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Chapter Text

Batman crouched on the lip of a roof, wishing the rain would stop. He’d invested millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of lab time, and they still couldn’t develop a cowl that didn’t eventually drop cold water down the back of his neck.

“What are we watching for?”

He jumped, bracing himself against a crenellation just in time to keep from falling. One second he would swear there’d been no one and nothing near him, and the next someone was talking almost in his ear. He growled in annoyance even as he turned.

“One of these days, Kal, I swear, I’m—” He cut himself off as he caught sight of what awaited him, and bit back a groan. “Bat-Mite. Been a while.”

“Yeah, well.” The imp ground his toe into the wet roof, shrugging his shoulders sadly. “It seems like you’re never happy when I come around.”

Bruce did not feel guilty. No matter how cute the little guy was, he was nothing but trouble.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Bat-Mite,” he said gruffly.

“No, I know. I’ve screwed up a lot. But I figured out how to make it up to you!”

“Really, that’s not necessary,” Bruce said quickly. “I don’t need you to do anything at all.”

“But you do!” Bat-Mite said imploringly. “You’re so unhappy! I see it every day, you never get to do anything you really enjoy or spend as much time as you want with the people you love.”

“That’s because I have a mission, Bat-Mite,” Bruce responded, now genuinely alarmed. “The Mission takes precedence over spending my time how I might want. You admire me for my work, right? You wouldn’t want to do anything to get in the way of it.”

Bat-Mite snorted. “You were gone for how long, traveling in time, and the Mission didn’t suffer; Dick and Damian did great as Batman and Robin. I don’t think the world would end if you spent some time focusing on things that would make you happy. Don’t you think you would actually be a greater Batman if you took better care of yourself?”

Bruce closed his eyes for a second as Bat-Mite’s words evoked the simmering rage that had been his constant companion since Selina had left him. Granted, Bruce conceded that some of his traumatic past had been necessary—dimension shifting and time travel had shown, for example, that universes and timelines where his parents didn’t die weren’t fun places to be. Even now, his Gotham was too full of misery and evil for Bruce to be looking for a vine and fig tree. Contentment was not in his nature, not while there were villains out there to be fought, and he didn’t see that changing any time soon.

But Bruce refused to believe that having a few good things in his life would somehow make him a less effective Batman. If anything, the times when he’d been the most unhappy in his life—after Jason, after Bane, after Damian, right now—had also been the times he made the worst mistakes, the ones that made him writhe in useless self-hatred in the hour of the wolf… 

“Maybe I could spend some more time on—trying to be happy,” Bruce admitted aloud. Alfred would be so proud. “But it’s really not necessary to help me to do so.”

“But I have the perfect idea! It’s based on something we fifth-dimension types do to relax—in fact, it’s kinda why I’m here in the first place.”

“Why you’re here?”

“Hold on, it’ll all make sense in a moment—”

“Bat-Mite, no—”

Too late. It felt like every cell in Bruce’s body seized up and vibrated at the same time. He lost track of all his senses; he couldn’t tell where he was, and he panicked, knowing that it would take only a small movement for him to fall off the roof edge. He tried, desperately, to flatten himself to the ground, despite not being able to feel his body.

“Um, Batman? You can open your eyes now…”

Bruce slowly opened his eyes. Thank god, he was securely resting on his stomach, tightly gripping the lip of the roof with all four legs.

All… four … legs?

He slowly pushed himself up on all fours and looked down. Yup, four legs. Covered in plush black fur, up until the feet, which were white.

Oh no.

“Mrrooaaarrrrr.” Bruce jumped again, hearing a mournful noise. A second later he realized it was coming from him.

Not a cat. Please, don’t let me be a cat.

“You’re so cute,” Bat-Mite enthused.

Turn me back right now! “Mraow!”

“Sorry, Batman, no can do! I set this up very carefully. You get to spend a month like this, unless you hit one of the other triggers before then.”

Dammit, Bat-Mite! “Mrruuurrrrrrrr,” he growled.

“Okay, I get that you’re mad. But seriously, just give it a try. You’d be amazed at how freeing spending some time as a lower being can be!”

Are you kidding me? “Meow!”

“Anyway, I’ll see you in a month. Or maybe sooner. Have fun!”

And with that, Bat-Mite disappeared. Leaving Bruce as a cat, on the roof of a fourteen-story building in downtown Gotham, with no idea how to get down.

“Mrrrooooaarrrrr.”

Chapter Text

Peering over the lip of the building, Bruce is fairly sure he could leap from window ledge to fire escape to window ledge and get down. But he just can’t make himself take the first leap down to the slippery-looking, rounded wet gargoyle. It’s got to be the cat-brain he’s currently inhabiting. He gears up for it a dozen times, wiggling his butt—dammit, Bat-Mite—in anticipation of the first jump, but every time he settles back onto his haunches, that same mournful tone issuing unwillingly from his throat.

Finally, he retreats to the door into the rest of the building. Eventually, someone else will come up to the roof, and there’s a bit of an overhang that he can huddle under, keeping him out of the rain. Being a cat is weird. The world is dampened of color like a futuristic film, warm tones drained from his vision, but the smells more than make up for it; it’s like he can “see” into the past, almost, with overlapping layers of scent shouting out information about every object near him. For the first several minutes, he starts grooming himself any time he stops focusing on not licking himself, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of the raindrops sitting on his back. Finally, he gives in and laves his back down thoroughly, and the discomfort—not quite an itch, more like the feeling he has when his hair is parted a different way than usual—fades. After that, he tries to formulate some plans for getting Bat-Mite, or perhaps some other magic user, to turn him back before the promised month-long vacation from care, but he can’t seem to focus on any thoughts for very long before they slither away or get interrupted by some incoming sensory information.

“B?”

Bruce jerks up out of the light doze he’d fallen into. Nightwing has landed on the roof. Thank goodness. Alfred or Damian must have called him when Bruce didn’t check in on time.

I suppose I should be grateful that Damian didn’t come out here after me himself. Perhaps if I'm very lucky, Alfred got him to go to bed.

Bruce hurries over to his son’s side, thinking hard. Morse code, probably, until we work out a better system, but have to get his attention first... 

“Mew!”

“Awww, hey, kitty-cat. You’re a cutie. Seen a big bat wandering around here?” Dick crouches slightly—Bruce spends a second wishing that his knees were still that flexible before remembering that right now, they are—and sticks a hand out, fingers curled with the middle slightly more extended. 

Cutie?!? “ Mrrruhh.”

But despite his disgust at the appellation, he can feel a warm fondness for Dick welling up inside him, and he finds himself sniffing at the extended fingers for only a second before affectionately pushing his head against his son’s suited legs. Dick leans down and rubs his head and ears, and Bruce is horrified to find his chest and throat vibrating in a contented purr.

“Did someone forget you were up here and close the door on you?” Dick’s fingers dig into Bruce’s ruff, and he leans harder against his son’s legs, closing his eyes in bliss while his purr grows louder. “No collar… you’re too soft and plump to be a street cat, though.”

Soft and plump??! Right, right, need to talk to him.

“Meeeew-mrr-mrr, mrr-mrr, meeew-mrr-meeew-mrr, meeeew-mrr-meeeeew.”

“Wow, you’re a talkative one, aren’t you? I bet you’re hungry.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Annoyance flashes through Bruce, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s sunk his claws into Dick’s hand, penetrating through his uniform gloves where the fabric is lighter to allow for dexterity.

“Jesus fucking Christ, cat, what the fuck?”

Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. “ Mew.” Bruce pastes what he hopes looks like an apologetic look on his face, and Dick's expression softens. 

“Man, you’ve got sharp claws. What am I going to do with you?” Dick is quiet a moment in thought, and Bruce guesses he’s debating what he has time to do for the poor lost cat, with Batman apparently missing.

Right. Back to the basics.

“Mrr-mrr-mrr, meeew-meeew-meeew, mrr-mrr-mrr, mrr-mrr-mrr, meeew-meeew-meeew, mrr-mrr-mrr, mrr-mrr-mrr, meeew-meeew-meeew, mrr-mrr-mrr,” Bruce cries, quite willing to go on as long as his new throat will hold out.

“Jeez, what the—oh, shit.” Dick says.

Penny in the air…

“Bruce?”

Penny drops.

“Meeew-mrr-meeew-meeew, mrr, mrr-mrr-mrrr.”

“Holy crap.”

“Mrrrooarrr!” Bruce roars at him.

“Right, okay, um—one mew for yes, two for no?”

“Mew.”

“Are you… my Bruce?”

“Mew.”

“And you’re okay? Other than being a cat?”

“Mew.”

“Any immediate threat to Gotham?”

Bruce approves of his son’s priorities. “Mew, mew.”

“To anyone other than you?”

“Mew, mew.”

“Are you in any immediate danger?”

“Mew, mew.”

“Right. Then, I guess let’s get you home and comfortable, and we’ll figure this out?”

“Mew.”

“Okay, then. Ummm…” Dick leans forward, stretching out his hands, but then pulls back, clearly not sure how Bruce will take to being picked up.

Well, Bruce isn’t exactly pleased with it. But realistically, there’s no other way for Dick to get him back to the Manor. He leaps up onto Dick’s chest, digging his claws into Nightwing’s tough but flexible outfit. He doesn’t bother to be careful—the lightweight composite fabric the Batfamily uses will blunt most edged weapons, it shouldn’t have any problem with cat claws.

“Right,” Dick sighs. Unstrapping some buckles around his waist and thighs, he quickly improvises a harness that will keep Bruce tight against his chest as he swings through the city. “Hold on!”

Wwhhhhheeeeeeeeee!

Chapter Text

Alfred had been through a lot in his life; much of it tragic and almost all of it just plain weird.

His youthful flirtation with the stage, which eventually came to a sputtering, ignominious end as yet another director told him that he was a brilliant mimic, could disappear into any role, but would never have the stage presence or charisma to make it as anything but an extra. Being recruited by MI6 for that same ability, and the string of undercover assignments that left him more and more disillusioned with the global empire that Britain still believed it was running. Meeting and falling in love with Martha Kane, the only woman who’d never cared that sex just… wasn’t his thing. Leaving his job and country for her. The whirlwind romance after they both met Tommy. Sharing in his ambitious plans for Gotham. The day of joy when their son had been born.

Losing Martha and Thomas both, a tragedy he had survived only because of the legacy they’d left him. Years spent raising a troubled child that the world would never recognize as his son. The seven miserable years clinging to hope that Bruce would somehow survive and return one day. Watching with pride as his boy returned and finally took up his father’s cause, if in a slightly more…theatrical… way than he’d hoped (Alfred did occasionally worry that Bruce had gotten that part from him). The mingled delight and terror as Bruce started taking his mother’s penchant for adopting strays to positively Dickensian levels. The grief of Jason’s death and horrific joy (or joyful horror, perhaps?) of his subsequent complicated resurrection. Losing Bruce, a day he had always feared he might live to see, only to find that they’d actually… lost him, no euphemisms involved. That day, when he’d learned that Bruce had somehow become unmoored in time, had taken the cake for the weirdest event of an ever-increasingly eccentric life. 

Until this truly bizarre moment, when Dick had driven into the Cave and announced that, primus, he believed that Bruce had been turned into a common housecat and, secondus, Dick had subsequently somehow lost said cat inside the Batmobile.

“Master Dick, I feel certain that further explanation will be forthcoming?” Alfred asked, while checking through the hidden compartments in the backseat.

“I definitely saw him as I came off the interstate exit, and all the windows were closed the entire time. He has to be here somewhere.”

“The… cat. Which you believe to be Master Bruce.”

“Alfred, which do you think is more likely: Bruce was turned into a cat, or someone managed to kidnap Bruce without leaving a trace and left a cat that meows in Morse code behind?”

Alfred gave that due consideration.

“In all honesty, Master Dick, given the events of our lives over the past few years, I wouldn’t care to place a wager either way.”

Dick looked up at him. “You know, that’s actually kinda true. But either way, we need to find the damn cat. How could he have gotten out of the car?”

“Oh dear,” Alfred said.

“What?”

“It appears that there is a slight opening from the passenger seat footwell from which one might access the engine.”

Dick looked up, horror filling his face. “Oh god. He was in the footwell, sniffing around, the last time I remember seeing him.”

“Master Tim often eats goldfish when on stakeouts. There were undoubtedly crumbs.”

“Fish cru—oh, you mean the crackers.”

“Quite.”

“Should we… open up the engine and… look for fur? Oh god, I might have created Cat-Dad barbecue. Or—could he have fallen out onto the street? I could take one of the bikes, retrace my path from the interstate…”

“Meow!”

The two men rapidly turned toward the sound. Dick cursed slightly as he slammed his head against the roof of the car.

“Oh, thank god,” Dick breathed, spying the black and white cat precariously balanced on top of the Batcomputer. “Wait, how did you even get up there, Bruce?”

“Are you completely certain that isn’t one of the strays Master Damian keeps allowing in?” Alfred asked doubtfully. He moved forward cautiously, hoping to snatch the vagrant feline before he damaged the expensive electronics by trying to get down on his own. 

“I’m pretty sure—he’s been doing a much better job of keeping them out of the Cave since Bruce threatened to use them for lab tests. No, it’s definitely the same cat. See the black and white markings on his face? It looks just like the cowl.”

“Hmph,” Alfred replied. The cat’s fur pattern, with black patches extending from his ears halfway down his face, did rather resemble the mask Bruce wore, but that seemed a most tenuous branch on which to rest this outlandish theory.

“Bruce, are you okay?” Dick demanded.

“Mmnhh.”

Alfred had to admit, the cat had Bruce’s “why would I answer such a stupid question” grunt down pat.

“How did you get out of the—never mind,” Dick sighed. “Alfred, we need to set up something so he can communicate better than yes or no questions or cat-Morse.”

“Hmm,” Alfred pondered.

Less than a half-hour later, they had patched together a cat-friendly keyboard with half-inch squares of silicone-covered sensors, and Bruce had filled them in on the situation.

“Of course it was Bat-mite,” Dick groaned, face-palming. Bruce growled in agreement.

Despite his boys’ consternation, Alfred felt a certain sense of gratitude to the fifth-dimensional imp. The creature was entirely correct about Bruce’s failure to take care of himself, both as a general trend and, in particular, since the debacle of his breakup with Ms. Kyle. With the ease of long practice, Alfred kept his lip from curling with contempt and fury. He had had such hopes of that young woman. Bruce had seemed finally ready to let himself be happy, to let someone in to share his burdens, and to have that destroyed at the last minute, in the way it had been—it had set him back years. In his more rational moments, Alfred knew that Ms. Kyle could not be held entirely to blame—she had been carefully influenced and maneuvered by a set of master manipulators—but it was not in his nature to regard failure kindly, no matter how understandable.

“Sir, how much is being in this shape affecting your mental state?” Alfred asked intently.

Bruce licked nervously at his shoulder for a second before starting to type—which shed some light on the question right there, didn’t it?

“I have some cat instincts,” Bruce admitted. (Or, rather, the voice of the computer read out for him, and the fact that Tim had used old Star Trek recordings to make the BatComputer speak in Majel Barrett’s voice added an additional touch of surreality to the proceedings that Alfred could really have done without.) “It’s hard to focus on anything for very long, or control my reactions. But I don’t think I’m losing it…” 

The cat fidgeted slightly, curling its tail down between its haunches. 

“We should do some IQ tests,” Dick said. “I can find some that have been done on cats—and I can rig up a touchpad as well, so he can use the computer to do some of the human ones.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Alfred agreed. “We’ll want to keep doing them over time, make sure there isn’t any deterioration.

“I’m hungry,” the computer’s stridently resonant voice announced. “You should feed me.”  Both men wheeled back to look at the diminutive Dark Knight in surprise. 

“And you’re telling us?” Dick muttered. The cat shifted position again, managing to look sheepish. 

“Of course, sir,” Alfred said, recovering from the shock of the question. He couldn’t stop the part of his brain that was casting itself back through the years, trying to remember the last time Master Bruce had asked to be fed rather than waiting to be bullied or bribed or guilted into eating.  “Shall I get you a saucer of milk, or would you prefer a nice plump mouse?”

Chapter Text

“Well? What are the results?” 

“I could have had them way faster than this,” Tim muttered.

“You don’t know Bruce’s longitudinal results as well as I do, to be able to apply the right weighting,” Dick said. For what seemed like the tenth time that night, he wished Tim hadn’t woken up while they were sorting out the whole litter box situation. He swore the kid had to have plugged into the Cave’s surveillance system and set keyword alerts, or something. At least Damian was still in bed. 

As far as they knew. Dick should probably check before too long. The kid was way too fond of pit traps when he thought he was being left out of something. Dick pushed away a slight feeling of guilt. Damian needed his rest, and there was no point in panicking him about Bruce’s condition prematurely. 

“And I would have them quicker,” Dick added sharply, “If you’d both stop hovering.”

“I do beg your pardon, Master Richard,” the elderly butler drawled. “You should certainly feel free to take your time. It’s not as if there’s anything time-sensitive or vitally important depending on this task.”

“Fucking hell, Alfred,” Dick groaned, face-palming. 

“Mroooaaarrr,” Bruce complained from his reclaimed perch at the top of the Batcomputer. He’d been bouncing back and forth between that spot and his keyboard all night. Dick had a feeling that his cat instincts (which wanted a high, warm, secure place to surveil his surroundings) were warring a bit with his Bat instincts (which wanted, as always, to tell everyone what to do). 

“I quite agree, sir,” Alfred said to the cat. “I do not at all appreciate what Bludhaven has done to your language development, Master Richard. Some respect for the English language, that’s all I ask.”

Dick leaned his left elbow on the desk, pinched his nose, and sighed. This was exactly why he didn’t live here anymore. God, he was tired. 

He jerked upright a second later, as Bruce landed with a thump on the desk. Sitting back on his haunches, Bruce reached forward with his left foreleg and pawed at Dick’s forehead, batting at a lock of hair that had fallen near his eyes. 

He was really a very dignified-looking cat—a short-haired tuxedo with yellow eyes and a long face, all black except for the very bottom of his chin, the vee at his neck, and his front feet. Dick had no reason to find him so adorable. 

 As Bruce continued to boop his forehead, Dick remembered how the BatCat (okay, look, it was right there) had run up to him on the roof and rubbed against his legs—he’d even purred when Dick had pet him. At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it, except as more evidence that the cat was clearly not a stray. But that Bruce would invite such an affectionate touch—and not just tolerate, but openly enjoy it…

Without daring to look behind him, Dick reached out and rubbed just the very top of Bruce’s head, between his ears. The cat immediately arched his head, pushing back against Dick’s fingers, dragging them up and down his head and ears. As Dick got a bit more bold, letting his fingers stroke along the sides of his face and down under his jaw, Bruce started making that same rumbling purr he had on the roof. 

Dick could barely breathe. Somehow, viscerally, he was reminded of his first year in the Manor, when he would wake screaming in the middle of the night, unable to stop crying after seeing his parents fall to their deaths over and over again, and Bruce would come in, and wash his eyes with a warm face cloth, and cuddle him close until he fell asleep again. How many times had Alfred found them there the next morning, still spooned together in the too-small bed?

When had Bruce pulled away? Why? Dick couldn’t put his finger on it. He just knew that slowly, as he’d gotten older, the hugs had turned into back slaps, the late night cuddles into pats on the shoulder. When Dick would initiate contact, Bruce would still respond, but it always felt awkward, hesitant, not the open and generous affection he’d gotten as a kid. 

And yet here and now, Bruce was walking onto Dick’s chest, butting his head under his jaw and trusting Dick would catch him.

“Oof,” Dick grunted under an armful of cat. He pushed himself backward, the wheels of the chair squeaking slightly, to make room for Bruce to stand on his lap, with his forelegs over his shoulder. Bruce purred loudly in his ear and nuzzled into his neck. His heart squeezing painfully in his chest, Dick clutched the soft, warm body to him, gently petting up and down the narrow form. 

He looked up at Alfred and Tim, feeling his eyes begin to sting. Alfred looked shocked and nearly as overcome as Dick felt. Tim’s eyes were also wet, his hand across his mouth. As Dick met his gaze, however, he lifted his hand, put a single finger over his lips, and raised his phone. Dick glared at him and pursed his lips, not daring to shake his head. 

Tim took the picture. He’d at least had the decency not to use flash, but Bruce’s keener ears undoubtedly picked up the click, and he threw himself out of Dick’s arms and away. 

“Ow! Dammit, Tim!” Dick swore, rubbing at his scratched collarbone.

“What are the results?” the Computer asked, and with all the emotional upheaval, it took Dick a moment to remember that it was Bruce speaking. He spun around to find Bruce back at the keyboard, avoiding his gaze.  “I’m concerned that my cat instincts are getting stronger.” 

Dick rolled his eyes. Because of course that was the extent to which Bruce was going to address what had just happened. Some things never changed. 

“As far as I can tell, you’re fine,” he reported. “Your results show some difficulty with attention span, like you said, and probably some loss of inhibition and impulse control—that’s what I was finishing up, it’s harder to test for. But I’m pretty sure it’s no more compromising than if you went without sleep for a few days straight. Or took—well, for you, it’d have to be several shots of whiskey. Otherwise, everything’s within normal parameters. We’ll have to keep testing, of course, every couple of days, to make sure. But I don’t think you’re losing yourself in the cat’s mind or anything. Given your report of what Bat-Mite said, I’d say it’s exactly what he said. Congratulations, old man, you get to live the sweet life for a month. Laze around, get petted, chase some mice. It’ll be good for you.”

Bruce growled at him. It was an unnerving sound, a low warning rumble almost like distant thunder.

“Maybe we can get you some catnip?” Dick suggested innocently.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Dick says, stretching. “We should all probably be getting to bed.” 

Bruce quickly pads over to the keyboard set up. “We’ll have to set up an alternate patrol schedule,” he says, in Majel Barrett’s best robotic tones. “I can take over some of the monitoring duties here, to free up manpower.” 

He’s really going to have to get Tim to program in some alternate voices, if this lasts longer than a day or two.. Maybe Morgan Freeman…? Or Pierce Brosnan wouldn’t be bad. 

“Absolutely not,” Dick says. 

“Excuse me?” Bruce asks, feeling his annoyance spike again. He hasn’t had this little control over his emotions since high school. He manages to keep from growling this time, at least, but he can feel his tail lashing angrily as he dances on the keys. 

“Nuh-uh, don’t try that with me,” Dick says. “Your own SOP says that any kind of bodily transformation is grounds for suspension from all vigilante activities. Besides, didn’t you say that Bat-Mite said there were triggers that could return you to your normal self, other than just waiting out the month?”

“He did,” Tim affirms, glancing over his notes from earlier in the evening for confirmation. 

This time, Bruce growls. He can’t help himself! They’re all ganging up on him! And worse, they’re right!

“And besides, Bat-Mite wants you to practice self-care,” Dick says. “So taking some time off, getting rest, spending time with people you care about—that’s probably your fastest road to being Batman again. Explore being a cat, see what it can teach you. And if we really need you, I bet that a planet-ending emergency is one of those triggers, too. In the meantime, I can take over as Batman while you’re gone.”

Bruce feels his annoyance disappear as Dick’s last words remind him of something. There’s a thing he’s been wanting to say to Dick for a long time, prescripting the conversation in his head, but he’s never found the right moment. 

Without another thought, he finds himself typing out the words.  “I appreciate that you took over for me when you thought I was dead. It meant a lot that you wanted to honor my memory. But I never intended for you to have to give up your life to be Batman, not unless you wanted to. Luke could take over this time instead, or you could share it. Work as a team.” 

“What,” Dick says, his voice too surprised to make it a question. 

“Holy shit,” Tim whispers. 

Bruce licks his shoulder. It feels soothing, somehow, quieting the anxiety he feels at Dick’s non-answer. When he realizes what he’s doing he stops immediately, snapping his attention back to his family. Dick and Alfred are at least doing him the decency of pretending they hadn’t seen it, their gazes politely averted. Tim, on the other hand, seems to be biting down on the side of his hand into his mouth to keep from laughing. Bruce feels his tail lashing again. 

Dick shakes his head. “Look, I—we’re all tired, and there’s no need to make decisions tonight. Let’s have this discussion tomorrow, okay?” 

“Fine,” Bruce agrees readily. Anything to get him out of this conversation with at least a little dignity intact. 

“Do you think you’ll be comfortable in your usual bedroom, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks worriedly. “Or—I could make up a smaller resting place in my room… ” 

“Damian has like half a dozen cat beds,” Tim suggests. “Ooh, let’s get the one that looks like a banana!”

“Master Tim, I suggest you attempt to contain what passes for humor among your generation,” Alfred says brutally. 

“No one understands me,” Tim says, sighing. 

“I’ll be fine in my bed down here,” Bruce types, embarrassed that they’re all making such a fuss. And after he’s already kept them up so late, interrupting their schedules and abandoning his mission for the night… The BatCave feels like home, anyway. Safety and comfort, lots of high, dark spots to sit in. He can smell mice as well as the omnipresent bats, and his paws twitch as he imagines chasing them… 

“But there’s no way for you to get upstairs without one of us,” Tim points out. “No cat doors out of the BatCave, and you can’t activate the BatComputer once the rest of us leave—you don’t have the right biometrics anymore. You’d be trapped down here with no way to communicate with us.” 

That doesn’t sound fun, it’s true. He wants to be able to go anywhere he wants. The thought of a closed door, trapping him in, sends shivers of anxiety down his skin. 

“We should program my new biometrics in,” Bruce types laboriously. 

“No, Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “Master Tim makes excellent points. And in fact, I believe that your protocols for bodily transformation prescribe regular monitoring for twenty-four hours.”

“Yup,” Dick says. “Hourly check-ins at least.” 

“Alfred—” Bruce starts. 

“He can sleep in my room, for tonight at least,” Tim suggests, before he’d gotten more than five letters typed. His son shrugs as everyone looks at him. “I mean, you’ve all been up all night, you’ve got to be tired. I just woke up like an hour ago, and tomorrow’s Saturday, so it doesn’t matter if I sleep late. I can set an alarm to check on him once an hour.” 

“That’s not necessary—” Bruce types. 

“I would be very grateful if you would do that, Master Tim,” Alfred says, drowning out the computer. Bruce lashes his tail with frustration as he gives up on the typing. People never interrupt him when he isn’t a cat. “Make sure you close your door and windows so he can’t get out.” 

Bruce growls at the idea of being stuck in Tim’s room all night. He needs to patrol his territory …  

“None of that, sir,” Alfred says. “Your protocols are written for everyone. And Master Tim? Don’t forget the litter box.”

Chapter Text

Tim chased after Bruce, the heavy litter box in his arms, hopefully heading for his room—jeez, the cat was fast—and counting his blessings that he’d gotten everyone to agree to this plan. He hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but Alfred and Dick had both clearly needed some rest and processing time, after all the emotional whiplash they’d been through. 

It wasn’t that Tim didn’t love Bruce just as much as Dick and Alfred did. It was just that unlike theirs, his love didn’t come with expectations. Dick was essentially Bruce’s son, and Alfred was his father, and every time Bruce disappointed them, every time he failed to be the perfect, emotionally healthy, stalwart hero they somehow still thought was in there, they got hurt. And then every time he raised their hopes again by showing the barest glimmer of an emotional response, they got hurt again. 

Bruce could never disappoint Tim, though. He’d blackmailed his way into Bruce’s life, after all, and he knew that victims of a crime starting to sympathize with the perpetrators wasn’t actually a thing. Stockholm Syndrome was a scam created by misogynistic cops who didn’t want to admit they’d fucked up a hostage situation. He’d met Bruce during the darkest, most horrible time in his life, and as far as he was concerned, it had all gotten better from there. Bruce had never stopped pleasantly surprising him. 

Well, except that year they’d all (except Tim) thought he was dead. But the less said about that time, the better (except he wasn’t going to quit it with the “I told you so”s any time soon). 

The people in Tim’s life who should have loved him had never really given a crap, although at least they’d never been cruel. By contrast, Bruce, who had no earthly reason or obligation to care for him, had never stopped giving—first tolerance, then a purpose in life, a place to live, even a new last name if he wanted it. But Tim had never forgotten the basis of their relationship. Bruce had needed a Robin, and then he’d needed an heir for Wayne Enterprises, and right now he needed a pet sitter. As always, Tim would provide.

Tim set the box temporarily in the middle of the room while he cleared away stacks of books and miscellaneous clutter from the wall under one of the windows in his “study.” Bruce zoomed around the suite, exploring every corner like he’d never seen it before. Unlike the perfunctory guest room Tim had used before, the suite that Bruce had moved him to after his parents had died and he’d officially become a Wayne had four interlocking chambers: the bedroom; another larger room that Tim used for most of his computers and all his books; a bathroom; and a smaller room that was probably meant to be a walk-in closet, which he used for his gaming set up, since it didn’t have any windows to produce glare. 

Once he’d gotten the box settled, Tim looked around for Bruce again. The cat was nowhere in sight, but he followed the sound of rustling until he found him with his head and shoulders under Tim’s bed, clawing at the plastic covering of one of the spare servers he kept there.  

“You know, those things are delicate, and rather expensive,” Tim said, looking down at Bruce. The cat’s hindquarters jerked slightly, and then he backed up from under the bed too quickly and fell over his own hind legs.  “Okay, I’m going to need you to be a little less adorable.”

Bruce sat up on his haunches and looked up, staring intensely at the wall slightly to the right of Tim’s head. Despite knowing better,  Tim had to eventually turn around and check that there wasn’t anything there. (there wasn’t). 

“Right,” Tim said, moving on. “Um, are you hungry? Never mind,  I should get some food out anyway—I think Kon left some jerky here the last time he was over.” 

Tim found the jerky in his bedside drawer, then dithered for a second over water. “Uh—you know what, I’ll just leave the faucet in the bathroom on a drip,” he said, suiting actions to words. “That way you can get fresh water at any—Jesus, Bruce! Oh god! I’m so sorry!” 

The cat had been trailing him as he walked around his small suite of rooms, getting closer and closer. When he’d turned around after turning on the sink, he hadn’t known how close behind him Bruce had gotten, and he’d stepped square on his tail. He hadn’t realized it until the cat had let out a truly unearthly yowl, and he’d felt the tail move under his foot. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again, looking around desperately. “Bruce?” The bathroom seemed empty. He pushed aside the shower curtain. Nothing in there either. “Bruce, I didn’t mean to step on you!” 

He ventured back out into his bedroom, toggling the flashlight on his phone. No cat on any of the furniture. Or under his desk. Or dresser. Behind the curtains. On the windowsills. He dropped down to the carpet to peer under the bed. 

Two shining yellow circles flashed back at him. Bruce growled warningly. He breathed again, for what felt like the first time in several minutes. 

“Bruce, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to step on you, I swear,” he repeated. “Please come out?”

There was no response, beyond a quiet rustling that seemed to indicate Bruce was squirming even farther away from him. He sighed, weighing his options.

“Look,” he said finally. “The only thing worse than me breaking your tail, would be if I broke your tail and then left you under the bed all night and it got worse. Alfred would never forgive me.” 

Silence. 

“But on the other hand, I really don’t want to crawl under there after you and have you rip me to shreds.” 

Silence. 

“So I’m going to give you a few minutes to calm down, and then you’re going to come up and let me check and make sure you’re okay.” 

Silence. 

Praying internally that his bluff would work, Tim changed into his pajamas and crawled into bed. It was the work of a few seconds to set up an alarm that would ring in fifteen minutes, and once an hour thereafter. 

Of course, setting an alarm didn’t keep from checking the time compulsively every couple of seconds instead of reading his book on quantum entanglement, but you couldn’t have everything. 

Thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds after he’d set the alarm, Bruce jumped into the bed near his feet. 

“Hi,” Tim said softly, almost limp with relief. 

The cat made a small unhappy sound, almost like a grumble, but sadder. Tim winced. 

“I know. I’m so sorry. Again. Can I check your tail, please?” 

Bruce didn’t answer, but he didn’t move away as Tim inched closer. 

“Okay, I’m going to touch you. Please don’t hurt me.” 

Bruce’s fur was incredibly soft. He grumbled again, softer this time, as Tim ran his hands carefully across his tail, applying light pressure, but he didn’t jerk away or cry out. Tim didn’t take the opportunity to try and pet him, although it was so very tempting. 

“Okay. I think you’re fine.” 

Bruce walked across the bed and then sat down on his haunches, facing away from Tim. 

“Oh, come on.” No answer. “Fine, sulk then.” 

