So the thing is, Cass is - perhaps famously - quiet.

It's not just talking. She does struggle with that sometimes, and she often is a quiet speaker even when she does. That is fact. But it's also just... in general. In how she moves. She's swift, she's measured, and she makes very little noise. That isn't an exaggeration. She's literally snuck up on Bruce and his friends before. Cass is quiet.

It isn't something she consciously tries to do. It's years of training, muscle memory, instinct, natural. It's just her way of being. It isn't intentional - on a day-to-day basis at least - and that means it's really hard to turn it off. Which kind of sucks right now. Because she'd like to turn it off. Because it's causing some problems.

The newest family member is acclimating, gradually. It has been a bit of an adventure getting you used to the place, because the Manor is big, and the Batcave is big and echoey, and it's a lot to memorize. But you were acclimating. And Cass wanted to help! Or at least, she didn't want to make it harder. And she was scared that's what she was doing - making it harder.

When you didn't have your sight, and so you relied on sound as a major part of how you navigated the world, the way that she made very little sound had begun to feel to her like a problem. And she isn't feeling great about it.

She's scared you, multiple times, just by saying something when you didn't know she was in the room. She'd sneezed in the library once and startled you into knocking over a stack of books. She felt bad about it every time, and she'd started to develop a habit of announcing herself, but she just couldn't seem to move more loudly? So you still tended to get a startle, because you wouldn't hear her coming. She can read in your body language that it's upsetting you - your hearing is good, normally - and she's not exactly thrilled either.

So the frustration in her tone is obvious as she apologizes, again, for startling you, this time by near-collision walking through a doorway. "Sorry!"