Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Tim aids the GCPD busting the cock fighting ring, it’s not the animal cruelty at the forefront of his mind. It’s not that he doesn’t feel strongly for the poor roosters, he absolutely does, but the cock fighting is the tamest thing the gang is doing. There are also drugs, illegal arms and trafficked people.

Tim spent weeks tracking their movements and trying to pinpoint a time when most of the higher-ups would be in the same place: hence the cock fight.

Still, securing the poor traumatized birds is also important. He calls the shelter that’s under the umbrella of animal-rights advocate Damian Wayne, and waits patiently until both traumatized, trafficked humans, and traumatized animals are taken away to better places before he does his own sweep.

The police are swarming the place, which is both good and bad, because crooked cops are the norm in Gotham, and Tim’s inching to secure evidence before it mysteriously disappears. So once the trafficked humans are out of the basement, and the crowing roosters are being stuffed into clean carry cages, Tim elbows his way inside.

To his great relief most of the papers in the office haven’t been tampered with, though he does catch a guilty-looking grizzled cop who shifts away from the door the moment he steps into the corridor. Tim makes a note of his badge number to be looked up later.

He puts anything of note into evidence bags and sends over all info about shipping details to the batcomputer which all of them can access and sort out amongst themselves.

By the time he finishes, there are only a few cops left. The trafficked people have all been taken away, and the taillights of the rooster rescue wink merrily at him through the early-morning Gotham fog.

Tim hands the evidence bags (all important papers photographed and noted, all drugs listed and weighed) over to officer Montoya, who still hangs around, and resolves to do a final sweep himself.

He’s thinking more like a hidden safe or perhaps a hiding human scared of the commotion… but what he finds is the tiniest, most vicious rooster blinking out at him from its hiding place behind a trash can. The moment he spots Tim he’s flying at him at full speed, heedless of the danger, talons out.

He doesn’t make it, though. Tim sees him flop face-first almost immediately, his flight impeded possibly by injury. His wing glows wetly in the wan light of the room, and Tim makes the decision to bend down and pick it up bodily. After all what can it do against kevlar? His suit was built to withstand supervillains.

The answer is: a lot.

Tim’s tiny cock is a ball of rage, hurt and cornered as he is. He bites and claws ineffectively at Tim’s gloves and arm and chest, trying to… well. Whatever. Tim isn’t certain what the animal wants or needs…

Which is a problem, because the shelter people just left.

Well, fuck.

He finishes the sweep fast while the bird refuses to settle, but Tim can ignore him as he’s unable to do more harm than scratch up the outside of Tim’s suit. He’s gotten worse when Two-Face mopped the floor with him last week. It’s fine.

He doesn’t find anything else, which is a relief. He isn’t sure he should be letting the rooster go. The bird would probably try to escape, or find a better hiding place, and then it would expire unknown and unmourned. Or worse: eaten by a 4 or 2-footed resident of Gotham.

He goes up to find the first police officer, trying to hand the rooster over, who’s having none of it. The police officer in turn goes pale and jumps back three paces, citing he’s on the clock and Tim should either contact the shelter or an animal clinic.

Tim does just that. He dials the shelter and opens with “I found one more rooster, that looks hurt. What should I do with it?”

“We’re pretty full, dude,” comes the distracted response. In the background Tim hears crows and frantic human yells. “Look, if it’s hurt, take it to the overnight vet. They’ll probably take it and send it to a shelter like ours. Sorry, but it’s a bit hectic here. Is this all or do you need anything else?”

“No,” Tim tells the man with a sigh. “Thank you.”

The line goes dead.

Tim looks down at the wriggling little rooster snuggled happily in the crook of his arm. He sighs deeply.

“Looks like it’s you and me, buddy. Hope you’re fine riding shotgun.”

The bird is in fact happy to hop onto Redbird’s dash and look through the windshield, enraptured while Tim drives them to the vet. If Tim strains his ears… he swears he hears excited clucking.

Tim has to admit this is probably the most unusual drive he's had so far, but it’s… not that bad. If he weren’t worried for the bird, it’d be even better.

He doesn’t go over the speed limit, but only barely. He’d rather not try to shake a random supervillain excited to give chase with an injured bird loose in his car. An injured and armed bird. Those talons are no joke!

He grabs the bird off the dash as soon as he stops the car, unsure whether he’d have to play catch with it again. The bird… goes with a single cluck of protest, but doesn’t claw at him any more. It amuses Tim greatly that all he had to do to pacify it was to take it for a drive.

He hopes he made the bird’s day, because now will come the unhappy part. The vet.

Waiting for the vet, he amends as he walks over to the counter in a busy waiting room. He can see cats, dogs, assorted exotics, even a fish. He wonders if he should contact Damian’s vet he keeps on retainer for all of his pets, but thinks better of it.

He went one night without the gremlin gracing him with his presence. He should enjoy it.

“Name?” the nurse (receptionist?) asks before she looks up, and Tim sees her eyes rounding the moment she takes in his suit… and then the rooster, who preens a little under her gaze.

“Red Robin. Look, we busted a cock fighting ring and this one got left behind. Is there any chance I could leave this fella with you…?”

The woman’s lips purse, and Tim can read her reply loud and clear.

“We don’t do that. We can give you an address and you can contact them if they agree to a drop-off, but we are not a shelter.”

Tim sighs.

“All right. I’ll just…” he turns.

“Name of the bird?” the assistant asks before he could take the first step.

“Uh… I haven’t named him? He’s not mine?”

The woman sighs. Tim can see she’s tired, but he sees her frown softening.

“Just give me a name. Any name you’ll remember. We call the patient's name, not the owner’s.”

“Ah. Well…” He’s entirely unprepared to name the bird. It’s not bat-themed, and he doesn’t have the first clue about roosters. He thinks Chicken-nugget would get him thrown out, or worse, land him on the front page of the Gotham Gazette. He almost says Lucifer, but it’s not the bird’s fault he was traumatized, and that he attacked Tim at first sight. He’s been pretty chill since the ride in Redbird, so…

He sighs. He tries to pull up bird names from the movies and books he’s read. Geek stuff he can do. Eggolas he thinks is more of a chicken name. Cluck Norris sounds cool, but ultimately not that funny. There’s still Bladebeak. Zaphod Beeblebawwk would be hilarious, if a mouthful… Tyrannosaurus Pecks has merit, but…

“Crowley,” he tells the woman, who raises an eyebrow at that. “He has a bit of a temper,” he explains with an apologetic shrug.

“Fine by me,” she tells him. “Take your place, you’ll be called… shortly.”

“Thank you.”

Tim sits down at the end of the rows of seats, far away from cats and dogs alike, setting the bird on his lap, grabbing hold of both feet before he could get any ideas.

The newly named Crowley clucks at him animatedly, before he shuffles over a little, as far as Tim’s hands would let him, to shit right on Tim’s right leg.

“Thanks.” Tim mutters.

It was inevitable. It’s a bird. Tim’s used to bat shit, it should be… normal. But it still… surprises him.

He thinks the bird might have tried to get a little away from him, so it’d splatter on the floor, but because Tim refused to let it shuffle away…

He sighs, lets one leg go that’s promptly plucked away and shaken, and he reaches into his pouch for a wet wipe to clean up the mess. It wipes off without a fuss. The bird watches him through it, giving him a judgy look, like it’s Tim’s fault.

“I’m not letting you go to get mauled!” he tells it indignantly.

Crowley clucks back at him, and turns away, now that Tim only has one leg in hold.

“Fine, be that way.” Tim huffs, and catches a look from the woman closest to him with a small pet carrier that has something dark and furry huddling inside. He tries to look non-threatening, but he realizes she’s not scared, but amused.

Great. He’s getting laughed at now. Fantastic.

He thunks his head back, and closes his eyes. Just for a minute.

He wakes up to his face getting pecked.

Gently.

“Crowley? Is there a Crowley here?” he hears in the distance, hesitant, like they have been calling them for a while.

Great, he thinks, he must have fallen asleep on the job. Another personal low. If Bruce saw it, he’d be benched till kingdom come. Hell, Tim feels horrible, too.

He looks at Crowley, who’s staring back at him with his talons clenching along his bandoliers, balanced precariously on his chest.

He let the bird go. He let the bird go. But more importantly… the bird stayed. He grabs it gently and stands up, waving at the nurse.

“Coming!” he yells and shifts Crowley to a better position as he legs it.

The examination room is cool and professional. His rooster, because he thinks of it as his now, scrambles as he tries to stand on the unforgiving metal table, talons bending this way and that. Tim thinks it mustn’t be comfortable, but he doesn’t really know much about roosters. He’s a city boy, he only really saw chickens in cooked and baked forms before.

He gives Crowley a calming, careful pet, and is delighted to get only clucking from the bird that keeps looking back and forth between him and the nurse who’s bending over him, and reaching for the hurt wing.

“It’s a very pretty bantam,” she tells Tim, cooing at the tiny rooster.

The doctor comes in before Tim could ask anything else, like is this bird just a baby, because he’s pretty sure cocks are supposed to be larger, and the man wastes no time to start examining Crowley.

“Cockfight?” he asks Tim wryly.