Tim turned off the lights and rolled over, hugging his pillow. It was fine. Bruce wasn’t really hurt. No doubt by the morning, they’d have found a way to turn him back, or at least some better plan for dealing with the situation. It certainly didn’t matter that Cat-Bruce wasn’t interested in letting Tim pet him the way Dick had. 

Some time later (less than an hour, because the second alarm hadn’t gone off), something touched Tim’s foot. Thankfully, he was still awake enough to realize what it was, and kept from moving (or screaming) as the pressure increased, then lightened. Bruce did that for a while, kneading his feet, and then his ankles, and finally his calves with what felt like both front paws. Tim kept his breaths shallow and even, keeping utterly still.  A few seconds later, a heavy (and warm!) weight settled across his legs, vibrating slightly. 

Tim was smiling as he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Damian’s eyes snapped open. As he’d been trained, he lay perfectly still while he assessed the situation, trying to figure out what had woken him and perceive any threats in the household. 

His inner clock and the quality of the dim light in the room told him it was an hour or so before dawn, long before he usually woke. The clock on his nightstand, glowing verdantly green, agreed. He didn’t need to pee, and he wasn’t thirsty or hungry. He had a vague memory of a nonconsequential, undisturbing dream, flying through blue skies with an ally dressed in red and blue by his side. Whatever had woken him was external. 

Titus was still on his pad in the corner—it was carefully located to be visible from Damian’s usual sleeping position, flat on his back on the left side of the bed (farthest from the door, and close enough to the edge to be able to leap onto the floor in one swift movement). The dog’s head was up, and he was looking at the door, so whatever it was had disturbed him as well, but he wasn’t growling or standing, so the dog didn’t see it as a threat. Titus was generally wise about those kinds of things, and Damian relaxed a smidge as he swept his attention on. 

Alfred the Cat wasn’t in his usual spot on the foot of the bed—Damian would have liked him to sleep cuddled on his chest, but the cat inevitably moved down once Damian fell asleep. That wasn’t rare in and of itself. Cats were crepuscular and Alfred liked to prowl when wakeful, although he wasn’t allowed out of Damian’s rooms unsupervised since the incident with the Steuben glass pitcher. 

A scratching sound came from the door, followed by a low growl. Damian sighed and tossed the covers back. No doubt Alfred had heard something in the hallway again. Fantasies of a villain foolish enough to break into Wayne Manor filled Damian’s head for a brief moment, but it was probably just a mouse. Or perhaps one of Selina’s strays, who kept finding their way back, even though she’d been gone for months now. Although Damian missed having more cats around the house, he resented them both on Alfred the Cat’s behalf (even Selina had admitted that the aggressive tom was a loner, who did not appreciate other felines in his territory), and on his father’s, who always grew stiff and sad-looking when something reminded him of his erstwhile betrothed.

“Alfred!” he ordered sternly, pointing at the bed and snapping his fingers. “Up!” 

Damian had spent many hours training that command into the cat with a squirt bottle and bag of treats—his grandfather’s best animal trainer had always emphasized the carrot and stick approach—and he obeyed promptly, jumping up on the bed and settling down into a watchful crouch. After a quick glance to make sure Titus was still behaving himself as well, Damian jerked open the door. 

“Mroar,” the cat on the other side announced. It looked quite a bit like Alfred, actually, although it was a shorthair rather than Alfred’s mid-length shag. Damian didn't remember this one from Selina's brief residency, which was odd. But she had that peculiar ability to commune with the beasts—perhaps she had told this one that the Manor was a safe place from afar.

Waving its tail smugly, it strutted forward, surveying the room like a new domain to conquer. Damian rather admired the attitude. 

“Stay, Titus,” Damian warned. 

He leaned down and picked up the stray before it could get too close to the other animals and provoke a response. He was careful to hold it by the scruff and the bottom, facing away from his body so it couldn’t scratch or bite him. His precautions seemed unnecessary, however, as the unknown cat immediately melted into his arms, cuddling close to his chest. 

“You’re very brave,” he muttered. “But dumb. Didn’t your mother teach you to beware of strangers? Or at least stab them a little.” 

The cat purred and nuzzled at his arm, and Damian shook his head. Foolish feline, trusting an unknown human. Perhaps it was a pet who had only recently gone astray, an indoor cat who had never previously known privation or cruelty. Their only close neighbor was the Drakes, but cats had been known to travel for miles in search of their families. The cat’s plush fur and ample frame supported that theory. 

 “Sorry,” he declared. “But you can’t stay here. Alfred doesn’t like other cats. I will find you an alternate space for the night, and tomorrow we will try to find your owner.” 

The cat lay calmly in his arms as he walked through the doorway. However, as he let go of its scruff to close the door behind him, it suddenly squirmed wildly, twisting until it broke his hold and jumping away. He cursed inwardly—he’d let the cat’s unusual docility lull him into overconfidence. 

“Stop!” he called quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else up, and hurried after the feline as it ran down the hall. He could not be held responsible for random cats invading the house, especially as he was quite certain their presence was due to his father’s companion. But he didn’t want to try to tell his father or Alfred that. Nor did he wish to see his father do something… drastic…to the poor beasts in his grief. 

The cat led him on a merry chase through the house. Every time Damian thought he had it cornered, it would slip away—once, it actually leapt past him, bounced off a wall, and ran off back down another corridor. The feline seemed to have a truly diabolical sense of tactics—twice he almost gave up, figuring that the security cameras would back his claim of doing the absolute best he could to protect the house from the ravages of the wily street-panther, and each time it stopped and found a comfortable place to sit and lick its fur, seemingly unconcerned about the teenage vigilante stalking it. Only to start running again as soon as he got within a few feet. Truly, it offered a better challenge than many of his father’s villains. 

Careening down the hallway at top speed (he’d long since stopped holding back, given the unexpected fortitude of his adversary), he saw Drake appear from around a corner, heading directly into his path. Everything seemed to slow down for an instant as he took in the details—his father’s protegée had his phone out, flashlight turned on. He was waving it from one side of the hallway to the other, his eyes trained on the floor as if in search of something, and was saying something in a low voice. Then the wretched feline ran straight between his father’s trainee’s legs and the youth staggered awkwardly, trying to avoid it, and almost fell. As he caught himself against the wall, he looked up and saw Damian coming—his face formed a perfect O of horror. 

Damian had a split second to either attempt to dodge or try to slow down. He chose the former—unfortunately, so did Drake. Even more unfortunately, they both veered in the same direction.  

Their heads made a beautiful bong when they bounced off each other.

Chapter Text

Bruce wavers for a split-second between the bodies of his two near-unconscious sons, unsure which to run to first. 

As always with purely physical dangers, he goes to Tim after that instant’s hesitation. Older though he is, Tim does not have the physical skill, strength, and stamina that Damian possesses. And as always, Bruce feels obscurely guilty for it. Will he never stop abandoning his youngest and most vulnerable son? 

Tim shoves him off, anyway. Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt, not like when Tim had stepped on his tail. That had hurt, and none of his usual tactics for repressing it or shutting it out had worked. He’d hidden under the bed more to give himself time to recover from the experience than to punish Tim. He’s never been afraid of pain before. Fortunately, the cat-brain had seemed to forget it after a while, and Bruce had been able to reassert himself.  

“‘M’fine, Bruce. Mild concussion, at most. ‘S’Kid’s like you. Hard-headed.”

Damian groans, rolling over on his side. “Who are you talking to, Drake?” 

That pesky guilt pounding at him again, Bruce hurries over to Damian, who is just pushing himself up, muttering something groggily about half-trained idiots who don’t pay attention to where they’re going. Despite his once-vaulted willpower, as he sees Damian slowly stand, the need to speak pushes at him, and as he paws at his son’s knees, he hears a plaintive mew come out of his mouth. 

“You!” Damian half-yells, accusatorily. A second later, Bruce finds himself hoisted in the air, his legs dangling helplessly while an overpowering force cuts into his neck and upper back. It doesn’t quite feel like anything he’s felt before—almost like being strangled, but without it actually cutting off his breathing—and he freezes for a second, trying to figure out what’s going on, then twists and snarls, trying to get free. “Devil-cat!” his son hisses. 

“No, don’t!” Tim gasps. “That’s Bruce! You’ll hurt him!”

It’s me! Put me down! Bruce thinks, still scrabbling his feet uncomfortably in the air. 

“You named the cat Bruce?” Damian sneers, but he pulls his shirt over his head and down the arm holding Bruce with one efficient gesture, then wraps it around Bruce’s struggling body so he can hold him up in a more balanced fashion, without being clawed. 

Bruce has never been so grateful for his younger son’s affinity for animals. 

“So much for mocking my cat’s name, hn?” Damian adds. “Did you train it to lure me into a trap?” 

Tim sighs. “I didn’t name him that, and he’s not really a cat,” he explains. He doesn’t add “you moron,” but his tone neatly implies it. Damian bristles, but Tim’s next words cut his knees out from under him. “That’s Bruce. Your dad. Bat-Mite turned him into a cat.” 

There’s a long silence—presumably Damian is trying to figure out whether Tim is telling the truth, but Bruce can’t see his face from his vantage point, held securely against his chest. He feels intensely grateful that despite the complicated relationship between his two younger sons, Tim has never been inclined toward telling Damian tall stories. He can remember Dick doing that to Jason a lot during that heartbreakingly brief period when Bruce had been on speaking terms with both of them, to the point where Jason refused to believe anything Dick told him on principle. 

“Mrrraoooooor,” he complains.  

Damian—moving very gingerly—turns Bruce around and holds him out at arm’s length, looking at him with a skeptical expression. Bruce does his best to look adorable, inasmuch as it’s possible while still wrapped in a tee shirt. He might or might not take some inspiration from that one animated cat in the film series Dick had loved as a kid. 

(Bruce had always rather liked that cat.)

“Father?” Damian asks. 

“Meeew-mrr-meeew-meeew, mrr, mrr-mrr-mrrr.”

Damian catches onto the morse code much quicker than Dick did—but then, he’s already been told that it’s Bruce, so that’s not really a fair test.

(Bruce is still unreasonably proud.)

His son hastily puts him down on the floor and carefully removes the tee shirt, stepping back. 

“I am very sorry, Father,” he says, his voice small and scared. Bruce’s heart twists. His son can’t be afraid of him, can he?

He skitters forward (he still hasn’t quite gotten used to the whole “four legs” thing) and paws again at Damian’s knees, trying to mew as appealingly as possible. It must work, because his son’s expression melts, and he crouches down, holding out a hand. Bruce butts his head against it, and Damian’s clever fingers turn to scratching and rubbing around his ears and down under his jaw. He feels his belly swell and his throat vibrate as he begins to purr again, and despite the happiness and love whirling in his head, a part of him makes a note that he’s really got to get control of that. 

“Are you sure that this is Father?” Damian asks Tim. “I warn you, Drake, if this is some kind of trick, it will not go well for you.” 

“It’s Bruce!” Tim says defensively. “I think…” 

Hey! “Mroaw!” 

“Look, I know he’s acting kind of weird. I mean, above and beyond the whole transformation thing. But he was explaining earlier—Dick set up a keyboard for him to write out the story—that the cat body is kinda messing with his emotions and instincts and…stuff.” 

“Grayson is here? And you heard Father tell of his encounter with the Bat-Mite? Why was I not woken?” Damian’s voice, at first eager, gains a tinge of hurt by the time he’s gotten to the third question, and Bruce finds himself pushing harder against the now-idle hand, wanting to comfort him. 

“Uhhh, because they didn’t need you and you’re annoying?” Tim says. Bruce whips around, away from Damian’s suddenly-clenching fist, and growls. 

“Okay, okay, sorry. Alfred called Dick when Bruce didn’t check in after patrol.” Tim says. “They didn’t wake me up either, I just—hrm. Happened to wake up.” 

“You mean you were spying on them, like a little sneak,” Damian says snidely. Bruce hisses at him next—these two, seriously—although he does have a point about how Tim just conveniently happens to wake up any time something interesting happens. 

“Anyway,” Tim says, taking the higher road for once, “Dick’s in his room, he’ll still be here tomorrow morning. And probably for a while—if Bat-Mite was telling the truth, Bruce is going to be a cat for a month.” 

“A month?” 

Bored with the conversation, and starting to feel hungry again, Bruce bites at Damian’s still-unmoving hand. Not hard, just enough to get his attention. 

“Hey!” Damian exclaims. 

“Mrooar!” Bruce announces, and leads off in the direction of the kitchen.

Both his sons fall in line behind him, and he waves his tail smugly. Cat or not, he’s still got it.

Chapter Text

Alfred’s morning routine was fairly simple. He woke at 6 AM—thankfully, he’d never needed more than four to five hours of sleep—dressed in one of a near-endless supply of smart black suits, checked the news, cycled the laundry (a never-ending task in a house with two teenage boys, let alone multiple vigilantes), and made breakfast. After that, well. As his age and the size of the household increased, Alfred had finally surrendered on some points. Whereas he’d done everything in the household during Master Bruce’s youth, they kept a maid service (although the Cave, of course, remains Alfred’s sole domain) and a small army of delivery services employed these days, and they ordered in for more dinners than Alfred cooked. Despite the concessions he’d made, however, he remained the primary force behind the household’s smooth operation, and kept himself busy on a variety of tasks, running from ordering lavatory paper to inventorying the grenades. 

He’d drawn the line at feeding the menagerie or milking the cow, however—those tasks, Master Damian would just have to do himself. 

On this particular morning, however, he decided he should check on Masters Bruce and Tim to see how the night had passed before venturing to the first story. He knocked a few times, and after waiting a suitable interval, opened the door. 

Master Tim’s suite was empty. So was the upstairs library and the game room. As a last gasp, he checked Master Bruce’s room, thinking that the cat might have wished for more familiar surroundings. Finally, he ventured down to the Cave, using the stairwell behind the clock in the study. Nothing. 

Now beginning to feel the stirrings of true alarm, Alfred wheeled a chair over to the Batcomputer, pulled into the Manor’s security system, and began scrolling through every camera. Somewhat ironically, he found them in one of the last cameras to be checked, and one of the first places he would have gone on a regular morning. Swearing to himself, he headed up to the main house again—taking the lift to the library this time. His knees, like the rest of him, weren’t getting any younger.  

The black-and-white, unfocused security video hadn’t prepared him for the sight that met his eyes when he reached the kitchen. Firstly, of course, was the appalling state of it. There was what appeared to be blood, hair, and gray matter splattered across the counters, island, walls, and floor, and despite all the horrors he’d seen over the decades, his first instinct was to recoil and flee. But secondly… Tim and Damian were laughing— full-throated, belly-deep, genuine laughs—as they watched the black and white cat that was his foster son and erstwhile employer chase a gray ball of… something… across the kitchen floor. The fact of their joy, and that they all appeared unharmed, was all that kept him from heading right back down to the Cave to fetch some of those grenades. 

“What on earth is going on here?” he demanded. “Did the three of you murder some poor rodent?”

“What?” Tim asked, confused, then he glanced around and laughed, a little ashamedly. “Oh. I’m sorry, Alfred. Bruce wanted to be fed, so I got some more tuna out, but then Damian and I got hungry, so I made some sandwiches, and I guess it got out of hand.” 

Furrowing his brow, Alfred reached out and ran one fingertip through one of the smears of “blood” on the counter. Tasting it, he shuddered. Ketchup and tuna made a particularly repulsive mix. He shook his head, further surveying the ruin of his pride and joy. 

“And here I thought Master Jason was the only one who could summon a mess out of the aether,” Alfred muttered. Gingerly, he picked up the immersion blender, which had been left in the middle of the kitchen island, so covered in tiny pieces of food and sauce that he could just barely find the dry spots to fit his fingertips. “The blender, gentlemen? On tuna? Why didn’t you use the food processor?” 

“Uhhh…” Tim said. 

“Tt!” Damian hissed. 

“We couldn’t really figure out how,” Tim said, not meeting Alfred’s eyes. 

The boys shot nervous glances at each other. Alfred felt his left eye twitch. He strode over to the food processor. It was clean—too clean, given that seemingly everything else in the kitchen had been showered with specks of food. He pulled off the lid, praying he wouldn’t find what he feared. To no avail—the interlocking feature on the lid showed a clear crack, straight across the tritan plastic. He closed his eyes in resignation, stamping on his temper. His prior lifetime of blue-collar scraping made his innards curdle at such a costly breakage, but it wasn’t as if replacing the lid, or even the entire food processor, would make a noticeable dent in the Manor’s monthly budget. And it wasn’t as if they had done it on purpose. Given Master Bruce’s… difficult… relationship with food, the last thing Alfred wanted to do was discourage any of the boys from using the kitchen, even with the occasionally disastrous results that would inevitably result. 

The attempt at deception, however, had to be dealt with. He swung back around, prepared to give the wayward adolescents a piece of his mind. Before he could begin, however, Master Bruce jumped up on the kitchen island. He skidded slightly, his left foreleg sliding on a smear of ketchup, then looked up at Alfred and mewed defiantly. 

“Master Bruce, what is the—” Alfred started. 

The cat mewed again, then bent his head down and began lapping at the tuna bits on the counter. Looking back up after a second, he stared at Alfred, then licked up some more. 

Alfred sighed. If only Master Bruce could be this communicative when he wasn’t a cat. 

“Very well, sir,” he agreed. “Since you were the responsible adult present during this little misadventure, I will limit the boys’ punishment to cleaning up this mess—with your assistance, of course.” He let a beat go by, then added— “Now.”  

The boys leapt to work with a will. Under his stern eye, they actually managed to stay on task and finished the job in under a half an hour—Bruce even helped, although Alfred insisted that Tim go over every spot the cat had “cleaned” with a multipurpose cleaner, given where Master Bruce’s tongue might have been. 

Tim let out an ear-splitting yawn when they were done. “I think I’m going to go back to bed,” he said. “I didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep, what with waking up every hour to check on Bruce, and this is way earlier than I usually get up, anyway.”

“What time is it?” Damian wondered. Answering his own question with a quick glance at his watch, he jerked upright from where he’d been leaning against the counter. “Zounds! I have to milk the BatCow!” 

“I think you’re both forgetting something,” Alfred said. Off the boys’ mutually confused expressions, he pointed out, “While you’ve cleaned the kitchen, your gustatory experiment has still left its mark in one place that requires cleaning.” He gave a significant look at the cat resting on the island, its mostly black fur dotted with food debris and matted down by juice, sauce, and grease. 

“Don’t cats clean themselves?” Tim asked 

“It depends on the breed and situation,” Damian muttered, eyes distant, as if he was reading off an invisible textbook. “Cats with less or more fur than the norm may require regular bathing. But also, any cat can need a bath if it’s particularly dirty. It’s not healthy for them to lick off too much filth—and especially if he got any cleaning chemicals on him…” Damian grimaced and looked at the cat, his mouth twisting like he’d swallowed a lemon whole. “He will definitely need to be washed.”

Bruce growled, a low, threatening sound. He slowly backed up toward the edge of the counter, but Alfred got there first and got a firm grasp on his scruff. His growl raised in volume, vibrating through his fur against Alfred’s restraining hand. 

“Shit,” Tim said. 

“Language, Master Tim,” Alfred scolded. “Master Bruce, as we have previously discussed, I can tell when you’re swearing, regardless of what language you’re speaking.” 

“Sorry,” Tim muttered. Bruce didn’t say anything, but he stopped growling. Audibly, at least. 

“I should really go milk the Bat-Cow,” Damian said, edging backwards toward the door, staring fixedly at Bruce's bright yellow eyes. 

“Not so fast, Master Damian.” Alfred reminded the reluctant boy. “The cow can wait for some time. Meanwhile, Master Bruce has already admitted to being somewhat at the mercy of his cat instincts, which means he cannot be trusted to refrain from cleaning himself until washed.” 

With one hand under Bruce’s hindquarters, Alfred lifted him up, careful to hold the greasy cat up and away from his suit. Crossing the kitchen in a few economic steps, he unceremoniously dumped the struggling feline into Master Tim’s arms. “The sink here should be big enough.” 

“But—” Tim protested, clutching the squirming cat tightly to his chest to keep it from escaping. 

“None of that,” Alfred interrupted. Turning the boy, he shoved him at his compatriot in crime. “I shall observe and stand by to assist if truly needed,” he conceded. 

“But, Alfred—” Damian echoed. 

“Ow, Bruce!” Tim exclaimed. The cat growled again, fighting against Tim’s hold. Damian hastily grabbed a few tea towels and helped Tim bundle him up. The growls turned higher-pitched, coming out more as strangled yowls.  

“You’d best get to it,” Alfred warned. “I imagine he’ll figure out how to get out of that before long.” 

The teenager gulped, but he moved toward the sink and carefully deposited the cat into it. “Please don’t hurt me, Bru—Damian! Catch him!”

The younger boy lunged forward and shoved the cat back just as he almost made it out of the sink. 

“Father!” Damian scolded. “We’re doing this—ow—for your own good!”

Alfred stifled a smile at the way the boy’s intonations unconsciously echoed those of his father. That was, when his father wasn’t a feline. Although… 

The cat’s yowls reached an even higher pitch as Tim turned the sink on and pulled out the faucet sprayer. Alfred winced at the piercing tones.

“Watch it!” Damian yelled, ducking away from some errant droplets. “And that’s too hot. It shouldn’t be higher than his body temperature.” 

“Do you know—how annoying—it is—when you tell me how to do things?” Tim demanded, shouting in the gaps between the cat’s plaintive yowls. 

“It’s not my fault that I’ve been better trained than you!” 

“Oh you’ve got to be kid—” 

“Mrroooaaaaarrrr,” Bruce interrupted the squabbling with a mournful moan. Alfred prudently backed up as water sprayed out in all directions. A second later, his foresight was rewarded as the cat shook off the two sets of restraining hands and exploded out of the sink, racing toward freedom. Alfred slammed the door shut in his path and grabbed a set of tongs from the magnetic board over western oven and an oven mitt from the wall hook. 

“Don’t think I won’t use these, Master Bruce,” he said, clashing the tongs together threateningly.

The cat took one look at him and fled the other way. He dodged both of his sons and leapt , landing only momentarily on the counter before he pushed off again, using his momentum to scramble up the cabinet face and onto the refrigerator.

“Welp,” Tim said. “I guess he’s gotten over that new-body clumsiness.”

Bruce growled at them, looking rather like a vulture perched on the heights, glowering down at them. The boys, for once acting like the well-trained team they were, split up and began to scale cabinets on opposite sides of the kitchen, bracketing Bruce in. 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said in his sternest voice. “Come down here this minute.” 

The cat made a rude noise, like hacking up a hairball. 

“Oh, very mature, sir.”

Chapter Text

Dick had always been a morning person. His parents had used to joke that he was up even before Zitka, the elephant, who’d been notorious for waking the whole circus by trumpeting the dawn. It had taken a while for him to learn to fit in with Bruce, the king of the night owls. 

But he’d been running both ends of the candle ragged for months now, what with the renovations on Amusement Mile, coaching jobs, patrols and investigations as Nightwing, lingering responsibilities at Wayne Enterprises that Bruce had never taken back after his year lost in time, and his attempts at maintaining some semblance of a social life. Staying up half the night, after a long day and a patrol as Nightwing, to deal with Bruce’s furry little problem hadn’t helped his chronic sleep deprivation. 

All of which was to say, he didn’t wake up until nearly noon the day after the “cat”astrophe, and even that was only due to the pressing concerns of his overburdened bladder. Fortunately, he’d called in sick, so there was no reason he couldn’t laze around the Manor most of the day. He could spend some quality time with Damian, who still hadn’t become reconciled to Dick’s move back to Bludhaven… maybe get some pictures of Bruce the Cat to share around the old Teen Titan chat. 

Because of Alfred’s superpowers, when Dick stumbled groggily back to his bed after performing kidney maintenance, there was a wheatgrass shot, a bowl of oatmeal dotted with blueberries, three breakfast sausages, and an entire pot of coffee sitting at his bedside table. 

“God bless you, Alfred,” he muttered blearily, and took the shot. 

A second later, a small black and white paw poked up on the other side of the table and inched toward his sausages. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed, snatching the plate up into the air. “Those are mine.” 

“Forgive me, sir,” Alfred said, bursting in. “I don’t know how he got in here—he was definitely still dogging my steps as I walked out.” 

“Mrow!” Bruce jumped up on the bed and gave Alfred a remarkably dirty look. 

“I beg your pardon, Master Bruce; of course, I meant catting my steps.” He turned back to Dick. “He must have snuck back in just before I closed the door.”

Dick couldn’t help but laugh. “Bruce, has Alfred been denying you sausages, that you need to steal mine?”

“They aren’t good for cats,” Alfred said severely, glaring down at Bruce. “They’re too high in fats and salts. You have already had breakfast, sir; three times, in fact. First the meal of tuna salad with ketchup—” 

“What? Ugh,” Dick put in. 

“Indeed,” Alfred agreed, nodding at Dick. “Which Masters Tim and Damian were foolish enough to give him at the crack of dawn, and which he vomited up shortly thereafter. Doubtless—” he turned his focus back to the cat— “because of the amount of it that you ate directly from the kitchen floor.” 

“Oh no.” 

“At a more appropriate hour, I presented him with a perfectly delightful morning repast of fish roe, on a sparse bed of rice, with parsley garnish—I hope I may be excused for displaying a pardonable pride, sirs, given my lack of experience in feline cuisine. But he scarce took three bites of it, before going off and gobbling down half of Master Tim’s bacon and eggs. And then I prepared an uncooked rabbit quarter for lunch—the bones of which took three quarters of an hour to grind—and you turned your nose up at it, Master Bruce, I do remind you!” 

Bruce growled at him, and Dick struggled not to laugh again. The cat’s disgruntled expression, paired with Alfred’s all-too-familiar tone as he went through his litany of complaints, was too much. 

He abruptly sobered, however, thinking of how surreal it was to have Bruce suddenly caring about what he ate. Not that Bruce had ever been shy about appreciating a fine meal, on the rare occasions he had the leisure to sit down and enjoy one. It was one of the few aspects of being a billionaire that he took full advantage of, in fact. But most of the time, he displayed a casual disregard for what he put in his mouth—he required that it sustain him, and nothing else. When times got busy (and when in the last several years hadn’t things been busy) he’d subsist on nothing but protein bars and coffee for days at a time, until Alfred’s nagging became unendurable. Dick had always kind of assumed that Bruce thought about food like a hot bath—nice but, in the end, unnecessary. 

The idea that Bruce was actually picky and highly food-motivated and just routinely ignored his own desires wasn’t surprising, per se, but it was… pretty sad. And Dick would certainly have never guessed that he had a secret craving for greasy cured meats. 

Once he wasn’t a cat anymore, Dick was going to make sure he got more of those, Alfred’s sensibilities be damned. 

“Alright, Bruce,” he said. Picking up his fork and knife, he ably sliced off a wafer-thin slice of the end of one sausage and held it out toward the cat. “A tiny bit won’t hurt him, Alfred,” he added, as the butler stepped forward in incipient protest. The cat delicately bit the morsel off the end of the fork, lowered it down to the mattress, and then demolished it in about three seconds flat. Licking his chops, he looked back up and fixed Dick with a pleading look, his black and yellow eyes huge and glistening and far more expressive than they had any right to be. 

“Jesus, Bruce,” Dick muttered. Under Alfred’s gimlet gaze, he choked down a few bites himself, trying to ignore the cat’s mournful stare. 

“For shame, Master Bruce, let the boy eat,” Alfred said, shooing the cat off the bed. Bruce slunk off, managing to look guilty somehow. 

“You know, Alfred,” Dick said, struck by a sudden thought. “Everything probably tastes different and weird to him like this. He’s like a little kid, struggling to figure out what he likes.” 

“Hrmph,” Alfred responded. “Perhaps so. In any case, we’ll leave you to your breakfast, Master Richard.” 

“Thanks, Alfred—oh, wait!” Dick called after them. “We need to talk about how to handle things while Bruce is out of commission—League and WE as well as Bat stuff.”

“Certainly, Master Richard,” Alfred agreed. “Why don’t you meet us down in the Cave once you’ve eaten?” 

“Sounds good!” As Alfred left, Bruce following at his heels, Dick poured himself a cup of coffee and breathed in the scent greedily before downing half the cup in one swallow. He moaned in bliss. 

There were some benefits to staying in the Manor, he supposed.

Chapter Text

Bruce paces back and forth along the top of one the one of the weapons racks while Alfred works at the BatComputer. 

Getting more rest and self-care are all very well, he supposes, but right now he’s just bored. Wasn’t Dick supposed to come right down after breakfast? What can possibly be keeping him? 

There’s a jar of polish and a sharpener sitting on top of the case. They get in his way with every lap up and down the full length of the case, and he feels a sudden urge that he doesn’t bother to check. They’re his, after all. 

It’s thrilling, somehow, to see the sharpener fall. It gets his adrenaline spiking like seeing a criminal running away from him or the BatSignal high in the sky. He doesn’t hesitate to push the polish after it. The small jar is lighter, and it rolls across the cave floor after it hits the ground. His heart pounding with excitement, he jumps down and chases after it, batting it in a new direction whenever he gets close enough. He’s hot enough in pursuit that it’s a surprise when a black dress shoe suddenly comes down and brings the jar to an abrupt stop. 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says, his voice simultaneously scolding and full of laughter, like Bruce hasn’t heard since he was a kid and he’d found a clutch of fence lizard hatchlings and smuggled them into the Manor to try and raise them. He jerks to a stop, but not quite in time to keep from skidding into Alfred’s legs. He rights himself quickly, sitting back on his haunches, and looks up sheepishly. 

Alfred’s face looking back down at him is soft and warm, and Bruce feels a matching tenderness swelling up inside him. Following his instincts again, he lets himself flop back over onto his side, curving his body like a comma and laying his head back on the floor so he can look up at Alfred invitingly. Alfred’s face softens even more, and he crouches down and strokes the underside of Bruce’s outstretched neck with one hand, while the other rubs his ears and head. Bruce feels his throat fill with a loud purr that rumbles through his entire body. 

They spend a blissful few minutes like that, until Alfred lets his hand drift just a bit too far down across Bruce’s vulnerable belly. It’s not a conscious decision to attack—all four of Bruce’s legs are moving before he even realizes it, his forelegs latching into the intruder and holding it in place for his hindlegs to batter and his mouth to bite. Fortunately, his instincts also correctly identify it as a nonlethal threat, because his claws stay mostly retracted, and his teeth don’t draw blood, although he probably leaves a few marks. 

Alfred makes an outraged sound, but he doesn’t pull away—instead, his other hand joins the first, and now they’re tussling, Bruce trying to guard his stomach while still keeping Alfred’s fingers in position to be gnawed on, and Alfred counting coup by seeing how many times he can get in a full belly rub without being maimed. 

“Well, that’s gonna go viral on tiktok,” Dick’s voice says from the lift doors. 

They spring apart, and some part of Bruce mourns the loss of the lighthearted playfulness they’d managed to create between them. 

“Oh,” Dick says, and the regretful note in his voice matches the sad knot inside Bruce. “I didn’t mean to make you stop. It was just so cute …” 

“Quite alright, Master Richard,” Alfred assures him. 

“Bruce—” Dick starts. Then, perhaps feeling the inequality in their positions, he bounces forward and lands on his belly, propping his head up on his elbows, feet waving in the air. Bruce settles in front of him, tucking his feet under his body. After a few minutes, Dick tilts his head to the side. Bruce mirrors him. 

“Not to interrupt this particular communion, but I believe you wanted to discuss a few logistical matters?” Alfred drawls. 

“Right!” Dick announces. “Bruce, the BatFam’s got Gotham covered, one way or the other. But we need a cover story for why you won’t be seen for a month, and we should talk about what we’ll tell the League.” 

“The truth?” Alfred suggests. 

“I mean, sure, we can—it’s not like it’d be in the top ten weirdest things they’ve ever heard—but I wouldn’t want to do it without Bruce’s say so.” 

“Fair enough,” Alfred agrees. “I think a trip on the yacht will do for Master Bruce’s absence from Gotham. We can hire one of the imitators—” 

Bruce jumps up and runs over to the keyboard, which they’ve left out for him to use. 

“Ask J’onn,” he types. The computer pronounces the Martian’s name like “Jay-own,” and Dick and Alfred exchange a confused look before Dick checks the text log and repeats it correctly. “The League will figure it out anyway—there’s a meeting coming up, right?”

Dick pulls up the BatFamily’s shared Google calendar. “Yup, a week from Tuesday,” he confirms. “Are you saying—you’re going to go like this?” 

