Chapter Text
It was cold. So cold that the tip of his nose felt like it was frozen, so cold that his fingers were feeling vaguely numb even within the warm confines of his gloves. But there was no way that he would let the cold keep him away from his nightly escapades.
Gotham herself was a very cold place in general. One might even call certain parts of the city freezing. With Crime Alley as the center of the coldness.
None of that deterred Tim Drake as he climbed fire escapes and hid behind dumpsters as he followed Gotham’s iconic vigilantes around during the nights. The cold was nothing but a small nuisance as he strived to capture the perfect pictures to add to his ever growing collection.
Tim had been a fan of Batman and Robin, he had started out with watching snippets of the Dynamic Duo fighting on the television and reading about their exploits in the newspapers. It had all come to a head when, at nine years old, he saw Robin preform a trick on TV that he had only ever seen one person pull off.
Dick Grayson.
The more that he watched closely to the reports and videos, the more he knew that he was certain of Robin’s identity. It wasn’t hard to deduce from there who Batman was. None other than Dick Grayson’s guardian and adoptive father, Bruce Wayne. It made a lot of sense. Considering the vast arsenal that Batman possessed which had to be funded by an immense fortune.
Once he knew who they were, Tim started going out after them. He was utterly fascinated by them. Even when Dick Grayson moved on from being Robin and became Nightwing and a new Robin showing up on the scene- Jason Todd, who was Bruce Wayne’s newly adopted son- Tim still dutifully stuck with his nightly activities.
He wrinkled his nose at the uncomfortable feeling of the tip being cold. Tim pulled up his scarf to cover the lower half of his face as he leaned against the ventilation fan on the roof of a building.
This area of the city had had an influx of criminal activities over the past few weeks and was currently a prime location for Batman and Robin sightings.
As aware as he was of his surroundings, trying to keep an eye out for either vigilante, Tim was running through many different thoughts in his mind. He had to make his way back to the mansion earlier than normal since there was the looming threat of snow hanging over him. He’d need to clean up his clothing and try to get a good night’s rest before his housekeeper showed up for the day. She was used to him getting up early in the morning and he didn’t want to give her any reason to worry about him. This was a relatively new housekeeper so he was still testing the waters around her.
Nothing would halt his activities more than someone trying to nose their way into his business.
It was already past midnight when Tim started getting uncomfortable. For all that his winter clothing was warm, sitting still in an attempt to get proper shots for photographs wasn’t a good way to stay warm. Neither Batman nor Robin had shown up anywhere in the vicinity for the night and Tim was tempted to just give up. There was no use staying out in the cold and getting sick one night when he could go home and stay healthy to go out another night.
Tim brought his hands up to his mouth and blew on them with the hope that they would warm up. He let his camera hang around his neck as he stood up, moving his fingers as he started walking towards the fire escape so he could get down off of the building.
As he descended down the ladder he caught himself thinking that it had been a quiet night in general. Not a lot of activity had gone down in the area that he had stationed himself in. Besides a mugging that he had watched from a distance, not many people had been walking outside.
Tim guessed that most Gothamites had the sense to stay inside with the cold weather.
He hopped the short distance down from the fire escape to the ground of the alleyway and made his way towards the street where he had locked up his bicycle.
He was just about to turn a corner when someone ran into the alleyway and bumped into him. Tim let out a surprised shout as he fell onto his behind by the force of it. Whoever had bumped into him quickly grabbed him off of the ground and started pulling him behind a dumpster.
Tim tried to scream, but a hand quickly covered his mouth and no amount of squirming that he did was enough to free himself from the tight hold. Oh god. After all of this time he was going to die in a dirty alleyway behind a dumpster. After a few years of running around after Batman and Robin on rooftops, alleyways, and hiding behind large objects, this was how his life was going to end.
He could feel tears bubble up in his eyes, which stung as they rolled down his cheeks as the tear tracks froze almost instantly and his screaming had started to change into sobs that bubbled up from deep within him.
“Hush, little one. We don’t want to be found.” A gentle voice whispered in his ear. It was a woman’s voice. Her grip was still tight on him as she reached up and patted his beanie covered head in an effort to calm him down.
