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Bart watches as Cassie nervously as said girl contacts the watch tower, sweat running down Bart’s neck as he waits for Batman to answer. Eventually, the sound of a click echoes throughout the room and the device connects with the watch tower. Batman’s gruff voice fills the silence that hangs heavily in the space.
“What is your need for contacting us?” He asks, the standard greeting sounding odd coming from his mouth. Cassie purses her lips, dread evident on her face as she tries to force the words out of her mouth.
“Ti-Robin,” Cassie catches herself, “is in trouble.” Her words are strained, waiting for him to scold her, or give any sort of reaction, really. Silence fills the room.
“What happened?” Batman finally asks, his words coming out far more human than previously, concern evident in his tone. The sound of something hitting the floor comes through the speaker of the device. Bart’s eyes widen as he and Cassie glance at each other. Cassie turns her attention back to the device.
“He got kidnapped. We were doing a scouting mission and he got surrounded; we tried to get him back but the guy we were scouting got away from us. We, uh, need your help.” Cassie gulps.
“Do you know anything else about the person?” He asks, quiet mumblings coming from his side of the call before he and the person he’s talking to seems to be talking to come to an agreement.
“We don’t know much, just that he seems to be some sort of magic user, although we aren’t sure. That’s what we were scouting for.” Cassie responds, tilting her head ot the side curiously when the telltale sound of the Zeta tube rings in her ears. The device disconnects as Batman appears in the doorway. Bart and Cassie raise their eyebrows.
“Do you know where he is being held?” Batman questions. Bart shakes his head.
“We tried to find any magical signatures from the area we were in, but there was no evidence of any magic being used.” He bites his lip, looking away when Batman focuses his whole attention on the boy. Batman grunts.
“I will contact Oracle. We will find him.” He says, determination heavy in his words. Cassie and Bart nod, the latter resolving to be at least a little helpful in this hunt.
~~~
Batman walks back into the room after several hours of holing himself up in the security room, talking to Oracle as they both scour every possible place that Tim could’ve been taken. Bart, Cassie, and now Kon– who had returned from his fly around the world in an attempt to find Tim– look up at Batman eagerly, awaiting the words that Batman is bound to say. He takes a deep breath.
“I have located Robin.” He says, his face unchanging. Regardless of Batman’s obvious unenthusiastic reaction to this news, the three young heroes smile amongst themselves with relief. “However,” Batman continues, “we have found that the warehouse that he is being held in is unstable and there are traces of Kryptonite in the foundation, meaning that Superboy is unable to aid us in rescuing him.” Kon’s face falls, a frown overtaking his smile as he lets out a shallow breath.
“You can stay here, I’m sure that Tim will want to rest for a little afterwards. You can make sure he has everything he wants.” Cassie tries, Kon nods sadly.
“Okay,” the word comes out as a whisper, Kon obviously feeling a bit useless due to the circumstances. “If it’s just Kryptonite, I should’ve been able to hear his heartbeat, though? I flew everywhere and I couldn’t?” Kon speaks louder this time, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Batman nods.
“Yes, we found that the people who build the warehouse used lead-tainted wood stain and paint, which the wood soaked up, creating a barrier against the building. Superman was unable to locate Robin, as well.” Batman reassures, or, at least, reassures as much as the stoic vigilante can manage. Kon nods understandingly.
“So it’ll just be me, Cassie, and you?” Bart clarifies. Batman nods.
“Correct; Superman will be waiting for us a safe distance away and Nightwing will be in the area in case we need backup. We will arrive at the warehouse and we will observe the situation from afar before rushing in to rescue him. I presume that you have been trained on hostage situations?” Batman waits for their nods before continuing. “Very well. Ensure to abide by the rules of hostage situations; do not spook the persons who may harm the hostage and try to asses any injuries that the hostage may have before moving them to a safe location, preferable out of sight from the kidnappers. Do you understand the plan?” Batman questions. The three nods, despite Kon not partaking in the mission. Batman gives one nod before telling them to go get suited up, and the group of vigilante/heroes are on their way to rescue Tim within minutes.
~~~
Impulse stands on the rafter, watching Robin struggle in his bindings from above. Wonder Girl and Batman are beside him, Batman giving the other two hand signals about how to proceed, although Impulse doesn’t pay attention. He knows that Wonder Girl will give him a run down when they start taking action. The rogue is giving Robin some sort of monologue, talking about how he’ll finally get the recognition he ‘deserves’ for ‘caging the bat’s bird’. It’s not the most creative thing that a rogue has come up with, and half of the monologue is nearly word for word one of Red Hood’s monologues, so there is that. If it wasn’t plagiarized, it would’ve been a solid 6/10, but with the plagiarism, it’s a 3/10, and that’s only because the guy did actually manage to capture Robin and keep him for more than a few hours (it’s been nearly six hours by this point).