“Yes. I was wondering if you could help me drop it off at a shelter for rehabilitating roosters?”

“Nah,” the man says distractedly as he pulls the wing out gently. Crowley makes a painful sound, and he croons to it until he can straighten it out fully. “Best I can do is send it to a farm, where he won’t feel safe. All the rescues I know were flooded with roosters tonight. His buddies, I presume?”

Tim nods. Just fucking perfect.

“Is there nobody to take care of him?”

“Not that I know of, unfortunately. I’m guessing you don’t want to donate him to a butcher?”

Crowley goes nuts.

Tim sighs.

“No. I don’t. I guess… I guess I know of one more place…”

The doctor gives him a distracted smile before he goes back to examining Crowley’s back.

“Well then. I see superficial cuts and some missing feathers, and that’s easy to solve. Why don’t you go and sort out the paperwork while I treat this little guy? You can take him home after, give this brave little rooster some TLC.”

Tim sighs. There goes his promised sleep. And he was so looking forward to catching 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep, goddamn it. Why does this always happen to him?!

“Is he… an adolescent?” he asks the nurse while he accepts the papers.

“Oh no, he’s all grown up!” She smiles as she pulls up a new form on her laptop, and begins to enter the information Tim puts down. He only gives the phone number the GCPD can reach him and circles he’ll be paying with cash. He doesn’t fill out the address line. (He doesn’t have to.) “He’s a bantam,” the nurse tells him. “They are tiny, but fierce.”

“Great,” sighs Tim. “Just what I need.”

He’s sold a carrier for Crowley, feed, as well as some ointment for his wounds, and then they are off, back in Redbird. His rooster makes a right racket until Tim lets him out to perch on the dashboard. There he clucks happily right until they get to the Nest.

Tim sighs. He lays over the wheel for a few moments, until he gathers his resolve. In moments he has a plan.

First he grabs Crowley and stuffs him, protesting, back into the cage. Then they both exit Redbird and he finds some discarded parts of the Gotham Gazette for Crowley to make use of.

He stuffs them inside the cage, and stares down the beady eyes of his new pet.

“Poop on that one, will you? This isn’t the batcave, my things are sensitive.”

Crowley crows.

Tim sighs.

He wants to leave the bird down here in the garage and forget about him, but he can’t. The poor animal isn't to blame for this mess. But neither is Tim, for that matter. There should be a compromise.

He takes out the bag of flock feed, grabs the cage’s handle, and walks up to the main floor of his flat. He thinks the main room will be good enough for Crowley tonight, and tomorrow… tomorrow he could drop him off on Damian...

He finds two small bowls in his kitchen and fills one with cold water, the other with the feed for roosters. When he opens the cage door to put them both in, Crowley slinks out.

Just as predicted.

Tim…

He sighs. He’s too fucking tired for this shit. He just… can’t.

He looks down at the triumphantly crowing little shit, and his shoulders slump.

“I know you don’t understand me, but could you maybe not shit on my stuff? Please? In return for food and shelter? I’m so fucking tired I don’t care anymore. I’m not gonna fight you back into the cage, so just… don’t be a dick?”

The crowing stops.

Tim hopes.

“Right. You got food, water, and you’ve been treated. Have a good night.”

He stands up, cracks his back, and begins his walk towards his bedroom. His dreams of a long, hot bath are squashed, but his bed beckons to him still. He can still sleep a little before he has to be up and present at WE.

He starts shucking his uniform, uncaring where they drop until he hears an indignant bawwk, and he looks down at Crowley, who almost got slapped with a glove.

“Just… go away. Do what you wanna do,” he tells the tiny bird as he shucks the top of his suit, and begins to shimmy his hips out of the bottom.

The bird stops following him and eyes him judgily while Tim toes off his boots and yanks his pants down, dropping them on the floor, too.

Good.

Tim’s down to his briefs and at the foot of his bed when he hears the soft click-clacks of talons on the hardwood floor, but he doesn’t care anymore. He’s tired. The bird can do whatever he wants.

He faceplants into his bed and snuffles around until the blanket can be pulled over him, and he can snuggle himself into it, cocooning himself. It’s heaven. He doesn’t ever want to leave his bed. Ever.

He’s still conscious, however barely, when he feels feathers on his face, and the blasted bird baawwks against him quietly.

He sighs, and an arm sneaks out without thinking, pulling the dumb bird closer to him. It clucks a bit into Tim’s ear, perhaps smugly, and then it settles against his neck and goes soft. Soft like a pillow. Fluffy like a cloud.

Tim falls asleep to gentle little bok-boks from his new sleeping companion.

Chapter Text

Jason wakes up way too early. He stretches and immediately winces. He hops down to drink some water. He thinks briefly about going for a window, but his whole body hurts, and he can’t. Won’t.

He stretches again, because it’s a goddamn compulsion now, and tries not to voice his utter fucking displeasure. Ow, goddamn it. This sucks!

Tim’s out like a light, snoring away on the bed, and Jason has the strongest urge to go around and shit on everything like the asshole he is, but then he thinks better of it. The kid looks so beat, so tired… He simply doesn’t have the heart to troll his replacement when he’s this… vulnerable.

He hears buzzing, and he heaves a sigh before he flutters up back on the bed. It hurts worse than it did yesterday, and he clucks in alarm. His wing will have to be treated soon. As soon as Tim wakes up.

He checks on the phone buzzing by the Replacement’s head, WE business lit up in bold letters on the screen. Jason tries to use his beak to swipe it, but it won’t let him. He bawwks in anger and by a stroke of genius, decides to try his head instead.

Apparently, his comb is just the ticket, because the notice gets dismissed.

He checks up on Drake, and the kid’s still sleeping, blissed out. He looks like hell warmed over. Jason wonders what the fuck Bruce is thinking, making a kid work this hard. It’s borderline child abuse. (Is Tim still a kid, he wonders. Last he checked his Replacement was like 16. How could Bruce put the fate of his whole company on the shoulders of a tiny teenager?!)

He shuffles closer, and lays down gently in the crook of the kid’s neck. It’s a perfect fit. It’s warm, and Jason clucks in sheer satisfaction before he tucks his head down and goes back to sleep himself.

He wakes again to buzzing. He clucks and baawks at the phone, cussing internally, because he could swear he nixed the fucking alarm, goddamn it!

He comes face to face with the photo of a smiling Brucie. Yikes.

He swipes for the call, intending to give the asshole a piece of his mind, only to…

“Tim. Tim, where are you? We’re all here at WE but we haven’t heard anything from you and…”

“Bawwwk,” Jason goes. “Bok-bok-baaawk! Bok-bok!”

“Tim?” The voice on the other side is… careful. Uncertain.

Jason clucks and crows quietly, so as to not alarm Tim, who sleeps the sleep of the truly exhausted. Still, Jason tries to nudge the phone to the other end of the bed, just in case.

“Tim, this isn’t funny. Please respond!”

“Bok-bok!” Jason clucks, frustrated. Lay off the poor kid you fucker, he wants to say, but can’t. His inability to chew Bruce out when he so deserves it sends him into a tirade the recipient can’t understand.

Goddamn it!

“Fine. Be that way. I may have pushed you too hard,” Bruce admits quietly. “But this is uncalled for.” Jason can hear (and feel) the heavy sigh coming from the other end. “You are excused for today, but I’m expecting you to call once you’re over… whatever this is, you understand?”

“Bawwk-bok,” Jason tells him, entirely out of spite.

“Right.”

The line goes dead.

Jason kicks the phone off the bed.

***

Tim wakes up in increments.

First he notices the tickling of feathers on his face. Then he feels the barely-weight of his new bantam snuggled around his neck. Then he feels how well-rested he is, which is wrong, because he barely got 4 hours of sleep…

...right?!

He jackknifes up in bed, horrified, looking for his phone. Crowley, tossed into a flight without a notice bawwks indignantly until Tim rights him gently and smooths a hand down his back in a calming, apologetic gesture.

His phone’s gone.

Tim sets the bird, who’s up and clucking at him down on the bed and goes hunting for his phone.

It’s no wonder he didn’t hear it, he thinks as he fishes it out from under his bed. Where it landed, safely, without a scratch. (Tim has ensured he can drop it from 3 storeys up without a dent appearing on it, but still.)

It’s more alarming, that his alarm appears to have been… turned off.

And he had a call from Bruce.

Which he accepted. It shows over a minute of call time.

What the fuck?!

He wracks his brain for any recollection of that, but has none.

“I expect you at WE tomorrow, once you’ve recovered” is a message still blinking at him. It’s from Bruce and was sent hours ago.

Oh shit.

He… Tim cracks a huge yawn. Well. It’s not like the extra few hours of sleep were unwelcome, no. He could do with even more.

He turns to the rooster eyeing him, who so far has done his best to stay on Tim’s good side (or so Tim thinks) and he sighs.

“How do you feel, bud? Do you need a little ointment on those wings?”

The cock clucks excitedly at him, and Tim nods.

“‘Course you do. Come on then, Crowley, let’s sort you out. Are you hungry?”

The bird lets Tim pick him up, clucking quietly as they go. Tim marvels at how far they’ve gone from the bird trying to claw his bandoliers off to… sleeping together. It’s kind of nice.