“Like you said, it’ll hardly be the weirdest thing they’ve seen,” Bruce types. It’s not like he wouldn’t prefer to keep this within the family. But realistically, he’s not going to just disappear for a month without someone from the League noticing. Ten years ago, when they’d just been starting out, he could have easily managed it. Even five years ago, he could have reasonably sent a few messages implying he was pursuing an undercover case, and no one would have really expected to get any further details. But these days, with the global community of superheroes more intertwined than ever before, there’s no way he can absent himself that long without a lengthy and detailed explanation. 

He probably couldn't get away with using “gone time-travelin’” again (although now that he thinks about it, Barry has used that excuse at least half a dozen times) but he could still probably come up with something slightly less embarrassing than the truth.  

However, he doesn’t want to avoid everyone from the League for a month and then have to lie to them about why for months, if not years, afterward. These people are his friends, loath though he is to admit to such sentiment. He respects, and even likes most of them. Not to mention, getting everyone in the BatFamily with separate connections to other heroes on the same page with their cover story would be a pain and a half. 

Besides, he has to admit he’s rather looking forward to seeing their faces when he jumps up into his usual seat at the League’s huge round table and leads the meeting like nothing’s out of the ordinary. 

“Do you think Tim can work up a portable version of this by then?” he asks. 

“The keyboards?” From his cat-got-the-canary expression, it doesn’t take Dick long to develop the same picture that Bruce is imagining. “Absolutely.”   

Chapter Text

STEPHANIE—
STEPH—
OMG—
You will never guess what happened—
it is the best thing EVER—
I have literally never been this happy 🤩 🤩—
the Universe has finally seen my misery—
and decided to provide appropriate karmic compensation—

—lmao Tim
—let a girl get a word in
—somebody’s had their Wheaties today.

🥺 —

—Okay, what happened? 

GUESS—
I mean you’ll never guess—
but try—
It’ll be fun—
the best possible thing you can imagine— 

— 🙄 come on, you gotta give me more than that

okay. Something with Bruce.— 

—he’s finally admitted he likes BTS? 

BETTER—

—He’s letting us visit Cass in Hong Kong? 

no, he still says we can’t go anywhere without an extradition treaty without him.—
But this is BETTER—
Don’t worry yourself overmuchly on scientific reality as we know it—

—One of his space cop friends got a hold of some super advanced alien HRT/SRS tech and is willing to let us try it? 

…—

—OMG REALLY?!??

no, no, I’m so sorry, nothing like that—
I didn’t mean to get your hopes up—
Just that really WOULD be the best ever—
and doesn’t seem completely out of the realms of possibility—
given what other wild shit we’ve seen—
so like—
I should look into that—

—yeah u shud

I’m sorry I can just tell you—

—No, I’m into guessing now

—He got cursed by a new supervillain into only speaking in limericks? 

very warm, right ballpark, but BETTER—

—he’s been turned into a muppet like the one Angel episode? 

SO CLOSE—
MEET—
THE BATCAT—

—omg
—OMG

INORITE?—

—You swear that’s Bruce and you’re not punking me?

Would I do that?— 

—In a heartbeat

Okay yeah I would but I’m not I swear—
My hand to Diana—

—OMG
—He looks so grumpy!

Yeah, well this wasn’t long after we gave him a bath.—

He didn’t really stop glaring at us for a few hours.—
And I still feel like I should have gotten some stitches and maybe some tetanus shots—
The demonbrat and I finally just left him to Alfred’s tender mercies for a while—
Eventually I ordered in from Nobu. He forgave me pretty quick in return for sashimi.—

—Awwwwww

Alfred DENIED HIM BACON—

—RUDE. How could you say no to that face?
—more pics?
—also, deets?

Oh, I’m saving the rest for the blackmail file—
Come over and get your own 😁 —
Oh, and it was Bat-Mite. He’s stuck like this for a month—
or until some kind of unspecified “trigger” happens—

—A MONTH? Excellent. We’ll have time to get Cass into town.

I messaged her same time as you but she hasn’t responded yet—

—It’s wee hours in Hong Kong

Yeah I know just saying—

— 😝
—Okay but you know what we have to do. 

???—

—COSTUMES
—COSPLAY CAT

👀 —
You’re a GENIUS—
OMG we can make him a little cowl—
Okay but how do we get him to go along with it?—
I am not understating the sharpness of those claws—
I could maybe bribe him—
Seriously not underestimating how much he likes sushi—
Plus he wants me to whip up a portable communicator for him—
For a League meeting next Tuesday—

—Portable communicator? Like Star Trek? How would he use it?

Nah, like, he can still read/write, he just needs something to speak for him—
We whipped up something quick but it’s in the Cave—
He wants something he can carry around with him—
I’m just gonna marry a modified laser projection keyboard to a talk-to-text program—
Easy-peasy—
The challenging part is going to be making it small enough to fit on a cat collar—
And figure out how he can turn it on/off—

—Oh okay that makes sense.
—Okay so bribe him with the communicator
—And the cowl. I bet he will want to wear that to the League

… I need to figure out how to hack into that meeting—
So much blackmail material—

—100%
—And then we can use guilt
—And Cass
—He’ll do anything for Cass

That’s true—
She is magic—

—And worse comes to worse…
 

Steph, NO 🤣 —

—Steph YES

How would we even get the costume on him in that thing?—

—Like this

Okay that’s three minutes of my life I’m never getting back—
But also—
I feel like this would not work so well with a hissing cat—

—details

yes, Steph, DETAILS—

—pht. you’re such a spoilsport

Anyway we wouldn’t be able to get good photos—
Unless we like, had him trapped in a room full of cameras—
And that was NOT a suggestion, I have to LIVE with him—

—🤣
—Anyway we can work out the deets with Cass
—I’m coming over this is too good not to see in person

Stop at Starbucks on the way? 🥺 👉👈—

—Don’t you have, like
—An espresso machine in your room
—and imported magic beans from Themyscira or something

Yeah—
To the first one, obvs—
Not so much with the magic beans, rofl. This isn’t Into the Woods—
but Alfred put a meter on it, the quisling—

—You can’t get around that?

Babs helped—

—The BETRAYAL

I KNOW—

—okay fine I’ll pick up Starbucks but you have to reload my card

No prob 💰 —
See you soon! —

Chapter Text

Damian yawned as he cleaned out the BatCow’s pen, then shook his head violently with a frown, trying to wake himself up. He’d trained his endurance for years—he shouldn’t be yawning like a school child after a little lost sleep. 

“Meow?” 

He jumped and turned around. His father was sitting on a fence post, his feet firmly planted in front of him, his tail curled around. He looked very distinguished. For a cat. 

“What do you want, Father?” Damian asked politely. 

His father chirped and jumped down from the post, hopping fastidiously from grass to bench to large stone to stool to avoid the muddy dirt that made up most of the ground surface of the pen. He looked up at the large cow with a pensive expression on his feline face, then turned back to Damian and mewed again, interrogatively. 

Damian had no idea what he wanted. He shrugged helplessly. 

His father cocked his head, and he’d swear that was the same disappointed expression he usually got when he made ingenious suggestions like “if we cut off his leg, he can’t run away” or “dead men don’t usually try to kill you again in a few years.” 

“I don’t speak cat,” he said bluntly, turning back to his chores. “Perhaps you should go and bother Drake to hurry up on the task you’ve assigned him. The last I saw, he was making ‘gifs’ to put on the internet instead of working.” 

His father kept staring at him for a moment, then abruptly looked away, staring to the side, toward the side of the pen. Damian followed his gaze, but didn’t see anything but the old apple tree. Oh, and the family of robins that nested there most years was out pecking at the fallen fruit, but—oh shit. 

Damian turned, prepped to charge and hold the cat back, but he was too late. His father had already moved, and was belly crawling through the grass toward the birds with a skulkiness that Damian had to admire. 

But not at the expense of dead robins!

“Father, no!” he shouted, running after the bounding cat. Fortunately, the noise of his shout, or perhaps simply seeing a human running toward them, made the robins scatter, and his father pounced on empty grass and let out a disappointed hiss. 

“Father!” Damian scolded. “You cannot eat the birds here—Gotham is far too polluted. Imagine what diseases or radiation they may be carrying.” 

The cat had the decency to look sheepish, but Damian did not trust his sudden complacency. He moved forward and scooped him up, ignoring his indignant mew of protest. “Come,” he said. “We clearly need to find another outlet for your hunting instincts.” 

“You want to what?” Dick asked. 

“Father is normally a man of violence,” Damian explained patiently. “He hunts almost every night. Those instincts must be heightened now, due to his transformation. We must provide a method with which he may satiate his blood lust, or he may commit acts he will regret when he returns to normal.” 

“And so you want to play a game of capture the flag,” Dick said flatly. 

Damian flushed slightly at the continued note of skepticism in his mentor’s voice. “I considered several recreational activities that might provide an outlet for Father’s aggression,” he said, unable to keep a slightly defensive note from his voice. “Capture the Flag allows for strategic thinking and planning, a variety of tactics, and collaboration as well as competition.”

The older vigilante pursed his lips, thinking that over. That was one thing Damian liked about Dick—he never dismissed Damian’s ideas out of hand, at least as long as they didn’t involve murder. 

Finally, he nodded. “That seems well thought out,” he said, and Damian felt his chest expand with the praise. “Why don’t I go talk to Tim, and you speak to Alfred and Bruce, down in the Cave? I think Stephanie might stop by later, too.” 

Damian nodded, approving wholeheartedly of the division of labor. 

Two hours later, Damian shimmied on his belly over the library floor, careful to stay behind the cover of the furniture, working his way slowly toward the circle of chairs where Team Ex-Robin had planted their flag. (That wasn’t what they’d called themselves, of course—after quite a lot of haggling, Tim, Dick, and Stephanie had agreed to “Purple Wombat” as a team name. Incomprehensible.) Once he’d gotten as close as he dared, he settled in under one of the couches to wait. His father should be making his mood right… about… 

“Over there!” 

“Oh shit!” 

Right on time. Now to see if Tim took the bait… 

“Spoiler, respond,” his father’s protegé muttered into his radio. “Nightwing, what’s your status?” 

Silence.

“Shit,” Tim muttered.

Go on, Damian urged him in his mind. You can’t win if your entire team dies. Go on, go on, go on.

Tim waited a few more minutes, trying Stephanie and Dick on the radio every few seconds, then finally cursed and skulked away. 

Feeling victory in his grasp, Damian crept up on the flag. He checked his surroundings, then leapt forward for the final dash—

“Ah-ha!” 

Damian stiffened as a blade was pressed to his throat and flushed with shame. Somehow, Spoiler—her voice was unmistakable, to him at least, even with the voice modulator built into the uniform—had gotten the drop on him!

“You really thought Tim would fall for that, huh?” she gloated. “He never—” 

The sounds of Stephanie gasping and an unholy screech coming from above rang out at the same time. Damian jerked his head back and away, trying to avoid the red pigment laced on the dull blade at his neck. He danced away and whirled, only to see Spoiler flailing under the wild claws of the cat clinging to her head. Abandoning her ruthlessly to her fate, he grabbed the flag and ran for home. 

“Ahhh! Bruce! Stop!” she screamed as he fled. “You’re supposed to be pulling your punches! I mean, your claws! Ow!!”

Chapter Text

“Jesus Christ,” Stephanie hissed. Tim flinched, but continued to dab on the antibiotic ointment when she gave him a sharp look.

“He barely touched you,” Damian said in a condescending tone. He was still playing with the flag he’d won, drawing it through one fist and then the other. “I have endured far worse injuries during training spars.” 

Bruce let out a sad-sounding warble and shuffled his front feet. Tim had rarely seen a cat look more woebegone, with drooping, sad ears, big eyes, and hunched shoulders. He’d been moping around with that guilty expression for at least three hours now, even after Alfred and Dick had satisfied themselves that Stephanie would be fine and turned their attention to Batman’s nighttime duties. 

“Bruce, I said it was fine, ” Stephanie insisted. “Really, I don’t blame you—you’re still getting used to that body, and you still mostly pulled your punches, even though you were trying to keep your balance and protect Damian. You only broke the skin in a couple places.”

Tim couldn’t help but let out a skeptical grunt, although he tried to keep it quiet. Stephanie elbowed him, and he glared right back at her. It was true that only two of the scratches had been deep enough to bleed freely, but Stephanie’s face and scalp were littered with shallow red lines where Bruce’s claws had cut through at least the top couple layers of epidermis. 

“They’ll heal in a couple of days,” Stephanie said. “And the only ones that’ll scar are hidden by my hair anyway.” 

“Mrraaaoooooorrr,” Bruce moaned at the mention of scarring. 

“Hey, come here,” Stephanie said, her voice soft. She held her hands out. Bruce gave an incredulous look, but when she just kept her arms outstretched like that, he slunk forward slowly, ears and tail still down, and crawled into her lap. She cuddled him for a while, scratching his ears, rubbing his little head, and whispering nonsense into his ears, while Tim finished with the ointment and followed with a layer of liquid bandage over the deeper scratches. 

He did not feel jealous. Of either of them. 

“You know,” he said. “I think maybe we were heading off on the wrong foot with the war games idea, anyway.” 

“Tt,” Damian said. “You’re just saying that because you lost.” 

Tim ground his teeth silently and concentrated on his breathing for a few seconds. In, out.  In, out. In, can’t kill the demon brat, out. “I was just thinking that Bruce is used to running life or death missions, to real violence and danger. We can’t entirely replace that with a game of capture the flag.” 

Damian looked like he still wanted to object, but as Tim had counted on, the argument appealed too much to his personal philosophy for him to disagree on reflex. 

“What do you suggest as an alternative?” he sneered instead. 

“Well,” Tim said, smiling. “I was thinking we should take advantage of the situation.” 

All three of them were looking at him now, Bruce having even craned his neck around from within the circle of Stephanie’s arms. 

“How so?” Stephanie asked for all of them. 

“We’ve been having real trouble getting any kind of surveillance inside of Black Mask’s new bar,” Tim pointed out. “Every waiter we surborn ends up getting uncovered or intimidated out of getting us information, and he’s been running so many anti-bug sweeps, we haven’t been able to keep any tech inside for longer than a few hours. And when Dick tried to go undercover last month—” 

Everyone made noises of sad agreement, even Damian. Dick had barely escaped with his life, and he still wasn’t talking about what he’d had to do in order to do that. 

“But,” Tim said triumphantly. “Even Black Mask isn’t so paranoid as to be suspicious of a cat, right?” 

They regathered that night, after Dick had left on patrol. Fortunately, he still preferred to operate from Wayne Tower, using Oracle as a backup, so once he’d suited up and headed out, the BatCave was empty. 

“Okay, so I’m thinking we can get a bug on the collar,” Tim said, heading over to the metal standing cupboards that held their surveillance gear. 

“But what about the anti-bug sweeps?” Stephanie pointed out practically. 

“They run them with handheld detectors,” Tim explained. “Bruce just has to stay out of their way.” 

“We will need to be quite close to provide adequate backup,” Damian said nervously. Tim did not find the Demon-Brat’s concern for his father endearing. Not at all. 

“There’s a restaurant across the street we can use as a base,” Tim said. 

Bruce growled slightly. 

“Yeah, I know, you didn’t want to use her, Bruce,” Tim said, frustrated. “But she offered, and we need this in. Black Mask wouldn’t be working this hard to keep us out unless he’s using the place for something out of the ordinary.” 

“Uhhh, fill me in here?” Stephanie said nervously. 

Tim sighed. “It’s a new-age vegetarian place that Harley and Ivy are running,” he explained. “Bruce hasn’t wanted to get them involved now that they’re supposedly going straight.”

“Um. Ivy is running a vegetarian place?” Stephanie said. “Isn’t that, like, a contradiction in terms?” 

“Mew,” Bruce disagreed. 

“There is nothing wrong with eating plants,” Damian elaborated. “Plants will eat other plants. And many plants have evolved to include harvestation by humans as part of their normal biological cycles. Poison Ivy objects to people who torture or devastate plants, by forcing them to grow out of season, or killing them when they’re young, or just deforesting acres of land and leaving them sterile with modern industry.” 

Stephanie raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you agree with her,” she said. 

“She is the least misguided of Father’s enemies,” Damian said. “Some of her prior tactics have been objectionable—most particularly, the chemical manipulation of her enemies’ reproductive drives is a dishonorable gambit—but I cannot find fault with her goals.” 

“Huh,” Stephanie said. 

While they were debating ethics, Tim had found the listening devices he was looking for, and had started affixing them to a tag he’d 3D-printed earlier in the day. Once he’d finished, he looped it around a split ring, mounted the whole thing on a simple break-away collar, and motioned Bruce over to him. 

“Alright, is that too tight?” he asked, carefully fastening the collar around the cat’s neck. Bruce took a step back and then shook himself, setting the collar rattling. 

“Mroar,” he said in an approving tone, and he looked up at Tim and nodded deliberately. 

“Oh, that looks so weird,” Tim said, laughing. Bruce sneezed at him and turned away, tilting his nose toward the ceiling. 

“Alright,” Stephanie said, her voice full of glee. “Are we ready for some mayhem?”

Chapter Text

Bruce moves craftily forward through the restaurant, slinking on his belly, careful to avoid people’s feet and purses. His target is on a raised area toward the back of the building, separated from the rest of the room with a wooden railing. He misses the earbud he usually uses when out on reconnaissance—they discussed it, but agreed that it would raise too many questions if it’s discovered. It’s probably wise to minimize the amount of things that’ll spark if he misses one of the anti-bug devices, anyway. He’s already dodged three—they have the waiters carrying the things along with the credit card readers as they check tables out. Brilliant—it doesn’t interfere with their work, and it means there’s absolutely no kind of pattern for anyone to predict. He has to grudgingly admire whoever came up with that idea. 

He manages to get up to the edge of the dais, then cautiously places his paws onto the top and heaves himself up, between two of the rails. Unfortunately, he’s still not quite used to having a tail, and the end of his grazes the back of the diner behind him as he jumps up. They jerk, surprised by the sudden touch, and whip around. 

“What the fu—oh, it’s a cat!” A woman’s voice, high with surprise and fear at first, then turning warm and amused. Shit. 

They’d discussed this possibility. As long as he seems like just a cat, he shouldn’t raise too up much alarm. He turns around and sits between the rails, gazing out on the assorters diners with a proprietary air, as Selina’s cats always seemed to do. 

“Mrow,” he says back to the woman, who is still peering at him, swiveled around in her chair so she’s facing the platformed area. 

“Well, hello there,” she says. “Aren’t you a cutie.” She extends her hand, fingers properly curled under, and he sniffs it politely. She runs two fingers up from his nose to scratch at his scalp, and he leans into it to show willingness, although it doesn’t feel as good as when his family does it. 

“What’s this?” says a voice from above them, and Bruce stiffens. Voices sound different from inside a cat head, but he’s listened to far too many recordings of this voice not to recognize it. He looks up, trying to stay nonchalant, at Roman Sionis. The mob boss peers down at him, a suspicious frown on his face. “We got a stray wander in?” 

“He doesn’t look like a stray,” the woman says. “Look, he has a collar.” She leans forward and reaches her hands carefully around his haunches—clearly ready for him to leap away, but he’s AOK with anything that gets him farther away from Black Mask right now. She pulls him into her lap, making quiet chirping noises, and strokes his sides a few times, which he grudgingly tolerates. Her hands go next to his neck, and he tenses, but she’s just reading his tags, and he relaxes again. 

“Awwww,” she says, “it says his name is “Kat-El, the Supercat,” that’s so cute!” 

Bruce barely restrains himself from growling. He’s going to leave a dead mouse on Tim’s motherboard, when he gets home. Or Stephanie—now that he thinks about it, that joke has her fingerprints all over it, even if she would have had to get Tim's cooperation with the 3D printer. 

Roman snorts. “Don’t see a lot of Superman fans in this town,” he mutters. “But at least he’s not the Bats', then.” 

Okay, maybe just a hairball, then. Bruce can be merciful when pranks turn out to be useful. 

“There’s a number,” the woman reports. “I’ll give it a call. I’m sure his owner is looking for him.” 

“Give him here,” Roman says, and Bruce feels his heart speed up. His family can hear them, he reminds himself, but it’s little reassurance, because he doesn’t want them in the Black Mask’s sights, either. He struggles a little, meowing unhappily, as the woman hands him up. He doesn’t want to raise suspicions by really fighting back after being so compliant with the woman, but even the most friendly and tame housecat he’s ever seen would be unhappy about being manhandled by strangers, he reasons. Roman just casually scruffs him, and the woman makes a small protesting noise before she cuts herself off, doubtless remembering who she’s talking to. 

“Now, let’s see who you belong to, kitty,” Roman mutters, lifting Bruce into his lap and moving his hands from his scruff to his sides. Bruce desperately wants to run or attack, tear Roman to tatters or at the very least pee on him. But he’s undercover, and even if this is a harder role to play than any he’s done before, he has a lifetime of discipline to override the cat’s instincts. He sits there instead, holding himself still and tractable, like someone’s pampered pet who’s gotten lost. 

“Mario, run this number for me,” Roman says. He starts petting Bruce, his long, sinuous fingers finding every sensitive spot. God, Bruce hates him. 

Bruce relaxes slightly, nonetheless. Although Tim had conspired on the name tag, he trusts that his son would have played it straight with the number. They’d agreed on spoofing the number of an elderly woman who lives in an apartment building a few blocks away, a reasonable distance for a lost cat to have traveled. She was in Bruce’s books from almost twenty years prior, when he put her husband in jail for life. He was a low-level enforcer for Falcone, who ran this area back then, and his wife continues to live rent-free as part of the quid pro quo that earns the mob the loyalty of their followers. Sure enough, Mario comes back in about ten minutes and hands Roman a piece of paper, and he laughs slightly. 

“Alright, false alarm,” Roman says. “You’re just a good little family cat, aren’t you?” He strokes Bruce’s head skillfully, really digging into the hot spots behind his ears and under his jaw, and Bruce can’t help but purr. Who knew that Roman was a cat lover?

“Go ahead and give her a call, Mario, let her know that she can come pick up her cat anytime.” 

“Sure, boss,” Mario acknowledges. 

And then, to Bruce’s utter marvelment, Roman keeps him on his lap for the rest of the day. At one point, Mario comes back and lets Roman know that his putative owner has said she’ll send someone for him that evening. Bruce spends much of the rest of the day with a background worry about who his family will send into the lion’s den, but he doesn’t let it stop him from gathering info. By the end of the evening, he’s figured out valuable pieces of Roman’s plans—he’s using the restaurant to launder money, of course, but that’s just the background clutter, more of a why not than a real reason for the place’s existence. More importantly, he’s using it to provide a meeting place for him to broker deals and mediate conflicts between crime families from all over the city—a guaranteed neutral safe space from the Bats, and he’s using that unique commodity to position himself to make a play for the top boss of the city mantle. 

Bruce begins plotting. He wonders if they could suborn the woman whose identity they’d spoofed. If she could, perhaps, start coming here for lunch, a thank you to the man who’d returned her beloved pet, and bring him with her? They can take this place down with the information he has now, but it would be so much more valuable to use it as a listening post. 

Roman gets him a freaking high chair with a tray at dinner time, and continues to do business from his table while his underlings bring out tiny cat-sized portions of fois gras, wild salmon on rice, and filet mignon. 

Bruce could get used to this. 

After dinner, however, lolling back on Roman’s lap, he smells something… heartbreakingly familiar. 

No, he thinks, they wouldn’t have. Has to be a coincidence.

But sure enough, Selina Kyle breaks through the crowd and approaches Roman’s table. 

I’m going to make them all grind batarangs for a month. I'm going to make them run laps until they can’t stand up anymore. I’m going to… to… take all their most precious belongings and hide them in the toilet!

He avoids Selina’s gaze as she says hello to Roman—he’s not sure, in this shape, if he can keep from reacting in a way that will blow his cover. 

“Selina,” Roman says, his voice cold. “You’re running errands for little old ladies, now?” 

“Mrs. Bianchi is an old friend, Roman,” she says. “I originally found Kat-El for her. Leaving the flat is a bit of a trial for her, so she called on me for a favor.”

“Well,” he says. “We all know how valuable favors can be, don’t we?” 

“Indeed,” she says stiffly, and Bruce is definitely missing part of this conversation, but it’s not like he’d ever thought she’d told him every story from her checkered past.  

Just the important ones. The more idiot, me, huh?

“Well, if you’ll just hand him over,” she suggest finally, when Roman doesn’t say anything further. The mob boss sighs and lifts Bruce up to the table, and Selina leans over and moves to pick him up, and at the touch of her achingly familiar hands, he can’t help but let out an unhappy moan. She recoils slightly. 

“Not often I see a cat that doesn’t like you, Kyle,” Roman says, and that cold suspicion is back in his voice. 

She sighs. “I think he may be feeling a little abandoned,” she said. “There he was, wandering around in the cold, and the person who’d promised to always be there to find him was nowhere to be seen. That’d leave anyone feeling betrayed, mmmm?” 

He looks up at her, and her eyes are glistening. She is so very beautiful. 

“I can’t promise I’ll always be there,” she says softly. “I’m sorry. But I can take you back to your family. Are you ready to go home?” 

Yeah, he says, knowing she’ll hear him. She smiles back at him and gently picks him up, cuddling him to her chest. He doesn’t resist this time. She’s very soft. 

Chapter Text

Selina adjusted Bruce slightly as they came out of the restaurant, tucking him up and to one side of her chest so that his hindquarters were better supported and he could twist his body to get an almost 360 view of their surroundings. 

Goddess, he was so handsome like this. Soft, and fluffy, and gorgeous. 

Stop it. Not yours. Not any more. 

He struggled a bit in her arms, looking around, probably wondering why she was walking down the block instead of getting in a car or heading across the street to Harley and Ivy’s restaurant, where the Bats had set up their watchpost. She carefully buried a hand in Bruce’s ruff, ready to keep him from bolting, and expanded her secondary consciousness. She’d kept her abilities tight and under wraps while in Sionis’ territory, not wanting to stir the pot more than necessary—or provoke a startle response from Bruce before she got him away from Roman. 

What the fuck—Selina!? he responded, as he felt her mind slip over his. With the verbal response came a wave of conflicting emotions, shock/welcome/anger/love/grief/relief. She almost stumbled in surprise, overwhelmed by the strength and clarity of his response. She leaned against a traffic pole and fiddled with one of the ankle straps on her heels to cover her reaction for anyone who might be watching. 

Cats didn’t think verbally. They understood a decent amount of human speech, like their names, “food,” “treat,” “out,” etc., but they parsed them more like calls or signals than actual words. And while cats certainly had emotions, they were straightforward and simple, not this kind of tangled morass of incompatible feelings. Communing with cats was easy, relaxing, comfortable. Talking with Bruce this way… emphatically not. 

Black Mask has access to all the CCTV footage in this neighborhood, she sent back, once she’d mostly recovered. It felt weird to send actual words rather than concepts or emotions over this channel. It actually reminded her a bit of the first time she’d spoken to Bruce as Selina rather than Catwoman, after they’d discovered their identities. Like she was either talking to the wrong person, or in the wrong way.  So I’m taking you to the apartment building where your cover owner lives, just in case he decides to check up. We’ve got an extraction planned from there.

Good, he agreed. With the short word came a surge of thoughts he probably didn’t realize he was transmitting, approval of the strategy, ideas to use the elderly woman as an unwitting deep cover operative, curiosity and resentment about Selina's presence, fond exasperation paired with a deep well of love for his children, another morass of complex feelings for her— she cut herself off from it with a gasp. He always did this to her, damn her—it was like riding a tiger, or free jumping from the tallest skyscraper in the world, or sailing through a hurricane. Such an amazing rush, but it was sink or swim, and Goddess, but when you hit the ground… 

It was my fault this time, she reminded herself. Not his. A tiny little bit of fear venom, some flummery from the Joker, and I went running. My failure. 

The rest of the walk felt like a penance—like she was the Little Mermaid from the original, gruesome fairy tale, walking on sharp knives toward her own doom. Finally, they got to the apartment building and headed up toward the eight floor, where the Bats had taken over a vacant apartment. 

“Selina!” Stephanie cheered as she walked in. Bruce struggled again in her arms, and she launched him in the air toward his children. She felt a warm rush of fondness and affection for him as he climbed up Tim—who shrieked slightly and yelled “velvet paws, please, Bruce!”—and wedged his muzzle into his son’s neck. Tim’s face melted into an adorable puppy dog look, and he clutched the cat to him, even as Damian and Stephanie crowded close, reaching out to give Bruce the additional pets and skritches he demanded. 

Right. Selina didn’t have a place here anymore. She’d forfeited that. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and left, closing the door quietly behind her. She’d just sit in the hallway around the corner, long enough to cover a reasonable amount of back and forth between her and an elderly cat lady, and then she’d head out, make sure the cameras saw her leaving alone. There was a practical reason for her to take a moment right now. She braced herself against the wall and slowly slid down it, crossed her arms over her knees, and buried her head on her arms. 

How did he always do this to her? One hour—not even that—back in his sphere and she felt like her world was disintegrating. 

“Selina?”

She leapt up, going from having her bum flat on the floor to poised and ready to strike in seconds. Stephanie raised her own hands, prepped to defend herself. The girl was smart—she’d spoken from six feet away, far enough away that Selina had time to recognize her and check herself before her instincts could make her leap to the attack.

But then, the girl lived with the Bats. No surprise she’d picked up a few tricks. 

“What?” Selina asked flatly. She relaxed and turned away to lean against the wall again. 

Steph shrugged. “You left without saying goodbye. Or letting us say thanks.” 

“Cats don’t say thanks. Or goodbye,” Selina snapped back. 

“Yeah, we noticed,” the girl said, with a bit of spite in her voice. 

Selina thumped her head again against the drywall. Why the fuck had she even—

Oh right. Because I couldn’t possibly resist the idea of seeing Bruce as a cat. Curious to the end. Satisfaction not really bringing me back this time, though. 

“It’s not like he was happy to see me,” Selina said out loud.

Stephanie didn't argue with that.  “He still won’t appreciate you leaving without a word,” she insisted. 

Selina let out a tiny, quiet hiss. The girl was right. 

Do I care?

She did care. Dammit. 

But then again, doing things that drove Bruce crazy was… kind of her trademark at this point. As long as she was doing it intentionally.

She darted in and ruffled the girl’s hair, laughing at the disgust on her face. 

“Tell him that I’ll be staying in town for a couple of weeks, at least,” she said. “He can find me if he wants.” 

“He’s a cat, Selina!” Stephanie shouted back at her. “How is he supposed to come find you?” 

Selina laughed. “Like that would ever stop him!”

Chapter Text

Stephanie walked back into the apartment with her head held high. After all, it wasn’t her fault that Selina had done yet another bunk, and she wasn’t going to act like some cowardly kid afraid to tell their parents that they’d chopped down the cherry tree. As every eye in the room turned to her, however, she did quail slightly. Bruce’s gaze, which had been similar enough to Damian’s even before he’d been turned into a cat, now somehow held the exact same murderous edge as the miniature assassin. 

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and carried on. 

“Selina said she’ll stick around in town for a couple of weeks,” she said, putting the best spin on it possible. “She said you’d know how to find her.” 

Bruce growled. 

Stephanie sighed. She hadn’t really thought that one would work, but she’d had to try. 

“She seemed… pretty broken up,” she said, thinking of the split-second glance she’d gotten before Selina had realized she was being observed. “I think maybe she got a little overwhelmed.” 

Bruce turned away and stared at the wall, his spine as straight as a cat’s could be. He looked very dignified. And very sad.

Tim and Stephanie exchanged troubled glances.

“Should we leave?” Tim mouthed silently. 

Stephanie shook her head. “Hey Bruce,” she suggested, rooting around in her utility belt. “You know how you said you wanted to make amends for the whole clawing, probably scarred for life thing?” 

He turned around to look at her, his ears folding down to lie flat on his head. 

“Now don’t be like that,” she said blithely. “It won’t hurt at all.” 

She held up the sparkly purple bottle of pet-safe nail polish she’d had the foresight to order. 

Bruce let out a low, mournful meow. Tim clapped both hands over his mouth, but they didn’t quite muffle his giggle. 

“This is ridiculous,” Damian said indignantly, darting in between them. “A cat’s claws are their primary weapons! I shall not allow you to desecrate them with cosmetic frippery!” 

“Oh, come on, demon-brat,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like the paint makes them less sharp. If anything, it’ll help people underestimate him.” As an afterthought, she added, “There are some caps that are made to blunt claws, though, which we might think about if we do another sparring session. But I wouldn’t want to take away his ability to protect himself.” 

