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Dick Grayson had been missing for six months. Wally wasn’t coping well.
He’d been going on runs around the world without supervision more and more often. Hoping, just hoping, he could catch a glimpse, a hint, a clue, of what had happened to his best friend.
It wasn’t like he was the only one searching. Batman was also scouring every possible avenue on his end, but nothing had come of it so far.
It was on one of those runs when he found The Cat.
The Cat ran up to him and climbed up his leg onto his shoulders, hissing in the direction it had come from.
“Aw. Hi little fellow. Is a dog chasing you?”
The Cat gave him a super unimpressed glare.
It was… oddly familiar.
“Do you have a home?”
The Cat seemed to nod. It batted at Wally.
“Oh? You want to come home with me? Okay!”
He pulled The Cat into his arms and ran home with it.
The Cat was not impressed.
Neither were Wally’s parents, but they let it slide as soon as Wally slipped up and said he couldn’t wait for Dick to meet his new cat and… oh.
His downcast mood was interrupted when The Cat dragged his video game controllers over and distracted him.
Who knew a cat could play video games?
The Cat was very demanding. He (apparently The Cat was a he) turned his nose up at cat food and liked to steal Wally’s freeze-dried chicken whizzees. It was like he knew that was Wally’s favorite snack.
They tried to take The Cat (who would not accept any names Wally tried to give him and messed with Dick’s stuff whenever Wally tried to give him a name), to the vet. All three Wests were scratched up from manipulating him into a carrier. Then, The Cat somehow disappeared the moment they turned their backs in the examining room. Fortunately, the vet had already determined The Cat wasn’t sick at that point, but he also didn’t have any cat vaccines!
Honestly, it’s like The Cat knew he needed feline shots and objected strenuously.
They spent an hour searching the clinic for The Cat just for Uncle Barry to call and say The Cat had found his way into Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris’s house.
That was… how did The Cat even know where that was?!
So their little trip to get The Cat vaccines failed and any further attempts found The Cat scarce for hours before and after.
The vet was amused. Uncle Barry was amused. Even Wally had to admit he was a little amused.
His parents were less amused.
But they still let him keep The Cat. So that was something.
“I’m headed to Mount Justice.” He called to his parents one day three weeks into his ownership of The Cat.
He made it to the front door just to find The Cat blocking the door.
For once, he was even wearing the collar he’d objected strenuously to Wally putting on him.
“You… want to come with me?”
“Meow.”
“I’ll have to get Uncle Barry’s permission.”
“Me ow .”
“You’ll have to sit out during training.”
“Meow.”
Wally sighed. He was supposed to be checking in with Batman about leads too today. And he doubted the man would appreciate the addition of Wally’s new pet.
But The Cat had put his collar on all nicely and everything!
…how had The Cat gotten his collar on by himself?
Wally shrugged it off.
A quick call to Uncle Barry had The Cat classified under the C-series designations with Wolf and Sphere.
Artemis smirked when he came through. “I still can’t believe you got a cat and named him Cat. And here I thought that was Conner’s gig.”
“ The Cat. It’s a temporary name. He won’t let me name him anything else.”
“I know, I know. You brought him with you?”
“He’s a very intelligent cat. He wanted to come.”
“As intelligent as a cat can be.”
“Hey. This cat is good at video games. How many cats do you know who can do that?”
“Bull. Cats can’t accurately play video games. They just bat at the screen.”
“Bull to you maybe. This cat has beat me five times.”
Artemis frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a regular cat.”
“Well, he’s not a regular cat. He’s my cat.”
“You taught him to play video games?” Conner chimed in.
“Welllllll, kinda?”
“Meow.” The Cat seemed to shake his head.
“Kid Flash, please place your cat elsewhere. It’s time for training.” Black Canary entered the room.
“Zatanna’s going to be late.” M’gann said. “She said to start without her.”
“Thank you for letting me know.” Black Canary said.
They were midway through training when a commotion distracted them.
“Oh. Hello.” The Cat was bouncing excitedly around Zatanna’s feet. “What’s your name?”
“Currently, he’s just called The Cat.” Artemis said. “He won’t let Wally name him.”
“Apparently, The Cat is good at video games.” Conner added.
“I told you! He’s beaten me five times!”
Zatanna furrowed her brows. “Laever neddih sterces.” She cast the spell on The Cat, who paused his scampering and sat down obediently.
“Hey! What did you do to my cat?!” Wally sped over and snatched up The Cat, who proceeded to scratch him. “Oh come on. Not the scratching again.”