Tim had the best night of sleep snuggled with his bird.

He kind of gets Damian now. Even if the kids foists off the “menial” tasks of feeding and caring for his pets on Alfred. Tim actually wonders how many of those pets view the demon prince as their owner and not Alfred…

There’s a thought…

He distractedly fishes the container of the ointment out of the fridge and closes the door with his foot, having no arm left to spare. He winces as he hears bottles clinking, and sighs. Dick left his beers with him months ago and never came back to drink them. Typical. And now Tim’s expected to tiptoe around them till eternity, because the moment he removes them from his fridge, Dick will unexpectedly show up and pout and moan about warm beer.

Tim just wants… normal things. Calm things. Happy things.

Like Crowley, who clucks gently at him as Tim carries him carefully to the couch.

He has to step over the cage, and he spots a good sized portion of the Gazette having been bird-bombed. He pauses, squints, and is surprised to notice that part was the photo of none other than Vicky Vale herself. It’s already unnoticeable by bird poop.

“Good birb,” he tells Crowley approvingly.

He sets the bird down, who apparently did not shit on everything in sight, which… Tim will have to check if it’s normal? Perhaps Crowley used to be someone’s pet and has been house-trained? Tim needs more info on cocks.

He uncaps the tube of ointment, and turns Crowley a little toward the light as he peers at the damaged area. It already looks better. No wonder the little bird had energy to fly up into Tim’s bed.

“Please don’t bite me,” he tells him. “If you do, Damian will hear of you and kidnap you in the night, to add you to his collection. And while Alfred’s a peach, you sure as hell won’t get any one-on-one with them like you do with me.”

Crowley clucks in reply, his neck bobbing while the rest of his body attempts to stay as still as possible. Tim thinks his bird is the cleverest little thing ever. He’s just glad he doesn’t have to chase it around to heal him.

He caps the tube, and smooths a hand down the bird’s back where feathers are still missing, but the skin is unbroken.

“There. You took it like a champ! You’re such a good little boy, Crowley! I’ll just put it back and start breakfast. Are you hungry?”

Crowley crows.

Tim chuckles.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

***

Jason watches as the kid cooks eggs sunny side up. He thinks he maybe should feel offended, but it’s not like Jason started life as a bird, so who cares. It’s nice to watch the kid move around filled with energy for a change. It’s… it’s different. He isn’t the cool and collected Red Robin, the persona that he always projects.

He’s just this geeky kid who mumbles to himself, pats Jason’s back whenever he passes him by, settled comfortably on the counter, and falls over the cage when he forgets about it. He catches himself gracefully, which is nice, but it still makes Jason crow with laughter. The kid’s hilarious.

Jason wonders how his life would have turned out if he had been found by the shelter people, or if he had managed to get to Damian and his random animals he collects. He hasn’t got a clue whether he’ll be transformed back once the spell wears off, or if he’ll need magical intervention. The underling who transformed him in the first place and just added him to the flock of roosters was among the first ones to go down during the bust.

Problematic. 

But as things stand, Jason’d rather try his chances with the gentler Robin. The goofy, geeky Robin, who’s now using a ketchup bottle to sing a botched Bohemian Rhapsody into. The kid’s pure comedy gold from the eighties. All he needs is to slide on his own hardwood floor in socks, and it’d be 10/10.

Jason wonders how to go about the big reveal. He can’t exactly mime it. Nor can he write, can he? He tried to cluck in morse before, but the kid just patted his back and called him a good bird.

If Jason didn’t enjoy it so goddamn much he’d have despaired.

Oh the bright side… he has options. Jason didn’t miss the look of contemplation Tim gave him upon noticing Jason shit at Vicky Vale only. That was pretty satisfying, too. Best goddamn shit, ever. He hopes Tim has more of Vicky for Jason’s cage, because it’s good target practice.

And there’s the pecking. Jason has urges now. He sees fingers, he has to peck! And claw. And crow. But mostly peck. Hell, half the time he still wants to maul Tim’s fingers, but he holds back, because Tim is friend. Tim is not to be harmed. His bird brain, or maybe his hind-brain knows.

But he still wants to peck the shit out of everything.

It’d be funny if it weren’t worrying.

He resolves to attempt to find something to write with and tell Tim about his magical chicken transformation. Ha. This was probably the only way to make him chicken out.

What a good joke, and he can’t even tell it. Goddamn it!

***

Tim likes having Crowley around.

Once the little rooster settles on top of his countertop and starts gently clucking, it’s a done deal. He’s in the perfect place to be pet but not get hurt by the ruckus Tim’s creating when he finally has time to go all-out to have a real breakfast… God, he doesn’t remember the last time he was able to make his own breakfast, and enjoy it.

He might still have been fresh out of the Robin costume with Dick manning the circus.

That brings him up short.

Is there really nobody at WE who can do things besides Tim ? He’s barely eighteen and a high school dropout. Never mind that he got his GED recently. That’s it. No higher education (yet). But once he does go to university, will he be expected to manage the company while dropping out of classes, as a sacrifice on the altar of WE, too?

He finishes loading his dishwasher, and sits down, now worried. Bruce would let him attend university in peace, wouldn’t he? He… he would… right?!

The jaded, down-to-earth part of his brain laughs at him. Of course not, it whispers. You’re his competent child. The one trained by competent people, and not him or an al Ghul. Of course he’d try to milk it for all its worth. You won’t ever get away, now that you’ve proven yourself to be the only capable one.

Tim groans.

And then he groans again when he finds an apparently bored Crowley digging through his pencil holder, grabbing hold of a pen. He has to sidestep the cage (he’ll have to find a better place for it) and he gets treated to the sight of Crowley using his talons to step on and rather deftly remove the ballpoint pen’s cap.

It falls off and there’s a breathless minute of Tim watching and hoping the idiot bird won’t just swallow it on sight. He wouldn’t relish sitting at the vet, agonizing whether his bird will survive the next hour or not. 

But the bird ignores the cap in favour of trying to scribble with the pen on the table. Tim leaps and lands with a hand slapping on top of the cap, Crowley starting hard in surprise and dropping the pen. God bless miracles.

Tim doesn’t even care about the marred tabletop, he’s just so glad his idiot bird didn’t eat his pen cap and choked himself to death with it.

Jesus.

He seriously needs to step-up his pet ownership game if he wants to keep his bird alive.

He grabs the whole pencil holder and shoves it into the first cabinet he can find. He grabs the pen out of Crowley’s reach, too, and then he goes around and goes a little bit nuts. Any discarded pens go into storage places a tiny, determined bird can’t get to. Rubbers, pencils any tiny bits that look vaguely edible, even fridge magnets get put into cabinets and boxes and hidden away.

And while Tim does this, Crowley gives him the gimlet stare, or possibly stink-eye. Tim doesn’t care. He’s going to keep this damn bird alive, no matter what. Having to root for pens when he needs them is a small price to pay.

And if Crowley needs toys, he’ll just have to swing by the pet store and see what he can find. He was already planning on picking up some groceries… along with the newest Gotham Gazette. Crowley needs some new cage-liners. Preferably something with Vicky Vale on it, he amends, looking at the picture that can’t even be seen any more.

He pulls out his phone and begins to construct a shopping list.

Crowley, offended and crowing loudly from the countertop, eventually grows bored. He flaps down and click-clacks over to him, using Tim’s own leg to walk up to the couch, and settle himself on his lap. Tim pulls his phone to the side to look at the bird and gives him a distracted pat before he adds ‘treats’ to his list.

Crowley begins to gently peck-peck-peck at his hand, and he reaches out and lays it over his back, gently scritching at the feathers. He’s completely warmed up to bird ownership. It’s stumping him, but it feels so nice.

Crowley crows, loud and possibly annoyed, and his phone is almost knocked out of his hand by flapping wings. 

He locks it and sets it aside, turning all of his attention on the upset bird instead.

“I’m sorry, was I ignoring you?” he croons gently, trying to scritch around the comb.

Crowley clucks at him reproachfully, clearly wanting to give Tim a piece of his mind.

“Still angry that I didn’t let you play with the pen, huh? I’m sorry, but you’d have been really sick if you swallowed that pen cap. But I’ll make sure to get you some toys to play with, how does that sound, huh?”

The bird, having run out of steam, stares at him.

Bok-bok, it goes.

“Yeah,” Tim tells him, aware that he might be called crazy for conversing with an animal who probably has no earthly idea what Tim’s telling him. “I’ll swing by the shops soon. We need groceries, and you need some stuff. A better cage for starters. I could probably build you an enclosure on the roof where you could get more sunlight. It’d be nice and roomy, let you stretch your wings. What do you say?”

The crowing and bok-bokking starts up again, and Tim smiles. He imagines Crowley telling him how much he would like that, or just the bird telling him about his life, and it’s good. It’s… nice.

The small, fluffy weight is barely anything, but he can feel the claws pressing against his skin, and it’s… it’s actually nice. Real. It’s someone who’s there for Tim, who counts on him for real things. Shelter. Love. Companionship.