“It’s not good for him!” Damian kept protesting. . 

“Look, this is a pet-safe brand, I checked all the reviews and several veterinary recommendations. The only problems they say to look out for are if the cat’s claws or paws have any weaknesses or open wounds—and we’ll check—or if the cat tries to gnaw it off, which obviously won’t be a problem here.” 

Damian sputtered a bit more, but couldn’t come up with another argument. Finally, he turned to Bruce, who had backed up into the corner and looked like he was eyeing the exits for a quick escape. 

“Surely you won’t allow this, Father!” Damian exclaimed. 

“Did I show you how close this scratch came to my left eye?” Stephanie asked. “Just another half-centimeter and I probably would have been blinded…” 

Bruce let out another sad cry, but he slunk forward, his ears still low and tail sinking down between his rear legs. Stephanie sat down cross-legged on the floor and patted her lap. 

Hanging his head, Bruce walked slowly into it. He turned around three times, until he’d managed to find a comfortable sprawl with his hindquarters tucked between her legs and his forelegs and head on her leg. 

“Paw,” she said, holding out her hand. 

“I won’t stand here and watch this!” Damian declared. 

“Cool, why don’t you go get us boba?” Tim suggested. “There’s a good place at ground level on the apartment building just east of this one.” 

“Oooh, boba,” Steph enthused. “Lychee-mango for me, quarter-sweet and blended with ice, please.” 

Damian opened his mouth, probably to say something about not being a servant, but Tim spoke up before he could start. 

“I’ll just text you both orders,” Tim said. “Way easier than remembering.”

Damian glared at them. “I have been trained in memory palace techniques,” he said stiffly. “I can memorize the layout of an entire enemy camp without taking notes, I do not need to resort to an external device to remember two drink orders.” 

“Oh, okay, cool,” Tim said, winking at Stephanie. “In that case, I’ll get a matcha milk tea, full sweetness.” 

Stephanie made a gagging noise at Tim’s sugar tooth, then looked up at Damian with a winning smile. “Thanks, Dami, I really appreciate it. And, you know, I bet your dad would love some regular milk.” 

“Hnh.” Damian stomped out the door. Stephanie giggled silently. 

“Okay, Bruce, paw,” she said. 

“Mrraaooooowwwww,” he moaned, but he stuck a foreleg out into the air next to her thigh and flexed his claws. 

“Thank you,” she said. It was the work of a quick moment to dab a bit of polish onto each outstretched claw—the real difficulty was holding on to them until the paint had fully dried, but it helped that Bruce was cooperating, even if he kept letting out sad meows like he was being murdered. 

“Gorgeous,” she said finally, admiring her finished work. “See, it’s almost the exact same shade as mine!” 

She held out her hands next to his paws, and Bruce flexed his claws a few times, looking at their combined decoration. Bruce let out a bit of a grumbling noise, but when she bent over her lap and cuddled him close, stroking and scratching his head and cheeks, he leaned his head into the caresses and started purring. 

“Awww,” she said. “Love you too, Bruce.”

Chapter Text

Barbara pulled up to the Manor, entered her gate code, and parked her minivan in the spot that Bruce always kept open for her, as close to the front door as you could get without parking on the lawns or sidewalks. It was the work of a few moments for her to undo the safety belts and clamps, pull out of the driver’s open area, hit the button that opened the side door and extruded out the ramp, and roll out onto the smooth sidewalk, all the fiddly bits long since gone to muscle memory.  

Now that she was back in Gotham, she rarely got to use the van, which was a shame. Bruce had spared no expense, of course, tricking it out as both a wheelchair user’s ideal mobility aid and a mobile headquarters for Oracle’s work. Unfortunately, what had been a dream with Metropolis’ broad avenues, modern ADA compliance, and urban sprawl had turned into a nightmare with Gotham’s cramped cobblestone streets, insane hills, hellish traffic, and assholish citizenry. After the third time she’d been late to a crime scene because she hadn’t been able to find a route that the van could make it through, and the fourth time she’d had to choose between abandoning the van or waiting hours for whoever had blocked her in to move, she’d stopped driving it downtown. Nowadays she really only used it when going out to the Manor, or running ops out of town. 

Bruce had gone above and beyond with the renovations to the Manor—even the classic front steps had been converted to a gently sloping gray and black marble ramp with inlaid lights and little gargoyles curled around the posts. The whimsy of it usually charmed her, but today she pursed her lips slightly in frustration as she reentered her code on the front door. She’d outwitted herself a little, with the mystique she’d built around her position as Oracle. It was very satisfying that the entire BatFamily believed that she was omniscient… but it meant they never thought to tell her things. And while she did have surveillance on pretty much every aspect of their digital and most of their meatspace lives, using a wheelchair didn’t mean that she didn’t have a life. She couldn’t possibly personally parse through the terabytes of video, photographic, and text data she got every single day, which meant she relied on an AI program to sort through it all and bring everything important to her attention, and sometimes it missed things. 

Things like Bruce being turned into a cat.

She just still couldn’t believe she’d missed an entire day of Bruce’s animal transformation. Stephanie, in particular, was going to get a stern talking to. What was the point of having one of her own in among the bats if she didn't get timely information?

As she rolled through the Manor’s spacious antechamber, a cheerful meow called out from her left, and a small black and white heat-seeking missile pelted down  the massive, majestic spiral stairs that led to the upper stories. 

“Bruce?” she gasped, holding out her hands. Wow, I’m going to feel like an idiot if this is one of Selina’s spies again… 

“Meow!” he agreed, and launched himself into her lap. She yelped as his paws—claws, thankfully, retracted—dug into her thighs, covered only by a pair of thin palazzo pants. Her arms went involuntarily around him, and she gave thanks she was in the power chair and not the manual, or the transferred kinetic energy might well have pushed her backward. As it was, she hit the side of the joystick with her hand and jerked slightly to the left. 

All thoughts of her position fled, however, as Bruce—she was sure now, that it was him—put his paws over her right shoulder and nuzzled into her neck, purring loudly. 

“Oh, Bruce, ” she said, cuddling him back. “I love you too, you big old softie. Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest—”  

She probably would have said even more embarrassing things, but she was saved by the bell—literally, as Damian ran in ringing a cowbell, followed closely by Tim and Stephanie, screaming bloody murder. If she hadn’t been sure that she had Bruce in her arms before, she certainly was now, as he didn’t react to the sudden loud noise beyond twisting his head to see what was going on. The trio exited as fast as they’d come in, without taking any notice of Barbarba sitting in front of the doorway, and then Dick followed them, at a more casual loping pace. 

Barbara sighed inwardly as she saw her ex. Granted, they interacted plenty now that Dick moved back to Gotham, but they’d never really dealt with a lot of stuff from the old days, including the last of their multiple breakups and the… incident… that had put Barbara in the chair. It helped that they mostly communicated through the digital world rather than in meatspace, but it did mean that the sight of him, with actual mass, and a stomach, and legs… it did things to her. She hadn’t quite rebuilt her immunity to him, yet, was all.  

“Babs!” he exclaimed, with that sunny smile, that acted like a gut punch. Still. Always. 

She hid her reaction, of course. He’d never been able to tell what she was feeling unless she told him. “Do I want to know what that was about?” she asked instead, nodded after the teenagers. 

“Oh, definitely not,” he said. He gave Bruce, who was still sitting on her lap, but facing outward now, a single eyebrow raise. “I always knew you were his favorite, but this is taking it to a new low,” he said, smirking. 

“Yeah, well, I come with a permanent lap now; you can’t beat that!” she joked. 

The comedy fell flat, however, as Dick’s face sobered and he gave both the wheelchair and Bruce a dark, brooding look. The cat’s ears flattered down to his head, and he let out a mournful meow, almost a moan. 

Barbara huffed and cuddled him close to her again, glaring at Dick. She’d never blamed Bruce, for fuck’s sake, and if she’d become reconciled to the chair, you’d think Dick could do the same. Really, blaming Bruce was insulting, when you looked at the right way—as if she hadn’t been perfectly capable of making her own choices and steering her own fate. 

“Anyway,” he said, looking away and stuffing a hand awkwardly in his jeans pocket. 

The way he wore those jeans was positively insulting as well. Jesus fuck, but he looked good. 

“Yeah?” she challenged. 

“Um—did you just come to see Bruce?” He looked down at the cat and smiled again, tenderly, softly. “Not that it’s not worth the trip.” 

She’d almost forgotten how often he smiled, how many different versions of the expression he had. It was easy to do, when you saw people mostly through photographs. Everyone smiled more in pictures. But he smiled just that often in real life, too, and she’d never yet caught him in one that looked fake. 

“No, I couldn’t have missed this,” she agreed, smiling back up at him. 

Between them, Bruce started to purr again.

Chapter Text

Bruce bounded in just as Dick was getting ready for bed. 

“Meow!” he said, self-importantly. 

Dick put down his toothbrush and spat. 

“What’s up, Bruce?” he asked tiredly. He’d never thought of Bruce as a particularly active father, but he had to admit that the old man had shouldered a decent amount of the logistical parts, at least, of parenting Damian since he’d come back from the dead. Dick had forgotten how much work all of it could be—from talking the principal of Gotham Academy from expelling him for bringing a poisoned caltrop to school (although, thankfully, they didn’t know it had been poisoned, or that would have likely been a much shorter conversation) to driving an hour both ways to a farm outside Gotham to get the special organic feed that apparently the BatCow had become accustomed to. 

“Meow!” Bruce said again. He walked a couple of feet toward the door and looked back at Dick, still standing by the sink. Then he walked closer, walked away again, and meowed again, more impatiently this time. 

“Alright, alright, I get the message,” Dick said, groaning. “Give me a second.” 

He quickly finished brushing his teeth, rinsed, and pulled on a shirt. Not that he really needed one, not in the Manor, but with Barbara and Stephanie both staying over and Cassandra expected to come flying in from Hong Kong at any moment, it seemed the wisest course. 

Bruce led him down to the Cave. For a second, Dick thought that there were Bat shenanigans underfoot, and he prepared a lecture about how Bruce was supposed to be taking a vacation. He had been decidedly unamused when he’d found out about the whole trip to Black Mask’s new restaurant, successful though it had apparently been. But the picture Selina had sent over of Bruce sitting in Roman Sionis’ lap would likely prove a salutary enough lesson for that particular misadventure. Dick smothered a grin at the thought. Bruce was never going to live that down. 

However, Bruce led him over to a charging stand near the Bat console where his phone sat. Bruce had at least five phones in his varying personas, not counting burners, but this was his most personal, private, and secure—the one that he used for honest conversations with the few people who knew both his identities. The one that always got answered. 

The one that Dick absolutely did not have a way to unlock. 

“Uhhh,” he hesitated. “Bruce, I don’t have the password to this one—”

Bruce went over to the keyboard setup that they’d created that first night—Tim still hadn’t quite gotten the mobile version working. 

“And I’m pretty sure your biometrics are programmed into this one,” Dick finished. “I don’t think I can get into it.” 

“Should be able to get in with Oracle’s help,” Bruce typed. 

Dick aimed a suspicious glare in the cat’s direction. “Bruce, you’d better not be matchmaking again,” he warned. 

Bruce began to intently wash his shoulder. 

“Great,” Dick muttered. The phone began to buzz. The grouped notifications that popped up didn’t show any details since it didn’t recognize his face—Bruce’s security settings at work—but as Dick scrolled through the list, it showed thirty-two texts, twelve missed calls, three voicemails, and several notifications from other messaging apps. 

“Shit,” Dick cursed. Even if Bruce was manipulating the situation to force Dick and Babs to work together—which was absolutely something he would do—he definitely wasn’t inventing the need to get into this phone. The number of people who had this contact was vanishingly small, and included some of the most powerful individuals on the planet. 

“Alright,” Dick agreed, resigned. “Let’s go get Babs.” 

“Okay…” Babs said, her fingers moving at lightning speed across the keyboard. “That should… just about do it…” 

“Jeez, Babs, ten minutes? You’re slipping…” Dick said. 

She glared at him. Damn, but she was cute when she was angr— No! Bad Dick. No biscuit. 

“I could have gotten in in thirty seconds, but I would have risked losing some of the data when his encryption protocols tried to shred it,” she scolded. “You want something done right, you gotta take your time on it.” 

“I’m just teasing, Babs,” he said, repentant. He shot her the apologetic, puppy dog version of his Smolder™ and she colored and looked away. 

Oh yeah, I still got it. 

Babs cleared her throat and snapped her head back to the consoles as a stream of data began scrolling along the screens. 

“Here we go! Okay, I’ve got several messages from… ‘Good Time But Bad Idea…’ and several more from ‘Better Time But Worse Idea,” —Bruce, are you fucking kidding me?”

Bruce didn’t even have the decency to look abashed. Dick snorted. 

“That’s John and Jason, you can just ignore them,” the cat typed out laboriously. 

“But which is which?” Dick murmured into Babs’ ear. She giggled. 

“I do most of the time, anyway. If it’s life and death, they’ll follow up on the Bat or JL lines,” Bruce continued. 

“So, what you’re saying is this is a booty call line. Bruce, why are we going through this?” Babs demanded, annoyance clear in her voice. 

Bruce looked away for a moment, then began typing again. “It’s not just that. And it’s been blowing up the last couple of hours.” 

“Hmph,” Babs said. “It looks like most of the messages from the past couple of hours are from… ‘Buns of Steel’… ” 

“Is that Clark?” Dick asked, a wide, delighted grin breaking across his face. 

“Oh my god,” Babs said, picking up her phone. “Excuse me, I need to go message everyone I know, right now.” 

“Wait, though, I’ve been messaging Clark as you from your JL phone, why is he messaging you privately as well?” Dick asked. 

“Why wouldn’t you just tell Clark?” Babs asked, looking up from her phone screen. 

“He wants to surprise everyone at the League meeting on Tuesday,” Dick answered absently. He pulled out his phone and navigated to the App he and Alfred had set up to mirror Bruce’s other devices so they could maintain the pretense that he was taking a vacation but definitely still possessed opposable digits. “I did message Clark, multiple times. How codependent are you two, by the way? It's been, like, barely over twenty-four hours.” 

“You probably said something slightly out of character,” Bruce typed. “So he decided to check up through another route. I do that periodically, just to make sure he’d notice if I was replaced by an imposter.” 

“Of course, because that’s a completely normal thing to prepare for,” Babs muttered. 

“Wait, is that why you asked me about Louis Theroux the other day?” Dick asked. 

Bruce licked his shoulder again. “Yes, that’s exactly why,” he typed. “And you passed, because you called and asked if I was on TikTok now. Which, of course, I am not.” 

“Of course not,” Babs agreed, a small smile on her lips. “Okay, so… it looks like Clark is getting pretty freaked out in these messages. What should I tell him?” 

“Try ‘Adequate showing. Should have checked with mutual contacts.’” Bruce typed out laboriously. Babs nodded and bent back over the keyboard for a second. 

They all jumped as a sonic boom echoed through the air. 

“Did you use punctuation?” Bruce asked. 

“Um, no?” Babs said, a slightly guilty note in her voice. “I just sent it as two different messages…” 

“Oh yeah, no,” Dick said. “Dead giveaway, that.” 

Bruce made a noise like he was about to hack up a hairball.

Chapter Text

Clark leaned back in his chair and frowned down at his cell phone. 

He was so very tired of these periodic “can you tell when your best friend has been whammied or replaced by an imposter” tests that Bruce liked to run. Not that he didn’t understand the need—it had happened, after all, multiple times. Time travel, parallel realities, sex and fear and laugh venom, red and purple kryptonite—and that wasn’t even getting into the time with the puppets.

But he objected to the notion that something major could happen to Bruce and he wouldn’t even notice. And even more than that, he hated the way it cut into his and Bruce’s friend time, which was already too rare. Bruce hadn’t called to chat after patrol on Friday, he’d canceled their casual plans to hang out on Saturday afternoon, and he’d been responding to all of Clark’s messages with monosyllabic, curt responses, as if Clark was a salesman he was trying to brush off. He read over the last few messages he’d sent to Bruce's private-private line, which Clark rarely bothered to use. 

—I get it. You’ve been replaced by a robot and no one but me can see the difference.
—Superman to the rescue! Consider this my check-in.
—Now can we talk about those HOT PANTS Barry was wearing last Tuesday?
—Really, you’re not even going to yell at me for revealing my identity on this ultra-encrypted, top secret, impossible to crack secure line?
—That was a joke, by the way, about you being an emotionless automaton.
—Come ON, Bruce.
—BRUCE
—BRRUUUCCEEEEE
—What the heck, Bruce?
—Seriously, what’s up?

Clark frowned. It was certainly possible, of course, that something had actually happened to Bruce, but realistically, Alfred was always going to be the first line of defense there, and the rest of the BatFamily lined up behind him. Clark couldn’t even call himself a backbencher—he wasn’t on the bench! He’d long ago accepted that despite Superman and Batman’s well worn partnership when it came to defending Earth, Clark was never going to get all the way inside Bruce’s defenses. He was too alien, too powerful; and at the same time, too mundane—too Kansas— for Bruce to ever be truly vulnerable with. Not like he was with his family of delightful oddballs. 

And that was fine. Of course! They were friends, good friends, and that was enough. Clark had his own family, after all—Ma and Pa, and Lois, and Jimmy. He didn’t need Bruce to be a part of it, and he didn’t need to be a part of Bruce’s. What he needed was his best friend, and he resented that Bruce kept pulling away for fucking… tests, especially since Bruce’s family would always be the first ones to notice if something was really wrong. 

Clark used talk-to-text for the next message, knowing he’d probably break the phone screen—again—if he tried to type it. 

—Stop ignoring me.
—If I don’t get a message from you WITHIN THE HOUR
—I’m ignoring your stupid no metas in Gotham rule and coming over there.
—After all, that’s what I would REALLY do if I thought you’d been whammied. 

Clark settled back in his chair and smiled, prepared to wait. Sure enough, forty minutes later, a message came through. He looked down and… frowned. 

Adequate showing—
Should have checked wiht mutual contacts—

The words were... fine. They sounded like what Bruce would probably say, except… 

No punctuation? 

And a typo?

And he hadn’t threatened any kind of bodily harm if Clark entered Gotham without his permission. 

Either Bruce was being particularly stubborn about the test—even for him—or… that wasn’t Bruce. 

Clark firmed up his lips and leapt up out of his chair. 

“Lois, heading out, might be a bit!” 

“Okay!” she yelled back from the living room couch. They’d learned, after many years, that unless they were collaborating on the same project, they couldn’t be in the same private room while one of them was working—there were many things that might end up happening, but work wouldn’t be one of them. She’d know, of course, from his phrasing and his tone and all that he hadn’t said, that it was a superhero thing, but not an emergency. 

He loved her so much. 

Superman flew into the Cave a few seconds later. The automatic defenses hadn’t been turned on, at least, which was a pretty strong argument for a test and not a whammy. He raised his eyebrows as he straightened up out of his horizontal flying position and touched down. Alfred, Nightwing, and Oracle were all in the Cave—an interesting mix, given that Dick and Babs didn’t live here and (according to Bruce, anyway, who gossiped about his children’s love lives more than any of them would probably believe) were barely speaking to each other at the moment. Equally bizarre, there was a cat sitting on the BatComputer, somehow perched on the top flatscreen. Clark couldn’t imagine how it had gotten up there, especially with Alfred on guard, but he hoped  it was a new pet of Damian’s and not another of Selina’s strays. Bruce still got moody whenever something reminded him of her. She’d better be smart enough to avoid Metropolis for a while—Clark didn’t generally bother about nonviolent crime (although he counted pollution and most white collar crime as violent) but dang if he wouldn’t make an exception for her. 

“Hi y’all,” he said. “Is Batman around, or out on patrol? I need to talk to him.” 

The three Bats exchanged meaningful glances, and Clark tried not to grit his teeth. Finally, Dick shrugged, and Alfred turned back to Clark. 

“Master Bruce has been turned into a cat,” the old butler said baldly. 

Clark blinked. He turned to look at the cat on the BatComputer. 

It waved. Like, literally stuck one paw up in the air—without losing its balance on the flatscreen, which was impressive all by itself—and waved.

A slow grin spread across Clark’s face. “Bruce?” 

The cat leapt off the flatscreen, heading straight to the floor. It was a good ten-foot drop onto cement, and Clark gasped and lunged forward to catch him. The cat—Bruce—landed neatly in his arms. Long habit—Clark liked cats, okay?—took over, and he brought his arms up to cradle the cat—Bruce—near his chest. 

And then Clark realized what he’d just done. Granted, he did force Bruce to endure the odd hug now and again, when they’ve just been through life and death situations, or occasionally when he just felt like watching the other man squirm, but he’s never cuddled him before. Clark sucked in a quick breath and prepared to keep Bruce from hurting himself as he tried to fight his way to freedom. 

And then Bruce laid his head against Clark’s chest and started to purr. 

The idea that this was all a prank flashed through Clark’s head—they’d found a trained show cat, probably, and set this all up to make a mockery of him, probably revenge for that thing last month when Clark had managed to get a tiny sparkling tiara on top of Batman’s cowl without him noticing and it had stayed there throughout an entire League meeting. 

But when he looked up, Dick and Alfred looked just as shocked as he felt, and Babs had her hands clasped beneath her chin and stars in her eyes. Granted, they were good actors, but not that good, not enough to fool a man who could read microexpressions and listen to the sound of your heartbeat. This really was Bruce.

Clark looked down at Bruce, splayed out in his arms like he didn’t have a care in the world, showing his belly, and still purring. Heart in his throat, he rubbed the (soft!) underside of the cat's chin. 

Bruce purred louder.

Chapter Text

Bruce realizes what he’s done almost as fast as he’s done it, but for once in his life, knowing what he should do isn’t enough to make him do it. 

It’s just… He was prepared to suppress his reactions when Clark came in. It’s not like he’s not aware of his feelings in that regard, no matter how much he tries to stifle them. Hence, perching on the topmost screen, which would force him to consider and calibrate before he did anything. But then Clark came in, and the urge to run over and claim him—or worse, beg for pets—hadn’t been nearly as irresistible as he'd feared. He was relieved, and he leapt down so that he could run over to the keyboard, and properly talk to his friend. Bruce has missed Clark, after all, and if he hadn’t been worrying about how his cat instincts might betray him, he would have had Dick or Alfred tell him the truth as soon as this transformation happened. 

He’s already jumped down from the computer screens enough times that he didn’t even think about how it would look—the ten-foot drop is well within the cat body’s abilities. That was his first miscalculation. Of course Clark, with that goddamned savior complex, would freak out and try to save him. 

His second miscalculation was not immediately trying to break free. Because the second Clark’s large, strong hands close around him, he’s lost. He can’t help but start purring, cuddling closer, trying to rub his scent across every part of that broad chest, and then Clark makes it worse, wrapping his arms underneath Bruce’s hindquarters to support him. Bruce’s instincts kick in, even stronger now, and he finds himself rolling onto his back on the solid platform of Clark’s forearms—damn him—and showing him his belly. Inviting Clark to fondle his most vulnerable bits, and oh shit what—

Clark’s hand begins rubbing the underside of his chin—at least it’s not the belly—and it feels so good, Bruce can barely stand it. His purr kicks up a notch, practically vibrating his entire body, and now Clark’s hand is dipping lower— 

“Jeez,” Dick mutters. “Get a room, you two.” 

Clark freezes, his hand on Bruce’s chest, and Bruce feels like he’s been doused in cold water. He flips himself over and lunges for the floor, and miraculously, Clark doesn’t stop him. 

Well, Clark does like cats quite a bit, after all. He’s often talked about his childhood cat, Fuzzball, and while Bruce enjoys twitting him about the whole ‘rescuing cats out of trees’ thing, he thinks it’s rather cute as well. He’s probably learned that it’s usually better to let them go than risk them injuring themselves trying to escape. 

It’s not his fault if Bruce would rather have been held tight and not let go. He scolds himself again. Even without all the other reasons that anything between them is impossible and unlikely and ridiculous, Clark is married. He’s the definition of unattainable. 

Bruce used to be able to add “and straight,” to that familiar internal lecture, but last year, after catching him with Constantine, Clark had made a point of telling him that he was bisexual, too, and all about how how Lois was so supportive of it! 

Sometimes the damn Boy Scout just drives him batty. 

Once on the ground, Bruce goes over to the keyboard, as he’d originally intended. 

“That was unnecessary,” he types. “I would have been fine.” 

To his startlement, the voice that repeats the words he types isn’t the familiar strident tones of Majel Barrett—instead, it’s a deeper masculine voice. 

Clark starts laughing. “Is that Simon Trent?”

Now that Clark says it, Bruce recognizes the voice of the Gray Ghost actor as well—it just sounds a bit different from within a cat’s head. 

“Tim’s been muttering about changing it for the past couple of days,” Dick says. “It was kind of weird to have Bruce typing and the computer from Star Trek speaking.” 

“Oh, Is that who that voice was?” Babs asks. “I’m more of a Star Wars fan,” she admits, as everyone looks at her in disbelief. 

“See, this is why we would never have worked out,” Dick mutters. 

“We can always change it back when I’m back to normal,” Bruce types, and it is better—he certainly doesn’t think he’s a misogynist, but it’s just more comfortable, somehow, to hear a male voice speaking for him, even if Trent weren’t one of his favorite actors, and a friend besides. 

“Right,” Clark says, his voice firming and shoulders squaring. “Do we know who did this? What have you done to try and turn him back?” He turned back to Bruce, and his voice changed, taking on a hurt edge. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Bruce freezes up for a second, not sure how to answer. Thankfully, his son once again comes in with the rescue, explaining about the prank that Bruce plans to pull on the Justice League at their meeting tomorrow. 

“As far as what caused it—” Dick starts. 

“It was Bat-Mite,” Bruce explains, almost in sync with Dick saying the same thing. “He thinks I need a vacation,” Bruce continues. “He hinted that his and your Mxy’s trips down here serve the same purpose.” 

“Hmmm,” Clark says. “That tracks. He does always seem like he’s looking for entertainment… or distraction. Did he say how long?” 

“A month,” Bruce confirms, unable to keep himself from letting out a sad meow as he types. Clark’s eyes glint joyfully, and Bruce curses internally. “Unless I hit an unspecified “trigger” first." 

“Hmmm. Were you wearing your Batsuit when he turned you?” Clark asks. 

“Yes,” Bruce confirms, not sure where—oh. 

“And I assume it wasn’t left behind?” Clark continues without waiting for an answer, undoubtedly reading it from their microexpressions and biometrics, which is one of his habits that annoys a lot of people but actually endears him to Bruce. It’s always nice not to have to state things aloud. “Any time that Mxy has changed me with my uniform on, it was still on when I changed back, so you probably should avoid being out anywhere and anywhen that Batman shouldn’t be seen.” 

“Good tip,” Babs mutters. 

“Well,” Clark says with a grin. “I’m sorry you won’t get revenge for the tiara tomorrow, but I’m happy to help with the prank. I can make sure no one sees you before the meeting starts—do you have a cat-sized Batsuit?”

“No,” Bruce types, but—  

“Yes,” Dick says at the same time. “Uhh, sorry Bruce. Tim and Steph.” 

Well, Bruce doesn’t mind for the Batsuit—in fact, it’ll make the meeting tomorrow even more fun, but—

“What’s Steph’s price going to be?” he asks resignedly. 

“I believe she is scheming for a bit of a cosplay session,” Alfred admits. “I can attempt to squash the idea if you wish, sir, but—” 

He sighs. “Don’t bother. She’ll rope me into it somehow.” 

If it ever came to some kind of Hunger Games-style battle between his children—and that’s a charming intrusive thought that will doubtless haunt his nights—Bruce would put his money on Stephanie. The others may all have better developed fighting skills, but her ability at getting other people to do what she wants will win the day every time. 

“Well, then, uh,” Clark starts, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow. And… there’s no real emergency. So… I guess I should be heading out?” 

Bruce lets out another mournful meow, and castigates himself yet again, but he can’t help but perk up as Clark visibly brightens. 

“Nonsense, Mr. Kent,” Alfred says smoothly. “I’m sure you and Master Bruce have a great deal to catch up on. We’ll give you the room.” He steers Dick and Babs out of the room, and Bruce is left alone with Clark. 

Which is fine. Of course. Counting when he leaves the mic open between the BatCave and the Fortress, he spends hours alone with Clark every week, it’s just… 

“This is a little awkward,” Clark says, looking down at him. “I’m not sure why, it’s not like we haven’t had plenty of conversations through keyboards.” 

“It’s not like we haven’t had plenty of conversations where you talk and I make occasional noises, too,” Bruce types, and Clark laughs, loud and long. 

“Always expressive noises, though!” he says, and sits, cross-legged, in midair next to the keyboard. “Well, in that case, have I told you about the goat I had to rescue off the fourteenth story during an apartment fire?” 

Bruce makes a hacking noise that will hopefully pass for a laugh and settles in to listen, his paws curled up comfortably underneath his body.

Chapter Text

“When will breakfast be ready, Pennyworth?” 

Alfred sighed. It was never a good sign when Damian started calling him that again. Most days, he avoided calling Alfred anything at all. Only in the best of moods (or occasionally worst, such as when he was hurt) could the boy be brought to call him Alfred. 

Alfred didn’t take offense. He and Bruce had started this, after all, with their refusal to let the masquerade that had started with Bruce’s parents die with them. The boy couldn’t be blamed for following their lead. 

“Master Damian,” he said evenly, pivoting from his security cameras. “As I’m sure you’re aware, we always eat breakfast on Sundays at ten.” 

“And yet it’s a quarter after nine and you’re watching Father cuddle the alien, as you have been all night, ” the boy said sharply. “Instead of beginning breakfast.” 

“Master Damian,” Alfred said sharply. “We have repeatedly asked you not to call him that.” 

The boy turned away with a hurt and somewhat lost expression, and his hand went to his breast, where he wore a pendant his mother had given him, the badge of the Al-Ghuls. 

Ahh. Well, that was at least an explicable reason for the boy’s angst—and an almost endearingly normal one, at that. Alfred was all too aware of the boy’s ambitions in that regard. It was natural enough for Damian to wish to have his parents together again, but Alfred hadn’t been a great fan of that relationship even before Talia had hidden Bruce’s son from him for so many vital years. Not that he had disliked her—she was an admirable woman, and it would have been hypocritical for Alfred to hold her family baggage against her. However, he’d always rather thought that despite their undeniable chemistry and compatibility, Miss Al-Ghul and Alfred’s foster son had a tendency to encourage and reinforce one another’s worst traits. 

It was an unfortunate truth that Bruce tended to be drawn to warriors; people whom he felt could withstand what he saw as his dark side. Alfred had always thought that the partner whom Bruce actually needed in his life was a healer—someone strong enough to resist his autocratic tendencies and stubborn pigheadedness, yes, but who would do so out of empathy and a desire to nurture, rather than an inherent sense of contrariness or desire for domination. 

A healing personality like, to list an entirely random example, Master Kent’s… 

But then, Alfred was a silly old man. Why would anyone listen to him?

“I’ve ordered in from Stella’s this morning, as it happens,” Alfred said, before Damian could get very far. “The buckwheat pancakes with whipped lemon ricotta that you appreciated on our last outing there, as well as a variety of dishes for the rest of the family and our guests.” 

The boy turned, frowning over that, looking for an opening, and Alfred smiled inwardly. Damian was so very like his father. Whatever faults she had and mistakes she had made, Talia had given Bruce a son. For that alone, Alfred would die in her debt. 

“You don’t usually order in unless you have tasks that prevent you from cooking,” Damian observed. “Especially on Sunday morning. And we don’t normally have guests on Sunday mornings, unless they’re family.” 

“That’s true,” Alfred agreed. “But I think that Misses Gordon and Brown can be considered part of the family at this point, no? And Ms. Cain is due in from Hong Kong at any time.”  

Another frown, even more irritated. Alfred took pity on him. 

Well, a little. 

“I didn’t feel like cooking today,” he said blandly. “One of the joys of reaching a certain age and level of achievement is the ability to occasionally—” Alfred leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk, “—say, ‘fuck it’.”

“Fuck it,” Damian repeated blankly. 

“Language, Master Damian,” Alfred said reprovingly. 

The boy flushed. “But you just—” 

“Yes… ?” Alfred drawled invitingly. 

“Nothing,” Damian grated, showing the excellent skills of discernment and strategy to which he was heir. 

“Excellent.” Alfred turned back to his monitors, rather hoping that Damian would take the hint. 

But then, of course, he was also a twelve-year-old boy. “Then you’re just—fine with this?” Damian demanded. 

