Reason number 6,871 of why Selina Kyle likes Tim Drake-Wayne: he talks to cats.
She'll come into the living room and find Saavik perched on Tim's shoulder, cautious to move around for fear of slipping, and he'll glance up from his laptop and ask her what she's up to. He answers without a reply, "You're getting in trouble is what you're doing."
He'll be washing dishes (because he thinks he has to...earn his "keep"? What?) and Lilly Mae walks in between his legs, jumps on the counter top and he asks if she would like to help washing dishes.
The cats love Tim.
And Selina finds herself loving Tim in a way she has never loved in years. Discovering that you really care about someone, it's always a bit surprising, and you always walk away wondering how it got there, how it suddenly came to life like springtime after winter. You're never watching. It just happens.
Selina can look back on the last week of Tim living with her and see signs of where it was coming. The way he curls up on the couch and texts a friend of his, slow smile appearing on his face. How she'll find him completely upside down doing handstands in his bedroom. The elaborate, to the point of obsessive, dinner he made for her once and said, "Pour toi mon amour," as he set it before her and stood back to gauge her reaction. He laughed when, after tasting it, she stood and whispered in his ear, "C'est merveilleux."
Tim turns all kinds of colors whenever she kisses the very top of his head. He rubs the back of his neck nervously.
Tonight she comes back from prowling the streets to the dark of the apartment, a single lamp streaming from the living room. She steps quietly in, staying in the shadows.
Selina whips off her glasses but pauses, sees Tim lying on his stomach, fast asleep on the couch, but his fingers are still gripping a pen and a notebook that's fallen to the floor, pages folded on itself. Selina smiles and chuckles softly. Tim can probably sleep anywhere.
She did find him on the floor next to Lilly Mae a few mornings ago.
Selina kicks off her boots to maintain quiet. She steps over and slips the pen out of his fingers, picks up the notebook and closes it. Her eyes get pulled back to Tim's face, over and over again. Her hand reaches out to smooth away the dark hair, tucking it behind his ear.
They had gone to the skating rink this snowy morning and though he had never tried it, Selina watched Tim catch on quickly, turning around and around, figuring eight on the sparkling ice covering the pond in the park. She reached out and held his hands, circling together. Noise, noise everywhere: the crackling of blades against the ice, Tim's laugh, her shout, "Come on, come on, speed it up!" and they both ended up on the ground but who really cared, they hadn't had that much fun in...years, really.
"You really don't know how to do this!" Selina shrieked. "I thought your old man knew everything."
Tim laughed and struggled to get up, eventually letting Selina help him slide up. "Oh, he probably doesn't know how to skate anyways."
They had snowball fights and Tim so totally won. His bony hands were tipped with red and his hair peeked out of the cap with Gotham Knights emblazoned on the front, edged with pieces of snow.
She watched him defrost this evening with a cup of hot chocolate. He dipped his fingertip in it and let Saavik have a taste.
And Selina wonders again for the thousandth time this week: how could Bruce just brush him away?
How could he ignore this precious existence?
How did Selina not see it herself?
Now she picks up the old quilt that she's had since she was just a little girl, pulls it over Tim's still frame, tucks it around his shoulders. There's a small frown coming over his face; she wonders if she'll have to get him out of another nightmare tonight.
She'll stay up a little longer. Just in case.
She'll work on her new little project, the one with the seams and the black cloth lined with a thin covering of Kevlar. She acted on it in an impulse soon after Tim came back a few days ago from the Manor. Though she had been planning to get a new suit made for herself, those plans changed when she was lying awake at night, listening to Tim whisper to the cats just before he went to bed.
She's always wanted a pet master detective to join her in her nocturnal adventures.
How convenient. Tim is constantly observing, she watches his eyes whenever they're in public; how he glances at people, notices tiny things: the way that clock is off by a few minutes so technically this restaurant opens a little too early. Bruce's eyes apparently dilate when he sees you, Selina; it's a natural reaction because he's attracted to you. Selina's has deft and delicate small motor skills, a sign that she is very aware of tiny things.
Oh yes, things like jewelry. The ones with millions of tiny diamonds studded hard gold.
So wouldn't it be nice to be able to know the inner workings of that gorgeous mansion that was just bought a few weeks ago? What would be inside it?
It's been a while since Selina closed her hands over something big and beautiful and glittering madly.
She is starting to miss the thrill, the adrenaline rush of being on the run, the victory when the prize is won.
That's why she goes to her bedroom, closes the door behind her. There's the new suit under the bed, the one that will fit Batman's stray.
The black sheen with the few threads of purple in it slips easily as she holds it up to the light. It's loose enough to be comfortable, tight enough to keep from getting caught to anything while on the getaway. There's even a hood just like hers, with cat ears.
