The thing with Jaytim and a lot of cats
This is a not! fic campfire I did on a discord server that I’m porting over here, I hope y’all enjoy the fluff. @inkyubus and @salazarastark helped a bit towards the end
Okay. Tim is canonically a cat person and it has annoyed the hell out of me that Tim never got pets but Damian gets a menagerie, so I always give him a cat when given the opportunity by plot
Tim finds a pregnant kitty on his fire escape, and takes her in. He’s calling on Selina and googling everything he can after processing that oh right this is going to be a big change, and goes out to the pet store incognito to grab supplies
But he’s at the Crime Alley theater house apartment so Jason is out doing an early evening patrol, spots him, and gets curious. What’s he doing around here in civvies?
Jason tails him to the nearest pet shop, and back to his house, where he spots him playing with soon-to-be mama cat. He wants to be mad that Tim’s in *his* territory, clearly living here, but it’s hard to get too pissed when he’s giving a happy kitty belly rubs and smiling like that.
Jason’s seen him do confident Robin grin, dangerous “I’m gonna fuck you up” battle smirk, calming civilians smile, even polite Wayne heir curve of the lips. But smiling joyfully like this, eyes uncovered, clearly laughing a little as the cat demands treats? Something goes warm in his chest
Meanwhile Tim is feeling tired and stressed bc his life is a busy exhausting and traumatizing mess lately but it’s hard to think about the bad stuff when he has mama cat and her litter to think about. She’s clearly been a pet before and is so friendly and cuddly that it breaks his heart to think someone abandoned her. He gets her to the vet to check for a chip and get her looked over, and when there’s no chip that cements his decision that fuck it, he’s keeping her
He totally names her Arwen bc there is no way in hell a kid that was a DM for DC’s D&D equivalent isn’t a fan of LoTR. Arwen has to get mites and fleas removed but once she’s flea free she’s sharing his bed
Jason. Is still keeping an eye on him, subtly. Staying out of range of Tim’s security systems and Babs’s cameras and telling himself it’s all because he can’t just let the Pretender go unsupervised in his turf. And sure that’s part of it. But Tim’s actually pretty good about sticking to patrolling his own territory and that helps somewhat
And well. Jason regrets what went down during that mess after Bruce died. Was kinda shitty of him to repay Tim letting him out of jail by stabbing him in the chest and all. He’s a big awkward goober dealing with some guilt now that he’s more settled, so he has trouble figuring out how he should approach Tim and let him know that Jason is aware that he’s holing up in Crime Alley
He’s gotta do something eventually, right? Ah well. Can’t hurt to just. Watch him, every now and then. See him through the windows being a goofy new cat dad and a disaster of a teenage vigilante
(Jason, honey, things really have come full circle)
Eventually things get set in motion. LoS assassins attack Tim’s apartment, Arwen runs away bc scared kitty, Jason jumps in to help fight the assassins and then they go track down the poor baby. And some bonding and pining bc Jason is developing such a crush and also hot damn Tim fighting and winning is a sight to see
Tim is understandably wary about Jason but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he’s being helpful and even offering to assist him in finding Arwen. She’s due to give birth soon!
(It’s been about a month now and she was already about midway through when Tim first found her. Domestic cats are pregnant around 57-65 days, so around two months)
They end up running around asking the ladies of the night and various others if they’ve seen a pregnant long-haired tabby cat. Eventually they go back to Tim’s apartment as dawn is breaking, only to find Arwen is on his fire escape again and in labor
They get her inside, clean up, and Tim sets her down in his bathtub, petting her soothingly and fussing over her. Jason is still helping out and he just goes with it, gratefully accepting a can of Zesti and medical supplies
I foster cats irl so I know how this tends to go pretty well. Within an hour of labor starting Arwen will finish pushing out kitten #1 and each of the rest will come around 15-20 minutes apart. She’ll clean them up and eat the placentas, which is gross but perfectly healthy, and soon enough they’ll be nursing from her while she purrs and rests
Tim looked into it and well. He’s been around human deliveries before and this was honestly so much quicker that it was a relief
(He was there when Steph gave birth and has likely helped deliver babies as Robin bc pregnant women can and will go into labor when shocked, like being held hostage or getting hurt in an accident)
He sits back with a sigh and pays his full attention to Jason now. He hasn’t been fully ignoring him persay, still keeping an eye and an ear on him just in case, but he’s been. Surprisingly nice and nothing but helpful, Tim isn’t sure what to think of it. Jason’s staring at the kittens but turns to look at Tim when he notices that the younger vigilante is assessing him
There’s a long moment of increasingly awkward silence as they stare at each other while the newborn kittens are mewling and Arwen’s drifting off to sleep. Jason is the one that finally breaks the tension, rubbing the back of his neck and looking back at the kitties.
“So. Pretty cute cats you got here”
Jay immediately cringes inside because yeah, it’s true that the cats are cute as heck, but c’mon Todd address the scenario
Here’s inky’s contributions:
"yeah real cute when they're covered in blood and placenta" tim retorts and then wants to smack himself.