“This?” 

“The ali—” Damian sighed as Alfred shot him a warning glance. “Mr. Kent. And Father! Canoodling!” 

Alfred raised his right brow, turning back to the security cameras. “Have they changed the definition of canoodling while I wasn’t looking?” he asked idly. 

“Father is sitting on his lap!” Damian spat. 

“Well, true. But your father is currently a cat, which makes it a natural position,” Alfred pointed out, chuckling, as he watched the two people in question. 

Damian wasn’t wrong. Alfred had watched the two men on and off throughout most of the evening, although he had also served as communications backup for Luke, who’d been taking his turn to be Batman. Despite the unusual level of integration of their lives, and lack of the boundaries that normally existed between a father and a son, Alfred didn't normally care to invade Bruce’s privacy during romantic encounters. But given that Mr. Kent and Bruce had remained in the BatCave—and thus, tacitly, in a shared space—he hadn’t been able to resist spying in on them now and again. 

It had been heartwarming to see Bruce venture closer to Mr. Kent as the evening went on. Alfred hadn’t caught him moving once, but every time he’d come back to the monitors, there had been a little less space between them. And then, finally, after almost an hour of sitting right next to the other superhero, with barely a centimeter of space separated them, Bruce had—while looking away—put one paw up on Mr. Kent’s knee. When Mr. Kent’s only reaction had been to slouch deeper in his chair, a second paw had mysteriously joined the first. And finally, Bruce had jumped up onto his lap, still looking in the opposite direction. Mr. Kent had wisely let him sit there untouched for at least five minutes before tentatively reaching a hand up to ruffle his ears, but once he had, Bruce had leaned into it with a pleased arch of his back. 

It had really all been too adorable for words, if also a sad illustration of Bruce’s intimacy issues. 

In the meantime, however, the last thing that the men’s burgeoning romance needed—if it was happening at all, and wasn’t simply a figment of Alfred’s optimistic imagination—was Bruce’s son determined to sabotage it. 

“I’m quite certain that your father wouldn’t do such a thing in his normal human state,” Alfred told the boy—accurately, more was the pity. “He has been a great deal more demonstrative in his affections to everyone since the transformation occurred, after all: friends and family alike. He also sat on Ms. Gordon’s lap for an extended period last night, and you did not leap to the assumption that they were canoodling.” 

Damian made a disgusted face. “She is Dick’s intended,” he objected. 

“And remember that Mr. Kent is a married man,” Alfred said airily. He would just keep his knowledge of Ms. Lane’s associations with Ms. Prince, and the conclusions he’d drawn therein, to himself. “Your father’s actions are simply an indication of the strong bond of friendship between them, forged from many battles fought at one another’s sides.” 

Damian relaxed. “Ah, yes,” he said, placated. “Father and Mother have both spoken to me of such bonds. They can be most useful. As long as one does not allow them to affect one’s judgment, or allow them to prevent taking precautions against betrayal.” 

Alfred sighed. He’d like to think that Damian had gotten that only from his mother. But, unfortunately, such a sentiment was just as likely to have come from Bruce. Always an uphill battle, with the Waynes. 

“Indeed,” Alfred said. “I believe that your father would readily admit that many of his greatest victories have been won solely by virtue of the bonds he has formed, both with his allies here in Gotham and those in the League. It is important to foster such relationships—especially with powerful individuals, such as Superman.” 

“Hnh,” Damian said. But when he left, he did so in a much more thoughtful mood than he’d entered.

Chapter Text

“Okay, I have to say it before I head out,” Clark says, giving Bruce one last head skritch. “You’re really cute like this.”

Bruce growls at him for the sentiment, but he accepts the skritches, twisting this way and that to get Clark’s clever fingers to the most sensitive spots. It would be too ridiculous to act like a prude when he’s already sitting in the man’s lap. When he’s already spent most of the evening curled up on said lap, letting Clark give him significantly more extensive caresses than a little head skritch. 

He’s decided he doesn’t care. Clark clearly thinks that since Bruce is in cat form, any touch that would be normal for a human to give a cat is just… normal friend stuff. And Bruce isn’t going to argue with him. 

Well. He isn’t going to argue with him about pets, anyway. He jumps off Clark’s lap and heads for the keyboard. Clark doesn’t try to restrain him, having learned his lesson on that front the first few times—Bruce may not have access to kryptonite weapons in this form, but he still has ways of making his displeasure known, if necessary. 

“You don’t have to leave,” Bruce types. “You’ve stayed for Sunday breakfast plenty of times.” 

“I’ve already stayed longer than I meant to,” Clark excuses himself. “Lois will be expecting me back for breakfast with Jon. Besides—” he cocks his head to the side, as if it's necessary. “Cass is almost here from the airport. You’ll want to focus on her. I’ll come over early before the League meeting on Tuesday, we can catch up some more then?” 

Despite his simultaneous desire to spend more time with Clark, Bruce’s currently irritatingly distractible feline brain immediately latches on to the idea of Cass coming home. He understands why she’s chosen to continue living in Hong Kong despite him not, in fact, being dead, but he misses her, dammit. He freezes for a second, caught between the two desires, practically vibrating in place. 

He hears a quiet click. Of course, by the time he snaps his head back toward Clark, the phone is nowhere to be seen. But Bruce knows what he heard, and Clark’s angelically innocent face gives him away every time. 

“Delete it,” he types. 

“Oh, come on,” Clark complains. “I bet Tim and Dick have gotten lots of pictures. Even Damian—” 

“Clark.” 

“Fine.”

“Don’t sulk. There’s nothing as ridiculous as Superman sulking.” 

“I won’t!” 

“I’ll see you on Tuesday.” 

Waving his tail in victory, Bruce heads for the stairs, but Clark has the last laugh, as he dives through the air like a freaking dolphin, scoops Bruce up, and kisses him on the top of his head. Bruce yowls and squirms to get free, and Clark puts him down on the BatComputer console, laughing. 

“See you on Tuesday, Bruce,” Clark says, affection clear in his voice, and once again, Bruce has a silent mental battle about what can’t be. 

Once Clark is gone, Bruce heads up to the rest of the house. Tim has finally made good on his promise to build a “catdoor” into the BatCave—there’s a biometrics monitor at human knee height, now, which opens the way once Bruce slaps a paw on it and meows. Once he gets to the top of the staircase and through the bookcase to the main Manor, he finds Damian and Alfred at the piano, singing Gilbert and Sullivan, of all things. 

He jumps up on the rim of the piano, next to the music rack. His family members startle and stop playing for a second, but quickly resume. As the last “And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow” rang out, Alfred reaches out a hand, holding it down with fingers curled for Bruce’s inspection. Bruce takes a quick sniff, enjoying the “family-bergamot-comfort-love-tobacco-trust” smell, then rests a paw on Alfred’s wrist and buts his head demandingly against his hand. 

Alfred rumbles out a laugh and rubs his hand over Bruce’s ears and head. Bruce feels a purr rise up from his center as the caress sent a wave of warmth, pleasure, and contentment through his body. 

“Did Mr. Kent head out, then, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks. 

“Meow,” Bruce confirms. 

“Well, hopefully the two of you had a nice visit,” Alfred says.

Damian tuts scornfully, but as he doesn’t say anything else, Bruce feels free to ignore it. A moment later, his youngest son reaches out and strokes his hand along Bruce’s back, and Bruce’s purr intensifies. 

 “Breakfast is ready,” Alfred adds. “We’re just waiting on Miss Cassandra. She texted from the airport an hour ago, so she should be here any minute.” 

Right on cue, the bell that means someone has passed through the front gate rings out. Surprised, Bruce practically levitates; he barely retracts his claws in time to avoid seriously injuring Alfred, leaving only a shallow red scratch that doesn’t dig deep enough to draw blood. Recognizing the noise after the fact, Bruce settles back down on the piano and passes a paw over his eyes, looking up at Alfred mournfully. 

“Quite all right, Master Bruce; you were understandably startled,” Alfred assures him. 

He meows apologetically anyway. 

“Are you two going to keep discussing a minor wound, or shall we go greet Cassandra?” Damian says impatiently. 

Bruce meows excitedly and runs to the door. He’s able to stay ahead of Damian, despite the boy’s best efforts, until they reach the grand staircase that leads to the ground floor. Bruce jumps down it three steps at a time, but Damian hops up on the balustrade and slides down, quickly overtaking Bruce’s bounding leaps. 

Bruce yowls out a protest at this blatant treachery, but Damian is unchecked and gets to the front door just as it opens, letting in Bruce’s long-missed daughter. She immediately braces for an attack, knees bent and hands raised, and Damian does not disappoint, feinting a bunch and then lashing out with a kick at Cass’ shin. She jumps over it and aims a fist chop at his shoulder—he sways back and almost catches her arm, but she pulls back in time and uses the momentum to pivot and kick him squarely in the thigh. He lets out an oof and staggers back, but is back on guard before she can press the advantage. The two of them grin at each other. 

This all takes about five seconds. By the time they’re back to circling each other warily, Bruce has reached the end of the staircase. He stops on the bottom step and sits, wrapping his tail around his legs. He watches the sparring appraisingly, his head twitching from side to side as he follows the action. 

“What on earth are you—oh, for cripes’ sake,” Alfred mutters disgustedly as he comes down the stairs. 

Damian overextends just a bit too far, and almost too fast to see, Cassandra catches his arm, flips him down on the ground, and bends his arm behind him. He groans and thumps the ground with his free hand in surrender just as Alfred reaches the ground floor. 

Cassandra drops the hold and lets Damian up. 

“One day,” she offers, clapping him on the shoulder.

He nods and rests his hand briefly on hers for a second, smiling. 

“Bruce!” Cass announces, and turns toward him. They regard each other for a second, Bruce's heart swelling with fondness. Then Cassandra opens her arms, and he launches himself into them. 

Chapter Text

Cassandra hummed with pleasure as Bruce’s solid weight landed in her arms. She clutched him to her chest, and he writhed around, his paws scrabbling for purchase at her forearms and torso. He rubbed his head enthusiastically against the underside of her jaw, every line in his body radiating love and delight. His tail swung happily back and forth, catching on the bottom of her shirt and making it ride up slightly. The soft fur felt good rubbing against her stomach. He was more open and transparent than usual; far more physically expressive and demonstrative than she had ever seen him before. Well, except for a few of the times when she’d seen him fight.

Everyone was easier to read when they were fighting; even when sparring, few people had the ability to hide what they were while focusing on defending themselves. And when it was a life or death struggle, almost no one could keep themselves from telegraphing their true desires and fears. 

Almost no one except Bruce. He was one of the only people she’d ever met who could lie during a fight. Although of course he couldn’t do that and fight his best at the same time, so she could get him to tell her the truth if she ever needed to. 

It had unnerved her, the first time she’d seen him do it. But it fascinated her at the same time. 

Right now, however, even though his desires were clearer than she’d ever seen except when he was putting on a show, he wasn’t lying at all. Everything was right there on the surface. 

She grinned as it occurred to her how much he must hate that. This was going to be fun. 

Several of the members of the family were emerging from the bowels of the mansion—most of them didn’t live here any longer, but they all gathered for Alfred’s Sunday breakfasts when they could—but she ignored them for the moment, focused on Bruce. She rubbed her jaw and cheek against him in turn, allowing him to mark her with his scent. He started to purr. It was a lovely noise, filled with pleasure and possessive concern. 

If all auditory language was like that, she wouldn’t have so much trouble with it. 

She felt Bruce’s mood change, turning playful and amused, with a mercurial swiftness that wasn’t at all like his normal self; but was very feline. His muscles tensed and released; his rear paws dug into her forearms, while his front paws batted at her face instead of clinging to her shoulders. 

She laughed and swung him away from her. He’d kept his claws mostly sheathed when attacking her face, so she kept to sparring rules, limiting the power of her throw to ensure she wouldn’t hurt him. She still heard Alfred and some of the others make alarmed noises as Bruce’s body—so much smaller than usual!—went flying away from her. They died down, however, as Bruce twisted in midair, ricocheted off of the wall, and lunged right back at her. 

If Bruce had been communicating unusually clearly before, now he was practically brutal in his honesty and openness. He might as well have been screaming his joy of the fight and the desire to beat her. It was clear that he also knew that he wouldn’t beat her; but far from finding that fact frustrating, he gloried in it, loved it. And her. He loved her, and not only because she could beat him in a fight.  

She found herself tearing up slightly at the strength of his love for her, which he’d always managed to hide from her before. He hadn’t tried to hide it, she realized, as she got a hand on his scruff and he went limp beneath it. He’d failed to express it because he didn’t believe he was worthy of doing so—as if by letting her know how much he cared, he’d be laying some kind of burden on her.  She shook him softly in punishment, then slapped him lightly on the snoot when he struggled to escape. He subsided, resting submissively under her hold. 

She was laying on her side on the marble parquet, the better to be on Bruce’s level. She’d angled her vulnerable back to Stephanie, trusting that her fellow successor as Batgirl would guard it appropriately—with Bruce held at paw’s reach, with his claws at a safe distance. With him now quiescent, she pulled her arm into her chest, dragging him into optimal cuddling range. 

She’d learned about cuddling from Barbara and Stephanie. It had taken her a little time to get used to it, but she liked it now. It was like very slow and soft fighting. 

Now that she had defeated him, she could be generous. Of course, Bruce was never more dangerous than when he’d surrendered and his enemy thought him beaten; but he knew she was on guard against any sudden reversal. She pressed her forehead to his, stroking her hands down his incredibly soft sides, and they breathed together for a long moment. 

Someone said something behind them that made Bruce even happier, but also made him want to get free, so Cassandra let him go and flipped into a standing position. Bruce’s attention went to the knot of family members who had just come in. No, to one family member in particular, and everyone else’s attention had gone to him, as well. 

“Hey, Bruce,” Duke said. He moved forward, out of the crowd, and crouched down into a squat. He held his fist out, palm down, with two curled fingers extended. The others formed a kind of semicircle around the two as Bruce leapt up and forward in a single, smooth motion, chirping  as he ran eagerly toward his newest “son.” 

Cassandra found a smile stretching across her lips. She associated this kind of a circle with hazing rituals or worse; gangs with a member who hadn’t yet earned their place or had gotten themself into some kind of disgrace would place them in the center of a circle and build up hostile energy until the pent up violence was unleashed upon its hapless victims. But although some aspects of the setup was similar here—the group’s fierce protectiveness and unity of purpose, their intent focus on the people in the center of the circle, the anticipatory buildup of emotion—the dynamic was utterly different. The assembled bats watched with fondness and an utter lack of jealousy; the anticipatory energy that crackled around their circle was wholly compersive. 

Bruce sniffed Duke’s fingers perfunctorily and then immediately butted his head demandingly against the outstretched hand. Duke laughed and obliged him, first rubbing his hand energetically between Bruce’s ears and then giving him a long, firm stroke down his back. 

“Isn’t he soft?” Dick asked. 

“Yeah,” Duke agreed in a quiet murmur. “You’ve got real good fur, Bruce.” 

Bruce jumped up on Duke’s knee, balancing himself expertly with three paws braced on the uneven surface and one hooked into Duke’s shirt. 

Stephanie said something to Tim in an undertone. Cass turned away from the heartwarming scene in front of her to face him. 

“Hey, Cass,” Tim said, as he noticed her attention. 

He felt a hand out to her, and she clasped it fondly. A second later, Stephanie barrelled into her side; Cassandra caught her easily and swung her around, a rare laugh breaking from her lungs; Stephanie hooked her arms around Cassandra’s shoulders and wrapped her legs around Cassandra’s waist, clinging on.  Tim grinned and let her reel him in to hug them both. 

Stephanie jumped down out of the hug in just a few seconds, bouncing in place with characteristic gleeful energy. 

“We need your help getting Bruce to cooperate after breakfast, Cass,” she said. “Tim got the CatBatsuit ready for business, but we want Bruce to try on a few other outfits that I’ve prepared.” 

Cassandra considered that. On one hand, Bruce guarded his dignity carefully, and it would be rude to use the fact that he thought that Cassandra didn’t have enough normal childhood experiences to force him into something he wouldn’t normally do. 

On the other hand, seeing Bruce at Stephanie’s mercy was always fun. 

“Okay,” she agreed after a minute.

Chapter Text

Duke marveled at the softness of Bruce’s fur; he’d never had his own cat, but he’d petted enough strays to know that this went beyond their usual softness. 

“Man, this is so fucking cool,” he said. 

Bruce sneezed. 

“Language, Master Thomas,” Alfred said reprovingly. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Duke said to Alfred, then turned his attention back down to the purring cat. “Sorry, Bruce; I know it’s total bull, uh, bullcarp, that Batmite turned you into an animal and all, but just think; he could have made you a worm or something.”

“Although turning him into a worm would have been epic; we could finally have gotten a real answer on the ‘would you still love me’ question—and from a hundred different socialites in Gotham,” Stephanie muttered. 

“Instead, you’re a kickass cat!” Duke continued over her. “You don’t have to do anything but laze around and chase rats all day!”

“Which is, as we all know, entirely different from his life before,” Alfred put in.

“Wait, but isn’t the worm question supposed to be from someone who’s already in a relationship with you? We’d have to ask, like, Clark or something,” Tim said. 

Bruce sneezed again, even more disapprovingly. 

“Please, of course Superman would still like him if he was a worm,” Stephanie muttered. 

“That’s gotta be worth something, right?” Duke concluded, ignoring the peanut gallery with the ease of long practice. 

“Being a cat is nice,” Cassandra agreed. She came forward and knelt down next to Duke. Their hands brushed against each other as they both petted Bruce, and Duke grinned at her. She gave him her tiny little Mona Lisa smile, which always felt like a victory. 

“Indeed,” Alfred agreed. “While I naturally object to his highhandedness, I must say this is one of Bat-Mite’s least reprehensible hijinks to date. I cannot find it in myself to object to anything that forces you to take a much-needed rest, Master Bruce.”

Bruce let out a small little grumbling meow, which Duke struggled and failed not to find adorable. 

“However, loathe though I am to force a stop to your present activities, Master Bruce, we’ve already held breakfast past its optimal warming time,” Alfred added. “Now that Miss Cassandra has joined us, shall we adjourn to the dining room?”

“Wow, Alfie, that was British even for you,” Dick said, and casually looped an arm around the venerable butler’s neck. 

Duke held his breath for a second, worried that Dick might catch fire or turn into a pillar of salt or something, but Alfred just rolled his eyes and walked out from under the original Robin’s arm. 

“Unless you like your eggs rubbery, Master Dick, I would suggest you refrain from gratuitously mocking the cook.”

“Oh, I never do anything gratuitously,” Dick assured them. 

“What about sex?” Tim jibed. 

“There’s no such thing as—erm,” Dick interrupted himself as Barbara wheeled forward. “I mean. I only have sex with people I really care about, so it’s not gratuitous.” 

“So, then, you really cared about all the guys at that one glor—” Tim cut off abruptly as Dick clapped his hand over his little brother’s mouth. 

Duke hid a grin as they all headed into the dining room. Barbara hadn’t come to a lot of these family breakfasts—it was hard for her to get out of the tower, of course, and the whole Bat-family tended to drop in on her regularly, so it wasn’t like she really needed to schlep herself out to the suburbs. But he appreciated the effect she tended to have on group gatherings. Similar to how Alfred being around tended to keep everyone a bit more polite, Barbara made everyone act in their best behavior, to impress her. Like the Lost Boys with Wendy, all the younger bats (including Dick, who was only a year or two younger than she was) looked up to her.  It wasn’t that she was a woman, though—Cass and Steph didn’t have the same effect at all. It was just something about who she was. She saw the best in everyone, and that made it impossible not to try to live up what she believed you could be. 

Right now, despite his heroic measures in shutting Tim up, Dick was apparently not making the grade, as Barbara was shooting him a very unimpressed look. 

“—y hole in that dive bar in—” TIm spat out, the second Dick lifted his hand. 

Dick turned bright puce—which was impressive, given his complexion—and grabbed Tim by the tip of his ear. Tim yelled loudly; by the decibel, Duke would have thought he was in agony. It couldn’t be that bad, given the pain tolerances that the BatFam routinely trained up to, but it was a damn good acting job. Dick snatched his hand away as Bruce, Dick, and Barbara all glared at him (Duke was wildly entertained that Bruce’s glare came out approximately the same, despite his change of form). Before Tim could say anything else, however, Dick bent down and whispered something that made Tim press his lips together and put on a faux-innocent expression—like a cat acting nonchalant despite the feathers in its mouth. 

Which was, perhaps not the best metaphor, under the circumstances, but… 

“Eggs, Master Duke?” Alfred suggested. 

“Oh, you know it,” Duke said, his attention immediately diverted as the butler placed a large plate of scrambled eggs, loaded with bacon, onion, pepper, and cheese, in front of him. How Alfred managed to get everyone their favorite foods at these family breakfasts, despite the wide variety of tastes involved—and always perfectly done, despite his earlier comment about rubbery eggs—was a matter of popular debate. 

Duke liked to start the day with something light and savory, but he’d graduate to some of the pastries from the awe-inspiring display at the center of the table after giving his stomach some time to get with the game. 

“Is that milk?” Stephanie suddenly asked, her voice rippling with delightment. “A saucer of milk?” 

Duke grinned. Alfred gave Stephanie his classic hairy eyeball as he turned from setting the small saucer in front of Bruce (Alfred had set up a booster seat on his normal chair, which everyone had carefully refrained from commenting on). 

Damian’s head popped up. “Milk isn’t good for cats,” he scolded. 

“Didn’t you get him some from the boba place yesterday?” Stephanie asked, looking confused. 

“I got him a small amount of oat milk,” Damian answered, severely. “I would not, of course, give a cat regular milk, although I did not see the need to educate you on the matter yesterday.” 

“That’s a first,” Tim muttered. 

“It is, in fact, cream made from goat’s milk,” Alfred said severely. “The amount of lactose is minimal, and it will provide nutrients and hydration he needs.” 

Damian tutted and subsided. 

“Calories make your brain go,” Stephanie said, her voice very self important. 

“Hey, I’ll take some of the cream, too,” Tim said, as he spooned berries over his granola. 

Duke shook his head sadly. “Come on, dude,” he said, “it’s Sunday breakfast. Live a little.”

“I’m living!” Tim protested, and lifted up his coffee bowl—it was an actual bowl— as evidence. 

“Coffee doesn’t count; unless it’s like, a frappe or something. Geez, you don’t even have any sugar in there, do you?”

“Does stevia count?” 

Duke groaned and grabbed a jelly doughnut, tossing it over to Tim. Tim just moved his head out of its path, and Duke hissed in dismay as the deliciously plump pastry plummeted toward the floor; fortunately, Dick lunged down from his seat, lightning quick, and snatched it up before it could go splat on Alfred’s sparking clean hardwood. 

“Grayson is, for once, making a rational choice,”  Damian put in from the far side of the table, where he was munching his way through a large stack of avocado pita toast crowned with soft-boiled eggs, with a side of spiced hummus. “A solid breakfast is a vital foundation, but gross fats and sugar do not add any particular benefit to a warrior’s diet. You should incorporate more protein, however. Although your levels of activity are lower than my own, they are high enough to demand a significant source of protein at every meal.” 

Tim let out a loud and dramatic sigh. “You just had to say that, didn’t you,” he muttered, and grabbed for the fancy glass jar of chocolate sauce that sat next to the enormous stack of pancakes (which was all the more impressive, given that Alfred made them British-style, thin and flat). He poured a good amount directly into his coffee, then drizzled some extra on his granola for good measure. “Happy?” he asked the table generally. 

Damian tutted again. 

“Not quite, wonder boy,” Stephanie said. 

She picked up one of the aerosol cans of whipped cream and threw it at him; that, he caught, snagging it neatly out of the air before it could hit his head. (Alfred had provided them under protest; he abhorred the stuff and would only have hand-whipped cream himself, but given certain members of the Bat-Family’s voraciousness for sweet things and their tendency to be late to meals, he’d finally bowed to the inevitable). 

“Ugh,” Tim said, looking at the long list of ingredients on the back of the can, but he finally shrugged and dispensed a goodly pile into his coffee bowl. 

(As if Duke hadn’t seen him squirt an entire can straight into his mouth after pulling two all-nighters in a row.)

Damian harrumphed and sipped his tea, glaring daggers down at Tim. 

Bruce suddenly leapt away from his cream and jumped down the table (narrowly missing knocking over the syrup, and Duke saw Alfred wince as his claws snagged the lace tablecloth) and then, with his second bound, into Damian’s lap. A second later, he leapt out again, racing away with something in his mouth.  It looked like… a blowgun… 

“Dami,” Dick said severely, around a huge bite of his blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes. After swallowing, he shot a look at the kid, his eyes suddenly enormous and glistening, his mouth drawn up in a one-sided pout. It was somehow no less effective for being clearly contrived, and Damian gulped and stared down at his plate.

“Ahh, another warm and fuzzy day at the Wayne Manor,” Stephanie said acerbically. She sucked in a long gulp of her tri-berry smoothie while she picked an olive out of her omelet and placed it in a small porcelain bowl to the side. 

Barbara cocked her head at her.  “Why did Alfred put olives in your omelet if you don’t like them?” 

Stephanie waved her hand in front of her head, her face contorting around her straw. She put the smoothie down and made pained noises, pressing her fingers to her forehead. 

“Brain freeze?” Tim asked sympathetically. He offered her his coffee, but she shook her head, wrinkling her nose. Alfred came up behind her and pressed a small, steaming crystal glass of water into her hand. She gulped it down gratefully. 

“She likes the taste it leaves against the cheese, just not the whole thing,” Duke explained to Barbara. She ahhed in understanding and then went back to her waffles. 

Having disposed of the blowdart somewhere, Bruce leapt back to place and began to nibble at the shrimp Alfred had just served up on a sparse bed of spinach. 

It was at least a more appetizing breakfast than the kale and wheatgrass smoothie that he usually sipped from during these breakfasts, which made Duke shudder to even look at. 

He grinned as he looked around the table. Alfred was sliding the last breakfast, Cass’ stuffed french lemon toast, into place; his full English was already waiting for him at the bottom of the table. The rest of the family were already thoroughly enjoying their own meals, between the banter, pranks, and near instances of violence that were their love languages. 

It was the best way he could imagine spending a Sunday morning. 

Chapter Text

Bruce suddenly notices that a slight purr is escaping from him as he tears shreds off his shrimp and swallows them down. Embarrassed, he stops eating for a moment and glances around the dining room, trying to see if anyone has noticed. Fortunately, they all seem equally intent on their own food. 

Bruce has always had a difficult relationship with food. He was a picky eater as a child—he doesn’t remember the reasons or details, really, but remembers his parents urging him to try new foods and then sighing with resignation when he would demand that Alfred bring him buttered noodles and mushy peas for the tenth night in a row. And then, after they died… 

In any case, he’s learned how to make sure that his body has the fuel it needs, and there are certain comfort foods that he enjoys—such as Alfred’s buttered noodles, actually, although he adds truffles, gruyere, and chives these days. But food is rarely anything more for him than something he has to choke down his throat. 

And not in the fun way. 

The cat body is entirely different. 

His sense of taste is muted; perhaps a tenth of what it used to be, and focused on the outsides of his tongue rather than the center, which seems to be barely capable of tasting anything at all. Which makes eating easier, for Bruce at least; the overwhelming melange of tastes that he often finds a trial is simply absent, reduced to a bare echo of what he’s used to as a human. As if in recompense, however, his sense of smell has strengthened past all measure, to the extent that it’s more like he’s tasting smells. The shrimp, for example, which he can barely smell at all as a human, have a fascinating bouquet to the cat, full of brine from the sea and a tangy, savory richness. 

He’s purring again. 

Fortunately, he’s finished his last shrimp—and a little of the spinach—and is mostly full. He takes a couple final laps of milk (which tastes more like butter: savory and rich and full of fat), and then looks around the table. Barbara has finished her omelet and fruit, and has her mug up at an angle that indicates she’s likely taking her last sip of coffee. He pads across the table to her and chirps an inquiry. 

“Sure, Bruce,” she said softly. She moves her wheelchair back slightly, making room for him to sidle down from the table onto her lap. He refuses to let himself knead her thighs, no matter how much the cat body wants to—there are limits— but he turns around a few times before he settles down, resting his head on the armrest and letting his limbs sprawl out, overflowing her warm lap. She rests one hand on his back and begins to stroke her fingers up and down his jaw and neck with the other. 

He starts purring just before he falls asleep. 

“Shhhh, don’t wake him up.” 

Bruce trained all his life to give no physical sign of his emotions. Originally, as the crown prince of Gotham, his parents taught him how to endure the paps yelling insults and shocking questions with a calm, equable face. Later, his various teachers, including such notables as R’as Al-Ghul and David Cain, taught him how to lie with his body. 

He requires every ounce of willpower that training bestowed upon him to overcome his cattish instincts, which start yelling at him to jump away from Barbara’s warm lap the instant he realizes that she’s talking about him. Instead, he barely twitches a muscle, which can be passed away as an involuntary movement during sleep, an automatic reaction to Barbara’s caressing hand. 

After a short pause, Tim whispers, “all the costumes are in Stephanie’s room. We’ve got a corner set up as a studio.”

Costumes? Bruce wonders. He’d asked Tim to work on a Batsuit for him to wear to the Justice League on the overmorrow, but that shouldn’t have required multiple outfits. 

“How are you going to get him to cooperate?” Barbara asks, sounding amused. “I don’t recommend you try to force him into it, and I think Damian will have something to say if you try cat tranquilizers.” 

Oh, this doesn’t sound good. 

“You are correct,” Damian says.  

My stalwart defender!” Bruce thinks giddily. 

“Of course we’re not using force or drugs,” Tim says indignantly. “Who do you think we are?” 

“Bats,” Barbara says succinctly. 

“Then you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that we plan to use bribery and blackmail,” Stephanie puts in. 

“Ahh, of course,” Barbara says, her voice still smiling. “The other classic Bat strategies. Sure, I’ll come along and watch the fun.” 

Bruce thinks rapidly as the lap beneath him vibrates minutely, indicating that the wheelchair is moving. It’s surprisingly unnerving; the cat body does not like being carried on a moving surface, and itches to jump away. He pushes down the anxiety and tries to think. He does not, of course, fear any actual threats from his children, and a large part of him wants to allow whatever prank they are plotting to go forward. They have few enough opportunities for childish joy in their lives. 

That said, their lives may well one day depend on both their respect of his abilities, and the skills that attempting to outsmart and outmaneuver him will impart to them. He can’t make it easy for them. 

Besides, from their sound of their scheming, they don’t expect him to like this at all, which doubtless means it’ll be humiliating. That, combined with the word “costumes” tells Bruce all he needs to know. The last thing he needs are pictures of him, as a cat, in cute outfits, getting around.

Clark will never let him live it down. 

“Hey, Tim,” Duke says quietly as they walk, “once Bruce’s big reveal with the League is over, we should really go and talk to you-know-who. He’s not gonna be happy if he hears the news through the grapevine instead of straight from us.” 

“Dick’s already called him like, half a dozen times,” Tim says. 

“Come on, like that’s gonna work.” 

“Sorry, Duke, you’re on your own with that one. Granted, I don’t think he wants me dead anymore, but I’m still not going out of my way to do him any favors.” 

Duke sighs.

Bruce thinks that conversation over while they continue moving. He carefully tracks the people around him with the cat’s superior smell and  hearing, poised to leap away the instant someone comes close to him with a bonnet. Instead, however, shortly after the wheelchair comes to a stop, Tim kneels in front of Barbara and lays a hand on her knee, a couple of inches away from Bruce’s head. 

“Hey, Bruce,” he says softly, “no worries if you want to nap some more, but it’d be a good time to try on the Batsuit I made for you, so I have time to make any changes you want before Tuesday.” 

Well. If he’s gonna start with the carrot, Bruce can play along. 

Bruce yawns (showing off his very pointy fangs) and stretches, extending his paws and flexing to make sure that Tim gets a good look at his sharp claws as well. Then he sits up on Barbara’s lap and looks up at Tim expectantly. 

“Alright, first of all—drumroll, please—” 

Stephanie actually starts up a drumroll with her hands on her desk. 

“I got the keyboard working!” Tim announces. “It’s built into the helmet, and when you’re not wearing it, I managed to get one that you can wear around your neck like a collar.” 

Bruce quivers. He expected nothing else, of course—Tim’s ingenuity is endless and utterly dependable—but that does nothing to lessen the excitement of finally being able to communicate clearly without having to drag people down to the keyboard set up down in the Cave.