He lets the bird start up pecking him gently on the arm. It’s actually soothing, this random rhythm. Tap- taptap-tap. It’s nice.

He grabs his phone with his other hand and pulls up his shopping list. He writes treats again. And he’ll have to ask if they delivered cages. So long as Damian didn’t get wind of it, he could build Crowley an enclosure on the roof and hide it from not-too-inquisitive eyes. Unless Tim pissed off one of them they didn’t come looking. Sometimes his family’s dysfunctional ways played into his hands.

He scritches at a clucking Crowley absent mindlessly, and decides to grab the bird before it could escape.

“Sorry!” He apologizes, because Crowley is, predictably, screaming bloody murder as he sees Tim carrying him towards the cage. “I can’t chance you eating something dangerous and choking on it! But I’ll be back soon, I promise!”

Crowley isn’t mollified by that, and Tim has to watch the tiny bird shaking and screeching inside the cage. It breaks his heart, but it’s a necessity. Crowley might not understand it with his tiny dino brain, but he’ll be alive and well when Tim gets back with treats.

Lots of treats.

Tim hopes he can win his tiny bird’s affection back with them.

***

All right, Jason can honestly say he didn’t expect tiny Timmy to step up and embrace pet ownership so thoroughly. He thought getting the pen was his ticket, even if his writing would be a bit patchy, but no. Tim had to go and freak out about choking hazards. If it weren’t Jason’s life and opposable thumbs on the line, he would have laughed his ass off.

Instead he kept screaming profanities at the kid, without use. Kid couldn’t understand him anyway. More’s the pity.

He tried pecking in morse again, only to be called adorable and scritched on the head and back again. He despairs for the younger Robin. He despairs for his opposable thumbs.

Jason could really use them.

He could use them right now, to escape this bloody cage Tim shoved him into. On the one hand Jason gets it, he understands why Tim had to do that, but on the other… It grates. He needs to find something to communicate with Tim, and there’s nothing in this cage but shitty newspaper.

He sighs, clucks and calms down. Good thing these cages were built with birds in mind. Jason… well, he isn’t a normal bird, and while he might not have opposable thumbs, he has a human brain, and knows how the latch works. So he squirms around until he can stick a leg out and scratches at the latch until it clicks open.

He swaggers out like the world's smuggest asshole.

He looks around, trying to find a discarded pen or something he could write with… when an alarm sounds. It’s low and chirpy, and cuts off fast, but it puts him on alert.

Tim couldn’t be home this fast, he thinks. He was too excited, even had a shopping list and reusable bags.

No.

Could this be the doorbell, he wonders, until he can hear scrambling at the door. He flaps up onto a desk, his wings aching from the wound he got when they put him up against that other bird (and Jason has to admit not having a bird brain then sucked), but he can’t see better. The scraping doesn’t stop.

Fuck this. He looks around, and spots the highest, darkest shelf in the whole Nest. It’s quite a ways away, with very little to perch on on the way up, so he begins to formulate a plan to get up there, and fast.

He tries to take the shortest route up, resting his wings until he can fly again, and he’s barely up, talons just touching down on the hidden top shelf (knocking a few books over in his haste) when the door opens, and a tiny, black form slinks in.

The door closes (and locks by the click) and the intruder stands up. He looks around then, snooping until he comes face to face with the cage.

“So it is true,” he speaks. “Drake is hiding a chicken!”

Ah. Jason loosens his feathers. It’s just the demon spawn, probably come to liberate him. He can take the gremlin, make him wish he never tried to break into Tim’s home.

***

Damian slides into Drake’s Nest stealthily, set on finding the bird. His Father had claimed it was just Drake having a mental breakdown/sleepwalking-talking session, but Damian knows better. He hacked into the files Drake uploaded about last night’s activities, and he now knows Red Robin was in contact with roosters.

Those noises his Father heard must have come from one or more chickens. Poor, neglected animals that are in need of rescuing. After all what sort of pet owner could Drake be?

Damian wants to scoff in distaste but holds it in while he looks for any sign of a bird or birds… and comes upon an empty, open cage. A small one, that must mean a single animal.

“So it is true,” he breathes. “Drake is hiding a chicken!”

An animal he let loose while he was away. While he was unsupervised in a home that could pose multiple dangers. How irresponsible of Drake!

Surely he should contact his Father, Damian thinks, but he opts for locating and securing the bird. (Just in case.)

Sometimes his Father likes to take Drake’s side for no apparent reason.

It’s better to be prepared for that possibility, secure the bird and take it to the Batcave as evidence, where they cannot take it back from Damian.

He begins to look around, trying to call out to it gently, until he begins to hear… clucking. It’s soft and seems to come from many directions all at once, until he gets to an open space and stops. He closes his eyes and just listens, trying to find the source of the sound.

When he opens his eyes and looks up, he can barely see a tiny shape on the highest shelf.

“Found you,” he declares. “Come down, bird, I shall take you to a better place where you will be taken care of! There’s nothing to fear!”

The bird crows, but doesn’t move.

Damian tsks. So the bird will make him work for it. Or it has perhaps been so traumatized by Drake’s care, he’s unable to move.

No matter, Damian will get it down.

He uses a table to reach the bottom shelf and climbs up, until he comes up to the top shelf where the bird is hiding.

He doesn’t realize his blunder until it’s too late.

The bird, which is a tiny ball of infernal hellfire and spite flies into his face, talons out, and pushes him off the shelf. They tumble down, or Damian tumbles down, the bird riding him all the way to the hardwood floor, where it proceeds to crow in his face triumphantly. Then it flies up onto the table to crow some more, clucking and flapping its wings at him.

“I see that Drake has traumatized you” Damian tells it quietly, “and I forgive you for this. Now come, I shall take you home where you shall be fed and treated well.”

The bird pecks him, hard. He can see his finger bleeding. It pecks him again when he doesn’t pull his hand back fast enough.

“Blasted bird!” he hisses, and looks for some material to throw over it when his phone begins to ring.

He pulls it out.

It’s Grayson.

“What do you want?” he asks, annoyed. The insolent bird is eyeing him like Damian is his lesser, and it doesn’t sit well with him.

“Are you at Timmy’s?”

Damian sighs. Trust Grayson to keep close tabs on him.

“I fail to see why this is any business of yours.”

“Damian,” Grayson says, and his voice drips with disapproval. “You can’t steal someone’s pet. If Timmy has a bird you can’t just take it. Imagine what Bruce would say.”

Damian curses long and hard in Arabic. While Grayson’s worry is heartening, it is entirely unnecessary, and alerting his father of his rescue attempts… would be problematic. He sighs.

“The bird looks very traumatized. It has attacked me upon entry into Drake’s flat. We need to extract it and take it to a veterinarian before it expires.”

“Tim wrote that he took Crowley to a vet last night and has gotten ointment for his wound.” Grayson tells him reproachfully. “He says Crowley is very friendly. Are you sure you haven’t just spooked him?”

Damian scowls.

“I’ve been nothing but friendly to this animal. Drake must have done something.”

“Of course,” the older man tells him placatingly, but Damian can hear the amusement colouring his voice. Damn Grayson for treating him like a child!

“It must have been Drake’s doing!” He insists.

“So let Timmy handle it.”

Damian growls. The tiny cock crows triumphant, as if he knows Damian has no choice now. Should he turn up in the Batcave with his spoils now, Grayson would march him right back to the Nest with an apology for sure.

“Damn you!” he hisses to both Grayson and the rooster, as well as Drake, who’s not here, but the feeling’s still there.

“If you come over, we can eat ice-cream,” Grayson suggests, and Damian sighs.

He’s being treated like a child.

“Fine. I’ll be over shortly.”

The rooster crows at him until he’s through the door, as if he’s getting laughed out.

Chapter Text

Tim… can’t remember the last time he had been able to just go off and have a pleasant afternoon shopping. He keeps expecting crises popping up left and right, frantic telephone calls or exploding buildings… but nothing happens. He doesn’t even get a distraught phone call to manage another social media blunder, Dick isn’t pleading with him to suck it up, and Bruce isn’t quietly expectant on the other end.

It’s just Tim and Gotham and his errands to run. Because he has a cock now. A tiny, perfect cock. The softest, fluffiest bird to ever grace his flat. The softest, floofiest, and undoubtedly most adorable little angel.

And Tim’s on a mission now to make sure his bird has all the comfort he’ll ever need.

As well as perhaps find a way to ask Bruce to let Tim live a little? To make sure his bird survives… He never would expect, nor does he want Alfred to look after his pet while he spends weeks or months undercover or holed away at WE, buried under paperwork. He isn’t Damian, haughty and counting on others to make up for his shortcomings. Nor does he expect others to pick up his slack.

No. Tim will take care of the life he’s now responsible for. He’ll be the best owner Crowley has ever had. That cock will want for absolutely nothing.

He enters the grocery store and pulls up his shopping list on his phone. The urban rooster sites said apples are good treats, so he beelines it to the fruit aisle and picks up a few of each he can find. He doesn’t know whether Crowley has a colour or taste preference, but they will try. It’ll be a bonding opportunity.

