Chapter Text
Tim saw the flash of lightning and thunder almost immediately followed. Great. That storm’s close. He stepped onto the roof and concentrated on his human form. He felt the familiar tingle in his limbs and took a few steps with his now regular, non cat, feet being careful to not swing the camera around his neck too much. He pulled his hood over his head as soon as he felt the first drop of rain and tucked his camera neatly under his sweater, being extra careful to not scratch the lens. Tim crouched down on the top of one the apartment skyscrapers that the bats usually passed on their Tuesday patrol routes.
And bingo. Movement on the rooftop below him, he carefully brought out the camera and zoomed in on the figures below. He cursed under his breath when the rain started to pick up but he kept the camera out, theoretically the thing was water resistant and it seemed he was testing that out tonight. Part of him wanted to call it there and head back to the manor but if the bats didn’t stop for the storm then I neither did the bat’s stalker. Tim turned the zoom dial with the slightest click click and took a few pictures. He focused on the group of, it looked like three, vigilantes. From what he could tell through the rain it was Nightwing, Red Hood, and the new Robin. Well wasn’t that an interesting group.
Red Hood had showed up a few months ago wreaking havoc in crime alley from what Tim gathered but the vigilante hadn’t been on Tim’s radar until he started hanging around the bats. After that he’d gotten a little too curious and was about 85% sure that the Red Hood was a somehow revived version of Batman’s 2nd Robin, Jason Todd. He was still working on how the actual revival part really worked but he was pretty sure about everything else.
The new Robin on the other hand was really easy. Damian Wayne. He made no real attempt to cover his identity besides the domino mask. Very few people in Gotham talked like Victorians and even fewer were on TV. Tim was honestly surprised no one else had figured it out by now. Or maybe they had and were just too scared of him, the kid did have a sword and a strong willingness to use it so he really couldn’t blame anyone for the fear.
Tim shivered under his now very soaked sweater and looked back through the camera as another flash of lightning cracked across Gotham’s smog darkened sky. Tim blinked the light out of his eyes and went back to watching but he swore he saw Nightwing looking straight at him and he swore his stomach dropped to the soles of his feet as Nightwing’s hard stare locked onto him. Apparently he was right. He gasped and scrambled back when a grappling hook struck the building a few feet from where he was crouched. Tim wasted no time in pushing himself to his feet and racing to the edge of the building as his heart pounded out of his chest.
“Kid, wait!” Called a panicked voice behind him that he assumed was Nightwing
Tim didn’t wait though. Instead he pushed off the roof, held his camera to his chest, and concentrated on his cat form as he fell. He felt the shift happen right before he hit the ground lightly on all four paws. As soon as he was grounded he ran under a dumpster in the alley. He sat there and tried to ignore how loud his heart was beating, he wouldn’t be surprised if the bats on the roof could hear it. He tried to ignore how horrified Nightwing must be right about now. He just saw a kid jump off a building and saw nobody hit the ground. Whatever, wasn’t Tim’s problem.
He glanced at his reflection in a puddle quickly. Good, the white dot on his chest indicating that his camera had morphed into part of the cat with him was there. That meant he didn’t drop the really nice, expensive camera his dad had gotten him for his 14th birthday (it was actually his 15th but who’s counting. Tim didn’t care as long as he got that camera). Tim crawled out from under the dumpster and stretched before leaping off down the alley. He turned down a few side streets, took a couple random routes and finally ended up at the 24/7 bus stop. He slunk into the shadows of the alley right behind it to shift back to normal. His heart rate was still a bit high but he had mostly calmed down by this point.
It didn’t take long for the bus to arrive. Once Tim was on he let out a quiet relieved sigh, that was way too close.
Tim had no clue what the bats would do if they found out that their neighbor, or well as much of a neighbor as you could get with properties that big, was a shifter. Shifters weren’t metas per say but they weren’t not metas so he really didn’t know the rules. All he knew was that most of the bats were shifters and they probably wouldn’t appreciate any others being in Gotham, so he’d like to keep that part a secret that you very much.
—
Tim stepped through the large double doors of the manor and tried his best to stomp as much of the water off as he could. He changed into dry clothes, toweled off his hair and shoved his wet clothes in the washing machine.
Tim sat down at his desk to look through the new photos he got tonight, most of them were blurred by the rain and none of them had any actual action because apparently Gotham’s criminals hated the rain as much as Tim did.
Achoo!
Tim wiped his nose with his sleeve and cursed under his breath when he sneezed again. Note to self. Don’t go out bat hunting in the rain. Getting sick does actually happen.
He sighed and pushed away from his desk, he took the SD card and hid it under the loose floorboard and climbed into bed. 1:26 AM. Not horrible but definitely not the best considering he had to be up by 6 to catch the bus. He groaned and shoved the covers over his head. It didn’t take that long before he was fast asleep.