“And now for the grand reveal,” Tim moves aside, revealing an irregular, fabric-covered shape on the desk behind him. 

Stephanie whips the shiny black fabric off of it, revealing a cat-sized Bat mask. Bruce leaps down from Barbara’s lap—carefully, to keep from digging his claws into her in the process—and in two quick bounds, has made it up to the desk. He sniffs the mask all over, then sticks his muzzle into it. It immediately conforms to his face, clinging like a glove as the smart tech built into the outer and inner rims “reads” his features and changes the shape of the flexible silicone in response. He does a few quick movements; cautious at first, just darting from side to side and crouching, then rearing up on his hind legs, jumping in place, and doing a roll. The mask does not inhibit his eyesight at all, and while it affects his balance a little—it’s very light, but he has much less body weight, so even a tiny amount of weight has a disproportionate effect—he’s able to compensate quickly. 

It does press down a little on his whiskers, although they escape below the underside.  Still, if he spends any significant chunk of time in it, that will need to be adjusted. 

He looks up at Tim and chirps gratefully. 

“The toggle for the keyboard is the same as the voice in your regular suit. You’ll need to have a flat surface for at least a foot in front of you.” 

That makes sense; it’ll be much the same for his muscle memory. He skitters backward, to put the necessary amount of desk space in front of them, and then lowers his right eyelid about halfway, in not quite a wink. There’s an infinitesimal hissing sound—probably imperceptible to human senses—and a keyboard made entirely of light flashes into being on the desk in front of him. It takes a little practice to be able to move his paws to touch the letters without moving the keyboard; in the end, he finds it’s easiest if he lays down on his belly, with his paws extended in front of him. 

“This is excellent, Tim,” a deep, resonant voice says, from disturbingly close to his right ear. 

Bruce cringes automatically away from it, letting out a small moan and scurrying across the desk in his belly. He realizes what it was a second later, and rapidly moves back into his original position, then licks his shoulder nonchalantly. His assembled children earn a bit more credit by pretending not to notice. 

The keyboard flashed off when he blinked, at some point in all of that, and he twitches his eye to bring it back.   

“The cat body is jumpy,” he types. 

He just barely manages to keep from repeating the entire humiliating experience as the speaker built into the mask reads out the words again. He looks up at Tim in surprise and meows inquisitively as he belatedly recognizes the voice. 

“It’s not like we don’t have hours and hours of recordings, from all your mission logs,” Tim says, shrugging. “I could have done this the first night, if you didn’t mind it sounding like Steven Hawking. Just took a little while to train an AI on it so we could capture the right intonations and all. Here, let’s test the radio; ready?” 

Bruce sits up, twitching his eye to turn off the keyboard—it’s going to take a bit of practice, preferably alone and away from potentially mocking eyes, before he’ll feel comfortable using it—and nods gravely. 

Tim puts a finger up to his ear. “Testing, testing: 1, 2, 3.”

The voice is echoed—in, thankfully, a much lower level—in Bruce’s left ear. He nods again to indicate that it’s working. 

“Brilliant,” Tim says, his voice filled with a pardonable smugness. “You’re plugged in on patrol chat alpha by default, and you can toggle between channels with the keyboard—all your usual commands should work, but I wouldn’t stress the bandwidth too much; I only had so much weight to work with, after all. And then, we have a cape—”  

Stephanie and Cass work together to get Bruce into the chest harness that forms the foundation for the outfit, then drape the cape over it. He cooperates, although he has a slight foreboding that he’s setting a bad precedent here. 

“It should be easy for you to take off if you need, although I don’t think you’ll be able to get it back on easily.”

The extra weight is burdensome as well. He doesn’t try moving around more than swaying side to side, because even just that almost makes him fall over. Still, when Damian and Duke carry over a mirror, he approves of the foreboding image he presents. Granted, he’s still a cat—in the bright light of day (or an interior bedroom), he’s not going to scare anyone. But it manages to avoid looking silly, or worse; cute. He flatters himself that he won’t entirely embarrass himself at the League meeting on Tuesday, although he can already hear the jokes from Oliver and Barry and god, Hal. Still, a few well-placed pranks should hopefully limit the fallout… 

And at night, with the dark to obscure and disguise his silhouette, and the added benefit of his feline reflective eyes… His adversaries will have no idea what such a small, rapidly moving creature could be. He reckons that he might well be terrifying, given the right circumstances. 

He shrugs his shoulders and claws at the collar of the cape to test Tim’s assertion; sure enough, it comes off easily, pulling away from the magnetized catches that fix it to the harness. 

“I was able to build some gliding tech into the cape,” Tim says, “But in order to keep the weight down, it’s minimal. That said, the fact that you’re so light should help, but… I wouldn’t try it unless it’s an emergency.” 

“Cats have been known to survive multistory unpowered falls,” Damian says thoughtfully. “Even a minor amount of countervailing lift is likely to enable jumps from significant height.” 

Bruce turns to look at the cape thoughtfully. Damian comes up next to him and regards it similarly. 

“Emergencies only,” Barbara says in a firm voice. “You’re supposed to be on vacation, Bruce, and learning about self-care. If you insist on going right back out on patrol and trying to act as if nothing’s changed, Bat-Mite may do something even more drastic to get the lesson through.” 

Bruce attempts to snort, but it comes out as more of a sneeze. 

Little though he wants to admit it, however, Barbara has a point. The mission against Black Mask aside, there are few situations in which a cat, however, smart and talented, can be much of an asset. His family are all more inherently talented than he is, and more committed; that’s why he agreed to train them all rather than try (harder) to dissuade them from this life. Now it’s time to rely on them to protect his city while he is unavailable, just as they did during the year when they thought he was dead. 

He claws the mask off, next; it comes off even more easily, requiring only the barest touch of his paw. With just the harness on, he dares a jump off the desk. He lands a bit more unsteadily than he’s become accustomed to, but he doesn’t fall over, and he’s willing to take that as a victory. He moves carefully over to Tim and rubs against his leg, purring out his gratitude. 

“Aww,” Stephanie says quietly. 

Tim reaches down and pets him. Bruce flows under his hand, letting him stroke down the full length of his back, and then turns back to butt his head demandingly against Tim’s shin again. He purrs again, congratulating himself at the successful derailment of the younger Bat’s covert strategy. He gives it another few seconds to thoroughly dazzle Tim with his silky coat and resonant purr, then heads for the door, his tail held straight up, with a happy curl at the end. 

“Hold on, Bruce,” Tim says. “I have your new collar, too.” 

Part of Bruce knows that it’s a mistake, but he turns. The promise of being able to speak is too alluring. Tim quickly pulls the new collar out of his pocket and swaps it for the one Bruce has on (Alfred insisted). The new one is only slightly heavier; its effect is insignificant next to the destabilizing harness, which Bruce is already started to get used to. 

He switches the keyboard on, and—bracing himself—types out a brief sentence. 

“Thank you, Tim.” 

“Oh, no thanks required,” Tim says. Bruce blinks the keyboard away and prepares to head toward the door again. 

“However,” Tim’s voice stops him again, before he’s gotten more a foot—curse the harness, which is still slowing him down, “—we haven’t discussed the small issue of payment.” 

“Dude, did you just quote the octopus lady from Little Mermaid?” Duke asks. 

“Ursula was objectively correct in all her actions,” Tim says hotly. “She was trying to prevent a 16-year-old from throwing her entire life away on a guy she’d just met, overthrow a tyrannical and abusive monarch, and subvert a high-powered aristocrat in a neighboring kingdom that was responsible for the slaughter and consumption of thousands, if not millions, of sentient beings every year.” 

“Okay, Flotsam,” Stephanie laughs. 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Tim objects. “And it clearly makes you Jetsam.” 

Bruce sidles toward the door. 

Cass steps between him and freedom. 

Et tu, Brute? Bruce thinks, looking up mournfully at her. 

She smiles down at him. “Please?”

He’s never been able to say no to Cass, and damn it, they know it. 

“We just have a few other outfits,” Stephanie says, interposing herself next to Cass. “It’ll make us so happy if you just give them a quick try!” 

“And,” Tim adds, “I’ll order Nobu takeaway once over the next week for every costume you try on.” 

Bruce lets out a mournful yowl and flattens his ears to his skill as Stephanie pulls a cat-sized flower crown out from behind her back. 

“Come on, it won’t be that bad!”

Chapter Text

Clark suddenly laughed out loud. 

Lois turned over in bed, making an inquisitive noise. They were enjoying a rare Sunday evening to themselves, with Jon at a friend’s slumber party. Clark had planned an entire romantic evening, with a reservation at their favorite restaurant and theater tickets after. Lois had shaved her legs past her knee and gotten out her favorite cocktail dress. Clark had ironed his one suit that actually fit. 

And then they’d looked at each other, crossing paths between the bathroom and the bedroom. Lois had caught a moment of undisguised exhaustion on Clark’s face, checked in with herself and suggested that they just stay in, instead. 

The reward for her selflessness had been ample. She stretched out like a cat, smiling at the memory. 

Clark laughed again. 

“What’s so funny?” Lois asked sleepily. 

And then he giggled.

She sat up. Clark was out of bed, hovering cross-legged in the air, curled around his phone. 

(A habit that she secretly found endearing. Although she had tried to break him of it, because seriously, they lived in an apartment, it was not impossible that someone with a telescope fetish might go peering through a window at exactly the wrong time; no, Clark, that one was not just Bruce’s paranoia.)

“Gimme,” she said, snatching at the phone. He pulled it away, and she followed, climbing onto  his lap to wrestle him for it. Not that she would have a chance of defeating him if he didn’t let her, of course; but he had a tendency to underestimate how strong a normal human man of his size would be, to hilarious effect. 

“No, it’s—Lo!” he protested, as she got her hands on it and began to weasel it out of his grip. 

“It’s no use,” she panted, “you can’t keep the memes from me—” She glanced up at him, eyes dancing, as the phone slowly slipped from his hand to hers; reassured by the lack of alarm on his face, she renewed her efforts and crowed with victory as the phone came loose. 

“It’s—hold on, you have to see the whole progression in order,” he said. 

“Fine, unlock it,” she demanded, holding it out. 

He laughed. “You stole it and you don’t even know my passcode? Poor planning, Lo.”

She gave him her best pout. “I could totally crack it, I just thought I’d give you the option to show me the funny first, before all your secrets are revealed. Let’s see…” 

She put on a thoughtful expression, then swiped in his mom’s birthday. Sure enough, the screen immediately folded open, and she shot him a victorious grin. 

He laughed. “Yeah, okay, now find what I was looking at.” 

Nothing loath, she quickly swiped through his most recent apps. One, innocuously titled “CBC” had an icon of a small cartoon bomb with a yellow bat symbol on it, and she rolled her eyes as she tapped on it. 

“Bat family shenanigans again, I take it?” she asked. “Unsubtle for them.” 

“Oracle likes her jokes,” he said, grinning. 

When the app opened, it prompted another password. She pursed her lips and tried Clark’s father’s birthday, then Bruce’s. Neither worked. 

“If you get it wrong for a third time, it automatically deletes all the data on my phone,” Clark said. “Which I’d kinda prefer not, so…” 

“Is it my birthday?” she demanded. 

He snorted. “I wish. It’s an auto-generated twelve-digit string, and Oracle changes them remotely every two weeks. You can only get in by seeing her in person or answering her questions three.”

“Well, that’s no fun.” Lois batted her lashes. “But you could unlock it for me…” 

He shook his head as he took the phone back from her, adopting a faux-stern expression. “I actually really shouldn’t show it to you at all… You know how B gets about giving civilians access.”

Lois rolled her eyes. “But…?” she suggested. 

“But… Look, promise you won’t scroll up?” 

Lois nodded readily. She might find Bruce’s paranoia absurd, especially when applied to her—it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest of the Batfamily’s identities, once you knew Bruce’s—but she preferred not to have actionable sources to back up what she knew to be true in her heart. As it was, sitting on the groundbreaking news stories that she already had access to gave her heartburn when she laid in bed late at night, dreaming of headlines.

“Kay,” Clark said. He entered the passcode, thumb moving too rapidly for her to follow, then worked with the screen for a second. “There, I hid the screennames. Without that, it’s pretty much just a string of pictures, Bruce can’t give me shit about that. I mean, he will, but I can take it." 

“My hero,” Lois said, only half teasingly. "Throwing yourself on that grenade like that."

He grinned and kissed her, then grabbed his tablet from the nightstand and fell back into his “floating” position. She let herself flop down onto the bed, propping herself up on her left elbow, with his phone held in front of her, and began reading through the series of messages. It started with a simple text message from a Gotham phone number.  

—Enter… the BatCat—

“Oh my God, is that Bruce?!” Lois cackled. Clark had filled her fully in on the playboy cum vigilante’s brush with catdom. “Of course he made them make him a suit. He can’t give it a rest, can he?” 

 “Justice never rests,” Clark laughed. “Not even when he’s literally been turned into another species.” The humor faded from his voice toward the end of the second sentence, flooded out by the ever-present fondness he carried for his work husband.

Lois pursed her lips together for a moment, thinking of the possibility she’d been turning over in her head recently. 

“Why don’t you invite him to come hang out over here, after the JLA meeting?” she suggested, flipping over to look over at her husband. “It’s been a while since we had him over for dinner, and maybe if he gets away from the Cave and being surrounded by vigilantes, he’ll be able to enjoy himself more.” 

Clark pursed his lips. 

“I feel like he always relaxes when he’s over here,” Lois pushed. “And I promise I won’t serve up a catnip mouse for his main dish.” 

Clark let out a startled laugh. “Oh you absolutely will.” 

“You’re right, I will,”  Lois admitted. 

“Not that you’ve ever actually cooked for a dinner party,” Clark pointed out. 

“Like that would stop me?” 

Clark laughed and floated over to kiss her, hovering just above her on the bed. She responded passionately, dragging him down so their bodies pressed flush together. They might have gotten entirely derailed, but Clark pulled back after just a minute and flipped her over, letting himself press back down afterward, smushing her into the mattress with about a third of his weight. She hummed in pleasure. She loved it when he did that; it was like a sexy blanket that could make itself any weight she wanted. 

“Keep scrolling, it gets so much better,” he purred in her ear, and she did, skimming over the various compliments, critiques, and wisecracks posted in response to the picture, until she got to the next image.

Lois burst out laughing, then stared down at the photo, indexing all the details that she might use them for later blackmail. “How on earth did they finagle him into this?”

“I suspect a patent combination of bribery, guilt-tripping, and playing on the fact that, if given a specific opportunity to make them happy at no cost to anyone else, Bruce will always do it,” Clark said. “I have a feeling the next one didn’t stay on very long…” he added, peering at the screen over her shoulder.  

Lois quickly scrolled down through the flurry of delighted replies from the other members of the group chat, then burst into a series of giggles. 

“Oh, that one’s definitely Tim,” she said, as she recovered from her fit of giggles. “And yeah, you can tell they didn’t have a lot of time for posing before that thing went the way of the canary.”

“After which, no doubt, he got a very stern lecture. Which would explain the next one—” 

“Awwwwww,” Lois cooed. 

“—which was definitely Stephanie.” 

“Undoubtedly,” Lois agreed. “Awww, look at his expression, he’s so sad, and so cute—” 

There were a series of similar comments in the chat after that picture had come through, and she scrolled down patiently, looking for the next photo. 

“I think this one may have been an attempt to appeal to his vanity. Once they’d gotten him warmed up enough to attempt some of the trickier, tailored options.”

 “So debonair. Much Brucie,” Lois approved. 

“And on the same theme—”

“Oh, Bruce totally got into it,” Lois crowed, delighted. “That big old drama queen.” 

The pics didn’t have nearly as many comments between them, now. There weren’t any evident timestamps in the chat, but Lois was willing to bet that they’d taken a break from posting while getting Bruce in and out of the more complicated costumes, and then posted them all at once. Regardless, the next photo showed up after only a couple of emoji-laden responses. 

Lois choked on her own spit, laughing. “Oh God,” she finally gasped out, “Bruce as the brooding blackwinged angel, how perfect can you get? That was Stephanie too, I take it—” 

“Damian, actually.” 

“Really.” 

“He and Dick started watching it the year Bruce was away.” 

“Well, that’s a little on the nose.” Lois didn’t comment on the euphemism—after all, Bruce technically had been “away,” even if they’d all thought he was dead. 

“I think Dick chose it for the brotherly bonding—cleverly masked in all the violence and detective work that Damian likes—but yeah, the absentee father bit was… maybe a little much. That said, Damian got super into it. He even went to the convention in New Brunswick.” 

“How did I not know about this? He spends enough time over here…” 

“Oh, you know Jon; he doesn’t like much stuff that’s actually popular with kids these days. You ruined him with all those Clint Eastwood movies.” 

“Someone whose favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany’s—or anything else Audrey Hepburn is in—does not get to knock my Eastwood fetish." It was hard to summon up an indignant expression while flat on her belly, but Lois managed.  

“Well, anytime you want to ride me like a cowboy…” 

Lois couldn’t help but cackle at the cheesiness of that line, and Clark huffed. 

“Fine, fine, scoff at my best work—” 

“You’re damn lucky you’re cute if that your best work—”

“Anyway, Damian doesn’t want Jon to think he’s not cool.” 

“Poor kid.” 

“Yeah, he could use a break as much as his dad.” 

“So—” 

“Fine, but only if you tell him that he can’t bring over the caltrops this time.” 

“Why do I have to tell him?” 

“He thinks I’m a pushover, he won’t do anything I say unless I’m in uniform when I say it. And even then it’s like, fifty percent.” 

“Oh, sweetie. You are absolutely a pushover. Fine, I’ll tell him.”

“I’ll text Alfred about dinner,” Clark said, floating away to lie on the bed next to her. 

She felt like she, too, was levitating off the bed, with the sudden absence of his weight at her back. 

“Hold on,” she protested, as he reached for the phone, “I want to finish the thread—” 

“You have, that was the last one—”

“I thought I saw something else come in at the bottom.” 

Clark’s eyebrows drew closer together. “The thread’s been over for hours—I just didn’t read it until ‘cause… you know?” 

“We were getting ready to leave and then fucking like bunnies?” Lois suggested.

Clark ducked his head, unable to meet her eyes, and Lois grinned. She could never get enough of his bashfulness. She handed him back the phone with only a slight reluctance. 

He quickly scanned it, his thumb scrolling so fast that the phone screen squeaked. 

“Oh… crap,” he said, a moment later. 

Lois raised her eyebrows. That was some grade-a, peak upset profanity from her beloved innocent farmboy. She peeked over his shoulder. “Something you can share with the class?” 

He tilted the screen so she could see. It was down at the end of the conversation, but new messages were already coming in. She just barely managed to catch the top message before it disappeared, pushed up by the messages appearing at the bottom. 

—Has anyone seen B?—

—Wasn’t he out chasing birds again?—

—No, I thought he was napping with A in the library—

—A says he hasn’t seen him since breakfast—

—Is he in his bedroom?—

—Nope, just checked—

—It’s called a Manor for a reason, y’all. There are a hundred places a cat could hide.—

—A thousand. But why would he be hiding?—

—Why does Bruce do anything?—

—A test?—

—No real names in chat, S!—

—😔🙇‍♀️

—Yeah, a test makes sense—

—Why are y’all even using this chat? Use the house chat! God, I don’t know why I even try—

—IDK. I mean, granted, it’s B, but he’s also a cat right now. Would he really have the patience to hide out for… what, ten hours? Just to test us?

—Yes—

—Absolutely—

—Yeah, sounds like B—

—Wait, no one’s seen him for ten hours?!?—

—If no one’s seen him since the costume thing…—

—Shit.—

—That does seem like… a while. Especially given that he can’t operate the can opener himself.—

—A says to assure you that B hasn’t and won’t be eating anything out of a can, and also says that someone delivered from Nobu this afternoon and he thought it was kind of weird because no one came down to get it. He just checked and it’s still in the fridge where he put it. Also, big D, he says “language”—

—Why are you translating for A anyway?—

—He’s washing the dishes. You know he won't interrupt that for anything short of potential nuclear armageddon—

—Or a bird in the house, remember? 🤣 —

—I have been informed that it is rude to remind someone of potentially "traumatic" memories and yet certain other individuals do it continually, can anyone explain this discrepancy?—

—You're right, little D, they're being rude. S, T, we've talked about bringing up the bird incident.—

—🖕—

—Whatever, it wasn’t even me this time. Nobu’s is right next to a subway stop. And the keyboard is still hooked up the Cave, B could have probably ordered food without going through someone else.—

—But… where would he have gone?—

—With his emotions suddenly unlocked? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.—

Chapter Text

The Outlaws slammed back into their hideout—okay, it was a seventh-floor walkup in the projects, but “let’s meet back at the apartment” just didn’t have the same ring to it—around dawn. Jason headed immediately for the kitchenette while Roy and Kory collapsed onto the couch, making out.

“Fuck, you two, get a room,” Jason groused, chugging some milk straight from the plastic gallon jug.

“You could always join us,” Roy shot back.

“Yeah, maybe when I’m a little drunker than this,” Jason responded, half-seriously. His phone rang. He pulled the old burner out of his pocket and rolled his eyes. Dick again. He flipped it open.

“Is anyone other than Bruce about to die?” he asked, conversationally. “Actually, tell me if Bruce is about to die, too, I’ll come by to point and laugh.”

“Uh—well, no, no one’s dying, but—” Dick stammered at the other end.

“Then I don’t care.” Jason snapped the phone shut again. Roy laughed. Jason smirked and grabbed a handful of chips from the open bag on the counter.

“Why is the window open?” Kory asked suddenly, pushing Roy away. All three of them went stiff and alert. Roy and Kory leapt to their feet, grabbing their weapons and moving closer to Jason.

“Mraow!” A large black and white cat raised itself up from where it had been reclining above the fridge and stretched. The three youths relaxed slightly. Roy started laughing while Kory cooed.

“Dude, you gotta tell your stepmom to stop breaking in here. Or at least to lock up when she leaves.”

“Fuck you, man, she’s not my stepmother. First off, she called off the wedding; second, Bruce is not —”

“Mew.” The cat leapt straight down from the fridge, landing with a thump on the kitchen tiles.

Jason cut off, looking down at the cat now twining between his legs. He sighed.

“Look, I’m sorry, pal. I know Selina probably told you this was a sweet pad, but it’s really not safe and we don’t have the money to feed you. I’ll take you back to her later.”

Roy frowned, kneeling down and stretching his hand out to the cat. It sniffed his fingers, but then sauntered out of reach. “It wouldn’t take much…”

“No, Roy,” Kory and Jason said in unison. He grumbled a bit under his breath, then returned to the couch, chirping coaxingly. The cat ignored him in favor of brushing up against Jason again.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Jason sighed again, grabbed an old plastic takeout dish, and poured a little milk in it, placing it in front of the cat on the floor. It sniffed at it, took a couple polite laps, and then went back to butting against Jason’s legs. 

“What, you don’t want milk?”

“Isn’t it supposed to be bad for adult cats?” Roy asked.

“I dunno; I’ve put a lot of things in my body that aren’t great for it. I’ve never met a cat that doesn’t like milk,” Jason answered.

“It seems like it mostly likes you,” Kory said, giggling.

Jason snorted, but a wary smile tugged at his lips. He leaned down and petted the cat, rubbing its ears. It began to purr, the loud thrum filling the small room.

“Hey, we should watch some more Sense8,” Roy called from the couch. “I managed to hack back into Oliver’s Netflix account. He keeps using old girlfriends’ names as passwords.”

“Nice,” Jason said. 

“Yes,” Kory agreed. “Raven says there is another, even better orgy scene that we haven’t seen yet.”

They settled in, cuddling close to all fit on the medium-sized couch, Roy resting his head and shoulders on Starfire’s chest and throwing his legs across Jason's lap. A few minutes in, the cat leapt up to the back of the couch and then walked down to sprawl across Roy’s legs, its head resting against Jason’s chest. Jason smiled and petted it absently.

It was a good evening, one of the best of Jason’s life. Better than he deserved, really.  

Jason woke in the middle of the night, screaming. That wasn’t particularly new or unusual. What was different was the cat that jumped onto his chest, butting its head heavily against his face and purring urgently. His hands came up automatically to pet it, and his heartbeat slowly calmed.

“Alright, I’m going to get up—try not to maul me,” he warned the furry beast. Cradling it against his chest, he slowly sat up. He’d fallen asleep on the couch the night before, after Kory and Roy had moved to the flat’s one bedroom—he hadn’t gotten quite drunk enough to join them, although he’d appreciated watching the preshow.

The high of orgasm never made up for the soul-crushing, stomach-twisting self-hatred it always left him with, if he wasn’t drunk or drugged or exhausted enough to pass out immediately after. His friends didn’t deserve— no one deserved—to touch the filthy, mad darkness that lived inside of him. 

He stood up, still holding the cat in his arms. It was unusually calm, cuddling closer rather than squirming or digging its claws in, and he took comfort in its warm aliveness , weighing down his arms. 

“You’re a good cat,” he muttered. “Maybe we’ll keep you after all. Roy’s right, it’s not like we can’t spare a few bucks a month.” 

More than that, really. Jason knew perfectly well that there were still millions sitting in wait for him, and more if he cared to tap some of Bruce’s slush accounts as well as his trust fund. Of course, Bruce got a record of every transaction made through those accounts, which was why Jason didn’t bother to use them most of the time. Although he always used Bruce’s money when he went out drinking, and he had fun ordering the occasional gag purchase, like the fuzzy pink handcuffs with “Daddy’s Favorite” written on them that he’d had delivered to Tim. 

If he wanted to use them to get groceries, he’d need to spread the purchases out across the city to make sure they wouldn’t lead Bruce back to their hideout, which was why he didn’t usually bother. The savings weren’t worth the time and effort getting bags of food back and forth, not when there was a perfectly adequate bodega across the street. But they could probably make it work for a monthly trip out to the pet store warehouse outlet. 

The cat would need a few more tests to see if he was really suited to the outlaw life, however… 

“How about sitting up here, little dude? Free up my hands so I can make us some food?” Jason asked. He matched actions to words, lifting the cat up to his broad shoulder. It went willingly enough, only digging its claws in the minimum needed to keep its place; the pinpricks barely registered, thanks to Jason’s near-inhuman pain tolerance. It wasn’t a small cat, but it managed itself well, bracing its back legs against the slight ridge provided by the sweatshirt Jason was wearing, wrapping its tail around his neck, and stretching its forelegs and belly across his right shoulder. Jason took his first few steps slowly, but found that his caution was unnecessary—the cat was balanced perfectly. 

“Well, okay. Color me impressed,” he admitted. Moving more normally, he moved over to the kitchenette and began investigating the cupboards and fridge to figure out what they had suitable for a midnight snack. 

“Well, more like a four a.m. snack,” he admitted aloud, checking the time. “We’ll have to see how well you do with loud noises, buddy. Oooh, here we go.” He pulled a beer and a package of cold cuts out of the fridge. “Thank you, Past Jason, for the bounty we are about to consume.” 

The cat made a disconsolate noise as he twisted the cap off and tossed it into the garbage. 

“Hole in one! I know, twist caps means it’s a crappy beer, but guess what, it also means it’s a cheap beer.” He took a long guzzle. “Anyway, it fills me up and lets me sleep, what else can you ask?” 

He opened the resealable plastic package of meat next. 

“Now, Bernie Sanders says you can have a little of this, as a treat.” 

He stuffed several slices into his own mouth, then held one up to the cat. It put its paw on his wrist, as if holding it steady, and ate up the offering eagerly, if a bit messily. Jason resolved to tear the next slice into pieces. He continued eating, alternating sips of beer with offering the cat smaller bites of salami, until his stomach stopped roiling in the aftermath of his nightmare, and he felt like he might be able to sleep a little more. 

The cat nuzzling its head against his neck between treats might have helped a little. 

Once he was done, he headed into the bathroom to take a piss. Although the cat had ridden patiently on his shoulder as he walked deeper into the apartment, it abruptly stood and launched itself down when he unbuttoned his pants, bolting out of the tiny bathroom. 

“Jeez, dude, I didn’t think I smelled that bad!” Jason yelled after it, rubbing his neck where he’d gotten scratched a bit. Once he’d finished the kidney maintenance, he wavered between the bedroom and the couch. One one hand, he didn’t generally have more than one nightmare in a night (not unless something particularly bad had happened, and this had been a pretty good night, all round), so he could go lay down with Roy and Kory. On the other hand, potential cat cuddles.  

In the end, though, loyalty—and the prospect of being able to stretch his body out entirely instead of the curled up comma position the couch required—won out over novelty.  He padded into the apartment’s one bedroom, stripped off his clothes, and crawled into bed in his boxes, spooning up behind Roy, who had fallen asleep with his head in Kory’s hair. They both murmured sleepily as he lifted the blankets and crawled in with them, but settled easily. Kory turned over, flinging an arm and a leg around both boys. Jason smiled, warmed as always by her easy affection. 

As he drifted off, he was just barely conscious of the cat jumping up on the bed and pacing over the three of them until it found a comfortable spot, resting its chin on his chest bone as it settled in for a patient watch.

Chapter Text

Bruce’s eyelids—both sets—are heavy, but he refuses to let himself fall asleep. These moments with his son— alive —are far too precious to waste. Jason’s chest— alive— rumbles, warm and solid as it rises and falls under Bruce’s small body. His breath— alive, so very alive — ruffles Bruce’s fur in slow, easy, peaceful gusts. 

The nightmares from earlier haven’t returned; or, at least, Jason’s sleep hasn’t been visibly disturbed again, since he joined the rest of the Outlaws in their king-sized bed.

(Bruce can’t imagine how they got it up seven flights of stairs; he can only hope they actually paid for it.) 

But then, Bruce is all too aware that one can be locked in the deepest of horrors and not flicker an eyelash nor make even a whisper that can be overheard by another person, no matter how close they are, physically. 

Which… 

Bruce feels vaguely guilty, watching Jason cuddle up between his… friends. He can’t help but think that, as Jason’s father (no matter how utterly useless he’s been in that role) and as the closest responsible adult, at least, he should be against whatever hedonistic bacchanalia is going on here. 

And he is a little concerned; although more for the way that Jason’s friends had blithely abandoned him to focus on each other than for any supposed sin or immorality. 

Bruce tries not to be a hypocrite, after all. But he knows, all too well and recently, the agony of being close in body without being invited to truly share his beloved’s heart. And at the same time, he’s spent too many years longing for someone who already belongs to another. Bruce doesn’t want that pain for Jason. 

However, it’s been a long time since Bruce was in a position to give Jason any advice on his life choices. He can only even get him to tolerate his presence when Jason doesn’t know it’s him. 

Bruce sighs and settles his chin down onto Jason’s sternum, flattening out his body like a rug. Although Jason is still too thin, his chest muscles too well-defined and clinging to his collarbone and ribs, it’s still very comfortable here, somehow. 

His son’s hand comes up and buries itself in his ruff, startling him for a second—he must have been starting to doze off, despite himself. He shakes himself alert and looks up at Jason’s face.  His son is still fast asleep, despite the half-aware movements of his fingers against Bruce’s fur. 

Bruce starts purring, and moves his head against Jason’s hand, moving it to pet the best spots behind his ears and under his jaw. 

He refuses to admit that Bat-Mite had anything going for his absurd claims that Bruce needed a… vacation, or whatever Bat-Mite had been going on about. But… he can’t remember another time in his human life when he’s spent hours like this, in simple, affectionate physical contact with someone he cares about. It’s sort of insane how good it feels, how much it’s assuaged the constant weighing exhaustion he’s struggled with for… forever, it seems like, sometimes; the malaise and lethargy that he thought were just part of being alive.

Admittedly, sleeping for twelve hours a day has probably helped with that, as well.  

See, Bat-Mite? he thinks, projecting his thoughts out into the ether as strongly as he can. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve rested, I’ve played. I’m even expressing my emotions, and all that touchy-feely shit. So you can turn me back now. 

His paws, stretched out in front of him across Jason’s collarbones, stay resolutely feline. 

Probably for the best. This wouldn’t exactly be the best time to turn back into a human, anyway. 

(He was kind of hoping that might make it more likely for Bat-Mite to switch him back. The little imp isn’t the wholesale prankster that his compatriot Mxyzptlk is, but he likes a good joke as much as the next fifth-dimensional being). 

Bruce almost certainly imagines the raucous laughter that echoes in his ears. 