He’s daydreaming of feeding a happy little bird, all curled up and fluffy on his lap, clucking happily away while Tim collects the rest of the things on his list. Vegetables, ground meat, rotisserie chicken (he hopes his new pet will forgive him) and some energy bars. He knows Bruce always offers to stock up his pantry, but he likes to buy his own. (He has different tastes, and he has money enough to buy his own things, thank you.)

He throws in a few chocolate bars and non-alcoholic drinks. The beer in his fridge will expire soon enough, probably way before Dick will visit him again, if he ever will, but he doesn’t care. Dick can buy his own beer. More so since Tim isn’t technically allowed to buy alcohol.

He could, Alvin Draper is over 21, but he doesn’t. It’s Dick’s own fault he never comes around. Tim has every right to be a little petty.

Once he’s done with the necessary evil, he enters the Pet Emporium. It’s a big store, probably the biggest in Gotham, and Tim looks around for a while before he flags an employee down. He’s already holding a little shirt for birds (it’s probably made for ducks) that has a Robin sign on its front and costs all of two dollars, so Tim has to get it. (It’s another question whether Crowley will let him put it on him, but Tim will cross that bridge when he gets there…)

“Do you have cages for roosters?” he asks, hoping he’s in luck because the alternative is ordering online, and even with the fastest shipping it could take days. And according to the urban rooster site, chicken need sunlight. And there’s precious little of it in Gotham, not to mention in Tim’s normal lifestyle.

Even so, Tim isn’t just going to stuff his cock into a dark, dank cave. His bird will get a spacious roof abode with all the sunlight he’ll ever need. (Or get in Gotham.)

“Uh… lemme check?” the girl gives him a distracted look, and puts down the dog chew toys she was sorting.

Tim is taken to the back where the girl logs onto an old clunky computer full of cat, dog and lizard stickers and proceeds to spend a long time just typing in and scrolling.

Out of boredom, and because Tim is a little worried, he pulls out his phone and checks his Nest camera. He hopes Crowley is doing well, but seeing the little fluffball in his cage, possibly pouting is something he absolutely needs. He’s just glad he has multiple feeds from different angles.

He’s switching between cameras while the girl hums and the keys clacks, when he spots… two legs dangling into the view. It brings him up short. For a second he thinks he’s switched to the Batcave cameras, and tries to shield his phone, but… then he spots one of his own shelves in the background.

He tries to switch to a camera that has a better angle, and he sees more of the legs. They dangle above a table, and seem to be going up, until they jerk. And then the jerk a lot more.

Tim’s disconcerted to see the person falling a few seconds later, along with a ball of familiar fluff, and then they are out of the frame. He frantically switches cameras until he can see that Crowley is fine, shaking his feathers out, puffed up proudly on top of Damian’s chest, while the boy looks a little worse for wear.

Tim’s hand curls into a fist over the phone, watching with fire curling in his stomach as his tiny cock crows into the dazed boy’s face. The dazed boy who has no right to enter Tim’s space. The boy, who was undoubtedly there to steal Tim’s companion for his own.

“I’m sorry, but something came up,” he tells the girl apologetically. He slides a card with an email address he’s safe in giving out and a ten dollar bill, and smiles winningly. “Would you mind sending me the results online? And if possible, could I order it by phone or pick it up later?”

She gives him a wide grin and pockets the money. “You got it, dude. Good luck with your chicken!”

Tim’s too distracted to correct her. He turns on his heel and makes for the exit, anxious for his cock. He just hopes he makes it back before Damian decides the tiny rooster is too much of a bother, and if he can’t have Tim’s tiny cock, nobody else can.

Tim isn’t sure if he could stop himself from hurting the kid badly if he damaged Crowley in any way.

By the time he gets back the flat is empty. There’s no sign of Damian besides the pushed askew table and a few fallen papers. But there’s also no sign of Crowley.

Tim drops his groceries and runs in, barely remembering to lock the door. He’s frantic in his search, looking under furniture and high on shelves, everywhere a scared bird might try to escape to. Because the alternative is that Damian has managed to steal his bird, and that’s…

Tim has no illusions that once Damian took the rooster home nobody would care that he was originally Tim’s. Dick would give the Nest to Damian, if he ever wanted. Would give the clothes off Tim’s back, if they were ever deemed acceptable by Damian’s standards. (Luckily anything touched by Tim loses its value. Except apparently his bird.)

Unfortunately… Crowley is nowhere to be found.

Tim’s frantic when he gets as far as the kitchen, thinking maybe the sink would be an optional hiding place, and finds Crowley on the countertop, bleeding out.

“Oh no…!” He whimpers and dives to embrace his brave little warrior, who’s clucking and kicking his little feet up, and Tim breathes in the scent of his feathers, the ointment and… weirdly…

“Is that ketchup?!”

Heedless of the danger, the germs and everything, he sticks a finger in the smear on the countertop, and tastes it.

He sags in relief that it is indeed proven to be ketchup, and not blood.

“Jesus Christ Crowley!” He groans. “What the hell was all this? Where did you get the ketchup from? How did you fight the hellspawn off? Come to think of it… did he take you out of your cage?”

“Bok-bok-bawwk,” goes Crowley, and preens. “Bok-bok-bok!”

“Right. Either way, brilliant job. Fighting off Damian is not something many people can do. Not sure any roosters tried!”

At this, Tim could swear Crowley preens like the proudest little motherclucker.

Well. His cock is a little special. Nothing wrong with that!

“Let me just… bring the things in, and I’ll clean you up. Just…” he flops his hands. He sighs. “Please don’t get ketchup on everything, ok? Be a good little birb for me?”

He has no illusions that Crowley’s dino brain will get what he’s yammering on about, but at least he tries. He hopes. He still legs it.

He carries his bags in, pulling out a shiny red apple and the tiny Robin shirt, and turns around to survey the damage in his kitchen.

Crowley clucks at him, his head stretching and bobbing as his eyes zero in on the apple, still standing on the countertop.

“You’re the absolute best!” Tim exclaims at his bird before he puts the apple down and pulls out some paper towels and napkins from a cabinet.

He means it too. Crowley simply stands there placidly as Tim wipes his feathers and feet down. Then Tim wets some towels and repeats the process, trying to make sure no ketchup is left until the paper comes back white.

He gives his patient little pet a kiss on his floppy comb. His fingers smooth over the patchy feathers. His eyes close as he clings to his bird.

Fuck Damian and his pet-thieving ways.

This one is Tim’s. And Damian will get Tim’s tiny cock over his dead body.

When he feels calm enough, and when Crowley gets bored and begins to peck his clothes, he steps back to pick up the apple. Beady little eyes follow his every move as he slices it up and cores it, cutting it into bite-sized chunks.

A red blur is his only notice as Crowley descends on the treat before Tim can get him a plate and set it aside.

Tim doesn’t mind though. The little rooster is far away from the ketchup-y mess that Tim can go over and clean it. He grabs an extra roll of paper towels and works himself up to it.

The thought of it being the tiny bird’s blood has his knees going surprisingly weak still.

He didn’t get scared of the Joker, or any other lunatics in Gotham. He didn’t get scared when he almost got killed. He didn’t get scared when he faced down Ra’s al Ghul. But he gets scared of his tiny cock getting hurt.

Go figure.

He pulls off a few squares and attacks the side of the mess before it could drip off the countertop, and goes still for a second. It’s weird, but it almost looks like writing. If he squints. Parts of it are smudged by feathers and talons, possibly when Tim picked Crowley up, but…

Huh.

He never knew his birb had artistic talents, too. Better add it to the list of amazing things his companion can do, along with “makes Tim sleep better''. That’ll never get old.

Still. If he squints, it looks like letters. Ja--n something something. So weird. So amazing.

Oh well.

He tears off a few more little paper squares and begins to clean it up, making it safe for both of them.

“Bok-bok,” comes from behind him.

“You’re welcome,” he tells the rooster. “I have a lot of apples, so we can find out which ones you like best. Gives a lot to look forward to, huh?”

“Bok-baawwwk-bok!” Crowley states, rather loudly.

“I know, I know,” Tim nods along, because what else is he to say? “I’ll be with you as soon as I clean up this mess. Honestly, you sure know how to get yourself into trouble.  You’re a tiny little trouble magnet, mister.”

“Bawwk.”

“Yup. I agree.”

***

Jason is pissed.

He’s livid.

He’ll tell Tim how fucking much as soon as he’s eaten all the apple pieces. But there are many, and he likes apples so goddamn much. He never knew he liked apples this much. And his replacement said he had more.

Jason is looking forward to them, even though he’s so very fucking pissed with tiny Timmy right now.

He spent such a long time opening the fucking ketchup bottle and pecking his message across the pristine while countertop, and the kid comes in, hugs him like a goddamn lunatic, and smears it all over the place. Oh, Jason is pissed. Beyond pissed. Apocalyptic.

He tries to communicate, and he gets babied.

Sure, the hugs are nice. The kisses warm him to his core. But goddamn it all, he wants his opposable thumbs back! He would still let tiny Timmy hug him and kiss him if he wanted to (and asked nicely enough), so long as Jason got to be a human again.

This is torture, he bemoans as he swallows another tiny piece of apple. Utter torture. He can’t stand this!