Impulse is shaken from his thoughts by a tap on the shoulder, and he turns to see that it was Wonder Girl, who gives him a small nod, the go-ahead to grab Robin. Batman seems to already be preparing for the fight, not paying attention to Impulse’ movements. Said speedster shrugs and runs down, but when he gets within a few feet of the rogue, his entire body goes pin straight, his hair sticking straight up as he shakes for a moment before getting dropped into a heap on the floor. He hears Robin shout, worry tainting his voice, but Impulse can’t seem to process the words. As if the electrical barrier took away his auditory processing centre, but only the part that processes words. Wonder Girl’s voice follows closely behind Robin’s, a laugh overlapping with Wonder Girl’s questions. They’re questions, Impulse can now decern that, and slowly he is able to tune into the words being thrown around the space they’re in. An unfamiliar voice cackles.
“It seems that my meta field came in handy. I was worried for a second there that you’d just let your Robin stay in my custody.” The voice, Impulse can now label as belonging to the rogue, mocks. Batman lets out an angry grunt. Wonder Girl helps Impulse back up, holding him while he regains his balance and tries to fight off the frazzled dizziness that the barrier caused. He takes a deep breath and digs his feet into the concrete below them, sending the rogue an angry glare to pair with Batman’s grunt. The rogue smiles in return.
“Come on, come and get me.” The rogue teases, the barrier’s slightly bluish hue that’s now visible flickering out, Batman immediately charging to attack the rogue. Bart tries to run, but he can barely run, as if the barrier took away his powers. He glaces at Wonder Girl, panic coursing through his veins. Wonder Girl seems to share the sentiment, shrugging worriedly before charging into the fight. The rogue, now able to be confidently labelled as a magician, summons a hoard of clones, diving under Batman’s punch and running into the crowd, causing the three to lose sight of the true magician. Impulse stands there uselessly, trying not to cry as he desperately tries to regain even the smallest bit of speed, but he feels like he’s moving in slow motion. He’s barely able to dodge the spell that one of the magicians cast (can the clones cast spells as well?).
Batman and Wonder Girl are lead away from Robin, but before Impulse can say anything, another cackle fills the room, the original magician (probably?) standing beside Robin with a wide grin, a wand adorning his hand as he points it at Robin.
“Don’t worry, bats and friends, I’m sure he’ll be feline fine after this,” the magician laughs again before a spell shoots out of the man’s wand, Robin disappearing along with all of the clones and seemingly, the original magician as well. Impulse stumbles, trying to get to Robin, but without his speed (or rather, with the negative speed he seems to have), Wonder Girl and Batman get there way before him. Batman rumages through the Robin suit, trying to locate the small lump that lays within it.
Batman lets out a sigh before holding up a small, black blob. Said black blob lets out a disgruntled meow before Impulse finally passes out, exhaustion overtaking his body.
~~~
The next time he wakes up, the black blob from before is laying on his chest. Bart blinks, confused as the memories start coming back to him, and with a little more observation, he can see that the black blob seems to have fur, and also cute little ears peeking out of the little circle. Bart smiles, lifting an arm to pet the cat, who lifts up their head to stare at Bart, unimpressed. He never knew that a cat could look to unamused by an action. Cassie wander into the med bay, a smile on her face when she sees Bart awake.
“We have to run vitals, but whatever spell was casted on you when you ran into the barrier seems to have worn off while you were asleep.” Cassie explains. Bart nods, trying to shift himself into a seating position, but the cat growls as him. Bart raises an eyebrow as Cassie sighs.
“Tim, let him sit up, please.” She tells the cat tiredly. Bart make a confused, but interested, noise. Cassie turns back to him.
“The magician turned Tim into a cat. Batman’s been trying to contact Zatanna but she’s off world right now. He refuses to call Constantine but I think Dick is wearing him down.” She explains, but Bart has just as many, if not more, questions than before.
“How long have I been out?” he asks, his voice scratchy as he shifts himself up. Tim lets out a sound of displeasure at being moved, but allows Bart to reposition before claiming the speedster’s lap. Cassie starts running the checkup, fastening a blood pressure cup around Bart’s arm and a pulse reader on his forefinger.
