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It was a bad fucking night already. Someone thought the hookers under his protection were fair game, and no amount of pain he inflicted after the fact can make up for the bodies he found or that there are kids who are now going in a system that is going to eat them up alive and probably spit them back out as people Jason will have to kill in a few years. It fucking sucks.
And word spread quickly that Red Hood was in a foul mood, the streets deserted, green seeping through him with no fucking target—
A flash of yellow and his gaze sharpens.
A small figure, where it ought not be, brazen on the rooftops of the Crime Alley.
Robin.
Jason bares his teeth under his helmet, and his inner feline is crouching, tail lashing.
Target acquired.
Suddenly all his grandiose plans for murdering Robin at the Tower seem unimportant, convoluted. Robin is here, in Crime Alley, no sign of Batman, and Jason would like to see what made Bruce decide to pick up another stray cat shifter.
Although, Jason reminds himself, silently scaling the wall of a building, Timothy Drake was no stray. He’s got an entire mansion to himself, a whole fleet of servants, anything money could buy—and he still took what little Jason had been given.
The green seethes at the thought.
Robin is crouching on the edge of the rooftop, carefully scanning the Alley, probably looking for Hood. Jason could kill him, right here, and the cat would never know what hit him.
But where’s the fun in that? Jason never really enjoyed playing with his food, not until Talia trained him up and the Pit sank into his bones, and he wanted to make everyone pay.
The screams and the blood and the feeling of taking justice into his own fucking hands—
“Looking for me?”
Robin stiffens at the sound of the mechanized voice echoing over the rooftop and spins to face Jason, muscles tense in readiness. Jason hasn’t even bothered to draw a gun.
“Hood,” Robin replies, forcibly bright. “The Alley’s quiet tonight; you know something about that?”
“I do,” Jason says, drifting closer. Robin’s eyes flick from his helmet to his holsters, to the knife glinting in Jason’s hand. He’s not actually sure when he drew it, but he’d like to sink it into Robin’s side and pull it out, dripping red with Robin’s lifeblood.
He’d like that very much.
“Care to share with the class?” Robin asks, edging back, although he’s almost right on the edge of the rooftop.
“No,” Jason answers, moving closer still. Maybe he’ll snap a few bones first, draw out the screaming, and then stab him.
Robin wavers on the edge of the rooftop.
“No Batman tonight,” Jason comments, a malicious smile under his helmet. “I didn’t know he let his little bird fly solo.”
An almost imperceptible flinch.
God, Robins really were all the same, all of them stupid enough to go out with little training and no backup, and throw themselves into fights against people who just want them dead. Bruce was never going to learn, never going to stop, and Jason’s hand tightened around the knife at that thought.
How many dead Robins would it take?
At least two.
He lunges for Robin, and the caped vigilante is gone, off the edge of the roof, leaping for the next one. Swearing under his breath, Jason leaps after him, and the chase is on.
Robins are always fast and fleet, they have to be, but this is Crime Alley, Jason was born and bred here, Jason lives here, and Jason rules here.
Robin will learn that the hard way.
Jason’s drawing closer to him, dodging the occasional batarang and smoke cloud, wondering if the kid has an exit strategy in mind. They’re sprinting down the same long rooftop when there’s suddenly a crackling tension in the air, and he sees a white streak hit Robin, right before it feels like he’s punched in the chest with fire.
He loses his footing, falling to the ground, and his cat stretches out inside him, and he’s suddenly shifting. Hands turning to paws with lethally sharp claws, teeth long and perfect for ripping through the flesh of wayward birds, and a black, sleek body for hiding in the shadows.
Magic. His panther yowls to the sky, voicing his displeasure at the forced change, and he can’t even shift back, but he doesn’t care, he can still kill Robin one way or another.
He thinks Robin’s blood will taste sweet, so maybe it’s better like this, better to let the cat come and play.
Jason turns back to where Robin was—and freezes.
He was expecting to fight another large feline, looking forward to pitched battle with blood and fangs and—
There’s a small, shivering kitten crouched, ears flat and eyes wide, staring at him.
Fuck.
Two more rooftops, and Tim was going to throw himself into the Batmobile, cowardice or not, because something about Red Hood’s quiet menace made his cat’s fur stand on end, and he would be damned if he was going to try to play a hero against someone like that.
Just two more rooftops, and he would have been safe, would have gotten a lecture from Bruce about being careless, and the lecture might have actually worked this time, because Hood is shockingly fast, not even shooting at him, and Tim doesn’t want to find out why he’s picking a knife over a his guns, why he’s reckless enough to attack Batman’s sidekick when Tim hasn’t even discovered any plans worth protecting—
And then, magic. Flooding his body, stealing his breath, forcing him from his human shape, his human shape with weapons, the ability to leap rooftop to rooftop, hell, the ability to open the Batmobile.
Not that he’s going to get that far, not like this.
Tim is frozen, belly pressed to the ground, watching the panther stalk towards him. He should be running, should be hiding, but fear has stolen his ability to move and he’s not even sure he’s still breathing.
