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Banning consumption of alcohol for all his children, even Dick, had proven to be a great success in terms of rules to keep Bruce’s family off the front cover of celebrity gossip magazines.
Of all his sons, Bruce supposed Jason had the biggest right to be outspokenly against the rule; though he was underage, Bruce previously said nothing to one or two empty champagne flutes caught in Jason’s hand. His blind eye was a reward, as Jason was usually tied for ‘best-behaved at events’ with Tim. There were occasionally incidents with Damian that involved Jason and/or Tim, but Damian took issue with everyone, so Bruce couldn’t fault either of them for this. The only member of the family Damian just couldn’t manage to argue with was Cass, who wasn’t even a potential threat to social events, the likes of which she had permission not to attend on account of her tendency to shy away from the public.
Dick, though, was perhaps the guiltiest, as he was the oldest and knew by then that he was to be setting an example for his brothers. Often, though, after far more wine than Bruce had ever had in a night at that age, Dick refereed his brothers’ spats with a contagious laugh. When confronted sober, Dick always blamed it on the alcohol.
Bruce resolved to cut out the middleman. Peace, or as much of it as Damian would allow, followed.
When Cass asked to make her public debut as his daughter — “Want to skip lines at Disney World when Stephanie takes me,” she had reasoned, and Bruce fell victim again to her charm — it was understood that she would be expected to make an appearance at the next gala the manor hosted. She had agreed, however hesitant, to let Steph do her makeup, and allowed Alfred to pin her hair up in a bun.
Cass was arguably Bruce’s best behaved child by way of being mostly nonverbal, ruling out the possibility of offending someone, and being well-versed enough in reading people that she was nearly impossible to offend. Bruce wasn’t worried. He had no reason to, up until Cass vanished halfway through the gala. He ceded himself a sliver of paternal worry then, the way he always allowed when one of his children wasn’t where he expected them to be or where he’d last left them. It was an aftershock from losing Jason that he hadn’t quite managed to shake.
“I mean, she probably couldn’t have gone far,” Tim said. He was leaning against the banister of the main floor’s stairwell. “But she was holding her head the last time I saw her, and I’m worried something might have happened.”
“I’ll find her,” Bruce assured him, a hand reflexively rising to rest on Tim’s shoulder. “If anyone asks then I’ve stepped out to take a call.”
“Got it.” Tim pushed off the banister and fell into step with someone passing by. He launched into conversation with the stranger with a smile that put even Brucie to shame while Bruce climbed the stairs briskly and made his way toward the family wing.
If Cass left of her own volition, she would’ve steered clear of the first floor or the grounds of the manor, both of which were teeming with press. This meant there was nowhere to go but up, and Bruce cautioned an educated guess that her room would be her first choice.
Bruce was passing Damian’s room when the door at the end of the hall, the door to Cass’s room, swung in on itself with a soft squeak. Cass stepped out to investigate, looking surprised to see Bruce making his way to her room. Her hand raised to touch her hair with a lost look, and— no, that wasn’t right, her hair was supposed to be up. It hung just past her ears, curled into messy ringlets from Alfred’s curling iron. It was clearly some sort of sore spot for her, so Bruce didn’t press. Instead, he offered a hand and invited her back to the party.
“Your brother is looking for you,” he said. “Why don’t you come back downstairs?”
She looked hesitant.
“Is something wrong, Cassie?” Bruce asked, feeling something worrisome seed into his stomach.
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. Her curls bounced with the movement. She took Bruce’s hand and let him lead her back to the staircase.
Alfred only looked a little affronted when Cass turned up in the kitchen with frizzy, undone hair, his questions cut short with an imperceptible tilt of the head from Bruce. Dick and Tim found her together, apparently having led a search for her to introduce her to Clark, who really wasn’t supposed to come to these anymore, but was allegedly filling in for Lois.
The rest of the gala went smoothly. It faded into the murk of the other galas he no longer paid mind to.
Bruce recognized the pattern at the next gala, a fundraiser for the Wayne Homes, a series of youth shelters throughout Gotham that Jason had set up with Tim’s help after their reconciliation.
It took Alfred an hour to get everyone ready. Ten minutes of that were spent helping Bruce and the boys tie their ties, and the remainder of the hour was spent on Cass’s hair. It was in another bun tonight, with small strands falling past her jaw to frame her face. She looked beautiful, and Bruce told her as much when he noticed the way her hands fidgeted with the skirt of her dress. She stilled for a moment, then smiled at him and asked if she could join him after he spoke with guests. Naturally, his answer was yes.