"it's ok. they're still adorable through the bodily fluids," jason's smile is so fond when he looks down at the kittens tucked tight into the curve of arwen's body that tim thinks he must be dreaming
he's never seen jason with an expression even close to fond or happy since he came back. jason is stroking arwen's tail with just the tip of a finger, smoothing down the crooked fur.
He hasn’t seen him look so happy since he was. Since he was Robin, and Tim was just a fanboy with a camera
"you like cats?" the question breaks jason out of his reverie.
"they were just always around. alley cats are cranky fucks, but city strays are never that afraid of humans. they'd come around and beg for scraps until someone chased them off."
tim hummed, scritching arwen between the ears. "you were pretty good with her just now."
there was a tiny flush on jason's cheeks. "might have invited one in for a few days when no one was home. chased her off before she could get too attached."
“I always wanted a cat, but my parents hated them and Alfred said no. I found Arwen on my fire escape hiding from a stray dog and I just had to take her inside”
Eventually Tim offers Jason a cup of tea and Jason asks about the cats more. Arwen’s name comes up and leads into a talk about Lord of the Rings, bc they both read the series and loved it. And a debate comes up over something they saw differently but it’s still friendly
Maybe Tim liked the movies’ take better than Jason did and they argue the merits vs flaws of the adaption. But they both agree that the Hobbit movies are way less faithful to the book
By the time they’re done with the tea and their conversation the sun is up and Jason ducks out to go home, feeling butterflies in his stomach at the memory of Tim smiling and laughing at him. Tim is reminded why he used to have a crush, but still very watchful bc he thought things were getting better before BftC happened
He goes to sleep and wakes up to Arwen balefully glaring at him bc her breakfast is late
Tim got injured during the LoS fight and aggravated it while looking for his poor kitty, so in the end he’s not really up for patrol that night. He stays in his apartment and alternates between looking over case files on his laptop and checking on Arwen and her babies. He lets Oracle know he’s off rotation for the night and to let Cass patrol his territory bc she’s visiting, and settles in to do some hacking to find out why Ra’s sent the assassins last night and talking with Lonnie about Unternet developments
He’s in the middle of hacking a phone’s datastream to find footage taken by a teenager that noticed skulking shadows outside the windows when there’s a knock on his window, and he checks his security system expecting one of the Bats to have gotten past his sensors. It’s Jason out on the fire escape with a couple of bags in hand. Tim is confused, but decides to roll with it again. He’s just hoping that the duffle isn’t full of heads
Turns out Jason went looking and found the League’s newest base in Gotham, liberating some paper files, a couple choice weapons, several USB drives, and a laptop that had belonged to the squad leader. He offers to let Tim work with him on this because he wants “those sycophantic assassins out of my territory dammit” and obviously Tim’s involved anyway
They both check on the kittens every now and then. They’re still too little to be doing much but nursing, sleeping, and crying, but god are they precious. And Arwen is a tired but proud mama cat
Now let’s see...Arwen’s a long-haired brown tabby with green eyes (not at all based on my baby Zelda, of course *shhh*). The kittens will be named after the Hobbits—Frodo the black kitten with big blue eyes, Sam the ginger tabby, Merry is white with golden patches, and Pippin is the tiny little tabby runt that mewls loudest
At one point Jason picks them all up and makes a joke while carrying the four of them that they're taking the hobbits to Isengard. It makes Tim snort and then wince bc the injury that kept him in was to his ribs
Tim gets sick. Not like immediately but a couple days to a week or two in, and Jason ends up playing rough but sweet nurse while Tim tries to hide that he’s ill from the Bats. Maybe the ribs issue leads to him getting a cold that nearly turns nasty bc no spleen plus two incidents of death plague and numerous other things mean his immune system’s wonky
Tim’s a stubborn little shit who won’t stay in bed unless Jason picks up Arwen and the babies to put them on the bed with him. He’s not cruel enough to move the babies when they’re sleeping on him, is he? But he can still glare at Jason
Jason might sneak a few pictures. For blackmail, he tells himself. Sure Jason, we believe you. It’s certainly not because it’s adorable and makes you get the warm fuzzies
It feels significantly less adorable when Tim pukes in the trash can and drips snot everywhere but the bedhead and flushed face and some semi-coherent feverish babbling about Star Trek and ornithology helps
Jason remembers Alfred’s cooking lessons and puts them to use, Tim lets out an obscene moan when he starts eating the soup that makes Jason choke on his own spit like a dork
“Did you get this from Alfred? It tastes just like his!”
“Yeah, he taught me how to cook, before...y’know.” Jason is very proud of himself for remembering it correctly, if a bit sad that he hasn’t spoken to Alfred since before he died
“Oh.” Tim blinks owlishly at him, unsure how to respond. “Well. You did a way better job than I would have.”
Arwen chooses that moment to demand attention, meowing stridently and rubbing her face against his hand until he goes along with it and scratches lightly under her chin
And that’s all, folks. Will eventually turn this into a proper fic and give it an ending, but I hope y’all enjoy it as is for the moment
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