“You did grab him suddenly.” Artemis said.
“Team, focus, please.” Black Canary said.
“Kid Flash, where did you find that… him?”
“Somewhere in Montana, I think.”
“Black Canary, sorry to interrupt the training session, but I think this… he has been a cat long enough. And we need to figure out who turned him and how in order to turn him back.”
The Cat wriggled out of Wally’s arms and danced around Zatanna with something that very clearly resembled joy.
“Are you saying that’s not actually a cat?” Kaldur asked, resigned.
“Best I can tell, a kid our age or younger. Kid Flash, he probably escaped from somewhere. Where did you find him?”
“I don’t remember exactly where…”
“Mrow!” The Cat hissed angrily. Then, he scurried over to M’gann. “Meow?”
“Oh! Yeah I can probably help him remem… how did you know I could help him remember?”
“Meow.”
M’gann shook her head. “Kid, try to recall finding him for the first time. I’ll try and figure out the exact location from there.”
Black Canary seemed resigned to ending training early, but let them go with the condition they make it clear to The Cat (kid?) that he shouldn’t share any top secret info he’d discovered by being adopted by Kid Flash.
The Cat (kid?) seemed insulted by the insinuations there.
They went to board the Bioship just to find The Cat (kid?) had disappeared.
“Doesn’t he want to come with us?” Wally asked.
“Look.” Conner pointed.
The Cat (kid?) was entering the hangar dragging a bundle of clothes twice his size. Some familiar sunglasses were sitting on top.
M’gann used her telekinesis to float both The Cat (kid?) and his bundle into the Bioship, startling the poor little guy.
“Sorry. Thought it would be faster.” M’gann told The Cat (kid?).
The Cat (kid?) grumbled a little, but hopped onto a specially made perch for the ride. He didn’t seem startled by the automatic seatbelts.
It took about half an hour to get to Montana and then a little longer to find the specific spot where Kid Flash had found The Cat (kid?).
After that, The Cat (kid?) took the lead, guiding them to a hidden facility deep in the woods.
They arrived in time to see a screaming little girl get turned into a bunny.
At least it gave Zatanna some energy signals to reverse-engineer.
“Hey. Can I keep the bunny?” A goon asked.
“You can have a bunny when you find that cat you lost.” Another replied.
“That cat’s probably been hit by a car or starved to death by now. I want a bunny.”
“No. Find the cat.”
The part of the Team that was in the rafters there, rather than scouting other parts of the building, slowly turned to The very smug yet also hissing Cat (kid).
Ten minutes later found them back in the Bioship. They needed to call in the League for publicity purposes and Zatanna wanted to test her countercurse on one person before testing it on all the rest.
Fortunately, The Cat (kid) was perfectly happy to be a figurative guinea pig. (If she turned him into a literal guinea pig, he would be very mad.)
The Cat (kid) dragged his stolen bundle of clothes over and then glared at the rest of the Team until they agreed to leave until he was human and clothed again.
Kid Flash paced impatiently outside the Bioship, much to the rest of the Team’s amusement.
“It’ll be fine, Kid Flash.” Aqualad said.
“What if it’s not? We bonded! If something happens to that cat… er, kid, I don’t know what I’d…” He was interrupted when someone grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and punched him in the face.
Before he could recover, the barely contained (because they were still rather close to the bad guys’ hideout so yelling was a bad idea) scolding started.
“I was a cat for three extra weeks because of you! Do you know how many hints I dropped?! What kind of cat knows how to play video games! You’re an idiot, KF! An absolute IDIOT! Zatanna figured it out in two minutes! TWO MINUTES! Why are you such a… ugh! Did you think I liked being a cat?!”
“R-Rob?” Kid Flash stammered. Because that was his best friend in oversized clothing with sunglasses carefully secured to conceal his identity. “Rob!” He hugged the boy, stopping his rant mid-sentence.
Robin sighed. “Next time, please pay attention when a strange animal drops hints he’s not an animal.”
“Let’s hope there’s not a next time.” Aqualad said simply.
“Okay. I think I can do it on a bigger scale now.” Zatanna said.
“Cool. Cuz my civvie best friend was taken with me and I don’t think she wants to be a hamster any more than I want to be a cat.”
“You’ll need to ditch the clothes to blend in when you’re rescued.”
“Do I have to?”
“Or you can explain to the authorities why you’re in clothes and the other victims aren’t.”
“Fine…”
And that was that.
Granted, Robin had made a very cute cat.
Once his wrath was sated, they were never going to let him live this down.