Selina knows she's taking a chance. Tim has been under Bruce Wayne's roof for a long time, stuck on high standards and white against black morals. She knows that if she offered Tim a chance to join her in her crusade, he'd refuse. He fears Batman's rejection. He fears that he'll step down too far and no one will be able to pick him back up again. That Bruce will turn his back one more time on him and never glance over his shoulder. Oh, he'd be sweet in it all and will fear Selina's rejection as well. He'd be stepping on eggshells with her for a long time. She doesn't want that, she wants Tim to know that he's safe, that he's wanted here, that he doesn't have to "earn his keep".
But Selina has to keep hers. And that means she needs to see the inside of that mansion.
She folds the suit up.
She does know how to get Tim's mind on her side.
"I talked to some friends," Tim says over a bowl of cereal the next morning in response to Selina's questions on what he was up to yesterday evening while she was gone. "They just wanted to check on me."
Selina rubs his back as she hands him a cup of coffee, feels the muscles underneath her palms stiffen and then relax. "What did you tell them?"
"I told them to avoid Bruce," Tim mutters. "They...they told me he's not on good terms with the Justice League right now."
"The whole thing with Damian?" Selina asks.
"Yeah. I don't get it," Tim shakes his head. "I mean...I wouldn't argue with Superman, even if I was Batman."
Selina chuckles, sits down with him and blows on the hot coffee. "Don't worry about it."
Tim turns his spoon over and over in the bowl, frowning. "He hasn't called, you know."
She looks hard at him, then lays a hand on Tim's arm. "Baby, you gotta know something."
Tim's blue eyes look up at her and he waits while she holds up a finger, takes a sip of her coffee.
"Bruce Wayne is a real interesting guy," she says. "He takes in five kids, gives 'em a great home and education, gets 'em able live on the streets. I have no doubt that the five of you could survive the zombie apocalypse. By yourselves. Even individually if you like."
Tim smirks.
"But Bruce Wayne is also a real hot jerk," Selina finishes it all off.
Tim's smile leaves. "Huh?"
"Yeah," she says, grabbing the milk carton and pouring it over her own bowl of cereal. "He's a real jerk. He takes you like a tool and when he's done with you, he drops you. You're finished."
Tim winces at the word drop. "He...he's not like that."
"Baby, I was his girlfriend for a long time," Selina smiles. "I should know."
Tim leaves his spoon in the bowl, works his hands in his lap. He looks down, shoulders hunched over and Selina sees what she saw last week; insecure teenager, confused and alone.
"What do I do?" Tim whispers. "How do I get back to him?"
"You don't, kitten," Selina insists. "You let him get back to you. You don't deserve to chase him all over. You don't deserve that kind of treatment."
"He's not against me," Tim breathes. He's still searching.
"And you're not against him. But don't run yourself over trying to get him back."
Tim is silent for a moment, his finger tracing the edges of the spoon left cold in his cereal bowl. He's thinking, processing. Selina watches the gears clicking.
She slides her bowl to the chair right next to Tim's, but she doesn't sit down. Her hand runs over his back, a trick she's learned about him. He loves the contact, the short distance.
He's almost hungry for it, with the way he rests into it, lets himself be touched like that. Reassuring movements, everything's okay.
In a moment this quiet, this close, she could give it all a shot.
"Hey."
He looks up at her, eyes less anxious.
"Wanna come get some perps with me tonight?"
There's that twitch in his right eyebrow as the question surprises him a little. He chews on his lip. "I...I don't have my suit. And...Bruce wouldn't know that I'd be out there. He'd want to know and—"
"Batman doesn't have to know," she says, sitting down next to him. "And I guess you could say I've kind of solved the suit problem myself."
Tim tilts his head in confusion and Selina chuckles. "I'll tell you about it later. What do you say, baby? You could be somebody else tonight. Kind of try out a new identity? See how it fits?"
Tim blinks his eyes away, but as Selina shifts her eyes away from her cereal, she can see that oh yes, he'd like that, even if just for a few nights. He's thinking again, but she can just tell by the way his finger taps against the counter top, the fraction of a smile on his lips and how he can't quite look at her yet…
She's almost closed her hand over that beautiful sparkling jewel.
"Bruce wouldn't want me to be Red Robin...because that would be associating myself with the Teen Titans and therefore the Justice League. He's in trouble with them right now, but...we can't just leave Gotham," he murmurs.
"Yeah," Selina agrees softly. "You've got some work to do."
And he nods slightly. Then he can look up at her again.
"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'd like to follow you."
She grins, kisses his cheek.
Selina saw him hanging on by only one hand to whatever was left of that looming angry Manor over in Bristol County.
She'll be there to catch him when he falls.
She'll be there to welcome the stray into her life.