It is not as simple as seeing it and saying it. Cass knows that. She knows that much of life is not how she was raised. She doesn't want to leap her way into interpretations or decisions. There may be another explanation other than Bruce scaring Tim, Bruce using Tim, Bruce hurting Tim.
Cass hopes there is another explanation.
She desperately, deeply, dearly hopes there is another explanation.
So she does one of the things she does best: she watches. She decides to allow herself one day, and she watches.
It is not new, Cass realizes as she watches, this fear in Tim is not new. Before now, she had always been able to rationalize it as coming from another part of a situation, or as making sense from the tension in the other people in the room, or as just a part of who Tim is. But now?
Now, as she watches, she sees more to it.
Tim is scared, so very scared, all of the time. It is not a usual way of being scared, either, not like when they are on patrol and the air is filled with gunshots, not like when they are watching a horror movie, not like when they are shutting down the Cave and there is a sound deep in the darkness that their minds know is just a bat but that makes their hearts jump. It is not like that.
Tim is scared in a different way. The more Cass watches, the more she realizes this, and the more she knows that he is always at least part of the way scared, no matter how he tries to hide it. And he definitely tries to hide it.
When Tim comes over for a late breakfast, he sits down right beside Bruce, even as the line of tension in his shoulders grows tight enough to snap. But Tim never snaps, not anywhere Cass can see, at least. Instead, he trades lighthearted comments with Jason about Bruce's breakfast choices, poking gentle fun at Bruce even as Tim's whole body screams that this is not gentle or fun at all.
When Tim returns in the evening and trades casefiles with Bruce, he explains things at a rapid pace, moving his arms around to give emphasis, popping the sharper sounds he makes with his mouth while speaking to give even more emphasis. Tim is not silent nor even quiet. He is loud and big and fast, as much as he can be, and he tries to be even more, but beneath all that, he strains with fear at each syllable and each motion.
When Tim spars with Bruce before patrol, he doesn't lean away from Bruce's hands. If anything, he leans in and toward them.
Through the breakfast, through the evening, through the training, Tim does not act afraid. But he is afraid.
Tim is afraid of Bruce, and far more afraid than Cass ever was of David Cain.
Cass was afraid of David Cain, yes, but in a very different way. It was all she knew, and she still knew she didn't like all of it. She tried to be good, but she wanted more, and when she realized what was happening was as bad as it was, the training and the aching and the killing, she left. She left as soon as she could, as far as she could, as best as she could, and she made it. She left.
Tim does not leave. Tim stays, even as fear floods him over and over, filling him to the brim, to the point that Cass is a little concerned that fear of Bruce is all that is left in him.
That is what Cass sees.
No one else sees it.
No one else notices, or maybe no one else cares.
In his home, with his family, while he should be at his safest, Tim is not safe, and no one is doing anything about it.
Alfred does not stop Bruce when Bruce's voice gets louder and bigger over the breakfast table as Tim tries to make himself smaller, smaller, smaller. Alfred makes a humming noise and agrees that protocols must be followed when training.
Dick does not stop Bruce when Bruce spars with Tim. Tim shudders minutely every minute as they face off, and as Dick watches, Dick cheers them both on in equal turns.
Jason does not stop Bruce when he walks past the casefile exchange. Jason makes a comment that Cass does not understand, something about "old and new" that makes Tim freeze up and Bruce make a face of grief. Then Jason walks right past, leaving Tim in fear, arms wavering in the air.
Damian does not stop Bruce as they suit up for patrol and Bruce pairs Tim with himself, making Tim's frame go uneasily motionless. Damian complains that he still cannot go with the both of them, but he readily stands and starts to go over towards the communications station with Alfred.
None of them stop Bruce. Do they not know? Are they not concerned? Shouldn't they see Tim's hurt and want to stop it?
Cass wants to stop it. Cass doesn't want Tim to hurt in the way he so clearly is hurting.
That means, somehow, Cass has to stop Bruce.
So Cass starts.
"Batman," Cass says. "Not with Robin."
Bruce stops and looks up from looking through future patrol routes with Tim at his side, Tim under his elbow, Tim shrinking more and more as they work together.
"Robin comes with me," Cass says. She points at Tim and crooks her finger in a gesture she hopes looks far more playful than she feels. "We work together."
"According to the rotation-" Bruce begins.
"We go," Cass says.
"It will be good," Cass says.
"I need him," Cass says.
"He needs me," Cass doesn't say, but she thinks it.
Bruce's jaw is set in an uneasy line beneath the cowl. Does he know she knows about him? Or does he think she thinks Tim deserves whatever Bruce is doing to make Tim so afraid?
"We go," Cass says again, tone as firm as she can make it. "I show."
"If Black Bat has something to show me," Tim says slowly. "Maybe it's important?"
Bruce works his jaw and thinks that through. "Is it urgent?"
"Yes," Cass emphasizes. She doesn't know completely what those words imply, but from the way Tim and Bruce ask the questions, a "yes" is what will get her what she wants. "Important and urgent. Urgent and important."
Bruce sighs. "All right. I'll patrol solo instead. Black Bat and Robin will patrol together."
"Cool, thanks," Tim says as he extracts himself from Bruce's side.
Cass watches. He seems a tiny bit more at ease once he's out of arm's reach of Bruce, but he tenses up again as he reaches Cass.
"Do we need to look any more at routes?" Jason says in a tone that says he will complain if the answer to his question is not what he wants it to be.
Bruce sighs again. "I suppose not. We can head out."
"We will head out," Cass agrees, and she grabs Tim's hand.
Tim's hand is steady beneath his glove in her grasp, and his face is set firmly beneath his mask, but she can still see his fear: in the drawn lines of his jaw, in the ever-so-slight mottled tone of his cheeks down to his neck, in the slope of his shoulders, in the fall of his footsteps.
"We go," Cass says to him. "Together. It will be good."
Because she will make it good.
She will make him safe.