slightlycrookedletters prompted: Hi! I recently started following you for your bat family posts. :) I was wondering if it would be possible to request fanfic with Cass babying a sick Damian for like, the first time in his life, and relating a lot cause the first time she was cared for in such a way was also in the care of Bruce Wayne (though not necessarily by Bruce, though that's okay too). Sorry if I did it wrong! DX

I can't apologize enough for how long this took me! Thank you so much for your amazing prompt and your wonderful patience : )

Batman and related properties © DC Comics
story © RenaRoo

ACHOO!

It was getting exceedingly hard for him to keep his balance, though Damian would be loathe to admit it. Least of all to himself.

Instead he carefully secured his forehead against the lockers as he sat on the bench and slowly kicked on his combat boots one at a time. By the time he got to lacing the strings and securely tying them, his vision very clearly showed there were two boots and not four, which was a vast improvement and more than enough to satisfy his own approval for patrolling.

Something that, by Pennyworth and Grayson's looks, his partner was not as agreeable about.

"Damian," Grayson started, coming over toward him. It was far less intimidating a walk without his cowl on.

Which was why Damian promptly ignored it, tumbling his way toward the Batmobile, leaning against the passenger door, and allowing himself to slip over, into the seat in question.

Batman stood by the door, fairly unimpressed.

"You have the flu. You're staying home," he said.

"I shall cough on the enemy," Damian croaked.

"Master Damian, if I may, I do believe you are most likely to cough on your partner. Thus leaving Gotham completely unattended once the Batman also falls under the weather," Pennyworth announced, crossing his arms by the Batmobile door. "Perhaps Robin would best serve his responsibilities from the bed rather than on the streets. Just for the night."

Damian turned, ignoring the swirling of his vision that came from it, and glared at them.

"You can't make me. I am the son of Batman," he snapped.

He would blame not seeing Cain on the fever, though she appeared out of nowhere on a regular basis even when he was well. He couldn't blame the fever on being completely unprepared when she reached over the Batmobile window, grabbed Damian under his arms, and hoisted him out of the car in one motion.

Damian was still attempting to figure out what was up and down when she carried him under her arm and marched up the stairs with him without a word.

Years Ago...

Her Batcave was named more out of tradition than out of practicality. Cassandra's network of passages were modified sewer lines and manholes mostly cut off from the main sanitation lines after the No Man's Land crisis.

They were not connected to the network of caves that Batman himself utilized just outside of the main island of Gotham. They were not connected to Oracle's clock tower. They existed completely on their own.

Just as she did back then - when she was more Batgirl than Cassandra and more comfortable in kevlar than her own skin.

Back then a dizzying headache could be overlooked in the loneliness, and a fever was almost welcome so far away from sunlight.

They certainly were not distractions from what she had sworn on her own life to do - they were not going to keep her from patrol or practice. Not even on the rare occasion that Batman himself came to visit.

He stood over her katas, watched her punches, timed her uneven jog. Like he so often did, he observed in silence.

It was either a good thing or a bad thing, and even in her coughing state Cassandra refused to acknowledge which.

She wasn't doing this for him.

"No," he finally said when she grabbed for her suit.

She shoved past him with a shake to her shoulders that wasn't quite of her own control.

When he grabbed her wrist and led her toward her bedroom, Cassandra resisted with all her might. When he sat her down, she stood back up and wobbled past.

Cassandra smiled in victory when he put his hands on his hips, turned from her, and headed toward his Batmobile, opening the passenger seat. It was the sort of victory she needed deep down, because she wasn't even confident in herself when she was honest.

And Cass was rarely honest with herself.

She stumbled in and leaned against the doorframe once it was closed. In costume beside Batman, she was confident that whatever big case he was on, she was going to be his partner.

So confident that somewhere between the engine starting and them leaving her cave, Cass' eyes slipped closed completely.

There was still a chill in his bones that he refused to acknowledge as he heard her rummaging about in the other room.