His ears are flat against his head, and he swallows back a noise of sheer terror.
Even if he could move, there’s nowhere to go. He can’t jump off the roof like this, can’t outrun a person, let alone a fully grown panther.
His claws are digging into the rooftop gravel, his tiny, short claws, like miniature needles, that the panther won’t even notice.
This is how he dies, alone on a rooftop, hit by some ridiculous magic spell, all because he wanted to go out on his own for one night.
He doesn’t even have time for self-recriminations, to hate himself for being so stupid, because the panther is above him down, blacker than the night sky, filling Tim’s vision, and he presses down impossibly further, screwing his eyes shut.
He doesn’t want to see the mouth open wide, the sharp teeth coming for him—he can feel the breath hot on his back, and he knows his fur is bushed out, trying to make himself look huge, but he’s just a mouthful like this and—
Teeth, pressing into his skin, and he can’t swallow back the trill of terror, small and weak, desperate for someone to hear him, to save him, but there’s no one—
The teeth don’t break skin. They close over him, impossibly gently, and he’s being carried.
Scruffing makes him limp, unable to try to twist away, or maybe that’s still the sheer panic keeping him immobile.
Why is Hood carrying him away? Why isn’t he killing him here, leaving a smear on the rooftop for Bruce to find later?
What could he possibly want to do to Tim that he can’t do here and now?
Jason doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he can’t just leave a kitten on the rooftop of Crime Alley all alone. And yes, okay, this kitten also happens to be Robin, but when Talia said feline shifter, she didn’t say baby fucking cat and Jason isn’t a monster.
It’s not even a fight, a panther against a kitten, and yes, then Robin would be dead and it would be what he wanted but—
It’s harder for the green to steal over him, like this. Or maybe it’s those pathetic little trills his replacement is making, shaking in his mouth like a leaf.
Jason wants to get back to his place, get the kitten somewhere safe and warm, and fuck—
He’s carrying Robin through Crime Alley.
He should leave the kitten somewhere safe, go find the magician who did this to them, and make him undo it, so he can gut the kid and watch him bleed to death.
In his mouth, Tim falls silent, and Jason immediately sets him down to check him for injuries. Why is he quiet? Did Jason bite him too hard? Did the magician do something else to him? He licks the top of Tim’s head reassuringly when he can’t find anything wrong before picking him back up. Not far to go now.
His safehouse window opens, and Jason is grateful Talia insisted he make sure he have a way to access it as a shifter, because he can’t stand the thought of being exposed in Crime Alley with such a small kitten.
He didn’t even know kittens could be this small.
Well, he knew it, but there’s knowing, and there’s knowing, and there’s finding one all alone on a rooftop.
What is Bruce thinking, letting Tim out to fight crime? He needs to be somewhere secure, somewhere soft, somewhere warm.
Jason could have murdered Robin and never known he was murdering a fucking baby. He feels the urge to write a strongly worded letter and deliver it at gunpoint.
Tim dangling limp from his mouth, Jason checks the safehouse carefully for any changes since he left. No intruders, nothing disturbed, and he settles a little bit.
They’re finally safe.
Now, for soft and warm.
He drops Tim on his bed, nudging him with his nose until he’s in the exact center of the bed, and then goes and drags a blanket out from under the bed, wrapping it around the shivering kitten.
If Jason can get him warm enough, he’ll stop shaking.
One blanket isn’t enough. Tim’s eyes are closed, and he’s making a soft, high pitched mewing noise, over and over, showing tiny, white, needle-sharp baby teeth.
Jason just wants to make him feel better.
He drags another blanket around the kitten, tucking it over the top of Tim, nosing it snugly down around him.
Tim is still shivering, and Jason bends down and breaths warm air on him. He stops mewing, but his body is tense, and if Jason were in human form, he’d be frowning at the kitten.
Oh. Tim probably feels alone.
Part of Jason knows his replacement is old enough to be away from his mother, but another part of him feels like he’s just rescued a newborn and thinks that making sure Tim knows he’s not alone, that Jason is right here, nothing is getting through him to get Tim—
Then the kitten won’t be so afraid.
Jason curls up around the kitten, licking his head, the only exposed part, willing the kitten to realize he’s safe and warm, not alone. They’re in a nest, in a secured safehouse, no one is coming for them.
Tim doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s uncomfortably warm, buried under heavy blankets that keep him from moving, and the panther—the Red Hood has wrapped himself around him.
Almost—protectively, if Hood hadn’t been chasing him with a knife, with clearly murderous intent.
Tim can’t understand why he isn’t dead yet.
His heart is hammering, he’s trying to make himself small, trying to brace, but—
But he can’t stay afraid forever. The warmth of the panther is—soothing, the press of another body, the beat of another heart, and he hasn’t been curled up in a nest with someone in—living memory, actually, and sure, he’s going to die painfully when the spell wears off, Hood probably wants to hear him scream, but if this is his last night on earth, he can at least pretend to feel safe and secure in a cozy nest.
And it is a cozy nest, and it’s not like anyone other than Hood is going to get to him, and Hood is waiting until they shift back, so—
He makes himself relax, lets himself feel comforted, and drifts to sleep.
