Synopsis: Tim was never a fan of animals, but he reluctantly found some solace in the single kitten Damian had snuck home.
Tim never trusted Damian. No matter what Dick said, there was no way Tim would call that thing his brother. Damian was violent, cruel, merciless, and had a habit of sneaking off to who knows where. Surely to scheme the end of the world.
And so, Tim made it his duty (as a savior and hero to the world) to keep Damian's ploys at bay and to protect the fair people of Gotham. This being the completely justifiable reason as to why he was watching his said brother now from the hidden confines of his computer and cameras. It only took a matter of time before Damian had disappeared from his radar and a whole pizza, two scorching soda cans later Tim still wondered over the meaning of this plight. So when the Demon-brat (whom was NOT his brother) finally came back, Tim took to questioning the young boy, looking for answers as to what evil deed he had graced his presence with now.
The boy had snuck back into the batcave as he had done many times before with the grace of a cat and the evil presence of the Eden snake. It was dark, but the shadows had always been their home. So Tim was quick to notice Damian's slightly stooped form. The boy, having skirted through the shades of night, was now quickly making his way to the opposite stairwell.
Tim frowned though his eyes could not pick up the reason behind the Demon's odd behavior. Not wanting to wait another moment, he decided to approach him and confirm his suspicions. "Hey, demon brat! What do you think you're doing?" Damian stopped and looked upward at Tim, and despite the Robin's best efforts, there was a noticeable tension in his shoulders. "Where did you disappear too?" Tim asked though the edge of anger in his voice echoed off the cavern walls.
"Why do you care?" Damian spat back with a noticeable -tt-. His posture had now changed from weary to defiant.
"As a resident of this universe, it's my duty to protect the world from your descent."
"Well leave me out of it!" Damian snapped, his tone brash and cold.
The demon brat then turned towards his continued path, an act of his obvious cocky nature most likely bred into him by his mother. Showing your back was usually considered a universal sign of trust, but it seemed Damian skipped all the basics. But there was something about the other's posture, somewhat more reserved than usual and leaning slightly forward in a hunched manner as if injured. No, that wasn't possible. This is the demon brat he was talking about. He didn't get injuries, no, he just got minor nuisances that embellished the skin and caused a swelling of blood. It must have been something else. Perhaps Damian had stolen something, and in his acknowledgment of such doing, had hidden the object in his cloak hence the now hunched manner at which he walked. Yes, that must have been it.
Tim then narrowed his eyes before stepping in front of the other's direct course. There was an abrupt stop on Damian's part followed by a standoffish glare, crossed arms, and the same defiant look that Dick always claimed was cute. If Dick's definition of cute could even be considered that.
"I'll ask again. Where were you?" Tim continued with a deep punctuation on each syllable emphasized by his own glare in rebuttal. It was the closest thing Red Robin could ever get to the famed Bat glare, but Damian only continued his opposition without falter. "I'll tell you again." Damian spat back. "Leave. Me. Alone!" Tim usually considered himself patient. It was a skill he had reformed as a detective. But there was something about Damian that just grated every fiber in his nerves the wrong way. So, without even thinking, Tim had prepared himself to launch forward and use force if necessary. That was until he was stopped by a quiet, barely distinguishable noise.
Tim had always suspected that Damian secretly stole as a recreational hobby on the side of crime fighting. He always had the sinking suspicion that the demon brat's heritage would shine where integrity could not. But this? This was simply … bizarre at the least. "Damian," Tim began as a look of pure dread, if that was possible, began to sneak its way across Robin's face. "Did you just, meow?"
To his credit, Damian hid his expressions well as his body froze and his posture, still hunched compared to the usual prideful manner at which he walked, stiffened to impossible degrees. The boy had then paused for a second as if contemplating which answer would get rid of Tim the fastest before resigning in noticeable defeat and letting out another -tsk- in frustration.
The youngest boy wonder then proceeded to shift the collar of his cape while pushing the hood further back to reveal a kitten. A gray, sodden, soot covered kitten with drooping whiskers and tiny needle like claws that left small indentions in the cloak's fabric. Alfred would not be pleased with that.
Tim blinked once, then twice, and probably a few times more that he just hasn't noticed. "You stole a cat?" he then asked once he had regained his bearings. So perhaps stolen wasn't exactly the right word to use because from the kitten's obvious appearance, it had come from the streets, and it wasn't really right to say anything was stolen from the streets because that would mean Jason Todd was stolen, and that statement was a can of Joker toxin that Tim did not want to open. But that was the first thing that came to mind, and by Damian's not amused look, it was not the right thing to say either.
"He didn't have a home," Damian said calmly as if the two of them were not discussing the fact that a foreign creature had just invaded the batcave itself. Nor did Tim contemplate that that was Damian's only and perfectly justifiable reason to having brought a cat home when Bruce Wayne clearly did not do pets.
Tim only sighed and placed his forefinger and thumb against his temple followed by the deep sagging of his shoulders as the weight of the day's events just clashed upon him in a single dogpiled mess. "Damian." Tim ground out with a stress on the other's name as if he were berating a child though Damian, trained assassin and Robin vigilante rolled into one, was anything but a mere child. "What do you plan to do with … him?" he asked though he dreaded the answer. Did Damian need a new experimental guinea pig? Or perhaps the boy found the poor kitten amusing. But whatever the other was thinking, he did not say so in words. Instead, the boy merely stared at the kitten's dopey, mournful eyes before scratching lightly behind its soaked ears. The kitten then immediately burst into a serenade of song clearly content with the brief shower of attention and the warmth that Damian's cloak emitted if the way it curled back into the folds of black and yellow were anything to go by.
Damian then only shrugged in response. "He didn't have a home," he repeated as if that alone would make Tim understand. Usually Tim wouldn't care if the demon brat brought home a kitten or anything else for that matter. As long as it didn't have anything to do with criminals, thievery, death, and a whole abyss of other things that Tim was slowly adding to the pile. But if there was something Tim was beginning to understand about Damian, it was that he didn't understand the boy. The boy is an enigma with layers and layers of Ikea instructions that only Dick could read.
And yet that very same demon brat had brought home a kitten simply because "it didn't have a home". With a final heavy sigh, Tim resigned himself to his fate. "You go get some leftovers in the fridge," he said pointedly to Damian before adding, "I'll go get some towels from the pantry."
There was a slight change in Damian's posture or perhaps it was Tim seeing him in a new light, but regardless it seemed the malevolence in the room had dimmed down. Indeed, Damian was a strange one. Even with all his prodigy assassin exterior, he still exuded a child's heart on the inside.
The two of them never spoke of the incident again, even when Damian continued to sneak off from patrols to ensure the kitten's safety, or the multiple times Tim found himself watching over the cat as well, by utter accident of course. And while Damian's exploits of saving kittens was never purposefully kept hidden, it seemed everyone else in the household had kept their expenditures a secret regardless and remained ignorant, or at least pretended to, of their heists. So no one said anything when Damian randomly found a kitten, left for dead in the frozen landscapes of one of Mr. Freeze's experiments, and had turned to Tim with a mask of hidden sadness. Tim would then sigh, resign himself to fate, and nod his head. The kitten would then find itself swept up into Damian's arms and coddled into a blanket of Robin's hood.
And that is the story of how Tim found himself saving cats off of Gotham's streets. That was until Damian decided to save a cow. But that is best left for another story.
MI- It may be a while till I post again seeing as my schedule keeps filling up and Slash parties half the time.
Slash- If you know what I mean ;)