Damian supposed that between his living with Dick and Alfred in the apartments at Wayne Tower and Cassandra's own travel across the country, there hadn't been much overlap in which they were all in the Manor. Within that line of thought he could understand why she, on impulse, would have plopped him down on the rec room couch and proceeded to bury him in blankets and pillows there rather than in his own room.

But it didn't make him any more reasonable to her about the whole ordeal.

The moment he heard her open the door and begin padding toward his spot, he dizzily lifted his head and gave her a full on glare.

"My room is on the second floor down the West hall. It's closer to Father's than yours, but surely not being an idiot you could have figured out which room was my room if you bothered to even try," he snapped at her, ignoring how scratchy and breathless his voice had gotten.

"I know," Cass said back with a smile, holding two bowls in her hands as she carried herself over to him.

Damian sat up and watched as she set a bowl in his lap before climbing over to the other side of the couch and sitting happily with her own. His eyes only narrowed as she chomped down on her spoonful of ice cream.

"What are we doing here?" he demanded.

"Movie," Cass answered, reaching for the remote.

"I don't want to watch a movie," he hissed. "Least of all with you, Cain."

"Hmm," Cass answered around her spoon before turning on the screen with a click. "We'll see," she said back, turning just enough to smile mysteriously at him.

Damian didn't like it.

Cassandra didn't like it.

She couldn't quite put into words how she knew, but even before she opened her eyes, Cassandra knew that she was not on patrol, not in her cave, and not in the Batmobile that she had drifted off to sleep in.

While normally such confusion would put her immediately on alert, there was little energy in her limbs for drastic reactions.

And, despite everything, the comforting smells and sights around her kept her somewhat more hospitable. Just not quite enough to not try to immediately raise to her feet once she saw Bruce Wayne - not Batman, not Brucie - step in front of her and set down a stack of what looked like clothes.

"You look angry," he said, almost jokingly. "You'll have to forgive me later. Right now, you should change into these pajamas. Alfred picked them out. I think." He paused to run a hand over the bright colored patterns and clicked his tongue. "Hm. Maybe it was Dick. Regardless - they're fleece so I'm sure they're more comfortable than your suit."

Having a long history of not being comfortable outside of her second skin, Cassandra doubted it, but as Bruce moved back out of her sights Cassandra was forced to admit to herself that the sight of pajamas alone were comforting.

She might have been more tired than she first imagined.

Somehow through her exhaustion, Cassandra managed to sloppily change into the offered pajamas.

When the pants were halfway on, she noted that they were backwards, but also decided she didn't care enough to take them off and try again.

By the time she flopped back onto the couch, Bruce was coming back around from wherever he had ran off to, returning with a tray and two bowls.

"This'll feel good on your throat," he promised as he sat beside her.

She gave him a judging look before taking a bowl for herself, eyeing over the bowl, then immediately spooning the cold ice cream into her mouth.

Cass didn't miss the way it made Bruce smirk to the side as he reached for the remote.

"We're going to watch a movie," he explained to her as he turned on the giant screen.

"I dun like 'em," she mumbled around her spoon.

"We'll see," he replied softly before leaning back and taking a bite of his own ice cream.

Not rolling her eyes for fear of rolling her head right off her neck, Cass leaned into Bruce's side instead and watched the screen, rubbing at her watery eyes in between sugary bites. Bruce felt like a soft, steady rock.

He watched her with far more interest than he had in the feature on the screen. His bite on his emptied spoon was growing a little dry by the time he finally opened his mouth and said,

"I have never once seen you watch movies with us."

Cassandra was licking the bottom of her bowl, smirking when she finally looked back him, her brown eyes glittering with amusement.

"Not about the movie," she told him before taking her spoon and batting his runny red nose with it. "It's about family."

Damian knew he would blame it on the fever later, but he laid against his sister and kept his gaze on the screen for the rest of the run time.

Because of the fever, he had to agree. It was all about family.