Red Hood's blood boiled as the pained yelps and barks turned into pitiful whimpers. The thugs laughed at the poor animal they were tormenting, unaware of their doom descending from a rooftop of one of the buildings in an alley. Red Hood made a quick but thorough work on them. He hated any kind of abusers and he barely stopped himself from killing them. The time would be better spend on helping the dog.

Red Hood slowly approached the lump of fur on the ground. Now, that he could take his time to take the animal in, he realized that it wasn't a dog or a cat but a fox. What a fox was doing on Gotham streets? Did it escaped zoo or wandered this far looking for food? It was breathing hard, but stayed still. It's hind leg was stretched and matted with blood.

"Hey there, little guy," Red Hood said softly.

The fox raised to lay on it's belly and whined as he tried to crawl closer to Jason, jostling the injured leg.

"Easy, easy," Red Hood soothed, crouching down and taking a closer look.

The leg had a deep scratches on the meaty part, worsened by whatever those pieces of crap lying unconscious did.

The fox raised higher and started licking Red Hood's helmet enthusiastically.

Well, who would have thought? Jason never met a wild animal this friendly.

"Let's get you some help, hm?" Red Hood decided. He carefully put his hands under the fox and lifted, minding the injured leg.

The fox squirmed with a whine to a more comfortable position and buried it's snout in Jason's armpit. It warmed Jason's heart to have the animal trust him this quickly. Maybe it was domesticated and wandered off from his home? Anyhow that was good, it wouldn't cause much problems for him in getting it to the vet.

He was just a few blocks away from the vet clinic he used to bring wounded animals to. Nobody blinked an eye anymore when Red Hood showed up with another patient. So was this time too. He was instantly ushered into the room where he lied the fox on an examination table. The vet on duty snapped his latex gloves on and proceed to examine the injured leg.

"It looks like he was bitten and he pulled his leg away when the teeth were still in," the vet decided.

"He?" Red Hood questioned.

"Yes, it's a he," the vet turned away to rummage through several drawers. "He needs stitches. He's lucky it's not that deep or didn't tear anything important, but it got dirty and further bruised up so he needs to be under observation for an infection."

"I see," Red Hood hummed, stroking the soft fur. "So you expect me to take him in?"

"Yes," the vet replied. "We're full, thanks to you. Besides having a fox here will disturb our other patients."

The fox tensed when the vet came back with a syringe and tried to get away from the shot. Red Hood held it down, while it whimpered and tried to wriggle free before slumping as the drugs took effect.

"It's going to be fine, little guy," Red Hood said to the fox. He sat down on the side while the vet got to work.

Half an hour later Red Hood was lugging a cage with a sleeping fox inside his apartment. The little fucker was heavy despite it's lithe form and the size of the cage didn't help in maneuvering it without jostling the sleeping animal.

Eventually Jason managed to situate the cage on some towels in the obscured corner of his living room. He checked the wrapping on fox's leg and went to sleep. Only to be woken up by the ruckus of cries and growls and rattling of the cage.

Jason got up with a groan and hurried to his living room where fox was making a mess from his cozy corner.

"Hey, hey," Jason knelt down to the panicking animal. "Easy, it's okay."

The fox paused in it's struggling and looked at him with a glare from behind the bars.

Jason blinked. Huh, foxes could glare?

"You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" he asked, trying to peer at the leg. The wrapping was laying in a corner of the cage, but the vet said it was okay as long as the fox didn't chew the stitches out. Jason put his fingers through the holes in the cage to take it away least the fox decided it was tasty, but the animal growled and snapped it's teeth.

"Not so friendly anymore, huh?" Jason observed.

The fox grumbled and hit the empty bowl with his front paw, panting.

"You want water?" Jason sighed and got up to get some water.

The fox watched him go and come back patiently.

Jason sat down before the cage and used a spoon to bring the bowl closer to the bars. He wasn't risking his fingers, thank you. Then he stuck the funnel through the side of the cage and started pouring water.

The fox stared at him in utter judgment.

"Here," Red Hood said as he finished. "Fresh tasty water. Now be quiet. I have noisy neighbors and don't need them to come here asking questions." With that he went back to sleep.