Especially since the apple slices have all gone missing.

Where have they gone?!

He looks around the tabletop, pecking at the white marble curiously, hoping to find any errant pieces. But there are none. All the apple slices are gone.

Jason’s life is so goddamn tragic.

“Bawwk,” he goes. Gimme more apples, he wants to say. Apples, apples, apples!

All the fighting with Damian made him hungry. And not getting kidnapped should mean more yummy food. He defended their Nest. He should get rewarded.

A lot.

He wants apple slices and cuddles, goddammit.

His delicate soul needs comforting.

And also how long does it take for Timmy to get a clue? Now Jason will have to find a new way to try and communicate with him. Which will be even harder, since all the pens are gone. So are the condiments, he sees despondently, as Tim shoves the ketchup into the fridge. That one wouldn’t be carelessly left available for Jason to use again, he fears.

So the question is: now what?

The answer is…

Hell.

Tim turns around, and there is a tiny green shirt in his hands. A tiny green shirt with a robin logo on it.

“Bawwk,” Jason goes. Oh fuck no, replacement, he wants to say. No fucking way! “Bok-bok-bok-bawwwk! Baaawwwwwk!”

Tim smiles ruefully before Jason is grabbed (gently, so perfectly gently he wants to coo) and then the shirt is plunged over his head and he…

His wings try to flap, but they are trapped until Tim’s fingers softly coax them through the openings, and then Jason is… in a shirt. In a Robin suit, against his will, once again.

“Bawwk.” I’ll fucking kill you, replacement, he grumbles. But he isn’t serious.

But he hates how it pulls on his feathers the wrong way.

He lets Tim snap a few photos on his camera (because the little shit is insufferable, but Jason likes him anyway) before he begins pecking on it and flapping his wings, trying to get it the fuck off. Because it’s horrible! He hates it!

He crows and crows until Tim gives in. A single, gentle hand is laid over his back and his wings are coaxed out, and then the offending clothing is off, and Jason is free again.

He crows in triumph.

“Fine,” Tim sighs. “Be that way. It was a long shot anyway.”

He drops a kiss on top of Jason’s comb, and then he begins packing away the groceries. Jason eyes the shiny apples in jealousy. He’ll get them as soon as he can figure out a way to jimmy Tim’s fridge open. He’ll have his pick of apples to peck.

He hopes maybe Tim will cut another one up for him, but no such luck. Dammit. 

He gets a distracted pet on his back, and then Tim picks him up and cradles him gently. Jason can’t help but coo. It’s kind of nice to be so small and easy to hug. This part he’s going to miss.

If he ever gets switched back.

***

Tim packs the rest of the groceries away, and picks up Crowley to give him another warm hug. He’s impossibly fluffy and huggable. Tim can’t stop himself.

“So,” he tells his heroic bird. “Let’s see what you’ve been up to while I was away!”

He settles down in front of his nest computer, with Crowley fluffed-up and clucking on his lap. For a second he feels like a Bond villain, except with a cock instead of a cat, and he has to stroke the back of his very fluffy bird slowly, gently, chuckling evilly.

Just to get it out of the way.

Not for practice.

Then he pulls up the feeds, starting with Crowley’s cage.

He’s so engrossed looking for the gremlin he misses (at first) the moment Crowley strikes. He has to rewind the feed to see his bird eyeing the latch, shuffling around and ninjaing it open. It’s… astounding.

“Holy shit…” he mutters, enraptured.

Then again, Tim’s reminded of the studies they do with ravens and crows and other birds, and he’s mollified knowing his bird is just one of the clever ones.

Which is good… But also that means Tim will need to make better closures for his rooftop cage. Or else. (Or else his bird might wander away, and someone might see only a free dinner. Fuck.)

He sees Crowley looking around and flapping on top of the table, and then going up, out of the frame, so he switches feeds.

That’s when he sees his door creaking open.

Tim’s seething. He hasn’t even spotted the gremlin, and he’s already pissed. The gall the little shit has is…

“I wish I could wring his entitled little neck,” he grouses to Crowley.

The cock in his lap clucks in agreement.

They watch together as Damian slinks in, and looks around. Tim has to give Crowley points for ingenuity. That shelf is pretty high up, and not hit by the sunbeams until the very latest hours of the afternoons. And only in the height of summer.

A+ for hiding.

Still. Tim sees the moment Damian spots him. And begins to climb. Tim watches as Crowley visibly readies himself, and while Damian talks… Huh. He pulls up the sound as well. He usually doesn’t need it, so he forgot.

He rewinds again.

“Come down, bird, I shall take you to a better place where you will be taken care of! There’s nothing to fear!” the gremlin exclaims.

Tim scoffs.

“He doesn’t even take care of his own pets,” he tells Crowley. “Alfred is the one doing all the hard work. He’s just there to play with them sometimes. That’s all he does.”

The bird bobs his head, as if in agreement.

They watch in companionable silence as Damian gets his ass handed to him by a tiny, pissed off bird. Tim can’t help but pet his cock indulgently at that. He’s a magnificent fighter, is what he is.

When the boy is prone on the floor with Crowley crowing in his face, Tim laughs. He laughs loud and freely like he hasn’t in a long time. It’s cathartic.

“I see that Drake has traumatized you, and I forgive you for this.” Damian’s declaration sends Tim’s blood to boil. “Now come, I shall take you home where you shall be fed and treated well.”

“I will wring his little neck, I swear,” he seethes. “I’m a much more responsible pet owner than he is!”

Crowley’s head bobs in assent. He coos. Tim pets him lovingly.

He pets Crowley even more when he sees him rebuffing Damian's hand offered in peace. His bird knows who’s friend and who is foe. His bird is magnificent.

Tim is excited to see how Damian gets chased right out of the apartment, but instead… there’s a call.

It’s Dick.

Of course it’s Dick.

Tim sighs.

He mutes the feed the moment Damian starts badmouthing him to Dick. It doesn’t sound like Dick is defending him, either. It’s… disheartening, so it’s best to be ignored.

He spends some time instead cutting together a montage of Damian getting bested by a bird. A bird so tiny Tim can hold it in a single hand.

Feeling vengeful, he pulls up a new email, pastes the short video in and writes “might need some additional training”, and addresses it to Bruce.

His hand hovers over Enter, just for a few seconds. He knows it’s the epitome of pettiness, and he would never in a million years do it, but… just the thought helps to calm that sore, hurt part of his soul that’s been battered over and over by Dick’s and Bruce’s callous brushing off of his issues.

“Nah.” He sighs. “I need to be the bigger person.”

He drops his hand into his lap.

His empty lap.

He looks down and sees Crowley has evacuated his lap, having hopped on his desk. One clawed foot laid carelessly on Enter.

Time stands still.

The foot presses down.

Tim stares, frozen, at his screen, where the message is suddenly tagged as sent.

“Oh shit, nonononono!” Tim screams and shoos the bird to the side as he attempts to do damage control.

Contrary to general belief, it is possible to unsend a message. All one needs is access to the servers the sent messages get stored on, and the ability to delete it.

This is what Tim attempts to do, but to his great horror… he can’t. The message, the video file is already in use.

He freaks. He can only hope it’s Damian, because Dick would call him every name in the book for endangering a child. And Bruce…

...Tim can’t imagine what he would do.

“Oh nonononono. I’m gonna get killed!” he groans and curls down to rest his forehead on the cool wood of the desk.

Crowley rubs against his face, but Tim refuses to look up. It’s his goddamn fault for making the video and writing the email. He knows this. He’s not blaming Crowley.

Goddamn it.

He gets a soft ping as a new message arrives.

He gulps.

He takes a fortifying breath and raises up enough to read it.

“What the fuck?!”

Noted.
Are you feeling better yet?

Is what he receives back. From Bruce, even.

He thinks about it. Is he feeling better? A little, maybe. He’s still very much overworked and questioning his life choices. He is also maybe questioning whether he should ask for less responsibilities from Bruce, or better yet, ask the others to take their fair share of the burden.

He would feel bad about it, but having Crowley for just a day showed him how much he needs to… to take care of himself, so he can take care of his pet.

He doesn’t like to admit he’s not good enough. He doesn’t like to admit he just can’t do something. But he absolutely refuses to turn into another Bruce. He can’t. He won’t.

“I think… I should take a step back.” He tells Crowley. “And possibly take a little better care of myself, so I can take care of you. What do you think?”

The bird eyes him with his beady little eyes, head bobbing.

“Bok.” He says, and he walks back into Tim’s lap, settling himself down in a show of absolute trust. He’s a round little fluff with feathers sticking out, and Tim…

Tim thinks how ridiculous this all is. How weird it is that his life took an entirely different turn after a chance meeting. How… ridiculous indeed.

Fortified, he writes back to Bruce.

Somewhat. I would like to meet you to discuss and renegotiate my responsibilities as we go on. Please reply with when you’ll be available.

He hits send before he could lose his nerve. And then he sags down like a marionette with its strings cut, entirely wiped out. Shaking.

He did it.

“I did it,” he tells Crowley. “I can’t believe I did it.” He thinks of Bruce, dark and angry and probably disappointed in every last one of Tim’s life choices. “Oh god I can’t believe I did it!!”