For a few moments the only sound in the alleyway was Tim’s frantic breathing through his nose, but he soon heard men coming from the direction of the mouth of the alley. “Where’d that bitch run off to?”
“Hell if I know.”
There was a thudding noise and a groan of pain. “Well, wise up! She’s gonna regret stealin’ from the boss.”
Boots thumped loudly as the man who was speaking continued walking. The other man who had probably gotten hit groaned. “If we catch her. Y’know how hard it is to catch her.”
The noises started fading away, probably as the pursuers continued on in their search for the woman.
Tim managed to calm himself down slightly as the sounds faded away completely and the woman started relaxing as well. He grabbed onto the hand that was over his mouth, trying to pull it away, but she held on tightly, even as he felt her lean to look around the dumpster to make sure that there was no one else in the area.
It was only when she stood up, no doubt certain that her pursuers weren’t around anymore, that she let Tim go. He gasped in a breath of air as he launched himself away from her. Tim stumbled to the ground, turning as he crab walked to the other end of the alley, pressing his back against the wall of the opposite building.
Even though her back was turned to him as she walked towards the opening of the alley, Tim was able to recognize her immediately. It was hard not to, with her skin tight leather suit, whip on her hip and the iconic cowl with ears on top of it.
Oh god. No Batman and Robin in sight the entire night. No rogue or major player, and now he was in an alley with Catwoman.
Tim knew that he didn’t need to be too worried with her around- or at least he hoped so- since she wasn’t usually the type to go out with the plan of hurting people. He had just gotten his bearings back and was toying with the idea to run off in the other direction when Catwoman turned back towards him.
He froze as he looked up at the yellow lenses of her goggles. They stared at each other for a few moments before Catwoman sighed, her shoulders dropping as she relaxed a little bit more and lifted her goggles up onto her forehead.
The first thing he noticed was that her eyes were startlingly green, almost piercing, and he was captivated by them even as she walked towards him. Tim pulled his legs up to his chest in an attempt to make himself smaller than he already was. There would be no cause for her to think that he might strike out at her.
She crouched down in front of him, placing one of her hands on the ground to keep her balance. Not that she needed it. Tim had seen the crazy acrobatics that she performed. Often times they were almost as impressive as anything that Dick Grayson did. Tim looked down at the hand and back up to her as he felt his heart, which had begun to calm down, start to beat wildly in his chest again.
Her mouth turned down into a frown and her features softened as she regarded him. “I’m sorry. I must’ve frightened you.”
He didn’t say anything as she spoke softly to him, probably trying to sound soothing. Now he started worrying about the camera around his neck. Catwoman had sticky fingers, he didn’t want her to steal it from him.
“What are you doing out in the cold, kitten?” She tried again, trying to coax him into talking back to her. “Shouldn’t you be warm at home with your parents?”
“No one’s at home.” Oh dear. Tim felt his eyes widen as he let that little snippet slip out unintentionally. He slapped a gloved hand over his mouth.
Catwoman’s frown deepened and her brow furrowed as she took in his words. “Even if there’s no one home, that doesn’t mean that you have to be out here.”
Tim opened his fingers so he could talk to her from behind them. A sad attempt at keeping himself covered up. “If you’re so worried about why I’m out here because it’s cold, then why are you out here?”
She looked taken back by his words for a split second before she let out a soft huff of laughter. “Alright, hold your horses, kiddo. I asked you first.”
Tim just narrowed his eyes at her, closing his fingers over his mouth once more to try and convey to her that he wasn’t open to talking to her anymore. She stared down at him again and she sighed after a short while.
“Fine. How about we both agree that we’re out here for our own reasons?” Tim eyed her suspiciously before slowly nodding his head. “Good. Now, tell me where you live so I can get you back home safely.”
“I can get home just fine by myself!” Tim protested. There was no way that he was going to lead Catwoman over to his house. It was filled with various antiquities that his father and mother had brought back from Jack Drake’s archaeological digs. It’d be like opening the den of the Forty Thieves with a soft muttering of open sesame. “I live close by. I don’t need your help.”
