Chapter Text
Batman crouched on the lip of a roof, wishing the rain would stop. He’d invested millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of lab time, and they still couldn’t develop a cowl that didn’t eventually drop cold water down the back of his neck.
“What are we watching for?”
He jumped, bracing himself against a crenellation just in time to keep from falling. One second he would swear there’d been no one and nothing near him, and the next someone was talking almost in his ear. He growled in annoyance even as he turned.
“One of these days, Kal, I swear, I’m—” He cut himself off as he caught sight of what awaited him, and bit back a groan. “Bat-Mite. Been a while.”
“Yeah, well.” The imp ground his toe into the wet roof, shrugging his shoulders sadly. “It seems like you’re never happy when I come around.”
Bruce did not feel guilty. No matter how cute the little guy was, he was nothing but trouble.
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Bat-Mite,” he said gruffly.
“No, I know. I’ve screwed up a lot. But I figured out how to make it up to you!”
“Really, that’s not necessary,” Bruce said quickly. “I don’t need you to do anything at all.”
“But you do!” Bat-Mite said imploringly. “You’re so unhappy! I see it every day, you never get to do anything you really enjoy or spend as much time as you want with the people you love.”
“That’s because I have a mission, Bat-Mite,” Bruce responded, now genuinely alarmed. “The Mission takes precedence over spending my time how I might want. You admire me for my work, right? You wouldn’t want to do anything to get in the way of it.”
Bat-Mite snorted. “You were gone for how long, traveling in time, and the Mission didn’t suffer; Dick and Damian did great as Batman and Robin. I don’t think the world would end if you spent some time focusing on things that would make you happy. Don’t you think you would actually be a greater Batman if you took better care of yourself?”
Bruce closed his eyes for a second as Bat-Mite’s words evoked the simmering rage that had been his constant companion since Selina had left him. Granted, Bruce conceded that some of his traumatic past had been necessary—dimension shifting and time travel had shown, for example, that universes and timelines where his parents didn’t die weren’t fun places to be. Even now, his Gotham was too full of misery and evil for Bruce to be looking for a vine and fig tree. Contentment was not in his nature, not while there were villains out there to be fought, and he didn’t see that changing any time soon.
But Bruce refused to believe that having a few good things in his life would somehow make him a less effective Batman. If anything, the times when he’d been the most unhappy in his life—after Jason, after Bane, after Damian, right now—had also been the times he made the worst mistakes, the ones that made him writhe in useless self-hatred in the hour of the wolf…
“Maybe I could spend some more time on—trying to be happy,” Bruce admitted aloud. Alfred would be so proud. “But it’s really not necessary to help me to do so.”
“But I have the perfect idea! It’s based on something we fifth-dimension types do to relax—in fact, it’s kinda why I’m here in the first place.”
“Why you’re here?”
“Hold on, it’ll all make sense in a moment—”
“Bat-Mite, no—”
Too late. It felt like every cell in Bruce’s body seized up and vibrated at the same time. He lost track of all his senses; he couldn’t tell where he was, and he panicked, knowing that it would take only a small movement for him to fall off the roof edge. He tried, desperately, to flatten himself to the ground, despite not being able to feel his body.
“Um, Batman? You can open your eyes now…”
Bruce slowly opened his eyes. Thank god, he was securely resting on his stomach, tightly gripping the lip of the roof with all four legs.
All… four … legs?
He slowly pushed himself up on all fours and looked down. Yup, four legs. Covered in plush black fur, up until the feet, which were white.
Oh no.
“Mrrooaaarrrrr.” Bruce jumped again, hearing a mournful noise. A second later he realized it was coming from him.
Not a cat. Please, don’t let me be a cat.
“You’re so cute,” Bat-Mite enthused.
Turn me back right now! “Mraow!”
“Sorry, Batman, no can do! I set this up very carefully. You get to spend a month like this, unless you hit one of the other triggers before then.”
Dammit, Bat-Mite! “Mrruuurrrrrrrr,” he growled.
“Okay, I get that you’re mad. But seriously, just give it a try. You’d be amazed at how freeing spending some time as a lower being can be!”
Are you kidding me? “Meow!”
“Anyway, I’ll see you in a month. Or maybe sooner. Have fun!”
And with that, Bat-Mite disappeared. Leaving Bruce as a cat, on the roof of a fourteen-story building in downtown Gotham, with no idea how to get down.
“Mrrrooooaarrrrr.”