A/N: Trigger warning: drug reference and shooting in this chapter.

It's not as tight as the Red Robin suit. It's lighter, and he can breathe in it. Clinging to his skin, but loose enough for free movement. There's pockets in the pants and a belt to go with it. The boots are firm but they're not heavy, and good for climbing with the sharp edges on the heels and sides. He double knots the laces.

There are fingerless gloves, open spaces easy for his fingers to move. Throwing punches might be a little more difficult, but that's okay; kicking will be easier.

There's just not so much weight. Inside and out.

Tim takes a deep breath and turns around, but halts when he faces the full-length mirror.

There's a different person there. Tim can still see his face, black hair swaying in front of his eyes, but there's this high black collar, gleaming zipper, weird gleam over dark leather. There's someone so much smaller than Red Robin in there, someone who looks so changed. It's like a space quadrant came and got stuck to him.

It's the new identity that Selina Kyle had mentioned.

Tim walks over the mirror, doesn't know who he's looking at.

He's never worn complete pure black in the streets before. Bruce said he'd have to earn the shadows, the dark.

Has he finally earned it and he can prove it?

Or has he stolen it? Has he sneaked up behind Bruce and burgled it?

But this is a chance. To start over, to shed the burdens that he's been carrying forever, emotionally and literally. The wings don't hang from his shoulders, there's no weight on his chest. And there's nobody to represent other than himself.

Tim pulls on the hood, smiles at the cat ears. Selina would totally do that.

"You look gorgeous," she says behind him, reflected in the mirror, leaning against the door frame. She's in her own suit now, and she holds her red-tinted glasses in the hand that's resting on her hip.

"I feel...different," Tim can only say. He doesn't turn away from the stranger in the mirror.

"Well, you should," Selina says, coming towards him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "You're wearing a different self now." Her finger flicks one of the ears, "The ears are cute."

Tim chuckles, finally peels his eyes away from the mirror, turns and faces Selina. "Thank you. For everything. For...this."

She smiles, cups his face in her hands and kisses his nose. As if it's not like sending lightning bolts through him enough, she wraps her arms around him, holding him close. "I just...I just want you to be happy," she whispers.

Tim's hands come to fists on her back, and he lets himself hug a little tighter. "I am."

What would Batman say right now? Tim wonders, covering his eyes in her shoulder.

Would he shake his head, Red Robin, I don't understand how you can stand with a criminal record like hers, where is your sense of justice, and stomp off with a whirl of his cape?

Selina pulls back, smiles in excitement. "Ready to go?"

Tim picks up his own pair of glasses, blue-tinted, not red like hers. He adjusts the straps, has them rest just above his forehead. "Yeah. Let's go."

He pushes away the thought of the stomping off and the cape.

To fly again. Tim loves the snow-covered ground, he loves the sureness of gravity and he loves looking up at the sky. But being that close to heaven, only so many hundreds of feet from the atmosphere. And especially at night when the blueness is vanished and he has the stars all to himself, even though they are partially obscured by Gotham smog. Sometimes, when he was Red Robin, he would sit on some skyscraper roof, lie back and stare at the sky.

He would always get excited when he saw what seemed to be a star, moving slowly but surely through the black.

"Batman," he'd whisper through the radio, "I can see the International Space Station."

Those were the few times that Bruce would forget to tell him before the patrol, "I have the coordinates if you want to see the ISS."

So when Tim's grappling hook pulls him closer and closer to the sky, he always keeps an eye out for the spacecraft. He never knows when he'll get lucky.

Catwoman leads, but Tim knows the streets she's leading them down. It's a little closer out of town, more on the edge of the city. From his view Lemmars Park is quiet tonight, and if he turns around at a good height, he can see the far distant W logo on Wayne Tower. Gotham Stadium's light up like a Christmas tree, and there's crowds over there, going crazy over a football game.

Tim loves watching Catwoman move through air, jumping to the ground and then, quite a lot like a cat, slink along the walls, glancing back and forth, eying everything so carefully. Tim mimics, studies her moves.

Part of him wants to stow the information away; it may be useful while acting as Red Robin.

But most of him realizes that this is right and smart and logical, and he can use it to be whoever he wants to be. It could be part of himself.

It's a little freeing, actually. But Tim always steps back at the feeling of being free. It's gotten him into trouble before (his father's face flashing before his eyes) and he doesn't want to have that happen ever again.