Catwoman scoffed and reached up with her free hand. Tim flinched and curled in on himself, closing his eyes tightly and bracing himself for something, either a punch or a slap or anything, and was surprised when she simply patted his head again.
“No need to hiss at me, little spitfire. I got the message.” Her hand left his head with that being said and he heard her boots scraping against the concrete.
Tim was left in silence for a minute before he looked up once more. Catwoman was no longer crouching in front of him, in fact, she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He quickly got up, shaking his tense limbs as he wandered around, looking for any trace of her.
He didn’t forget to look up either, as most people tended not to do. He wandered around the alley for a few minutes before deciding that she had actually left and then started running towards where his bike was. Never before had he biked home so fast in all his nightly outings. Tim peered out of the windows and closed all of the curtains. He didn’t think that he had been followed home, but one could never be sure.
-
It had been two weeks since his encounter with Catwoman. Since then he had only been out a total of three nights. Winter had started to settle in Gotham and had taken her into its tight grip.
Thick snow had fallen on the city and a bone freezing cold was hanging in the air. Tim hadn’t let winter hinder him that much before, but this winter was most certainly the harshest in the past few years.
Tim was happily clutching his camera to his chest as he walked across a rooftop. At first he had been tempted on staying home, with how cold the night had become, but there had been a part of him that had started beckoning out into the night and he had gone out anyways. It turned out that his gut feeling hadn’t led him astray, because he had stumbled upon quite the epic fight between Batman and Robin and Penguin and his goons. At one point Robin had even jumped over his hiding place and Tim had quickly snapped a few pictures.
As soon as he was sure that the fight had moved away from the building he was on top of, Tim crawled out of his hiding spot with the plan to get home as soon as possible. There was no doubt in his mind that there were going to be gorgeous pictures on this film roll.
His fingers were tingling, not because of the cold, but because he wanted to go down into his dark room back at the mansion and develop the photos as soon as possible.
Tim was just close to a water drain pipe on the side of the building that he would use to shimmy down when he heard boots crunching the gravel on the ground of the roof.
“Well, well, well. Would you look what the cat dragged in?”
He quickly turned to face the woman who had approached him, but in doing so his boots slipped over the icy metal edge of the roof. Tim felt his heart drop as he started falling sideways towards the alley and it jolted when something wrapped around his waist and pulled him back. A loud rush of air escaped from him as he smacked onto the roof on his side.
Tim groaned in pain as he reached to his camera, hoping that it hadn’t gotten damaged in the fall.
“You almost fall off a five-story building and the first thing you do is check your camera?” A familiar incredulous voice asked him.
He rolled onto his back, tilting his head and arching his back slightly to look at the woman behind him. In over three years he hadn’t once been caught out during his nightly endeavors and now he had been caught by the same person twice in as many weeks.
Catwoman had a frown on her face and one of her hands was planted on her hip as she walked over to him. She swiftly moved the other hand and Tim could feel something unravelling from around his waist. Her whip was expertly coiled up with only one hand as she stopped right by him, her boots bracketing his head. She scowled down at him as she bent down to regard him.
“Tell me what you’re doing out here. I’m not going to let you off so easily like last time.”
Tim gulped at her commanding tone. This was a part of Catwoman that he had only seen from a distance when she got tired of bumbling henchmen and had to resort to forceful coercion to get them to talk. “Uh…” Her green eyes narrowed ever further as he tried to force words out.
“I take pictures of Batman and Robin.”
Oh god. If he wasn’t so embarrassed by his behavior and the fact that Catwoman was leaning over him, Tim was sure that he would’ve slapped his forehead at his stupidity.
Catwoman’s scowl melted as it shifted into a confused look. “What?”
“Well… I go out at night. I take pictures. I’m a fan?” He tried to redeem himself, but there wasn’t anything to save at this point. He had already hit rock bottom.
She stared down for a few more moments before she managed to speak again. “You take pictures of the Batman and his little sidekick? You roam the roofs and alleys of Gotham to take pictures of them without worrying about the dangerous people that are out at night?” If she put it like that, it sounded a lot more stupid than it actually was.