“About 16 hours.” She responds. Bart nods slowly.
“What… happened?” He follows up with. Cassie bites her lip.
“I may have to check for a concussion.” She says offhandedly. “We went to go rescue Tim, but the barrier that the magician had up stripped your powers and basically switched your cells, which means that they were moving extremely slow as opposed to your normal, extremely fast-moving cells. The magician summoned a bunch of clones of himself to distract us before turning Tim into a feline version of himself and fleeing. We can’t yet tell if Tim still has his memories or not, or even if his feline instincts override his bat-instinct, although the latter seems far more likely, since Tim seems to be reluctantly spending time with us. We can’t be sure though, since he’s uncooperative.” Cassie gives Tim a pointed look, said boy (cat?) meows and goes back to sleep. Bart huffs out a laugh.
“What happened after?” Bart tries to get them back on track. Cassie hums.
“We brought you and Tim back and basically all we’ve done is run tests. Dick ended up coming to the tower with us to take care of Tim. Although he has shown to be fairly self sufficient as of now.” Bart nods as Cassie finishes her check up.
“Is Kon here?” He looks up at Cassie, curiousness in his tone. Cassie shakes her head.
“He had to help Clark with something, he can’t say what though. He said he’ll be back either tonight tomorrow morning.” Bart hums, looking at the wall in front of him.
“So am I good to go?” He asks. Cassie smiles.
“It looks like you’re back to normal, but be careful when you stand up. I’ll get you some food and water.” Bart starts shifting himself to get off the bed as Cassie speaks, smiling when Tim glares at him before jumping off of his lap and running out of the room. Cassie stares at where Tim left from for a second but turns back to help Bart off the bed, leading him to the living room where Dick and Batman are talking, Dick trying to convince Batman to call Constantine. Cassie leaves him to go grab him the sustenance she promised, and that’s when Dick notices him.
“Oh, Bart, good, you’re okay. We were all worried for a bit.” He looks at Bart with a relieved smile. Batman turns to Bart and nods sharply.
“Yes. It is good that you have suffered no lasting damage.” Dick elbows Batman in the chest and Bart tries to sink himself deeper into the couch, as if trying to disappear.
“Be nice.” Dick hisses, and Batman looks at hands visible, palms facing Dick in a placating gesture.
“Uh, thanks. Is Tim okay?” Bart tries to change the subject. Dick and Batman exchange glances.
“We think so, but Batman,” Dick says pointedly, “refuses to call Constantine, so we can’t say for sure.” Bart nods, his eyes darting around the room from the awkward tension. He doesn’t spend much time around Batman, or really any of the bats that aren’t Tim, and they always act very weirdly around him. He thinks, or rather, hopes, that they act weirdly around all of Tim’s friends, and that is isn’t just Bart, but he really can’t be too sure. Cassie does usually act weirdly around them, as well, so maybe it’s just the Young Justice team as a whole. Really, though, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Bart wants Cassie to come back so that it’s hopefully a little less awkward. Hopefully.
~~~
In the end, Batman does eventually crack and call Constantine, who is available almost immediately (much to Batman’s dismay, who wanted him to be too busy as well so that there would be an excuse to wait for Zatanna, but he’s also grateful because he does want to know if Tim will be alright, and when he will turn back into his human form).
It does take a while for Constantine to arrive, though, so while they wait, Bart tries to play with Tim. Except Tim decidedly hates the idea of playing with string, and keeps hissing at Bart when he tries to play with Tim.
“Tim is so mean to me,” Bart pouts, turning away from the cat and looking at Cassie, who just laughs at him. When he glances back at Tim, he’s giving Bart the most annoyed look that he can muster, which doesn’t look very threatening as much as it does look cute. Bart coos, grinning when Tim swats at him. “You’re so cute, Timmy.” That seems to be the last straw for Tim, who jumps off of the pile of boxes that he was on previously and saunters over to the coffee table. When Tim jumps up, he looks directly into Bart’s eye as he pushes Bart’s cup off of the table, maintaining eye contact as the sound of the glass hitting the floor and shattering echoes throughout the room. Cassie bursts out laughing, clutching her stomach while watching as Tim jumps off the table, expertly avoiding the glass, and walks to the kitchen, where he jumps up to the cabinets and perches there, watching them all as they stare at him with both shock and amusement. Kon, who had just arrived a few minutes prior, is trying to bite down a laugh and even Batman is smiling, which Bart doesn’t ever think he’s seen before, but their little bubble is shattered when Constantine appears in the room. Batman’s smile drops, Cassie and Kon sober up, and tension grows thick in the air. Constantine clears his throat.