Jason wakes, and he can’t quite say why. A shift in the air, an almost-imperceptible noise, but something alerts him. He lifts his head, ears pricked for any sound, paws curled protectively around his kitten, and watches a dark shadow slip into the bedroom.
A low growl rumbles out of him.
This is his house, his nest, his fucking kitten.
Back the fuck away.
Batman tips his head, puzzled, and Jason bares fangs at him.
He lets a kitten patrol Gotham, he’s a shit fucking dad, and Tim is his now.
Between his paws, Tim stirs, blinking sleepy eyes, and Jason licks him soothingly before glaring at Bruce again and growling.
Tim stiffens, and Jason narrows his eyes, trying to say see what you did? He was asleep and you fucked it all up!
He’s—aware that this maybe isn’t how he should be feeling about Robin. He can recall wanting to taste his blood, wanting to watch it rush out of his body before he died, but—
That was before he knew Robin was a baby fucking cat, okay? Things change. People change.
But not Batman.
Jason growls again, and Bruce takes off his cowl.
“Jason?” he asks, voice cracking, and Jason keeps growling. “Tim?” he asks, more quietly, and Tim lets out a tiny fucking cheep of a noise, and Jason does not understand why Bruce ever let him out of a nest.
The twisted green rage is a distant memory, and when Tim mews between his paws, Jason dips his head to lick him soothingly again.
Bruce studies them, a considering expression on his face, and then he ripples, and blurs, and there’s a lynx on the floor of Jason’s room.
Jason’s bigger than Bruce like this, but—Bruce is looking up at him, and he has those damn tufted ears that Jason always thought looked ridiculous and—
His face just looks sad, looking up at them in a nest, and Jason knows he’s Batman, okay? Jason knows this, and he’s going to find that magician and rip him to shreds, make him pay, because clearly the asshole did something to Jason other than force a shift, but those fucking ear tufts—
God damn it.
He can take a lynx in a fight, no problem, but Bruce isn’t fighting, just looking up at him, and it’s like a kitten’s face on a grown cat’s body and Jason is only a man. A panther. Whatever.
He chuffs a sigh, and tugs Tim a little bit closer. No one is taking his kitten from him. His paw splays out over Tim, claws dropping out a bit, forming a protective cage.
Then he lays his head down next to Tim, right next to him, because Bruce isn’t getting his Robin back, and closes his eyes, deliberately unconcerned.
Do what you want.
And what Bruce wants is to jump up on the bed and stick his head right next to Jason’s and look at Tim.
Jason swats him off the bed with a heavy paw, growling, and Bruce has the fucking gall to look contrite.
Those stupid fucking ear tufts.
Closing his eyes again, head partially covering the kitten, he waits to see what Bruce will do.
And thankfully Bruce seems to have learned his lesson, because he doesn’t get near Jason’s kitten again, but instead curls up next to Jason. He has the audacity to rest his head on Jason’s back, but Jason has his kitten, and he tells himself he doesn’t care.
All that matters is keeping Tim safe.
He removes his paw and licks Tim, trying to help the kitten relax, trying to make him realize Bruce isn’t a threat, hasn’t he seen the ear tufts—and slowly Tim’s tiny body relaxes again, eyes drifting closed, and he sleeps. Jason’s warm, too, with his dad at his back, and it’s—it’s almost like he didn’t get himself blown up, didn’t become the Red Hood, almost like he doesn’t have a body laced with green poisonous rage.
It’s a warm, quiet, safe nest.
Or it is, until Dickface slips in the room.
Jason lets out an almost inaudible rumble, and Dick is unfazed, a cheerful grin splitting his face under his mask.
“This looks cozy,” he says, and Jason’s claws flick out to enclose his kitten again. Not even Dick is getting close to Tim. And then Dick takes a fucking picture and Jason vividly remembers what the Pit rage feels like, because he wants to murder that asshole.
Tim is awake again, making that ridiculous tiny cheeping sound, and Dick takes a step closer. Jason flattens his paw more, squishing his kitten, but keeping him safe from Dick’s grabby little hands, and growls at him.
Dick lifts his hands in surrender.
“I won’t take him,” Dick says soothingly. “But perhaps we should go back to the Cave? Figure out what spell hit you?”
Jason sets his head down and closes his eyes. Nope. They’re fine here.
“What if there are side effects?” Dick asks, almost innocently.
Side effects?
Jason cracks an eye and studies Tim. He looks fine. But what if—
“We can monitor both of you at the Cave,” Dick suggests. “Just in case. The Batmobile is right outside. There are lots of blankets at the cave; you can build him another nest.”
Tim is trilling under his paw, and Jason lifts it to study Tim more carefully. He still looks fine. But that magician is an asshole and who the fuck knows what’s happened?
Gently, he bends his head down to his kitten, who goes unexpectedly stiff. Jason huffs warm air over him, reminding him he’s safe and secure, and then grabs him by the scruff of the neck and follows Dick to the Batmobile.
For Tim’s safety.