Despite his determination to wrest every last dreg of joy from this day, the feline body’s inclination to sleep eventually proves to be too much for him. He can’t pinpoint the exact moment that he loses consciousness—his mind is hard at work, picking at his emotions like a scab, the entire time. But suddenly it’s full morning; the sun floods into the bedroom through two narrow windows on the east wall, and one of the squares of light falls directly across the three sleepers chests, leaving Bruce, in his fur coat, a bit overly hot.  

He stands up and pads down to the more shaded area over the kids’ legs, but now that he’s awake, his body is alert and restless. He heads out to investigate the rest of the apartment. He’s able to open the fridge with only a little ingenuity and acrobatics—so there, opposable thumbs—and helps himself to a goodly portion of the same salami Jason had offered him the night before. 

(Bruce pushes away memories of how Jason used to keep an entire peppered sausage of the stuff in his utility belt when he was a growing teenager, snacking on it between fights. He and Alfred used to have tasting parties where they’d get a dozen different varieties of Italian cured meats from Alfred’s favorite cheese importer…) 

There’s almost nothing else in the fridge, and Bruce makes a note to try to find some way to get the boy to eat more. It’s not like he lacks the money. Perhaps Bruce could convince one of the other boys to leave groceries for them? Tim would likely do it, if only for the challenge of breaking in. Or Barbara… Jason and Barbara have always understood each other well. 

Bruce has time to do a full circuit of the small apartment. He goes ahead and uses the toilet after a moment of consideration. There’s a strong possibility that the flush will wake up the kids—they’re trained fighters, after all, and they’ve clearly been living in a state of heightened awareness. It’s a little outside what a normal cat could do, and will likely raise suspicion. But Damian has brought up other cats that have been trained to do the same thing… And in the end, Bruce just can’t bring himself to go on the floor or somewhere else, despite the slight amusement he garners from imagining Jason’s reaction to finding a “gift” in his shoes. 

Sure enough, just seconds after he presses the handle down, the Outlaws come boiling out of the bedroom, weapons clenched in tight fists. He saunters out of the bathroom and sits himself down in the hallway with—he hopes—solemn dignity.

(He also makes sure to keep his sight lines and escape routes open. He doesn’t like treating his son as a threat. But the reality of the situation is that he is a very small and relatively defenseless animal, trapped in an apartment with three highly trained and extremely dangerous individuals, who do not know or trust him. 

For that matter, little though Bruce likes to think about it, Jason has aimed several blows—and not a few bullets—at Bruce since his resurrection that would have killed him, if they’d hit their mark. Not to mention what happened with Tim… He’s learned to live with the uncertainty of whether Jason simply couldn’t conceive of Bruce not successfully stopping him, or whether the pit madness was such that he genuinely wanted him dead. Either way, for his son’s sake, Bruce must be vigilant. Better by far that Bruce learn to live with yet another unendurable guilt than that he allow his son to do so.)

“Dude,” Jason says. “Did the cat just fucking flush the toilet?” 

“This is unusual?” Kory asks. Both boys shoot her incredulous glances, and she shrugs. “You have many highly trained animals on your planet.” 

“Cats usually shit in boxes of sand,” Roy explains. “But I’ve heard of them being trained to use the toilet… Or he might have just jumped on it.” 

“I don’t like the idea of a highly trained animal being in our hideout when we don’t know who might have trained it,” Jason says. 

Bruce can’t help but look at his son with approval, even if the term “hideout” is a gross exaggeration for this barely secured project apartment. 

He does not purr, however. 

Audibly, at any rate. 

“He’s just a really good cat!” Roy protests.

“Look, I like him, too,” Jason says. “But you know that there are plenty of people less trustworthy than Selina who can communicate with or control animals… or change into them. And let’s be fucking real, I wouldn’t trust Selina farther than I can throw her.” 

“I thought you liked her,” Roy objects.

“Like and trust are very different things,” Kory says, sounding much older than she looks. Not that Bruce knows her real age—yet another hole in his information on Jason's life that he doesn't appreciate. 

Bruce carefully monitors the Outlaws as they consider the situation. His decades of experience and long training allow him to read the changes in his opponents’ physical and mental states—in the fluxes of the battle. Which means that he can sense it when the people in front of him begin to tense for attack. 

He has three choices. Flee. Defend. Or… find a way to change the game, Batman-style. 

Bruce lets himself roll over onto his back. He stretches out his rear legs as far as he can, crossing them at the ankle, then lifts his front legs above his head, curling them cutely just above his eyes. Widening his eyes as much as he can, he looks up at the youths standing above him from between the bracket of his front paws. 

“Mroar?”

Chapter Text

Jason’s hands were just beginning to tense, ready to leap for some of the rope secreted in various locations around the apartment (you never knew when you’d need to tie someone up… for one reason or another), when the cat rolled over and pulled a Puss in Boots. Roy cooed, but Jason’s nascent suspicions immediately solidified into wary certainty. He altered his hand’s trajectory from rope to gun even as his heart melted slightly. 

(Look, it was a really cute cat, okay?) 

Roy’s hand flashed out and grabbed his wrist even as he pulled the pistol mounted on the underside of the kitchen counter out of its hidden holster. 

(Jason isn’t such a fool as to keep a gun on his body when he's not wearing leathers. There's way too big a chance of accidentally shooting himself. Same goes for big knives, although he keeps a jackknife in his boxer pocket. Still, it's always better not to give away where his last hideout was, especially when he has plenty of other weapons within arms’ reach.)

“Dude, you’re not shooting a cat!” Roy exclaimed. 

“It’s obviously not a fucking cat,” Jason bit out. He shook the archer off, but didn’t take the safety off, and kept the gun pointed at the ground

“Wait, it’s not?” Kory asked. 

“You think any actual cat—even a highly trained one—is just gonna roll over and play cute right when we were about to shove him out the airlock}?” Jason demanded, exasperated. 

“How should I know?” Kory snapped. “I don’t have any experience with Earth's domesticated animals!” 

Jason winced at the note of genuine anger in her voice. “Sorry, Kor,” he apologized quickly. 

Dammit, he knew that being treated like an idiot for not knowing basic Earth shit got on her nerves. 

“C’mon, Jase,” Roy whined. He looked down at the cat, which was still curled up in a perfect comma, showing them its belly and looking up at them with big eyes between its front paws. The little treacherous weasel. “I mean, cats can, like, read the room, right? Maybe he was just trying to defuse the tensi—” 

“Do not! Come on!” Jason yelled. Now it was his turn to grab Roy’s hand, as his friend reached out for that tempting thatch of white belly fur. “That’s a trap even with cats that aren’t evil!” 

“But he’s so cute!” Roy pouted. “And come on, he’s been here all night and he didn’t hurt any of us!” 

“Because clearly it’s a spy,” Jason growled. “It was trying to get close to us to learn all our secrets!” His anger spiked as he thought about how the damn—whatever it was—had been weaseled itself into their trust. Fuck, it had even snuggled up to him when he’d had that nightmare. He should have been suspicious right then; any normal cat would have been scared of him. 

“What secrets?” Roy objected. “Ollie’s Netflix password? How many beers you have to drink before passing out on the couch?”

Jason gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Kory and Roy exchanged a wary glance, and Jason closed his eyes as a green halo appeared around the edges of his vision. 

I will control my anger, he chanted in his head. Anger is the sanity-killer. Anger is the shitstain emotion that leads to me standing over the bodies of my friends going ‘hey, what the fuck did I just do?’ 

Fuck, but Bruce would laugh and laugh if he ever found out that Jason actually used some of those bullshit anger management techniques he'd forced him to learn, even if he put his own literary spin on it.

“Boys,” Kory said sternly. “Jason, whatever else it may be, it does appear to be a small animal that has not directly harmed us, and we have taken out many more powerful beings. We are not going to shoot it out of hand. However, Roy, doing something so adorable right when Jason voiced his skepticism is very ‘sus,’ no?” 

The cat moved suddenly, curling its head up from the floor. Jason startled and raised his arms into firing position, undoing the safety and gripping the butt of the gun with both hands. Roy darted forward again, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him, ready to knock Jason’s arm away or back him up if needed. 

(Jason did his not to melt into the other man’s solid, reassuring form. Still. Always.) 

The cat started licking its own belly. 

Roy started laughing. Jason blew out his lips and clicked the safety back on. 

Kory moved over to stand behind them, one hand on each of their shoulders. 

“If it is a spy, might we not send false information through it?” she whispered. 

“Cats have really good hearing,” Jason answered her. “So no, now we probably can’t.” 

“Oh.” She scowled. 

“Still, even if it’s not just a cat—” Roy started. 

Jason glared at him out of the corner of his eye, keeping his main gaze (and his gun sights) on the cat. Roy glared right back, challenging. Jason couldn’t help but lick his lips at the glint in his friend’s eyes, and Roy grinned. 

“Even if it’s a spy, what’s the risk of keeping it around for a bit?” he continued. “It’s still a cat, Jase, and like Kory said, it's already been here all night. Doesn’t seem like it’s gonna do anything as long as we’re not threatening it, huh?” 

“Could still be a shapeshifter,” Jason muttered.

"In that case, still better to keep it here, under our control, until we determine exactly what it is," Kory pointed out. 

Jason scowled further, but he lowered the gun with a begrudging grunt of agreement. 

Every instinct he had still screamed that the cat was a danger. But he learned to trust Roy and Kory on threat assessments over himself, especially when they weren’t out in the field. He'd made a lot of progress against the pit madness, but it could still twist his thinking if he wasn’t careful; heighten his paranoia, get him looking at everyone like assassins, from the little old lady selling knockoff prada handbags to the little girl trying to train the street rats to do tricks. 

“Why don’t we call Selina, like you were thinking?” Roy suggested gently. He squeezed Jason’s shoulder. “If she says it’s cool, we’ll know it’s either actually cool, or it’s her trying to pull some shit. And then we can get a second opinion from Cass.” 

Jason breathed slowly, in through his mouth, out through his nose. It was a good plan. Cass could read animals almost as well as she could read people. And Roy and Kory were right that the cat had spent the entire evening in their hideout without hurting anyone… So it probably wasn’t an immediate threat. 

No matter how much his fury was roiling through his stomach at the thought of how it had taken advantage of his vulnerability, last night. How it had gotten illicit snuggles under false pretenses. Seen his weaknesses... 

“Fine,” Jason spat out, between gritted teeth. He slid the gun back into its holster-mount under the counter. “But I’m keeping my eye on it. If it does anything too sus—” 

“We’ll reevaluate,” Kory agreed. 

Roy crouched down and reached out a hand toward the cat, knuckles down. Jason bit down one of his own knuckles, but the cat just looked up from its belly, sniffed briefly at the outstretched hand, and then turned back to its grooming. Roy rubbed its head, and it arched back and let him scratch its ears and jaw. 

Jason harrumphed and stomped over to the couch, watching the scene with distaste. Kory perched on the arm next to him, watching Roy coo over the damn thing. 

“It would upset him very much if we killed it without being certain,” she whispered. 

“I know,” Jason growled. He pulled out his phone. “I’m texting Selina right now.” 

Kory nodded and walked back to pet the cat. Jason gritted his teeth. It was so clearly up to no good! Why couldn’t they see that?

As he slumped down in the couch, the cat did a long horizontal stretch on its side, allowing Kory and Roy access to pet its back and its belly at the same time. Jason glowered at it. And then it looked over at him and fucking winked. 

“Did you see that?!” He jumped up immediately and grabbed for another gun—unfortunately, the closest one was buried deep between the couch cushions.

Roy and Kory looked at him in shock. The cat flipped over, stared at him for a second, and then bolted, fleeing behind the kitchen counter. 

Jason couldn’t quite get the gun out of its holster, cocked, and aimed before the little bastard vanished, and he swore loudly. He charged around the counter, dodging Roy and Kory’s restraining arms. But once he turned the corner, the cat was gone.

“Where did it go?” he demanded. “Where did the little fucker go?!”

Chapter Text

Dick trudged up stair after stair, wishing again that Jason wasn’t such a contrary little fucker. It wasn’t like he didn’t get the whole ‘prove you can make it without Bruce’s money’—for fuck’s sake, if anyone got that it was Dick, although at least he’d never had a qualm about dipping into his trust fund for weapons and gear. But a seventh-floor apartment in a should-probably-be-condemned building whose elevator hadn’t worked since the Reagan era? Come on. There was no way that Jason couldn’t afford better without touching a dime of Wayne money. He didn’t even live here alone—

But, as usual, Dick’s mind shied away from that particular trail of thought. Granted, the superhero community was inherently a little inbred and incestuous, but he still didn't like to think about his little brother living with his ex. 

He was just crabby from anxiety. And maybe because it had been several years since he’d gone up this many stairs in a row—fuck, had it been last decade since that time in Rome?—and he was starting to get a stitch in his side. And because if it had been anywhere else he could have just gone in for a landing on the roof, but bypassing all of Jason’s fucking traps would have taken even longer than just going up the damn stairs. 

All seven flights of them.

Once he finally reached the top, he took five minutes to refresh up. It wouldn’t do for Jason to catch him looking all sweaty just from climbing some stairs—a guy had to maintain cool older brother cred somehow—and carrying a mini antipers/deodorant in the utility belt (or the jacket pocket, when in civvies) was one of the most useful things that Bruce had ever taught him. 

That done, he had been intending to knock (granted, breaking and entering was a family tradition, but… traps), but as soon as he approached the apartment’s door (it was one of the only ones actually inhabited on this floor—or the one below—thanks to the whole elevator situation), the shouts and crashing noises coming from within set him to immediate high alert. 

And then he heard the telltale staticky whip-crack of a suppressed gunshot. 

Fuck. 

Dick took his life into his own hands and crashed through the door after disabling the two obvious traps. Bruce would shit bricks if he ever caught Dick doing something like this, but sometimes a guy had to go with his gut. He just had to hope that Jason 1. Would have bet that no self-respecting Bat would ever come in the front door and 2. Was too lazy to defuse and reset more traps than that every time he wanted to order pizza.

He made it through the door alive, so. Cheers to him and his threat-assessment capabilities. In your face, Bruce. 

Inside was a scene of utter chaos. He felt like that one meme guy with the pizza. 

Jason was standing on top of the couch back, with only his bowed shoulders keeping his head from banging into the ceiling. He had a gun in either hand—not that that was anything new, but it still set all of Dick’s hackles up—and was waving them back and forth in an extremely non-comforting manner. The only mercy was that he had them both pointed at the floor. 

Dick’s younger brother soaked up the lion’s share of his immediate focus, but at the peripheries of his vision he noted Roy crouched on top of the crappy ikea bookshelf in the corner of the room, and Starfire hovering in the air over the kitchen counter, like he’d interrupted some fuck-up, no-holds version of The Floor is Lava. 

“Um. Hi?” Dick waved his hand feebly in front of himself, like an idiot. 

“Hello, Dick,” Starfire said warmly. 

With a practiced effort of will, Dick ignored the impact of her radiance in order to focus on the tactical situation. 

(Still. Always.)

“What the fuck are you doing here, Dick?” Jason demanded. 

“Dick, thank god,” Roy panted, “please tell your brother that we are not going to kill a damn cat—” 

Dick felt his face go cold. He looked frantically around the room, but didn’t see hide nor hair of Bruce anywhere. 

“It’s not a fucking cat!” Jason snarled, waving the guns around in a frankly terrifying manner. 

“Where is he?!?” Dick demanded. 

Jason squinted across the room at him, and then launched himself off the couch, doing a somersault in midair to maintain his balance without sacrificing forward momentum. 

He really should have chosen one instead of trying for both. Perhaps he’d forgotten who he was dealing with. Or, just maybe, part of him had wanted to be subdued. This wouldn’t the first time that Dick caught Jason doing something self-defeating right when his demons seemed to be getting getting the upper hand. 

Regardless of what had impacted Jason’s decisions, Dick read his maneuver easily—he’d been the one to teach it to him, after all—and was able to use his greater speed and flexibility to beat Jason to his landing point. There was still a bit of a struggle—Jason had height and muscle mass on him, and near-equal skill—but Dick’s opening positioning advantage won out in the end, leaving Dick crouching over Jason with a knee at the small of his back and his arm twisted behind his head. 

“Alright, alright, Uncle!” Jason shouted. “Jesus fuck, get off me.” 

“Kory?” Dick called, without lifting his attention away from of his little brother for a second. “Sitrep.” 

She had been drifting closer the whole while—Dick’s situational awareness was good enough that he could track her position without taking his eyes off Jason. His back had been prickling—he trusted Kory, of course he did, but so did Jason, and she was on his team now. 

“There was an unfamiliar cat here when we got home last night,” she said, readily enough. “It wasn’t the first time this had happened—” 

Dick blinked. “You get a lot of stray cats in a seventh floor walkup?” 

“There’s a pigeon roost on the other side of the floor,” Roy explained. 

“And Selina knows you’re an easy fucking mark,” Jason rasped, pushing back against Dick’s hold. 

Dick twisted his arm further, and he collapsed into the worn wooden floor with a groan. 

“None of us thought it was odd until we heard it using the toilet this morning,” Kory finished.

Dick laughed. Of course that was what had caught Bruce out. 

“I’m telling you, some cats do that!” Roy said, hotly defensive. “It’s instinctive, they want to hide their shit, they see us doing it there, and bob’s your uncle!” 

“And I’m telling you, the motherfucker winked at me!” Jason said, raising his voice. “It’s probably fucking Clayface—” 

“He can’t make himself that small,” Roy objected. 

“—or Changeling—” 

“Hey,” Dick objected, “he wouldn’t—” 

“Or just some new fucking villain with catpowers, it’s not like that would be the weirdest thing any of us have seen this week!” Jason yelled. 

“Oh, that’s true, but it’s not,” Dick said. (He couldn’t help it, he was enjoying this, much though he knew that made him an asshole, given the genuine distress in Jason’s voice. But the situation was just so ridiculous. Trust Bruce to take every opportunity to make an even bigger mess of the situation.) 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean,” Jason said, his voice too flat to make it a genuine question. He’d never been slow to read a room, and he knew Dick. 

“Oh, just that Bruce had a bit of a run in with Batmite last week, and is now a bit more literally catty than usual,” Dick said, his voice deliberately calm and cheerful. “You’d know about it, if you bothered to answer our calls. Or look at the group chats occasionally.” 

There was a long, intense moment of silence, and then—

“Motherfucking bastard,” Jason swore. “Let me up! I’m gonna fucking kill him!” 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Dick said, “but more importantly, where is he?” 

There was a long pause. Everyone looked around the room, waiting for a cat to poke his head around a corner, now that the danger had passed. Nothing happened. 

“Okay, seriously. Where is he?” Dick repeated.

Chapter Text

Bruce races along the rooftop of Jason’s building as if the joint Leagues of Assassins and Clowns are after him. 

(Or several of his children… Which is just barely possible, and would probably be worse.) 

With his unfortunately keen ears, he can hear Dick and Jason yelling behind him, along with the familiar thumps and groans of bodies crashing against reach other, and he castigates himself as he runs. He handled everything wrong, dammit. He should never have broken character and flushed that damn toilet; never mind what Damian’s cats could do. He should have known—no, he had known that it was risky, that it would raise suspicion. But the idea of just going on the floor seemed so wrong… 

No, that wasn’t it. The truth is, something inside Bruce wanted Jason to figure it out. Ever too greedy, he was unsatisfied with spending time with his son under false pretenses, as nothing but a stray cat brought in from the cold. Part of him hated the lack of recognition in those beloved eyes even more than he relished seeing them free of hatred for once. 

He should have known better. And then, he just compounded error after error. Trying to bluff his way through instead of immediately coming clean? Attempting to clue Jason on his real identity by blinking out morse code instead of just playing it cool and waiting for a better opportunity? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

He’d like to chock everything up to the cat body. Surely the poor impulse control of the feline form contributed to this disaster? The uncharacteristic lack of emotional inhibitions that he’s suffered from ever since the change? But the truth is, Bruce has made wreckage out of every encounter he’s had with Jason since his son came back to life. He can scarcely attribute blame to anything else when he’s always managed to do everything wrong all on his own. 

The buildings in this part of Gotham are placed closely enough to each other that a particularly brave and agile cat can easily jump from one to the other (except where a street comes between; but he’ll build that bridge when he comes to it). Bruce gets five apartment buildings down, charging over ledges and angled grades with similar abandon, before he finds himself forced to stop and take a rest. The cat’s body is built for sprints, not marathons, and his lungs are screaming at him. 

He looks back the way he came, but he doesn’t see any sign of any pursuit. Perhaps they really didn’t notice when he booked it up that air vent? In his normal body, he would have been sure. But then again, when facing his own children, nothing is ever certain. Panting, he settles down on the warm brick of the roof ledge, feeling exhaustion settle over him. He’ll just take a short rest. 

He doesn’t realize that there’s a storm closing in until he’s woken up by the lack of the warmth of the sun against his fur. By then, it’s only a minute or two before the rain starts falling; he barely has time to look around madly for shelter that isn’t present. The feeling of the water dripping on his fur is hard to describe in human terms. It’s like rubbing fabric over his teeth combined with something stuck in his teeth and leg hair after hours in tight leggings. It’s just… wrong.

Before he can think about it, he’s jumping down from level to level on a nearby fire escape, heading for the ground, trying to get away from the horrible wetness. The last challenge is getting from the fire escape to the ground; he spends a good five minutes paralyzed at the bottom platform of the fire escape, staring helplessly at the twelve-foot drop below him. Eventually, however, he manages to leap from the fire escape to a window ledge about eight feet down, and from there it’s an easy jump to the ground. 

(The cat body doesn’t like this , either—his too-small pounds with the fear of losing his balance and falling, until it seems like it’s thrumming his entire body. But he has many, many years of expertise in handling fear; it’s easier to take action while letting the fear flow through him, than to sit still through the utterly foreign wrongness of water sliding past the protective layer of his fur.)  

By the time he reaches the—Ugh! Wet! Ew!—ground, he looks around for a place to shelter from what’s rapidly turned into a downpour. Unfortunately, he’s in an alley that is singularly free of any kind of shelter; there aren’t even any recessed doors that he could shelter in. He picks a random direction and runs down the alley; he may not actually get less wet while he’s running, but somehow it feels less hopeless. Finally, he spies a cardboard box in the overhang of a dumpster. He  groans to himself. It’s horribly cliche. But it’s also the closest sanctuary from the rain, and he needs a place to rest and make plans before attempting the trip home. 

And there’s just… something about the box. It whispers to him of safely, a perfect place to shelter and hide while he plots his next move. He wants to be in it. 

Unfortunately, when he reaches the box, he finds that something else had the same instinct.

Chapter Text

Bruce looks down at the three tiny kittens with horror. They’re so small. Tiny, defenseless, freezing, probably starving… And they’re cringing away from him, scrabbling against the back of the cardboard box as if they’ll be able to escape that way; as if they’re terrified to see another adult cat. Where are their parents? 

He doesn’t stop to think about that for long. He’s all too aware of the evils that might find a stray cat in this particular neighborhood. And in any case, uncovering that particular mystery isn’t important right now; getting the kittens safe and warm and fed, is. 

However, this raises the question of how exactly he’s supposed to do that, as a cat himself. He pushes away the feelings of helplessness his current form engenders. 

No matter what shape he’s in, he’s still Batman. He can do this. 

He runs through the possible sources of heat. Body heat would be the easiest, of course, but would prevent him from doing something else to help. Time enough for that after he’s found the kittens something to eat, or a better shelter, or both. 

Some kind of human-generated warmth is the next possibility that occurs to him. The raindrops that were an unendurable annoyance a second ago are forgotten in the face of this new emergency., and he leaves the kittens for a moment to run up and down the alley, looking for… a window AC, perhaps? A dryer vent, a basement chimney? Maybe that last doesn’t exist, but it’s not impossible that there might be something pushing heat out through the thick apartment walls into the overlooked alley. But he doesn’t find anything in the immediate vicinity. In this stupid body, everything more than about twenty feet away is a featureless blur, especially when there’s no movement to catch his eye. It’s entirely possible that there’s something that would help just outside his range of vision; but he doesn’t dare go too far from the kittens.

There’s one more obvious source of heat. He checks on the kittens, first; they haven’t moved, and barely cringe from him now. He only wishes he could attribute it to a lack of fear, but he’s very afraid that it’s only their growing weakness. Then he engages his butt, wiggling it back and forth until he can feel the right forth and angle settle into his muscles, and leaps, straight up six feet so that he has time to brace himself before he lands on all four feet on the top of the dumpster. 

It takes him far too long to get the dumpster open. Raccoons can fucking do this, he has no excuse. It takes even longer to find what he needs in the dark, dank dumpster—longing for his utility belt the entire time—but eventually he’s able to find a small tub of athlete’s foot cream, still half-full. Here, the cat’s superior night vision is helpful, and the nearsightedness doesn’t matter; he’s able to scan the ingredients and be sure it has what he needs. A few feet away, he identifies a crumpled tube of glycerine-based lube (which tastes dreadful as he picks it up in his mouth to bring it to where he needs it). He squeezes out as much of the jelly into the tub as possible, and then bats several greasy food wrappers in after it as he hears the reaction start to work. The smoke starts to rise out shortly after that, and he quickly backs out of the dumpster and leaps for the (relatively) safe ground. 

There. One dumpster fire. And not the usual kind his life tends to turn into. 

It’ll take a few minutes for the fire to engulf enough of the dumpster contents to heat up the metal sides enough, but as soon as it does, the kittens will be able to huddle up against that side of the box and get warm. He ducks into the box for a second, nosing at the kittens to make sure they’re all still alive for the moment. One of them meows at him pleadingly; it’s weak, but still gives him heart. 

Heat, check. Next; he needs food. His first thought is to search for some kind of small animal. He’s certainly got plenty of lethal skills that he can turn to hunting; and for that matter, it wouldn’t be the first time that he’s eaten rats.

 (Although thankfully, it’s been a good decade or two. Not that rats taste bad; in fact, they’re rather like a slightly gamey pork shoulder, if cooked well. But he was never able to entirely shed off his city-bred disgust for the animals.) 

Unfortunately, everything’s gone to ground in the rain; his feline nose, more powerful by far than his cat eyes, can’t find hide nor hair of a rodent anywhere near by. 

(It won’t occur to him until much later the same day that he could have dragged some trash food out of the dumpster before setting it on fire. Bruce has spent many long years retraining his instincts, but sometimes—especially in unfamiliar and stressful situations—he still defaults to the billionaire he was raised as.)  

What there is nearby is one of Gothan’s ubiquitous bodegas, miraculously not driven out of business by the mob or the horrific economy yet. He didn’t dare try to stop a random passerby for help earlier; everyone unfortunate enough to be walking through this particular neighborhood during a downpour is doing it as fast as possible, with their coats drawn close around their faces and their hands close to a weapon, if they have any intelligence at all. He’d be much more likely to get a kick in the face than someone stupid enough to follow a random cat into a dark alley. But a bodega owner; that might be different.

He puts thought to action and goes to bat his paws against the door. He’s not hoping for anything other than perhaps catching the attention of the proprietor, but to his surprise, the door moves infinitesimally. Giving thanks for Gotham’s lackadaisical code enforcement, he slams his body against the door and then squeezes through into the gap thus created before it can close again. 

A bright, jangly noise sounds from somewhere above him, and he startles, jumping forward and taking shelter in a gap on a lower shelf. A second later, he realizes that it was just the bell over the door. He finds himself licking his shoulder in an involuntary reaction to the embarrassment, and stops himself with conscious effort. He misses the days when he’d just blush. 

“Who’s there?” 

The owner comes bustling over, a baseball bat held ready in his hand. It’s harder to identify or read humans in the cat body, but ge doesn’t think he’s ever seen this guy before. The man has dark coloring and is very large, with big burly shoulders and curly black hair that reminds Bruce of Clark’s. 

He brandishes the bat, turning in a slow circle. “If someone’s mucking about with invisibility again, just know that I have cheez whiz, and I’m not afraid to use it!” 

Bruce cringes farther back against the shelf in a trauma-induced reaction to the bat. It’s not like it’s an inherently evil tool; it’s street legal (as long as you also have a ball on you) and packs a punch, which makes it a perfectly rational weapon for the average Gothamite to keep around. Unfortunately, that means that Bruce has been on the wrong side of one more times than he can count, and the sound of it swinging through the makes his tail fluff out and the hair along the ridge of his spine stand at attention. 

But the kittens are depending on him. He forces himself out of his hiding place and meows plaintively, making his eyes as big and cute as he can manage, while still holding himself ready to spring away if the man swings first and thinks later. 

(He can’t believe he’s doing this puss in boots imitation twice in one day. Next time he gets his hands on Bat-Mite, he’s gonna make that damn imp regret ever coming to this dimension.) 

Fortunately, the random bodega owner reacts much better than Bruce’s son. He relaxes as soon as he sees the cat, blowing out his cheeks and letting the bat fall down to his side. 

“Ahh, one of you,” he says. “Come in for a break from the rain?”

Bruce meows again. 

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you don’t make any messes,” the shopkeeper says firmly. “There’s a litter box in the back—use it, and don’t throw up if you can help it, hmmm? Or go outside if you don’t like the box.” 

He pulls over a conveniently located brick and places it in between the door and the frame, wedging it just far enough open to allow an enterprising cat to come and go. Then he turns and bends down in a squat, bracing the bat on the floor like a cane, and stretches out a hand in greeting. 

Well. This is going considerably better than Bruce had dared to hope. He moves forward and sniffs the man’s hand politely, even as he weighs choices in his mind. He could follow his original plan and just try to beg some food out of the man. But now that he’s on the brink of success, he realizes the problems with that plan. It’s unlikely in the extreme that he can get enough out of the man to fully feed the kittens—even if they’re old enough to eat solid food, which Bruce is suddenly feeling uncertain about—let alone carry it out to the cardboard box. 

On the other hand, a man who keeps a litter box for stray cats—and who is now rubbing Bruce’s ears like a man who very well knows his way around a feline—seems like a likely ally. 

Bruce breaks away from the shopkeeper’s caresses and runs over to the door. Ignoring the opening, he does his best “Timmy’s down the well!” imitation; looking back at the man and meowing loudly, then running back and forth between the man’s feet and  the door. He comes to a stop at the door and meows loudly again, looking right in the man’s eye and trying to push his need through. 

The bodega owner folds his arms across his chest. “Oh, and what? I’m just supposed to run out after you, to who knows where? Nuh-uh, mister. My momma didn’t raise no fools. I’m not following you to no secondary location.” 

This is, of course, an unassailably good point. Bruce’s ears slump down in disappointment. Still, there’s still the fallback plan. He gallops in a quick circuit around the narrow but deep shop, taking a look at his options. This is one of those places that could only be found in Gotham—in addition to the usual convenience store options, there’s a case of refrigerated grocery items (Bruce looks longingly at the milk, but knows there’s no way for him to get at that), a full deli, a salad bar, and even a long buffet counter down the middle of the back section of the store with several silver chafing dishes full of small bites, mostly skewing Chinese-American. Bruce braces his front paws on the rim of that section—careful not to touch the hot metal—and looks it over appraisingly.  

“Hey, now!” the shopkeeper yells after him. “I have cat food—don’t you go getting your grubby paws on the buffet!” 

That gives Bruce an additional idea. Grinning wickedly back at the bodega owner, he jumps up to the top of the buffet, leaning over it as if he’s about to start chowing down on the eggrolls. Then, as the man runs forward to stop him, he leaps across the buffet, then up to the deli counter, grabbing one end of a set of long, thin sausage links, all still connected one to the other. Tearing it from its hook, he runs victoriously toward the open door, dragging the sausages after him. The shopkeeper swears out loud and chases after him. 

He’s almost in the clear when a customer opens the door, the bell jingling merrily. Adjusting on the fly, he runs madly under their legs, dodging their feet for all he’s worth. They must step on the sausages, because he feels a temporary resistance and a scream behind him, and then he’s away, with a much lighter but still very present burden in his mouth. 

With the bright triumph running through his veins, he almost forgets that stealing the sausages wasn’t the end-goal; he remembers just in time to stop at the mouth of the alley, looking back to see if he’s still being pursued. He finds the shopkeeper stopped as well. The man is standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at Bruce with murder in his eyes and his baseball bat clenched tight in his hand, but clearly remembering his doubts about following a stray cat into an unknown alley. 

Bruce’s day would be going much better if Gothamites were less suspicious of apparently intelligent or highly-trained animals, but he can’t really blame them. 