Tim looked away from her, not yet daring to sit up as it would put his back to her. “Y-yes?” He squeaked out uncertainly.
Her only response was a soft “huh” and she started tapping her clawed fingertips against her hip.
Tim waited in baited silence as she seemed to take him in. He knew that he didn’t look like much. His jacket was big and puffy, almost to the point where it drowned him. His cheeks were probably bright red from both the cold and his embarrassment and he could feel his bangs were sticking to his cheeks.
“Wait. Has Batsy ever caught you before?”
He shook his head, ignoring the gravel shifting underneath him. She made another confused noise as she straightened, no longer looming over him. Tim took this opportunity to roll away until he could sit up to face her. Her eyes fixated on the camera on his chest and he clung onto it protectively.
Catwoman turned and crouched down in front of him again, reminding him of their first encounter and her head tilted to the side. “How about a nice big mug of hot chocolate? My apartment isn’t far.”
The words wouldn’t compute in his mind. Had Catwoman, notorious burglar and nemesis of Batman, just asked him to drink hot chocolate with her? He must have looked very confused, because she started laughing. “I’m sorry. Did I startle you?”
Tim’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he could think of a retort to her question. “Why?”
Her eyes glistened as the corners of her mouth curled up into a smile. “Why indeed? It’s cold. Surely you’d like to warm up a little? Also, I like taking in strays.” His hesitation was probably more that pronounced, because she just shook her head. “I don’t bite. I promise.” Catwoman got up then and held out her hand.
Tim stared at her hand. Encased in black leather and sharp glinting claws in his face. She twitched her fingers and the claws retracted and she wiggled them to try and spur him into making a decision.
Even Tim didn’t know why he reached out to grab her hand. For years he had been on the peripheral of the vigilante community and now he was suddenly being pulled into it by Catwoman of all people. Her smile widened, her teeth glinting in the moonlight as she pulled him up and close to her. “Hang on.” Was the only warning that he got before she grabbed him by the waist, pulling him close and cracked her whip. Within the next few seconds he was flying in the air and landing on the roof of the building next to the one they had been on before.
A rush went through him like he hadn’t ever felt before as they landed. A giggle, which edged on the border of hysterical, slipped from his lips as she started tugging him towards the edge of the roof. Tim held onto her shoulder as they repeated the process again, swinging from building to building until they eventually stopped on a roof where Catwoman pulled away from him.
“We’re here.”
Tim took a moment to take in his surroundings. He wasn’t exactly sure how long it had taken them to arrive at their destination, but he could quickly tell that they weren’t anywhere near where they had stared. Catwoman walked to the roof access door and he moved to follow her, but his legs shook and he fell onto his knees.
The sound of him falling alerted Catwoman and she turned back to him. Her hands were on her hips again as she smirked over at him. “A mix of adrenaline and vertigo. Don’t worry. It’ll wear off in a moment or two.”
He closed his eyes, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to try and calm himself down again. The rush that he had felt flying between Gotham’s rooftops eventually went down and he tried to get up again. His legs were still a bit wobbly, but not so much that he wasn’t able to follow Catwoman into the building.
Her apartment wasn’t like anything that he had imagined. They were technically still in a part of Gotham that was considered to not be well off, but it was quite extravagant. Tim could only imagine that it came along with her tendency to steal shiny things.
Tim awkwardly stood in the hallway as Catwoman walked into the apartment, hanging her whip up on a hook on the wall and pulling her eared hood down. Her short dark hair was plastered against her skull like she had been sweating a lot. He couldn’t help but wonder how she stayed warm during such cold nights. Surely a leather suit wouldn’t be enough to keep the biting cold of Gotham’s winter out?
“Take off your boots and hang up your jacket. You can sit on the couch while I change and warm up our drinks.” Catwoman walked to the other side of the apartment, her hips swaying as she slipped into another room.
