Tim Drake adopted a cat
Not by choice, really. He found the cat raiding his open pantry at 2AM and wondered how the fuck it even got inside with his top notch security system.
It was a skrunkly little thing, malnourished, flea ridden, with a runny nose. Tim felt bad, but he decided to help the poor baby, taking him to the vet. The cat got treated and Tim decided to keep it in the spare room he had in his house, feeding it its medicine and whatever food the vet had advised him, essentially taking it in as a foster.
Tim kept it a secret from his family, of course. And Kon, too. Who, whenever he came to hang out, would hear tiny mewls coming from.. from somewhere and Tim would just gaslight him into believing that there was nothing there. It weirdly worked? The only reason why he didn’t tell anyone was because he valued his privacy, and his family is the opposite of private. Friends and family alike love making surprise visits to see Tim, and having a cat in the house would give them more of a reason to. He wasn’t willing, truly.
For the whole week, Tim had nursed the cat back to health, feeding it well, and he planned to leave food outside everyday once he released the cat. But the thing was, the cat just.. never left. Tim tried, of course. He tried placing the cat outside, closing the door, but it would just sprint inside before it closed shut. It would howl if he had managed to leave it outside, and Tim’s heart lurched when he heard it, so he’d open his door and let it back in.
By the second week, Tim was spending his downtime from work, playing with the cat. He named it, too. He named the cat Red Bandit, since it tried to steal food from his pantry in the first place. Plus, it was cute. Red Robin and Red Bandit.
Okay, maybe Tim adored this cat. Red Bandit– or RB, for short, would climb onto his lap while he was working and would just knead his thighs, making biscuits. Hell, when Tim cradled RB, it would make AIR biscuits, and Tim felt the overwhelming urge to cry because it was too cute. Was this how Dick felt with Bitewing? Or how Damian felt with all his animals? Tim’s never really been much of an animal guy, but this.. this little thing…
Eventually, word got around, and as Tim expected, his house became the hot spot for the next month or so, with Damian, Dick, Jason, and Duke spoiling the everloving hell out of RB. Even Bruce got him a bunch of toys, some even bat themed. Cass slept on the couch one night after movie night with the family and RB was sleeping on her chest, splayed out while purring, and Tim couldn’t help but take a picture of it for safe keeping.
Tim’s not really an animal guy, but he’d kill for his little Red Bandit.