He buries his hands in his hair and pulls, horrified.

Bruce will be so disappointed. Who will he train to take some of Tim’s responsibilities? Who will be as good as Tim? Damian?!

Better not, or Gotham will be a burning crater in less than a week.

Tim groans.

There’s nobody else!! That’s why he hasn’t tried to fob it off onto anybody else yet. But Tim has his limits, too, goddamn it.

He groans again, louder and longer.

He reaches down to ground himself the only way he can: by stroking Crowley.

Who’s not there again.

He looks up to find the little cock pecking on his keyboard, and he groans yet again. While his keyboard is pretty much indestructible, and he probably can’t pry the individual keys loose, there is still…

There’s a lot of sensitive data on his computer. Truly, he needs to be more careful.

He reaches over to coax his bird away from his keyboard and glances at his screen to make sure nothing sensitive has been sent or deleted, even altered by mistake…

...and he stays there, frozen.

“Oh SHIT. ”

Chapter Text

Jason regards his replacement for a few seconds while the young man has his well-deserved meltdown, and then he waddles off to the keyboard.

It’ll do Tim well to finally cut the umbilical cord. Just because he’s the most anal, most Bruce-ish among all the Robins it doesn’t mean Bruce should dump everything on the poor kid. He should instead focus on Dickface and the hellspawn and parent the shit out of them.

God knows the gremlin needs to be taken down a peg… or several dozen. Kid’s got an ego the size of Ra’s, and none of the knowledge and skill to back it up. Jason would call Bruce out on his blatant favoritism, if he weren’t… you know… Estranged.

Removed.

Far, far the fuck removed from all that crazy, thank you.

(And look where it got him.)

Well, Jason thinks as he regards the coveted keyboard that’s left completely unattended while Tim freaks the fuck out behind him. Talk about hunt-and-peck.

He walks all over the thing until he can coax a new document up, and then he starts to peck-peck-peck at the keys until he can get a few words out.

‘I’m Jason’, he starts it with, because he has no clue when Tim gathers himself back together enough to care about his cock. ‘Don’t worry about B, he’ll deal. It’s high time the others got some company training, too. You’re doing them a favour. You’ve been hogging the spotlight for long enough.’

He looks back. Tim has two hands in his hair, pulling fistfuls, while chanting “oh god, oh god!”

Nope, kid’s still not ok.

Well then!

‘Speaking of favours,’ he continues pecking, undeterred. ‘Could use some help with getting my opposable thu-’

He’s plucked up and pulled away before he can finish.

Behind him Tim curses.

***

The first thing Tim does is drop the bird.

It gives an indignant squawk and struggles to stay on Tim’s lap.

“Shit,” Tim curses and helps to right him. “Are you ok?”

He crows.

“Uh. Right.” He pauses. He despairs. He’s fucking horrified. “So if you’re Jason, crow twice?”

The bird crows twice.

“Fuck.”

The bird… Jason… agrees.

Or… crows again. Whatever that might mean. Tim isn’t sure.

Tim thinks back to the ketchup incident. Thinks about the writing smeared by their combined struggling. That was Jason trying to communicate, because Tim…

He locked away all the pens when Jason tried to write on his countertop.

Because Tim thought he’d eat the pen caps.

Jesus.

“Jason?!”

His bird… the bird bobs his head, and bawwks.

“Fuck.”

He seems to be saying that a lot.

He wipes his face with a tired hand.

“How the fuck did that happen?”

Jason goes bawwk in reply.

“Right, lemme just… Let me see who I can call.”

He pulls out his phone and goes through his contacts. Zatanna would probably be ok, but Tim’s not Batman. There’s Zachary, who’s a right pain in the ass. There’s also possibly Constantine, but he’s… less savoury.

“All right,” he sighs. “Brace yourself.”

He calls Zachary.

It rings several times before it’s picked up. “Is this life or death?” comes the irritated question.

“No,” Tim says. He wants to say hi, hello, how are you just to annoy the man, but can’t, when Jason’s body is on the line.

“Good. I’m getting on stage. Will call you after.”

The line goes dead.

“He’ll call us back when his show is over,” he tells his anxious bird.

Jason clucks in utter disgruntlement, before he walks back into Tim’s lap and sits his ass down with a drawn-out bawwk.

Honestly, Tim should have figured this out sooner. No bird but a Robin could be this much of a drama queen.

Tim automatically begins to stroke his hands down the patchy back, and freezes in horror. It was one thing while he had no earthly idea, but now… Now that he knows it’s Jason sitting calmly in his lap, clucking gently and pushing up against his hand for more…

Well. All right. If Jason’s on board!

He digs his fingers gently into the feathers, just a little to scritch at the patch where back meets the wings, and Jason coos. It’s so… It’s just like the things they have been doing all day it boggles Tim’s mind.

He is petting the Red Hood, who has been turned into the tiniest, fiercest little rooster Tim has ever seen. The Red Hood is sitting on his lap, cooing gently while Tim strokes his back. Jason Todd is letting Tim touch him.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Why can’t Tim have just a single normal day off?

Tim despairs.

He strokes his cock gently until he calms down enough.

“Right,” he tells Jason. “Now what.”

“Now we talk.”

Tim startles. He didn’t even hear Bruce enter his apartment. No alarms went off. Jason didn’t pick up on it, either, given how much he’s struggling now to get out of Tim’s lap.

Possibly to attack Bruce, too.

Tim grabs him with both hands until Jason is grudgingly subdued. He turns his chair around with his cock in his lap. Let Bruce think it’s a power move and not a self preservation tactic, because if Jason thinks he can take Bruce on he’s delusional.

Bruce’s mouth ticks up as their eyes meet.

“You look like an old movie supervillain,” he tells Tim before he moves to sit down across from him. “Is this the guy who bested Damian?”

“Well…” Tim hedges. “He’s actually-” he hisses as his fingers are nipped. Sharply.

“He’s a feisty one all right,” Bruce chuckles.

“Yeah,” Tim concedes. “He definitely is that.”

They regard each other in silence. Tim’s mind is teeming with all the things he wants to say, to explain to Bruce that he’s at his limit, and would like to have a little bit more of his life to live, even if he won’t be keeping his cock… But he doesn’t know how to explain everything to his adoptive father.

Fortunately Bruce speaks first.

“I’m… sorry I put so much on your plate, Tim. I know it was wrong of me to do so, and I was… I was expecting this day to come. I just hoped I had a little more time with… with preparations.”

“What preparations?” slips out before Tim can bite his tongue. “Surely not Damian?”

Fuck.

His cock crows in utter delight, as if cackling. (He probably is.)

Bruce’s smile slips off his face, and suddenly he looks… he looks his age. Looks older, even.

“Perhaps not. I was so worried he’d run back to his mother, to Ra’s, that I didn’t discipline him properly. I took his extensive knowledge as emotional maturity, and let you suffer the brunt of his ire, and for that… I’m sorry. I know it put unnecessary strain on you, and…” Bruce sighs.

Tim wants to say it’s all right, that he understands and he doesn’t mind, but Jason pecks at his fingers harshly and Tim looks down and misses his opportunity to do so.

“I’ll do better,” Bruce continues. “I promise you, I’ll discipline Damian for his transgression into your flat. For spooking… Crowley. Even though he’s a very good guard bird.”

Tim watches, frozen to the spot as Bruce leans over and extends a hand out to touch…

Jason goes nuts. He stares down Bruce until the very last second, and then he starts pecking and clawing the extended hand until it’s drawn back, and fast.

“Very good guard bird,” Bruce repeats as he licks the blood off the back of his hand.

“He’s probably going to a rescue as soon as a place opens up for him,” Tim amends. Or at least he’ll be changed back into a human who’s just as deadly.

“That’s probably for the best,” Bruce agrees mildly, staring down the puffed-up little rooster. “Gotham is no place for innocent chickens. Or roosters.”

“I did plan on keeping him,” Tim confesses. He tries to tell Bruce how the idea of keeping an animal brought him to the conclusion that he’s neglecting himself, but it doesn’t get past the lump in his throat.

He falls silent.

“Maybe you can go and visit him sometimes?” Bruce offers with a kind, tired smile. “You’ll have some extra free time to do that.”

“But who’ll take care of WE?”

“I’ll start teaching Damian. There is also Dick and Cassandra. And if I absolutely must, I can ask Jason…”

Crowley, predictably, goes nuts. Tim smooths a hand down his back and pushes him to a sitting position. Under his hands he can still feel the feathers ruffling as the bird almost vibrates with feelings.

“I can still help out,” he offers. "I’m not saying I don’t want anything to do with WE, just that I don’t want to carry it alone.”

“And you won’t have to. I have already called Lucius and Tam. I’ve talked with Dick and Damian. And just so you know,” he smirks, “there will be bird training from now on.”

Tim can’t help it, he chuckles.

“And Alfred is forbidden to care for his animals any more. If Damian isn’t able to, he’ll have to find a charity or another person to donate his pets to.”

“Ouch.” Tim winces in sympathy. “Isn’t that a bit too much change all at once?”

