dkalban prompted: how about "playing with pets"?
Batman and related properties © DC Comics
story © RenaRoo
The Bat Whisperer (And Other Bizarre Pet Choices)
At the end of the day, Bruce supposed that he really only had himself to blame.
For whatever reason, even in his wildest dreams, he never supposed that getting Titus would have set off a chain reaction with his other children. And he certainly hadn't expected it to be Cassandra first.
It started innocently enough, he supposed. Bruce really should have known something was up.
But when Alfred mentioned rather casually that he no longer had to feed the bats in the Cave, Bruce hadn't honestly been paying that much attention. Why would he have? It was such an innocuous statement.
Who would have thought it was a hint?
"No," Cassandra warned darkly, her eyes far fiercer than Bruce had seen them in a long time.
"The expansion to the Cave is necessary for our operations," Bruce attempted again. It was a losing battle. He wasn't even sure what he was arguing with her for.
"No," she said, pointing toward the Cave's interior garage. "You want more room? Get rid of… of your cars! Noise pollution. It'll be bad for them."
Them refers to the flying rodents which sleep cozily around her. Particularly the smallest ones in her hands, where she is delicately massaging them with a toothbrush.
Tim's toothbrush.
Because Bruce's children are infinitely cruel to one another for reasons he has never quite been able to pin down.
"They're wild animals," he reiterated. "They are not some pet."
"They are mine," Cassandra said defiantly, hugging them gently. "And you will not hurt them. They are… sensitive."
Bruce stared before raising his hands and leaving the cave.
Dick was a grown man and had been living on his own for years. That was why Bruce was surprised that the younger Batman returned from patrol with Robin and two sugar gliders.
Not because it was Dick. But because of the whole "adult thing."
It also wasn't necessary for the cowl to be removed for Bruce to see that look in his eldest's eyes that said he was completely and totally enamored with the small creatures.
And, by extension, so was Damian.
"It's not a permanent thing, B," Dick tried assuring him, rather fruitlessly. "But look at how bony they are, how dull their fur is."
"It was a terrible animal storage house, Father," Damian added, holding the smallest of the pair. "We acted only as was necessary."
Dick was nodding. "Exactly. We'll take care of it all, no worries. We've got this, B. Once they're healthy again, we'll find them a good home."
Yet Bruce was not surprised when Dick's room at the Manor began to procure things that spoke to a more extended tenure for their marsupial friends.
"You still feed them from a dropper," Bruce observed out loud as his eldest and youngest worked with the brother gliders. "And your room always smells like syrup now."
"Isn't it great?" Dick responded, completely ignoring the implications of their conversation.
Bruce left before Dick could explain what he named them, supposing that this alternative was still better than the ever present possibility that Dick would remember that he could, financially speaking, get an elephant.
It had started out as a gag gift from Jason, which is why Bruce was shocked when he returned to Tim's apartment and the cockatoo was not only still there but not inside of its cage.
Its now very large, elaborate, and expensive looking cage which was right beside Tim's work station.
Instead, it rested gallantly on Tim's shoulder as the boy worked.
"WAAAAK Hoowww's it, Beeee?" the bird asked with a raise of one talon and a swirl of its head in a large, circular motion.
Bruce stared.
"Tennyson," Tim hushed the bird, frowning at the screen of his computer.
"Sooooweeee," the bird said, covering its face with a wing.
"Hmm," Tim typed some more before looking up to Bruce. "Sorry, B. Had to finish that report."
"Sqqaaaaakkkk Soooowweeee."
Taking a breath, Bruce rubbed his temples. "Tennyson? Like the poet?"
"Well, I mean, his full name is 'Alfred Lord Tennyson' - but calling him 'Alfred' was confusing, and I didn't want to give him a complex by shouting 'Lord' all the time," Tim babbled as the bird - Tennyson - switched shoulders, bobbing its head.
"How dull it is to pause - SQUAAAKKK - to make an end. To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
Bruce stared and Tim blinked in return.
"He's actually pretty good company, all things considering. And he reminds me to feed him, so, that helps when I'm busy."
That… is something, Bruce supposes.
It was a mound - no, a monstrous mountain - of moving, twitching, hopping fur. Every color and shade. Every size and level of coarseness. They surrounded the apartment.
Jason stood at the center, hands on his hips.
"You have a problem, B?" he asked, ignoring the fact that three rabbits were sticking out of the pockets of what was once a daunting leather jacket worn by Gotham's most feared crime lord.
Bruce didn't bother opening his mouth before leaving again through the window.
He didn't want to know.
Yet at the same time, he was beginning to wonder if perhaps he had left some void in all his children's lives if they were so desperate to see it filled by things with fur or feathers - or maybe feathers was a strictly Tim thing that needed to be addressed in the future.
Soon.
Selina actually had the audacity to look offended at him, though she never stopped scratching the chin of the panther with her finger. Had it been a cat instead of, well, a panther the beast might have been purring.
As it stood, it posed a threat only to Bruce, he was sure.
"You're not even the least bit surprised that you come in unannounced and I have one of these guys?" she asked, frowning. "Not going to ask where I got it or how I'm going to find it a good home? Just 'have you heard anything on the movements of Penguin's shipments' like I'm an informant?"
"You are an informant, Selina," Bruce reminded her.
"But this guy doesn't surprise you?"
Bruce debated not answering at all before taking a breath and shaking his head. "No, not when I can't take two steps within my own home without something exotic and possibly disease carrying running or flying into my head."
"I don't have information for you," she said, looking as though she was working on deciphering what exactly he had meant by that statement.
"Fine," he said turning to leave the room. He paused. "Selina, find a good home for the panther."
She smirked and saluted. "Scout's honor."
One less furred thing to worry about.