So Tim just watches, gathers the technique, puts them into the back of his mind.

Catwoman slides down a wall and peers around the corner, and nods to Tim. He can hear the sounds of men arguing down a dead end alley, and he can catch the words "trade", "sorry", and "over".

A deal gone wrong perhaps? Catwoman glances back at him, smirks. "Smack," she whispers. "I'll let you have the honors."

Tim swallows, and they trade places, Tim getting an overview of the alley. Two buildings separate by only 30 feet, two thugs beginning to corner one against a chain link fence touching both far edges of the buildings. Tim can easily go up behind them while they're so very distracted.

Batman would have gone to the top of the roof on the far side, then jumped right in the middle of them to scare them. Knock them out one by one.

But Selina's style is different, it always has been. He finds himself adopting it.

It's one that is motivated by fun. Sheer unexplainable fun. It's a different way to inspire fear.

She makes it look easy.

Now he's smiling. He'll try her style out tonight. Give them the shock of their life. Turning back to Selina, he jerks his head towards them.

She nods, but then holds up a finger to halt him. She grabs his hand and presses her whip into his palm, and then her eyes cut up to him knowingly.

Yeah. He will give them the shock of their life.

So Tim borrows what he's learned so far, crawling on the ground and moving slow.

He stands up carefully about 5 feet away from them, unnoticed until the unlucky guy cornered against the fence blanches once he sees him in between his new enemies.

"You said you'd have it!" one growls, his fist tightening. "Where is it?!"

"There's...there's-" the loser trembles, pointing a finger.

"Pretty sure it's not there, Bax!" the other thug shouts, grabbing the man and hurling him towards Tim, and Tim just stands as the man cowers at his feet.

"Oh," Tim says out loud, cracking the whip to one side, the sound echoing, "Did I interrupt the party?"

"Who are you?" one thug, face covered in stubble and head by black baseball cap (your name until I can find out your real one, Tim decides), queries, his eyes confused, but Tim's getting his point across.

"Okay, I'm gonna make this simple," Tim holds up his hands, "In case you didn't know, there's an undercover campaign – of sorts – to stop the drug dealing in Gotham City. Um. I'm a participant, if you like. And I'm ordering you, get out of here."

"It's a kid, Ol," Baseball Cap mutters angrily, as if to remind his companion of the seeming odds.

"Yeah, whatcha gonna do, kid?" Apparently Ol (Oliver? Tim wonders) asks, swaggering over to Tim. "What if we don't take our business someplace else?"

Tim takes a deep breath, glances at the ground, and then delivers a roundhouse kick to the thug's side, feeling a rib crack under the boot. Ol hits the ground, holding a hand to his side and nearly crying in pain. "That's a start," Tim says, glancing at the other two. "You want more?"

"No, man, we're getting out," the one named Bax cries, scurrying away from Tim, but Ol looks up with a snarl on his face. He lunges toward Tim, which gives the other two courage. Tim ducks away, letting them nearly fall on their faces and Tim...laughs at them.

Tim hasn't laughed at people like them since he was a small Robin.

Selina's laughing too, and when the thugs look up, Tim realizes quickly that they know Catwoman pretty well. They're cowering before her. "Hey boys," she says with a beautiful grin, "Did you meet my little stray?"

Various expressions appear on their faces, eyes shifting wildly trying to find an escape. Selina chuckles, flexing her hands, claws gleaming on the fingertips. "Oh he's a real cutie, huh?"

But between Tim and Selina, it doesn't look like there's much choice except to fight their way out. So it's a small scrape, ending with a broken wrist, one broken rib (each) and it looks like Bax may have a case of hyperventilation. In the end, Selina has two of Ol's fingers pulled all the way back to the point of breaking and when tears appear, he swears he won't deal in Gotham anymore. "Make sure you keep that promise or I'm gonna send my little kitten after you. You don't want that, do you?" Selina whispers, voice threatening but honeyed.

"N-no," the thug shuddered.

"Okay," She says, "I'm gonna let you go this time. There's a Stray in town. Pass it on."

Stray.

Stray.

Tim repeats the name over and over in his head. So many reasons for a name like that. But the top one that sticks out is that he's straying. Wandering away from Batman.

But didn't Batman – how did Selina put it – drop him?