“I shouldn’t have let him get away with this much ever since he arrived at the Manor.” Bruce tells him, sounding resolute. “He might have to grow up to meet the challenge, but I have every confidence in him that he will. He is not a small child. He’s League trained. He can clean out a few cages. But if he can’t, I hear the Kent boy has a space for that cow of his.”

“You could get a small barn built for Batcow.” Tim mentions before he realizes what he’s talking about. “You know… if Damian wants to keep her.”

Bruce smiles.

“If he proves to be a reliable pet owner, I just might.”

Tim sighs. He strokes Jason’s back. He stares at Bruce’s lined face.

“So you aren’t mad at me?”

Bruce blinks.

“Of course not.”

“Not even disappointed that I can’t… won’t do it all alone?”

Bruce’s face crumples a little bit.

The next moment he’s up, and he pulls Tim up with him. Cr Jason bawks indignantly as he’s suddenly smooshed between two people, as Bruce pulls them into a tight hug. Tim leans into it, curling a protective hand around his bird between them.

“I could never be disappointed in you for drawing healthy boundaries, Tim. In fact I couldn’t be prouder. You deserve to have free time and agency. In fact I hope I haven’t disappointed you too much by leaning on you too hard all these years.”

“No,” Tim says, and chokes up with emotion. He wants to say that he did it happily, that he needed to be needed just as much as Bruce needed someone’s help, but he can’t. He just can’t.

But he thinks what he means might come across, because when Bruce pulls back, he’s smiling again.

“I’m very proud of you, Tim. And I hope… I really hope you will be willing to help out now and then, if Damian falls back on the wrong training. But other than that, I’ll try to give you as much freedom as you need. I hope we can work together so that you never will feel so overwhelmed again.”

Tim nods. He doesn’t completely grasp which instance Bruce means, but… over all he agrees. A lot.

“Yes. I… Yes. I can help out. So long as the others are chipping in and it’s not just me doing it, it’s… it’s fine.”

“Good.”

They nod.

Bruce shuffles. Tim fidgets. Jason flaps his wings.

“Right,” Bruce says with the sort of finality that always signaled the end of their talks. “I have a meeting with Lucius to get to. I’m really glad we could sort this out. And I even got to meet your new little friend! He’s a magnificent creature.”

Tim laughs awkwardly.

“Thanks. Thank you, really. I’m…” he swallows against the lump in his throat.

“Yeah. I’m glad we… sorted this out. Will you patrol tonight?”

Tim looks down at Jason, who looks up at him, and clucks quietly.

“Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow.”

Bruce smiles.

“All right then. I’ll tell Dick he’s expected then. If something happens, we can always call Jason.”

Tim bites his tongue before Jason nips at the already sore pads of his fingers.

“You can call me, too, if you need me.”

Bruce gives him an indulgent smile.

“All right. Will do. So long as Crowley here is settled. He’ll probably be safe guarding your Nest.”

He leaves by the front door, and Tim sinks down into his chair in stunned silence.

“What just happened?!”

In reply, Jason goes bawwwk.

Eventually Tim wanders over to the kitchen to make himself some sandwiches, and cuts up two more apples for Jason. It didn’t escape his notice how fast the small slices got gobbled up earlier.

He has barely finished, knife still out, when Jason runs over and sticks his head into the bowl of apple pieces.

“Self-preservation goes right out the window,” he chuckles as he cleans up, and then he watches as Jason gorges himself on apples. It’s quite an amusing sight, which means…

He pulls out his phone to record it while the fun lasts. Who knows when he’ll get that call? Who knows when he’ll need to make Jason not be a dick to him? (Though Tim hopes this shared camaraderie will help with their… shared issues. Maybe.)

Obviously that’s when the call comes. Jason’s head whips around and gives Tim’s camera (in the all too obvious position) a beady-eyed stare.

“Eeep!” Tim meeps before he stops recording and picks up.

“All right, Rob, where’s the fire?”

Tim sighs. He already knows he’ll never hear the end of this.

“Gotham. One of my… friends got turned into a rooster. I haven’t seen it happen so I have no information on the how, but he’s still self-aware.”

“All right,” Zachary sighs. “Give me some time to get my stuff together and I’ll pop on over. Just get ready for the cock jokes.”

Tim sighs at the dial tone.

“Well,” he tells Jason. “That’s it. So much for my dignity.”

Jason swaggers over to peck on his fingers.

‘F-u-c-k-t-h-a-t-c-l-o-w-n.’ he pecks in Morse. Now that Tim pays attention, he can easily tell.

“You’ve tried that one on me before, right?”

‘Y-e-s.’

God, but Tim was an idiot. He’s kicking himself for not picking up on all the signs sooner. There’s no bird so cool as his. For a reason. “Sorry.”

‘I-s-a-l-l-r-i-g-h-t. G-o-t-m-o-r-e-a-p-p-l-e-s?’

“Sure. Why not.”

Tim fishes out two more apples. He cores them, slices them up, and throws them into Jason’s bowl, watching avidly as the bird feeds. It’s a treat.

He never knew watching chickens feeding is so much fun.

He doesn’t jump through the roof when he hears a throat getting cleared behind him, but only because he thinks he’s had his trauma quota of the day.

“So. Rob. That’s your tiny cock then?”

Tim groans.

“Yes, that’s him. Can you help?”

Zachary stalks over still dressed in his magician getup, and bends down to eye-level with Jason, who’s staring right back at him.

“Huh. Whoever did this wasn’t well-versed in magic. Must have been an accident. That’s gonna be tricky. Here,” he snaps his fingers a few times, trying to distract Jason, or something else, and then he picks him up bodily.

Tim thinks the little feet that tread air are the cutest thing ever, but he doesn’t dare say.

“Right,” Zachary squints. “I think I’ve got it. Stand back a bit, all right, Rob?”

Tim gets out of the kitchen just to be safe.

He hears Zachary muttering something but can’t pick up what. He doesn’t dare go closer in case he messes with the spell, either. He shifts from foot to foot, anxious, until there’s a bright light.

“Uh… Rob?”

Tim runs back, only to see Jason, the Red Hood locked in a staring match with Zachary.

“You said friend, right?” Zachary drawls.

“Yeah,” Jason replies with a voice rough and dry like the Sahara. “We’re all friends here, right?”

“Yeah.” Tim replies. “We’re friends.” They are all friends. Friends don’t kill friends for trying to dress their feathery little bodies in Robin costumes.

“All right,” Zachary says, still a bit wide-eyed. “That’s good.” Perhaps Tim should have prepared him better, but it was a little revenge for the cock joke. And the multitudes of cock jokes still to come. For years. 

“Right, look," Jason cuts in. "I dunno if I was the only one who got turned. The asshat who did this to me was among the first ones gunned down in that raid. There were a bunch of roosters carted off, and fuck knows if there were others like me.”

The magician shakes his head.

“No can do. I have another show to do in half an hour and I haven’t eaten yet.”

“But-”

“This wasn’t done by a proper magician. The spell wouldn’t have held for more than a day or two at best. I turned you back as a favour for Tim. If there are others they will turn back eventually. Unless your shelter carts them off to a butcher, they’ll be fine.”

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. The shelter, the last he checked, was fine. He’ll have to make a call later so they can watch out for any magical shenanigans, but this is at least good news.

“All right,” he sighs. “Thank you for this.”

Zachary grins. Tim already dreads the next words out of his mouth.

“Anything for your tiny cock, Robin.”

“Really now?” Jason asks amiably as he slings one beefy arm over the magician’s shoulder. “That’s real nice of you. You Zataras are the really nice sort.”

Zachary frowns at Tim.

“Are we done then? Because I’m in a hurry. I’m not here so your boyfriend can make fun of me.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Tim says before the second half of what the magician said catches up to him. “Wait what?! He isn’t my boyfriend!”

But he’s talking to thin air.

Zachary is gone.

Tim doesn’t dare to look at Jason, who’s human again, and standing in the middle of Tim’s kitchen. A kitchen that used to be big and roomy, but now feels tiny and stifling.

Minutes later he hears porcelain clinking on his marble tabletop, and he looks up, surprised.

Right in front of his eyes Jason is gobbling up the last of the apple slices.

“So,” Jason says between bites, studiously not looking at Tim. “Since we’re both not expected to patrol tonight… Wanna turn in early? Watch a movie maybe?”

Tim… He honestly didn’t expect Jason to want to stay. With Tim.

He’s floored for a minute before he thinks… Why the hell not?

So he says “sure. What did you have in mind?”

Jason’s head whips around to stare at him, flabbergasted, his mouth open in a rather unattractive (but endearing) way. “What, really?”

Tim smiles. “Really. I still have a lot of apples.”

“Oh. All right then. Do you have Netflix? There are a bunch of Jane Austen movies and series we can watch.”

Tim, in fact, does have Netflix. This is how he finds himself tucked against Jason's side as they marathon different versions of Pride and Prejudice, with a huge bowl of apple slices in his lap. And if he sometimes reaches down to smooth his down soft feathers and he finds none, it’s all right. Eventually a big, strong, warm hand reaches out to tangle fingers with his own, and they sit there in companionable silence until they drop off to sleep, the apple slices browning in the air, completely forgotten.