He was late for work. So much late. Jason shot up from his bed and scrambled to get dressed, cleaned up and fed almost all at once. His alarm didn't go off for some reason and he overslept. He was almost ready in record time, even for a Bat and he made a mental record of that fact to brag about. Jason jammed a slice of bread into his mouth to free his hands for putting on his jacket and slid his feet into his shoes. He made three steeps, was almost out of the door, when he felt something was wrong. His feet felt wet and like he stepped on something squishy inside the boots. And there were wet footprints on his floor.

"Oh fuck, ew!" Jason grimaced, kicking his shoes off immediately. He gingerly lifted them and sniffed. Yup, definitely a urine.

He growled and stomped back further into his apartment, slamming the door shut. He marched into the living room and was greeted by a sight of the fox curled up on his couch he missed earlier in his haste. The animal was glaring defiantly at him from over his fluffy tail.

"You fucker!" Jason gritted out. The fox flickered his tail disinterestedly. Jason took a breath to launch into a rant but he caught a glimpse of the clock. He was sooo late. "I don't have time for this now," Jason pointed at the fox, "but this isn't over yet!"

Red Hood hurried to get new socks, wash his feet and find a second pair of shoes while the fox lied and watched him rush around. Jason was definitely seeing things, because foxes couldn't be smug, could they?

Jason came back a few hours later than usual and found the fox was sitting in the corridor, looking up at him hopefully. He felt a pang of guilt. He forgot to lay out some food and fresh water before he left. And he didn't even want to think what the fox used as a bathroom for the whole day. And how the hell did it got out of the cage in the first place?

The fox got up and came closer to him. Jason froze with shopping bags still in his hands. But the animal didn't attack him. Only tangled itself between his legs, fawning and purring like an oversized cat.

Jason let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, kicking off his shoes and making his way to the kitchen. "You're hungry. I get it."

He was glad he went shopping and got some animal friendly food. He prepared a bowl and set it on the floor before the fox.

The fox sniffed at it disdainfully for a minute then took a small bite. And promptly spewed it out, coughing and spitting. It's adorably disgusted face and tongue clucking made Jason chuckle. The fox glared at him and left the kitchen.

Jason was still laughing when he heard a stream of water. It took him a second to piece what it meant and he rushed out of the kitchen to see the fox walking away from his second pair of sodden shoes.

"You're a fucking asshole, you know," he called after the fox. "A real dick."

The fox stopped and turned it's head to look at him.

"Yeah!" Jason crowed. "That will be your name now. Dick! Get used to that!"

The fox flickered his tail at him and went to curl up on the couch.

Jason won the fox over by giving him pieces of cooked chicken. In no time the fox was happily sprawled over his lap, begging to be petted. It even relocated to sleeping on his bed, Jason discovered after he came back from patrol. He tried to take the fox back to the couch, if not the cage, but it growled when he tried to move it, so Jason let it be.

It was barely dawn when Jason was woken by hushed voices in his living room. He muffled his groan with a pillow and tired to get back to sleep. It was too early to deal with the Bat brood. It was a lost cause as Dick the fox started growling from his curled up position next to Jason's head.

"What!" Jason barked as soon as Tim made an appearance in the door to his bedroom.

"We need your help-" Tim stopped as he spied the fox and slumped in relief. "Oh, you found him."

"What?" Damian elbowed Tim aside and barreled into the room. "Grayson! Why didn't you come back? Titus didn't mean to hurt you."

The fox snorted.

Jason turned to look incredulously at the animal. The fox stared back with a fucking grin on it's face.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"Dick got turned into a fox," Tim explained, while Damian was attempting to entice Dick to come closer to him. "Titus bit him and Dick ran away. We were looking for him ever since."

"That's Dick?!" Jason made sure. At Tim's nod he swiveled to glare at the fox, who perked up. "You fucker! You're a dead meat!"

Dick pounced happily on him and started licking Jason's face.

"Aw, no!" Jason yelled as he tried to fend off the animal. "Ew, get off me! Dick!"