this without a call.
Cass was due on stage in two minutes.
———————
Backstage, she adjusted her shoe one final time. One of the other dancers offered her a small, reassuring smile. Cass nodded. She was okay. She would be okay.
But still—
The memory came uninvited: Bruce ruffling her hair just days ago. The softness in his smile. The way he said, he'll be there. And Cass had believed him.
She still did.
The music cued. The first beat of her solo began to play, and the lights warmed the stage.
Cass stepped into the spotlight.