When Selina finishes it off with a crack of the man's fingers, Tim watches him run madly away, limping and hunched over. Tim has identification pieces already recorded in his head if ever he comes back to finish the deal.

It's not exactly the way Batman would do it. But it will work.

Selina laughs again, "Did you see his face? I don't think he was expecting that."

"They never do," Tim says. He stops and stares at the entrance to the alley and picks up the whip. "Hey, thanks for the whip. It's a really cool-"

But when he looks back, he sees Selina climbing the chain link fence easily as a cat would. He watches curiously, wonders what she's doing. Behind that fence is a small suburban where some families would actually like to live in peace. Tim and Batman had only once been down there, but they usually kept their perimeters around the area, protecting the street on the outside.

"Catwoman?" Tim asks as he sees her skulking down the street, orange streetlights making her suit shimmer. Tim climbs the fence, guesses she's seen something and didn't have time to explain.

Most of the homes here are your average suburban homes, but Tim knows that there was a small mansion bought here just a few weeks ago by a woman well known in Bruce Wayne's circles: Alisha Caldwell, who had just received her inheritance through her father's will, and would soon be moving into this place, a small retreat from the penthouse close to Wayne Tower. Tim had met Miss Caldwell a few times at some social party thrown in Bruce's name. She's a nice pretty girl, with long curly brown hair and gentle dark eyes. Probably the nicest person Tim had met in that stuck up stiff place.

She would want a home out of Midtown, closer to the park and the bay.

Tim can see the Caldwell Mansion from here. A few old fashion lampposts with a green haze with black railing fence illuminating the snow on the ground, little roses lit by the lawn spotlights. Tim sticks close to the shadows on the opposite side of the street, but he takes a moment to look at the mansion.

He notes Victorian replica architecture, climbing ivy on one side. It's just a charming little place that Tim wouldn't mind having something like himself some day. Wayne Manor is cool and there's always a surprise for him and there's lots of room for playing tag with his brothers and a huge backyard where they've had numerous snowball wars this time of year, but the quiet here. It's enchanting.

And that's why Tim nearly panics when he sees Catwoman jump the tiny fence, her heels crunching only slightly on the mostly melted snow.

"Selina," he whispers almost to himself and gets up, crossing the street, reminding himself to stick to the black. Catwoman has come towards the left side of the house, glancing up at the dying ivy.

I just hope that's not a signal from a good dear friend named Pamela, Tim thinks. Here. Come and check out this place.

Selina Kyle better not be getting any ideas in her head, but when Tim comes closer, just on the outside of the fence, he sees that there's a balcony right above Catwoman. It'll be easy for her.

Tim jumps the fence, comes up to her and whispers, "Selina...what are you doing? Let's go, you said we'd patrol."

"This is patrol," she hisses back, clawed fingers catching on the ridges of the building, heels gripping another.

"No," Tim whispers back. "You're about to commit illegal entry; it's illegal enough we're over this fence!"

Selina looks back at him and a smile curves her lips. "Come with me, kitten."

Tim shakes his head, takes a step backwards.

"Come here," she repeats, gentle, like the first time she offered that about a week ago.

Tim bites his lip, glances up at the balcony. She continues to climb, with or without him.

He knew Selina had an addiction to the thrill of burglary. It came and went as it pleased, but it seemed to come at the most unwelcome times.

Maybe I can still stop her, and there's a chance security is here; maybe she won't want to break in.

The ridges have paint chipping off of them so Tim gets a good grip on them. The boots have the edged heels so they clamp in easily. Selina's already a good ways above him, but he catches up, and then straddles the balcony railing.

He glances down. It's a long way down and they should be careful.

What am I doing?

Selina is on her knees in front of the balcony door, studying the lock. "Hm," she seems satisfied and she takes a lock pick from one of her belt pouches. She grins when the lock clicks.

"Selina, this is totally illegal," Tim repeats in a hiss.

"Baby, swinging from building to building is illegal too," she whispers, finally looking up at him.

Tim frowns. "It is?"

"Yeah, we're stealing air space," she chuckles, and opens the door so quietly, so cautiously.

Tim can feel heat radiating all over his neck, sweating gathering in his hands and the suit has suddenly gotten too tight. "No," he whispers, but Selina holds a finger up. She's in the house.