But Bruce had finished chatting up the necessary business partners and reporters, and when he scanned the room for Cass to beckon her over, she wasn’t there. He checked the kitchen and the foyer. Not a trace.
He went up the stairs without stopping to talk to anyone and felt eyes on his back as he left the party. He wasn’t concerned about them.
When he finally reached the family wing and knocked on her door, he waited patiently for a response that never came. He pressed inside gently and found no one in her room, her closet, or the adjacent bathroom. Bruce’s stomach sank. He knew the odds of anything bad happening were slim, especially with so many vigilantes and witnesses under one roof, but a heavy fog of worry curled into his chest as easily as breath, and he scrambled to check the rest of the rooms in the hall, coming to the same terrifying conclusion each time. Cass wasn’t in this wing.
He picked up his pace and heard his footsteps echo on the hardwood. “Cass?” he called through the hall, almost frantic now, moving briskly past the various sitting rooms and studies. He stopped in front of the library, knocking before pulling the door open.
Bruce flipped the lights on and did a quick scan of the room. She wasn’t sitting in any of the chairs or at any desks, and he began to move forward through the aisle of bookshelves. He reached the end, a cornered shelf, and found nothing, but the books at the junction had slouched and spilled onto their sides. A small sticker was stuck to the shelf, and with close inspection, Bruce realized it was the sticker from the bottom of someone’s shoe.
He looked up.
Cass stared down at him.
Her heels were snugly clutched between the fingers of her fist, and she was rigid, perched at the top of the cornered bookshelf and pressed back into the corner. Her dress was pulled over her knees, the hem tucked beneath her feet. She looked small.
“Cass,” he said, the relief in his voice palpable. He tilted his head at her. “What are you doing up there, sweetheart?”
She said nothing.
“Why don’t you come down here? Come on.” He reached a hand up for her to take, but knew that if she came down from the bookcase, it would be on her own.
She shook her head, which swayed her whole body. Bruce moved to catch her, but she steadied herself and stilled. “Upset you,” she said quietly.
“You haven’t upset me,” Bruce said. She looked through him. He felt something desperate kick up in his chest. “I’m not upset. But I’m worried about you, are you alright?”
She paused then, tilting her head. “Not mad?” she asked.
Bruce froze. What? What could he be mad about? “I’m not mad at you, Cass. Can you please come down from there?” he asked, the tone of his voice taking on something a lot like pleading.
Cass stared down at him impassively, then reached behind her to push off the wall and slide forward on the fabric of her dress. She slipped off the bookshelf and hurtled towards the floor, and it wasn’t like a fall from this height would break her neck, but Bruce wagered she could sprain an ankle or even break one if she landed wrong. He was moving forward before he even realized it, arms shooting out to catch her and pull her flush to him. He held her there for a moment, assessing, and then slowly let her down.
She stared up at him then, face carefully blank. Bruce knew she was scared. He reached forward and smoothed two stray locks of hair behind her ears, his fingertips brushing against the edges of the hair pulled into her bun. She flinched the slightest bit, and Bruce ripped his hands away like he’d been burned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“Cassie, did I hurt you?” he asked, his voice a lot smaller than he intended.
She shook her head but winced with the movement of it. “Just pulled my hair,” she explained, and Bruce knit his eyebrows.
“Is your hair hurting you?”
She swallowed. Stared. Said nothing.
Bruce frowned, guilt seeping into him. He took her hand and led her to one of the lounge chairs in the library’s sitting area, then sat her down in it and took his place behind her. He braced his fingers gently on both sides of her head and slowly began the process of dragging each pin out of her hair to undo the bun. Cass allowed him to proceed without an explanation, but tensed each time a bobby pin scraped against her scalp. It made Bruce want to cry and make Alfred do it and wrap her up in his arms all at once.
“I don’t like it,” she said when he loosened the bun enough that her hair wasn’t pulled taut. “The bun.”
Bruce said nothing. He dropped another pin into the growing pile in the lap of Cass’s dress.
“Hurts,” she continued, and something sank low in Bruce.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Cass didn’t answer for a moment. She twitched when he pulled out a particularly stiff pin, and he pressed his finger against her scalp to help soothe the pain. “Trained to endure,” she said finally, and Bruce’s hand fell to rest on her shoulder, his grip firm enough that she knew to stay there.