Tim sniffed, wiggling his nose as it started to warm up again and did as she asked. The living area was small, but very comfortable. And warm. It was nice and toasty in the apartment. He shuffled over, sitting on the white couch that looked like it belonged in France over a hundred years ago. He sat himself down on the edge of it, looking around the room. It was simple, yet had a few touches here and there. Most of the furnishings were dark besides the white couches. Some paintings hung on the wall, which he was sure were probably expensive along with some objects in glass cases. He rubbed his hand over his nose as it tingled.
It was only a few minutes later before Catwoman walked into the room with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. She smiled at him as she handed him his and moved to sit down in an armchair across from him. She pulled her legs up, tucking them underneath her as she watched him.
Tim squirmed slightly in his seat. He shimmied back a little until he hit the back of the couch, leaving his feet hovering over the floor. The mug was warm in his hands, quickly starting to heat up his fingers. He was careful not to hit his camera, which was still around his neck, as he held it. It was only until Catwoman took a sip of her own drink that he dared to drink some of his hot chocolate.
Rationally he knew that if she had wanted to drug him, all she had to do was slip something into his mug and not her own, but the smell was enticing. The feeling of the warm drink running down his throat and into his stomach was glorious. It was already starting to warm him up.
He and Catwoman stared at each other as they drank their hot beverages. Tim still wary about her possible ulterior motives and Catwoman undoubtedly just taking him in.
“How old are you?” Tim was surprised that that was the first question that she asked him.
If he had been in her position he would’ve maybe asked for a name first or perhaps what a kid like him was thinking, going out into the night to take pictures of Batman and Robin.
“I’m twelve.” Tim anticipated her reaction. The slight surprise that she wasn’t able to mask and the subtle eyebrow raise. “Yes, that’s my actual age.” He felt the need to add on. He knew that he was small. It was something that was pointed out to him quite often. Short in stature and skinny.
“How old are you?” He rebutted, trying to keep her from asking him any other unnecessary questions.
She tutted as she shook her head. “You know it’s not polite to ask a lady that, surely.” He remained silent, pressing the mug against his cheek as he stared at her. “Somewhere in between twenty and forty.” Catwoman eventually replied, the curl of her mouth pleased.
Tim was about to ask her another question when a cat walked into the room from what had to have been Catwoman’s bedroom and walked into the living room. It had long, white hair and started purring as it jumped on the arm of the chair that Catwoman was sitting on. She idly stroked the feline’s head before the cat seemed to notice Tim’s presence. It stopped and looked over at him with bright blue eyes before it jumped down and made its way over to him. It was still staring at him as it started sniffing at his toes. He wiggled them to see what the cat would do, but all it did was give his toes a disdainful look before lowering itself to the ground. Tim started when the cat leapt up onto his lap. It seemed to be testing him as it pressed its paws into his thighs and it eventually walked towards his chest and started butting its head against his elbow.
Catwoman started chuckling from her perch. “She likes you. You can pet her, if you’d like.”
Tim had never really been around animals before. His parents wouldn’t let him keep a pet and since he didn’t really have that many friends, he hadn’t been exposed to them much at all. He held his fingers in front of the cat’s nose, holding in his breath as the feline sniffed at them. Soon she started purring like she had done with Catwoman and he started scratching its head.
“Her name is Rosa.”
The question wasn’t voiced, but it hung in the air. Tim was still running his fingers through Rosa’s long, soft white fur as he and Catwoman started their staring contest again. Her head was tilted to the side like it had been on the rooftop earlier.
There wasn’t much harm to telling her his name, at least his first name. She could’ve just left him on the rooftop without saying anything, or let him fall down when he had slipped, or robbed him of his most precious belonging when he had been disoriented. As far as he was concerned, there was no malicious intent coming from the woman. “I’m Tim.”
“Tim.” She parroted, as if testing out the name as it rolled over her tongue. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Selina.”
His heart started thudding against his ribcage again. He knew Catwoman’s name! Of course, there was no way for him to be sure that she was telling him the truth, but why would she start lying to him now?
“Now, Tim. Why don’t you start telling me a bit more about your nighttime hobby? Who knows? Maybe I might teach you a trick or two.”