He looks down. There’s still two sausages laying on the ground next to him, connected to the one in his mouth. From the meaty taste of them, that’s likely a good thirty or forty bucks that the shopkeeper would have to write off; a not insignificant sum for a bodega in this neighborhood. Hoping against hope, he runs down the alley, heading to the kittens. At least he’ll have some food to give them; he can try to rip small bits up and see if they’ll stomach it. 

The cardboard box is already much warmer as he runs in, leaving the sausages in a heap outside it as a lure, and he mentally pats himself on the back. The kittens mew weakly as he sniffs them over, checking for heartbeats; their fear is clearly starting to wane, and one of them even licks back at him as he noses at her. 

Bruce’s focus is on the kittens. The rain is still falling noisily on the cardboard and cement around him, and the fire is crackling in the dumpster. So it’s understandable, if still inexcusable, that he doesn’t hear the footsteps until they’re only inches away. He wheels toward the front of the box, putting the kittens behind him, prepared to fight to the death, if necessary, to protect them. 

The bodega owner settles into a cross-legged squat just outside the box and rests his chin on his hand. 

“Well,” he says. “You could have just said.”

Chapter Text

Corinne clutched her bag tighter across her stomach as she hurried down the street, glancing from side to side for anyone who looked suspicious (i.e., any human being).

Not that she was particularly worried about getting mugged. No, the main evil she was concerned about were pickpockets. Dying in some incompetent mugging would be inconvenient and embarrassing, but if she got down to the bodega and didn’t have enough cash to get some of the homemade green tea mochi she’d come down for, she’d kill herself. She’d discovered this place one day when she’d missed her stop on the subway, and had been coming back for the occasional treat ever since. 

Well, saying she’d missed the stop was a little misleading. There’d been a delay—one of those times when the train just stopped at a station and sat there for several minutes with with no explanation—and the conductor had finally come over the loudspeaker to give an update, which she’d thought had said that they’d all have to get off and transfer to the local train (which was always the worst) and by the time she realized that she must have misheard (because no one else was moving) she’d already gotten up and moved toward the door, so sitting back down would just look weird. So then she pretended to go to the bathroom (of course, she wouldn’t use a subway restroom without being  significantly more desperate), but it turned out there wasn’t a bathroom at this station, so she’d ducked out onto the street. 

And it had all been worth it in the end, and not insane at all, because she’d gotten dessert and then back onto the train before it had even left.

But this time, she heard a loud yowl before she’d made it more than halfway down the block to the bodega. She’d had a cat as a kid, and she knew the sound of one in genuine pain and alarm when she heard it. Without thinking, she swerved into the alley that the sound had come from, searching for the source. 

She passed a dumpster—which was on fire, she belatedly realized, as the air around her grew warmer. (The flames licking out the top should have been a clue, but she’d been focused on the continuing sounds of a cat fight.) She thought about stopping and getting a quick photo (it would really make a great reaction meme) but in the end she just gave it a wide berth and continued on. 

She found the cats just a little further down the alley. (By this point she was in deeper than any rational Gothamite would have gone, but she’d come too far to back out now.) There were two: a big, tough-looking siamese while the other was a slimmer and shorter tuxedo; but the siamese had clearly gotten the worst of it, with a bleeding gash over his right eye and several places where tufts of fur had clearly been torn out. Despite that, he was still going strong, taking the fight to the tuxedo. As she watched, he backed the tuxedo up against the wall, only to get three sharp blows to his ears that sent him reeling. 

“HEY!” she yelled, as loud as she could. “Break it up!” 

Both cats turned around. They looked so incredulous— how are a human interrupt such important feline business?—that she had to laugh. When she didn’t immediately press her advantage, the Siamese turned away from her, as if he was going to go right back to the fight. 

“Don’t even think about it!” she shouted. “Turn your furry butt around, dickwad!” 

She charged in, thankful she’d worn her best walking boots today. Her temper was aroused enough that she was ready to kick a cat and deal with the inevitable hell-related consequences later. Fortunately for her hopes of the afterlife, the siamese could tell that she meant business and hightailed it, running down the alley with its tail between its legs (figuratively, it was actually waving it around quite vigorously, the asshole). 

Meanwhile, the tuxedo had backed up farther against the wall, looking up at her with giant, pleading eyes, just like the cat from the Shrek movies. 

“Hey, little guy,” she said, soft and coaxing. “You’re okay now.” 

He was a pretty handsome cat, actually. Lanky, well-groomed, with a very attractive white and black coat. Now that she looked him over, she couldn’t see any sign that he’d been in a fight at all; he didn’t have so much as a hair out of place, let alone any cuts or abrasions. She’d expected him to flee as soon as the aggressor was gone, but he just sat on his hind legs and looked up at her, as if he was waiting for her to invite him home for a cup of tea.

She took a deep breath, prepping to turn around and walk away. She was not going to adopt random stray cats off the street. She could barely keep herself alive, so pets were really out of the question. Saving this one from a beating—or, well, from delivering one unwillingly, she guessed—would have to be her good deed for the day. But just as she shifted her weight, there was another yowl—distinctly not from the cat in front of her. 

“What the—” 

The tuxedo turned around and meowed plaintively at… the wall?

No… At a recessed chink in the wall—maybe a bricked-over old window or something?—that held a smaller calico that blended in so well against the stained brick that Corinne hadn’t even seen it. 

“Oh,” she said, charmed despite herself. “Were you protecting your friend, there?” 

The cat meowed; it was probably her imagination (okay, definitely), but it sounded almost like a polite disagreement. 

“Oh, not a friend, hmm? You got yourself a girlfriend back there? Or a boyfriend? Yaoi catboys are real popular right now.” 

The cat sneezed. 

“Well, alright then.” 

She shook her head, grinning. But as she turned to go for real, the tuxedo dashed around her and put himself squarely in her path, meowing up at her demandingly. 

“What?” she demanded. “I already saved you! You and your whatever are free! Go! Scamper!” 

He mewed again, even louder and longer. And didn’t move. 

“What do you want?” 

He ran around her again and nosed at the calico’s side. It was, admittedly, very cute. 

Until she—oh yeah, definitely a she—arched her back and stuck her hips up, mewling needily. 

“Uhhhh, okay, I really don’t need to see this—” 

The tuxedo looked up at her and growled. 

“Hey! Language!” 

He let out a grumbling sort of yowl. 

“If she’s in heat, shouldn’t you should be trying to have sex with her? I mean, all kidding aside, I don’t think completely homosexual cats are actually a thing. From what I’ve heard, it’s more anything goes. Oh! Unless you’re fixed, I guess… That’s actually sweet. You’re like an eunuch trying to defend your queen. Huh. Did Elizabeth the first have eunuchs, or am I mixing eras, there?” 

He nosed again at the calico; this time, he pushed his snout under her side, as if he was trying to lift her up. 

“You want her to go somewhere,” Corinne guessed. “I guess an alley isn’t really the best place if she doesn’t actually want to get gangbanged. Which, admittedly, is a lot more attractive in theory than practice. Not that I’d know that from personal experience,” she added quickly. “Unfortunately. I mean, not unfortunately in—I don’t actually want to get gangbanged, I just occasionally think it might be nice to have the option to play at it—” 

Corinne sighed. “And now I’m explaining fetishes to a cat. Okay, fine. I guess let’s do this.” 

She advanced carefully, more than half convinced that the cats would run away the second she approached. But either the female was a former pet, or she was just too out-of-it with heat to care. As soon as Corinne touched her, the cat started mewing again and pushing her butt up against her hands. 

“You know, I’d gone my entire life and never actually been humped by an animal,” Corinne said. “Unless we’re counting Lenny Madrid, that one time against my grandmother’s couch…” 

She lifted the calico and straightened, cradling it against her chest. This, the cat was much less cooperative about, but more because she seemed to really want to rub every part of herself against Corinne’s chest than because she wanted to escape. 

Admittedly, Corinne’s tits were her body part most worth fondling, especially in her new push-up (which she was wearing solely because she hadn’t been able to find another clean one this morning. Not like she'd expected to get hit on by a horny cat, or had any other exciting romantic prospects). But she hadn’t exactly envisioned feline admiration when she’d bought it. 

The tuxedo pranced eagerly about her feet as she lifted the calico, then took off down the alley, looking back several times to make sure she was following him. It did occur to her that she was basically acting like the blonde who dies first in a horror movie. On the other hand, she was also acting like a manic pixie dream girl, or an isekai protagonist. 

“Or a Disney princess,” she muttered to herself. “What I really need is a genre detector ring, or something…” 

The tuxedo looked back at her again. It was almost certainly just a coincidence—or a response to her speaking aloud—but it felt like he was laughing at her. 

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m doing you a favor.” 

To her mild surprise (she didn’t anything could have shocked her at this point) the tuxedo led her right to the bodega she’d originally been headed to. 

“Hey, Karen! Green-tea mochi, right?” 

The owner flashed her with a wide grin as she shouldered aside the door. At least he kept it ajar, so she hadn’t had to figure out how to press down on the latch without dropping the cat. 

She smiled back at him awkwardly. She’d been wearing her work badge the first time she’d visited, and had never bothered to correct him on her name. She was pretty sure that he’d said his name was Frank. But then there was that niggling existential dread that she’d say it and be wrong…)

“Is this your cat, by any chance?” she asked,  hefting up the bundle in her arms in demonstration. 

“No…” he said, frowning as he came forward. “But—”

The tuxedo ducked in through Corinne’s legs and meowed up at the bodega owner. 

“Wow,” Corinne said down to it. “That was bossy, even for a cat.” 

“Heyyy, Cat-Dad!” Probably-Frank said, sounding even more delighted than he had for Mochi-Girl. “Is this the mom?” 

“Mom?” Corinne asked. 

“I got your babies safe in the back, no worries,” Probably-Frank said to the tuxedo. He flicked his  his eyes up to Corinne. “He brought them in earlier. Close to starving, but I got them some formula and a warm spot, and they’re already doing better. Come on, right through here!”

“Uh—I thought she might be, um. In heat?” Corinne suggested, as she followed the bodega owner through to the backroom. “But if she has kittens—” 

“Mmm. Yeah, that can happen,” Probably-Frank said. “Indiscriminate little buggers, cats.” 

The tuxedo growled. 

“Rude!” Corinne scolded.

“Eh, that’s okay,” Probably-Frank said, giving her a look like—well, like she was talking to cats like a crazy woman. “So was I.” 

The kittens were in a large box, lined with towels and pillows.

“Oh,” Corinne said, as if she’d been punched in the gut. She fell to her knees (Bad, bad idea. So painful) next to the box. 

 The kittens were really, really cute. 

The mother cat, suddenly squashed against Corinne’s chest with the change in position, struggled to get free. Corinne quickly let her down to rejoin her kittens. She let out a sort of grumbling meow as they swarmed her, looking up at Corinne as if to say, “Really? Why?” 

“Yeah, sorry,” Corinne whispered to her. “At least it won’t last eighteen years?” 

The tuxedo jumped up on a nearby table and looked down at them, purring. 

“Oh sure,” Corinne snorted. “I’m sure you’re proud of yourself.”

Chapter Text

“Let me up,” Jason repeated. “I’ll help you look for him.” 

Dick swore (as usual, a pathetically weak-ass attempt at profanity), but he loosened his arm hold enough that Jason was able to pull free and start looking around his apartment.

He still couldn’t believe that Bruce had gotten himself turned into a fucking cat. Although of course once he had, the very first thing Bruce had decided to do was come check up on him. Fucking asshole. He’d probably figured that he’d come over and sniff out some coke or something else he could hold over Jason’s head for the rest of time. Making snide remarks out of the corner of his mouth about “all the things I taught you,” and “no son of mine ever.” As if Jason hadn’t figured out long since that he wasn’t Bruce’s son, anymore, rather than an unpleasant reminder of the boy who had died. 

(And as if he’d ever do hard drugs, after what he’d seen growing up. Bruce had never understood that—avoiding uppers and all that shit that all his billionaire friends guzzled by the 8 ball was a moral thing for him, and not a basic tenet of survival. Although … Jason did have a brief moment of panic trying to remember if he’d left out any of the CBD gummies. Granted they were even legal now, but since when did that have any kind of bearing on what Bruce decided to cast judgment on?) 

“Motherfucking son of a fucking bitch,” he muttered, as he pulled out his phone and began running through the latest data from the security system Babs had insisted on putting in. 

(They rarely bothered to look at it. A villain getting into the hideout wasn’t a problem. It was a treat.) 

It didn’t show any gaps or triggered alarms, except for the ones on the door that Dick had blown through. Which meant that either Babs hadn’t bothered to guard against cats (unlikely, in a city that included Catwoman), or Bruce had somehow managed to blow right through them without leaving a trace, in spite of being in a fucking cat’s body. (Unfortunately, very likely.) Or he supposed Babs might have gone in and reset all her systems after Bruce had been turned into a cat, just to make sure that her hero could go anywhere he bloody wanted. (That sounded like the likeliest fucking option yet.) Jason finished running through the data, including doing a visual check of each room’s cameras. Nothing. 

“If he’s still here at all, he’s in the walls,” he reported, then raised his voice. “Huh, Bruce? You in the walls? Watching us like the stalking creeper you are?” 

“Jason,” Dick said reprovingly. 

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Jason said tiredly. He headed over to the fridge and pulled out the milk, chugging the rest of the gallon.

At least it hadn’t been some kind of villain hanging around last night, watching him have a nightmare freakout. Not that he loved the idea of Bruce seeing it, either, except… 

He was suddenly, viscerally reminded about the night when he’d been a kid. Before the Joker. When he’d woken screaming from nightmares and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. And how Bruce had always been there—usually bursting into his room before Jason had even fully woken up—and would sit next to him on the couch, close enough that he could lean against his shoulder. And he wouldn’t make Jason talk about it, like the therapists were always after him to do. He’d just get him a bowl of cocoa pebbles and play Stardew Valley with him until Jason fell asleep again. Or dawn, some nights. 

Fuck. Jason hadn’t thought about those nights in years. Sometimes it seemed like all the good memories had been buried under the giant pile of shit that was his life. 

“We’ve got to find him,” Dick was saying worriedly, as Jason killed the gallon and crushed it, tossing it into the cardboard box they kept the recycling in. 

(Not that the building had recycling, of course. Or that Jason would trust that it was actually being recycled and not just thrown into a landfill, same as everything else, as soon as it got hauled away. He waited until the box was full and then took it out to one of the places he knew did actual multi-stream recycling, about once a month.) 

“Why?” he asked, once he was certain he could keep his voice steady. “He got here fine. Not like he’s injured or anything. Seems like his brain’s doing just dandy.” 

(He was still pissed when he thought about that fucking wink. What the fuck had Bruce been trying to prove?) 

“He’s a cat,” Dick said, through gritted teeth. “And it’s absolutely affecting his mind. As, again, you’d already know, if you just paid attention to the group chat.” 

Jason rolled his eyes, but he did pull out his phone and pull up Oracle’s custom chat app. 

“Come on, Dick,” he said, as he began to scroll through the several days worth of—fuck, four hundred missed messages? Okay, make that several weeks worth of messages since the last time he’d bothered to check it. “We’ve got plenty of normal street cats around here. They do okay, and they don’t have—oh my fucking god.” 

“What?” everyone in the room asked at once, in varying tones of alarm. 

“That is not fucking Bruce,” Jason said, fighting a rising sort of hysteric glee. “Y’all are fucking pranking me. This is the Replacement’s doing, isn’t it?” 

“Don’t call—” Dick started.  

“Or Steph!” Jason continued.  “They’ve teamed up with Selina, got some kind of trained cat to pull one over on me—” 

But even as he said it, it didn’t really make that much sense. Oh, that Tim and Steph would try something like this, just to make him look stupid, abso-fucking-lutely. But they wouldn’t be able to get Selina to put one of her cats in possible harm’s way, not for a prank. 

“Or it is Changeling—” he said feebly. 

“Jason,” Roy growled. “The fuck is it?” 

“Come here and look, I haven’t seen them all yet,” Jason answered, eyes still glued to the screen. 

Roy and Kory beat Dick to the best vantage points, peering over his shoulders. 

“Awwww,” they said, practically in unison. 

“That’s Bruce?” Roy asked blankly, a second later. “How the fuck did they get him to do that?” 

“That’s what I’m saying, no way is that Bruce—” 

“Oh, are you looking at the cosplay pics?” Dick asked brightly. “Cass, mostly, plus Steph pulling a guilt trip over getting scratched up a bit during a game of capture the flag.” 

Jason choked as he ran across the banana. 

“Well, plus, like I said, the whole thing’s screwing with his head a bit,” Dick added. 

Jason’s eyes snapped up. “What do you mean?” 

Dick grinned smugly, just like he’d used to do when Jason was a kid and Dick had managed to set him up perfectly for a prank or punchline. Jason narrowed his eyes, but knowing what was coming didn’t help; not when he needed to know what was going on.

“It’s a long story!” Dick said gleefully. He walked over to the couch, put the cushions in order, and sat down. “Sit down, brother mine, and I’ll explain.”  

Jason groaned. “Fine,” he spat, and sat.

Chapter Text

Most of the time, Barbara rather enjoyed her position as Oracle. Oh, she missed being out in the field, but it was more satisfying, in some ways, to stage-manage things from the background, feeding everyone information and manipulating things over the city system and internet. She was the light watching from above, the spider in the back of the Bats’ web… And yes, their woman in the chair. But sometimes it was real flipping frustrating to not be able to just run out the door, hunt down her wayward bats, and slap them upside the head. One of these days she was really going to have to build a hoverchair that got decent mileage… 

That wasn’t today’s problem, however. Today’s problem was how to redirect those same idiot bats without letting them know that she’d snuck spyware onto their phones. Not that they didn’t suspect it. But she’d learned over the last few years that suspecting and knowing were in two entirely different worlds, and that the people who loved her were much more comfortable living in the former.

But with Bruce in the wind, out who-knew-where in Gotham doing who-knew-what while in that vulnerable feline shape… And Dick and Jason were just oblivious, bantering away on the couch as if they had no cares in the world, completely ignoring Barbara’s escalating urgent calls and texts. She hadn’t panicked when Bruce had “disappeared” the day before—Jason’s apartment had been an obvious destination, and she’d been able to track him there before he’d even gotten in the door. But her digital assets in the Narrows were deplorably thin, and Bruce had vanished off them shortly after leaving Jason’s apartment. 

“You are fucking shitting me,” Jason said. 

“I’m not! He did!” 

“Nah. Pics or it didn’t happen, dude.” 

“C’mon, Little Wing, would I lie to you?” 

“Shithead, you once told me that a fucking grizzly kissed you on the forehead.” 

Dick laughed. “I did do that, didn’t I? In my defense, you were incredibly gullible for a kid from the Narrows.” 

“Man, you were totally out of my experience. I mean, you show me that fucking plushie elephant like it’s a treasure, and I peg you as a total fucking loser, right, probably an actual bedwetter and then the next thing I know, you’re dragging me out to see an actual elephant that picks you up with its trunk like you’re Mowgli. Why the hell wouldn’t I believe you kissed a bear?” 

“Seriously?” Roy laughed. “At least when he tried that one on me he made it a lion. There aren’t any grizzly bears in circuses, bro.” 

“Right, and I know that now. But at the time, I was eleven—”

“Almost twelve,” Dick put in. 

“—And it’s not like my folks ever had the money to take me to the circus, right?” 

“Oh, come on, why do you gotta bring everything back to… You know, it’s not like I had a bunch of money growing up in the circus— ”

“Oh please, there’s a difference between having to wear secondhand clothes and eat popcorn for dinner sometimes and coming home to find a drug dealer passed out in a puddle of his own piss in front of your apartment—”

Barbara knew this conversation of old. It could easily go on for a hour. Or, worse, it could blow up after thirty seconds, after which both participants would go out looking for stress relief and not look at their phone for the rest of the night. Worse, most the time Dick’s idea of stress relief was reckless sex acts in sketchy dive bars, and she didn’t feel like dealing with that particular mix of guilt and worry and longing tonight (Still. Always). She took a deep breath, her finger hovering over the button that would let her take over the speaker of Dick’s phone. 

“Hey, was that a siren?” Roy asked suddenly. 

Barbara snatched her finger back (along with the rest of her hand), quickly typing out a query into her system that kept tabs on the police, fire, and emergency dispatch systems. 

“Doesn’t sound like the cops…” Jason said. 

Barbara glanced up at the monitor toward the top of the several dozen displays she had stacked on top of each other. Through four different cell phone cams and the fisheye lens she’d managed to get implanted in his TV, Barbara watched all the inhabitants of the Outlaws’ crappy apartment move over to the cloudy, half-boarded up windows on the east side of the building, peering out through various vantage points, trying to see—what?

Barbara scowled. She was plugged into every police dispatch system in the metro area. How could she have missed—

And of course, now Dick was picking up the phone and calling her. “Oracle?” he asked. “You know what this is about?” 

“Oh, right,” Barbara bitched. “Ignore me for an hour, don’t bother to let me know whether or not you found B or what’s going on, but the second you need something, I’m supposed to jump to it.” 

“Ummm, you realize your mic is still live, right?” Dick asked. “And, uh, I have you on speaker…” 

“Oh, my goodness,” Barbara said flatly. “Zounds. What a horrible mistake I have made. How I will I ever recover from the shame.” 

“Geez,” Dick muttered. “Never mind.” 

Finally, she found it. A non-emergency call about a dumpster fire, which was why the notification hadn’t risen out of the sea of similar priority calls; but the police always used their sirens when they went to the Narrows, even if it was potentially a minor issue. 

“Babs?” Jason prodded. “Got any info for us?” 

“Dumpster fire in the alley between 2nd and 3rd, near Old Kill Road,” Barbara reported. “I’d say that it’s nothing, but that close, and with B’s luck…” She trailed off as new information started coming through. 

“Yeah,” Dick agreed. “We’d better check it out.” 

“What do you mean, we?” Jason asked contemptuously. He sauntered back from the window, flopping down on the couch and throwing his legs up over the coffee table. “I don’t give a fuck if the old man got pussified. Best of luck tracking him down, though. Man was hard to find when he was six feet tall with a face everyone in town recognized. How do you think you’re gonna track one cat among the million wandering around this town?” 

“I found him here, didn’t I?” Dick scoffed, leaning against the window frame and folding his arms across his chest. “Cause, you know, I actually know him instead of just building up a bogeyman in my head.” 

“Fuck you,” Jason grated. 

“Right back atcha,” Dick snapped. 

“Boys!” Barbara yelled. Silence resulted, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Dick, I managed to get into a security camera in a bodega nearby—it showed Bruce passing through about twenty minutes ago. Sending you the location now.” 

“Right,” Dick said. He glared at his brother, poising his hands on his hips. Barbara struggled not to find it cute. “Guess I’ll just go take care of that, then. Leave you to wastrel around here, doing nothing productive. Just like always.”

“Wow. Nice SAT word there, golden boy. Too bad it’s a noun, not a verb.” 

“Anything can be a verb if you try hard enough,” Dick said primly.

“Sure, if you’re Shakespeare,” Jason said. “But I have some bad news for you on that front—” 

“Dick,” Barbara said sharply. “Time.”

“Ugh, fine.” Dick lowered his hands and walked toward the door. 

“Wow, henpecked much?” Jason said, leaning his head backward over the couch back to watch Dick leave. 

Dick stopped for a split-second, then shook his head and moved on. “Oh, Little Wing,” he said, as he reached the door. He opened it, then turned back and grinned just before stepping through. “You’re going to regret saying that so much.” 

“Oh, you better believe he is,” Barbara agreed. 

Jason snapped his head upright again and looked around his apartment in concern. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered.

Chapter Text

Bruce reminds himself sternly that: 

1. He cannot stay a cat forever, and the kittens—and more importantly, their mother—will almost certainly not like him in his regular form (he swears that somehow Selina has managed to imprint every cat in Gotham with a visceral dislike for him, which just makes his current situation even more ironic). 
2. He and Alfred can’t possibly enforce their “no more pets” rule with Damian if Bruce starts bringing home strays. Damian already makes trenchant remarks every time there’s a new member of the extended Bat family (Bruce refuses to call it a polycule, no matter what Barbara and Steph have to say on the matter), and those are actual people. If Bruce brings home an animal, all bets are off. He never wants to get out of bed only to step on a turtle again. So he cannot keep these kittens. 

But oh, it’s so hard to remember that when he has one kitten passed out across his shoulders, another kneading at his belly (he’s tried to explain to them that he doesn’t have any milk, but it doesn’t seem to be processing), and a third playing with his tail. They’re just so cute.

Karen takes another picture. He’s pretty much resigned himself to being the star of her instagram at this point, and there’s basically no chance that Barbara or Tim won’t find the photos. He can see the slide show now. It’s going to be worse than that time that Stephanie got a picture of him mock-roughhousing with some cancer kids during that one hospital visit with Superman. He’s a little surprised to realize that he doesn’t really care, especially as he manages to twitch his tail out from under the third kitten and it makes an adorable head-over-heels tumble as it leaps for it, inducing a gleeful squeak from Karen. But then, his dignity in this form was lost the moment they got him into the banana. What more damage can a few pictures—and videos—with the kittens do?

“I should really go back to work,” says Karen, for at least the tenth time. “My lunch break is only supposed to be a half-hour.”

“You can come back this afternoon and play with the kittens,” the bodega owner replies, also for at least the tenth time. He’s over at his computer, working at inventory reports—Bruce has seen a hundred of them—while the store is empty. “I won’t take them back to my apartment until we close up. No point, there’s no one home.” (Bruce learned Karen’s name when the bodega owner greeted her, so clearly she’s a regular; but oddly enough, she hasn’t yet used his name in response). 

“I can’t get a kitten,” she says. “My lease doesn’t allow pets. And I’m not great at keeping things alive. I kill all my plants.” 

“Plants are different than cats,” the bodega owner says. “Plant just sits in the corner, you have to remember to water it and get it light and all that crap. Cat tells you whenever it needs something.” 

“Yeah, but—okay, no. I really have to go,” Karen says. “Thanks, though. I’ll let you know if I hear of anyone looking to adopt!” 

Bruce meows sadly as she actually stands up this time. He likes her. She’s honest, and funny, and nice. And—he hadn’t been able to avoid noticing, given the way she’d picked him up and cuddled him to her chest at one point—she has a very nice rack. 

“Sorry, little dude,” she says, leaning down and rubbing his ears. “I know life’s hard being a Cat-Dad, but capitalism calls. If you don’t like it, go complain to Bruce Wayne about getting me a longer lunch hour, huh?” 

Bruce rears back, surprised and alarmed by the sudden reference to him by name. A second’s reflection soothes his fears, however—of course, she can’t possibly know who he is, and if she did, she wouldn’t refer to him like that. He has thousands of employees, after all, and they’re not all that far from WayneTech headquarters—his father had built it close to the Narrows to help give a lift up to the poor in that struggling neighborhood. This is undoubtedly one of them. 

He’ll have to make sure she gets a raise. 

As Karen leaves, the door clanging behind her, his keen cat ears catch the sound of a siren. He stands up in instinctive reflex, shedding kittens every which way. Their panicked squeaks as they roll across the floor send a pang of guilt through Bruce’s miniscule heart, but of course, they recover with the speed and instant forgetfulness of youth. The one who kept trying to nurse toddles over to bother her mother, and the older cat wakes up with an indignant chirp and then looks over at Bruce with guilt-inducing resignation as her offspring latches on to her milk-heavy dugs. In the meantime, the kitten who had been playing with Bruce’s tail promptly pounces on her sleepy brother, instead, and the two of them tumble headlong across the small store room, wrestling and kicking and biting at each other with playful savagery. It takes them barely twenty seconds of mock-fighting before they accidentally fall on top of their mother and gets their ears boxed for their pains. 

Looking back at them, Bruce almost dives right back into the fray. What’s a little more embarrassment in front of his family, after all? Who cares if Damian seizes the opportunity to fill every room in the mansion with barn animals? If it means that Bruce gets to keep a litter of kittens sleeping at the foot of his bed every night… 

In the end, that’s the thought that spurs him on. He still remembers the agony of losing his pet box turtle, when he was nine. Okay, granted, in retrospect, the fact that it happened two months after his parents died probably had an effect on the landscape. Still, there are other, much more recent, demonstrations of Bruce’s inability to deal well with death. He has, through bitter experience, learned that he cannot cut himself off from human relationships just to protect himself from loss. But he certainly doesn’t need to open himself up to such affection for relatively short-lived pets. And if he can’t keep the kittens… Well. Better to leave now, while the adrenaline running through his veins is giving him the energy and willpower to do so. 

Besides, where sirens go, his family won’t be far behind, and Bruce is really a bit ticked off at the way they keep treating him like he’s somehow become a useless incompetent, just because he no longer has opposable thumbs. It’s insulting. He’s been getting around Gotham by himself for thirty years! 

The bodega owner just waves at him as he heads out into the main store, reminding him again not to get his catty paws on the buffet table. He’s actually quite hungry, so he jumps up on the buffet and steals a small shrimp from the salad bar, feeling rather smug. As if his feet are so much dirtier than the people’s bare hands! 

He heads out the front door, easily leaping over the brick still holding it open, and strolls down the block, feeling happily footloose and fancy-free. He’s certainly not already missing those adorable little balls of fluff. They’re perfectly safe now, and better off without him. 

He gets about halfway down the block when he hears Jason’s voice, raising above the noise of the street. He quickly dashes into the nearest shelter, which turns out to be a subway stairwell. 

Well. There’s an idea. 

He hasn’t taken the subway in years—unfortunately, a baseball cap and sunglasses can only do so much as a disguise when you’re six-foot-four and built like a linebacker—but he’s fought enough villains through the tunnels to have the system memorized. He was planning on sneaking into someone’s car to get back to the Manor, but this is an even better idea. 

He feels vaguely guilty as he dashes through the turnstiles without paying—oh, granted, he’s given the transportation department enough money to pay for a million tickets, but it’s the principle of the thing—and to make up for it, he ignores the dank shadows underneath the benches, despite how they call to his feline heart, and instead takes a responsible position on one of the subway seats, sitting upright with his back legs bent underneath him and his front legs straight between them. People giggle and point at him, some taking pictures, and a few stop and try to pet him as they go to their seats; but they quickly learn to leave him alone when he growls or hisses and dodges away from importunate hands. Gothamites take everything in stride. 

He has to switch trains in midtown. It’s a little difficult when he can’t really see well enough to read the signs, but he remembers the way, and he can understand the conductors much better in this body than he ever did in his own. 

It’s on the second train that it happens. The train he managed to catch is a local rather than an express, which means relatively long ride—about twenty minutes already past and ten more to go. There are two young women who keep looking at him and whispering to each other for the entire time. One of them had tried to pet him at the beginning of the ride, but he slid easily away from her outstretched hand, and she didn’t persist long enough for him to need to resort to more drastic measures. He’s given up on his dignified posture and is loafing on the seat—dozing off, really—when one of them comes down the aisle and sits on the seat across from him. 

“Hey, buddy,” she says gently. 

He opens his eyes a crack, then closes them again. He should probably wake up; he doesn’t want to sleep through his stop, after all. But his energy has been waning for a while—his stupid body and its need for naps—and the subway seat is at least warm now, and its curved surface makes a comfortable place to curl up. 

“Would you like a treat?” the woman asks. She reaches out and sets something on the seat next to him. It smells delicious. 

He scrambles to his feet, saliva flooding his mouth. It’s an open can of tuna, about half full, and he really didn’t realize he was this hungry—but then, one tiny shrimp and a few slices of salami aren’t much to fuel an entire day, especially when that day includes cat-sitting several kittens, fighting off another cat, starting dumpster fires, escaping from his children… 

Perhaps what he should be surprised at is that he didn’t feel the hunger earlier. 

“It’s okay, little dude,” the woman says gently. “All for you.” 

Well. It would be rude to turn down such generosity. He meows his gratitude and buries his nose in the tuna, eating eagerly. His tastebuds are different in this form—tuna is an even stronger taste, meaty and delicious, but he can also taste the metal of the tin and various notes in the water it was canned with. By the time he realizes that the bitter undertone isn’t just another byproduct of the canning process, it’s too late. 

He stares up at the woman in horror—she doesn’t look like a supervillain, but then, there’s always the exception that proves the rule with Gothan’s rogues’ tendency toward the dramatic—and then jumps down to the floor, working his mouth and lungs, trying to make himself throw up. This body does that so easily—

But his legs are already giving out from under him as he lands, and he’s helpless to do more than struggle weakly as the woman leans over and picks him up, cradling him in her arms. 

“It’s okay, buddy,” he hears distantly, as the world spins around him and goes dark. “We’re going to take good care of you, I promise…”