It's dark, and it seems like everybody's asleep. Tim wonders why they haven't set off any alarms; maybe it's because this is an old house and it has just been bought. They haven't gotten a chance to install any.

Tim comes silently behind Selina, and when he crosses the threshold, he reaches out and grabs her arm. Shakes his head when she looks back.

"I just want to look," she mouths, patting his hand and then prying it off. She walks in and Tim swallows, glances around for the owner or anyone else who may have heard noises in the balcony.

It looks like an office, with the dark cherry wood desk and little green lamp sitting in the corner. Papers all over it, unpacked boxes in the corners. Intricate designs on the old carpet, and the familiar smell of paint. They're remaking some of the rooms. There's a closed door on the right, probably leading to a bedroom, and an open door leading to a sitting room on the left. A bookcase in front with perhaps a hundred titles.

There's a pair of flip-flops next to the swivel chair, lipstick on the desk. Selina pauses there, opens a tiny silver box there.

She looks back, holds up a pearl necklace. Mouths, "Not real!"

"Let's go," Tim whispers.

"I'm still shopping, honey," she whispers back, carefully opens the top drawer. Tim winces at a slight creaking noise.

Tim steps forward; he's had enough, this isn't him, this isn't part of the identity he wants, what would Batman-

"What are you doing in here?!" And the lights turn on, and when Tim turns to the door he sees Alisha Caldwell standing there in shock. Pink bathrobe glimmering, curly hair messed from tossing in bed, Miss Caldwell's eyes are full of fear and she grips a book in one hand. "Get out of here!" she shrieks.

Selina's lip jerks downward on one side, and she's going, Tim's going until someone else appears from the left side of the room. A man with a set of dark glasses on his face, his face lined with concentration, body tense with a goal. He holds out a shining pistol with a silencer on it, but it's not aimed at the burglars.

He fires only once, all too quietly at Alisha Caldwell, and Tim knows once she hits the floor that she is dead.

Selina bolts for the balcony and swings down, but Tim finds his voice, feeling his heartbeat screaming in his ears, "Hey-"

But the man jumps over the desk and slams a hand over Tim's mouth, pressing him to the wall. Tim prepares for a bullet in his chest or abdomen, but the man just stares hard and cold down on him.

He's about 6' 2, Tim guesses, maybe mid-forties, thin mouth and a scar on his neck, covered only slightly by the black turtleneck sweater he's wearing. Tim struggles to see through the dark glasses to his eyes. "You didn't make an appointment," the man whispers, inches from Tim.

Tim doesn't answer, even when the man uncovers his mouth. The man doesn't raise his glasses, but he glances toward the window. "Didn't know Catwoman got a boy-toy."

Tim frowns, knowing Selina would never lay a finger on his head. He's so glad his own glasses are down. The scene is out of hand. It was out of hand when Selina jumped the fence.

But there's a small smile on the murderer's face, and he says softly, "Hey. I'll make you a deal. I can see you need some help, kiddo. So I'll let you go this time." From his pocket, he produces a tiny velvet box, and he takes Tim's hand and places it in his palm. "Next time...make an appointment, okay? The number's in there."

Tim nods, playing along, and the man's hand comes up to his neck, much like how Dick does the same, cupping the back of his neck, ready to pull him close at any moment. "You better get back with your friend," he says. "If someone who runs from you at a burglary can be called a friend. Off you go, buddy."

Tim obeys. Blindly obeys, shoves the box into his pocket, climbing down ridge by ridge, glancing up at the light streaming from the balcony.

Alisha Caldwell was killed tonight and Tim Drake-Wayne saw it all happen.

Tim goes back to the chain-link fence, climbs over it and then gets down in the black alley. He slides down the wall, close to a dumpster, covers his mouth and tries to breath.

"Kitten," a hiss in the dark, and Tim startles, with a small cry. Selina whips off her glasses, her eyes shot with fear. "What happened?! I thought you were right behind me!"

Tim shakes his head only slightly, tries to say that yeah, he was but boy, did he get held up. He takes the box out of his pocket. On the top is inscribed in silver swirled letters, "Nicholson Jewelers".

"Oh no," Tim breathes, opening the box and finding a gleaming amethyst pendant, studded with diamonds all around the circular gem. Right underneath it, scratched in sharpie, is a phone number. 734-389-7473.