“So, who’s my patient today?” He asks, his eyes bouncing around th room as Batman glares at him. Dick gives Batman a longsuffering look before turning his gaze back to Constantine.
“Robin is. He’s up there.” Dick points to the cabinet where Tim sits, lording over the rest of the people present. Constantine takes a deep breath, clearly trying to keep his composure.
“So Tim is a cat. Who is out of arms reach.” Constantine clarifies sarcastically. Batman nods.
“Yes. I need you to make him human again.” Batman says gruffly. Constantine sighs.
“I can’t make any promises, but I can try.” He walks toward the kitchen cabinet that Tim in perches on, staring at the cat as he crouches and looks down at Constantine, as if trying to get nearer to him. “I need to pick you up.” Constantine states. Bart snickers, amused at the way that Constantine phrased that. Tim meows back at him, not bothering to move. Constantine turns around to stare at Kon expectantly. Kon raises an eyebrow, pointing to himself like that one stock image with the boy in the white shirt. Bart nearly laughs at the comparison, but he pushes the thought away and focuses on the situation at hand.
“You want me to grab him?” Kon asks, obviously trying to rile Constantine up by acting oblivious. Constantine responds with a glare. Kon relents and flies up to the cabinet, trying to chase Tim’s small form. It take a minute, but eventually Kon captures Tim and borderline throws the feline at Constantine, who grabs Tim with panic flashing on his face. Bart eyes Cassie, but doesn’t say anything. “I like him more as a human. He’s easier to catch.” Kon shakes his head solemnly, although amusement taints his tone. Nobody bothers with a response.
Constantine moves back to the living room, holding the squirming cat with annoyance as he draws a small circle on the floor, separating it into sections using symbols before mumbling words that come out like gibberish, placing a confused Tim in the center of a circle before moving away quickly. There’s a flash of light and once it dims, in the place of the cat stood… a disgruntled cat, still? Everyone turns questioningly to Constantine, who shrugs.
“I tried. It ain’t my fault that he’s stubborn.” And with that, Constantine disappears, leaving the group even more confused than before. Tim, though, seems unphased, and instead jumps on the TV stand, reaching his paw out to knock down the sound bar.
“No!” It takes a moment, but Dick comes back to himself and jumps out, trying to stop Tim with a yelp. Tim looks devastated to be taken away from the speaker, letting out a sad mrrp as he goes slack in Dick’s hold, accepting his fate.
~~~
Bart, Cassie, and Kon all sprawl on the couch, Tim sleeping on the stack of boxes as the TV plays some random sitcom. It had been a few days since Tim got turned into a cat, and he has yet to turn back to his human form, despite Zatanna trying to turn him back as well. She had said that the magic that was used to turn Tim into his feline version was some that she’s never seen before. Which basically means that they can’t do anything about it, and they just have to hope that Tim eventually turns back to his human form. During this time, though, Tim has broken countless glass items and continues to knock anything and everything off of counters, tables, chairs, even knocking things on the floor over. It’s his favorite activity, it appears.
None of the other three living at the tower has ever owned a cat, so they can’t decern if this is normal behavior or not. Tim also tries to steal everything that they eat, which means that all of their search histories are something along the lines of ‘can cats eat [x food]’ and then panicking because google says that cats can’t have garlic and what if they just accidentally killed Tim?
There’s also the fact that, despite Tim acting like he hates being around them, but then not letting any of them be alone for even a second. The first time Cassie tries to go to the bathroom and was greeted by Tim’s paws poking under the door, she screamed. Personal space is nonexistent at this point.
Tim gets up from his spot laying down, stretching his legs before turning around in a circle, readjusting his position. The three watch Tim intently, bored look on their faces.
Bart blinks, and not even a second later, a loud thump echoes throughout the room followed by a loud yelp, and human Tim is on the floor, eyes wide. The entire room freezes.
“Why am I not wearing any clothes? And why did I just fall off of a pile of boxes?” Tim stares at them, completely lost.
“Uh…” Bart bluescreens.
“You were a cat. You aren’t anymore.” Cassie tries to explain.
“Really, I couldn’t tell.” Tim deadpans. Cassie grins.
“Go get some clothes on and we’ll explain everything,” Tim nods, looking disgruntled and he grabs a blanket to cover himself in before shuffling into his room, eventually coming back out of the bedroom and collapsing on the couch with his partners, asleep before another work could be said.