He squeezed her shoulder and let his hands go back to undoing the bun, finding himself unable to say anything. He pulled a few more bobby pins from an elastic and wondered if Alfred realized the absurdity of using so many.
He breathed deeply. “I’m sorry about this, Cass, we really had no idea.” When she said nothing, he continued, “Does this have to do with why you thought I was mad at you?”
“Alfred fixed my hair. You are both upset with me,” she said, then ventured on with a final, “Punishment.”
“You think…?” Bruce felt his mute horror grow. “No, honey, Alfred did your hair so you would look nice at the gala, and most girls wear their hair up at these kinds of events.”
Cass stared down at her lap as Bruce loosened the last bobby pin and plucked it from her head, leaving her hair in a furled ponytail. He dug his nail beneath the lip of the elastic and slowly unwound the ponytail from itself, taking care to loosen tangled hair from the rubber hair tie to avoid pulling on Cass’s scalp.
She was quiet during this process, and for once, Bruce found himself needing to fill the silence.
“I remember Alfred always did my mother’s hair during big events,” he said, still fidgeting with her hair. “He enjoyed it a lot. He always wanted me to bring a girl home, when we first started taking kids in. I think he’s really missed having someone’s hair to do. Dick cut his hair a long time before you came to the manor, so it wasn’t long enough for Alfred to mess with anymore.”
“Dick had long hair?” Cass sounded disbelieving.
“For a little while,” Bruce confirmed, finally pulling the elastic from her hair, which fell down around her. He ran his fingers through it gently, combing against her scalp to soothe it. She relaxed toward him. “Alfred has had a nice time doing your hair, but he would never do something like that to hurt you. I’m sure if you tell him it hurts to have your hair up like that, he’ll understand and figure out something less painful.”
Cass turned her head then, looking up at Bruce with her arms braced against the chair. “Not a punishment?” she asked, confused.
Bruce sighed, brushing her hair back behind her ear again. “No, Cassie, it’s not a punishment at all. I’m sorry.”
She reached forward and squeezed his hand. “It’s okay.”
It pained him not to argue with her, but he conceded to her and walked around the chair to sit beside her in it. He wrapped an arm around her. Cass’s hair was curling around itself, crimped in some places and messy as a result of the bun. It made her look young. It reminded Bruce how young she was, and he huffed softly and pulled her close.
Cass leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He tilted his head against hers and closed his eyes, thankful.
At the next few charity events, Cass was present through the entire gala, tailing Bruce like she promised to earlier. Her hair was down, but she fidgeted with it when it was curled and had volume, brushing it out of her face and shaking it away and the like. Bruce took note and planned for the next gala.
When the time came, Bruce heroically managed to tie his tie without Alfred’s assistance, then sped off to Cass’s room, where he knew she would be rummaging through her grandmother’s jewelry to accessorize her outfit. She was especially fond of a pair of Martha’s sapphire earrings that Bruce thought complemented her eyes beautifully.
Bruce knocked on her door, and she answered within seconds. She was wearing the earrings, and he smiled without meaning to. “Would you mind coming to my room for something?” he asked, and she nodded, following him closely and sitting on his bed when he gestured for her to. He pulled a container of no-tug elastics off his desk and held them out with a hairbrush. “I thought we could try to do your hair without pins,” he explained when she looked at him warily.
She relaxed slightly, then turned to give him access to all of her head. “Okay.”
Bruce brushed her hair out gently, tugging any tangles apart with his fingers so he didn’t hurt her. After he set the hairbrush aside, he tugged her hair into a ponytail and tied it into two pieces, twisting them into themselves and tucking away the stray pieces into the bun he’d just created. He smoothed Cass’s hair against her scalp and stepped back. Her hair was pulled back out of her face entirely, and she turned to him with a small smile, his mother’s sapphire earrings swinging from her ears.
“You look very pretty,” he said, smiling back half out of adoration for his daughter and half out of pride at his own handiwork.
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Doesn’t hurt. Thank you,” she said, smiling wide. Bruce felt warm.
Cass looked off towards something else. One of the boys — Tim, Bruce guessed — dashed past the doorway, pausing almost immediately to circle back and look inside. “Cass, there you are! Steph asked me to come get you. Said it was important.”
Cass looked back at Bruce, who shook his head, nodding towards the door. “Go on. I’ve got to round up your brothers anyways.”
She nodded and stood to join Tim, and the two retreated from his room together. Bruce watched them leave, feeling fond. He had nothing to worry about.