Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7361269.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_-_All_Media_Types, Young_Justice_(Cartoon)
  Relationship:
      Dick_Grayson/Bruce_Wayne, Tim_Drake/Kon-El, Dick_Grayson_&_Damian_Wayne
  Character:
      Dick_Grayson, Bruce_Wayne, Damian_Wayne, Jason_Todd, Tim_Drake, Alfred
      Pennyworth
  Additional Tags:
      Age_Regression/De-Aging, Past_Underage, Bat_Family, awkward_family
      relationships, Fluff, Angst, Cuddling_&_Snuggling, dick_is_a_snugglebug,
      Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Scenting, Frottage, Age_Difference, Humor
  Series:
      Part 2 of Mamabird_Universe
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-07-02 Words: 13089
****** Perspective ******
by Laroyena
Summary
     Dick Grayson wakes up naked in Bruce's bed. Things can't seem to get
     worse until a young boy claiming to be Bruce's son tells him he's
     seventeen years in the future.
     (Batman Omegaverse; crack "sequel" to this_fic where Dick is de-aged
     to ten-years-old and subsequently freaks)
Notes
     There is nothing special about this deaging fic. It is shamelessly
     self-indulgent. I love my tropes, and this is one that's fun in a
     BruDick context because of course little Dick would freak out.
     I chose to put the fic in the same omegaverse as what_happened_across
     the_sea; reading that fic explains BruDick's relationship and also
     how Damian is their son (Alpha!Bruce + Omega!Dick = Damian, though
     Dick had him in secret.) This isn't technically a "sequel" (as it
     doesn't actually continue the plot of the first fic) so much as it
     happens to take place in the same universe. Also, Jason for some
     reason is back in this fic and not the other one. Oops.
     This fic was heavily heavily influenced by this_great_fic about Dick
     de-aging. Go check it out if you haven't already read it!
     EDIT: the fic originally ended after Damian received mini-Zitka.
     After consideration, I decided to separate the section after that
     since the rest of the fic after that is just extra Batfamily bonuses
     ;)
Dick blinked.
“Bruce?” he called out hesitantly, because he could recognize his guardian’s
room even half knocked out from sleeping agent. Which he wasn’t. He was
perfectly fine and awake and had all ten fingers and ten toes, except he
couldn’t remember how he got here.
Also, the more he waited for his guardian—or Alfred, for that matter—to appear,
the more he realized that Bruce’s room looked… different.
Same bed, headboard and stupid wooden posters. Same white sheets. Different bed
stands, though. Bruce liked sleeping on the left, and his bed stand looked
mostly the same. The right side, however, was very different.
For one, it wasn’t empty.
“Bruce?” he called out, louder, starting to feel very panicked. Because this
all pointed to Bruce sharing his bed with someone, and last time he checked
Bruce was very much single.
Finally, he heard footfalls outside the large door.
When it opened, however, he wasn’t prepared to see the young boy—around the
same age as himself—who poked his head into the room.
“Who are you?” Dick said, panic ratcheting up a notch. “Where’s Bruce?”
“Father’s at work,” the boy said, and Dick had to swallow around the word
Father. Father? “Are you—it can’t be—Grayson?”
“Dick!” Dick said. He pulled the covers over himself and hid under them,
because at least the sheets still smelled like Bruce. They were familiar. “Dick
Grayson! And I want Bruce now!”
He didn’t crawl out of his covers, not even when he heard the boy slip out and
shut the door. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.
He didn’t know what was happening or where he was or if some enemy had gotten
to him and he was having a vivid hallucination.
Before he fell back asleep, he had one strange thought: if Bruce was sharing
his bed with someone, Dick should be registering someone else’s scent too. But
no, it was perfect. Just Bruce all over, and Dick’s own sweet scent. So maybe
this was all a dream after all?
He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to wake up.
 
--
 
“Dick.” Someone was shaking his arm. Dick blinked awake and registered several
things: the boy from before was back, closer than ever; he was actually naked
under the covers, which he hadn’t noticed during his panic; and Bruce was the
one shaking his arm.
“Bruce!” he flung himself onto his guardian and buried his nose into the crook
of his neck. It was Bruce all right: Bruce’s nice alpha scent, Bruce’s large
hands curling around his back. He finally pulled back and looked at the man—and
noticed that Bruce looked old.
Not old-old. But older than the young twenty-something Dick was used to.
“Dick,” old Bruce said gently, hands still on Dick’s shoulders. “Dick, how old
are you?”
“…ten?” Dick ventured, dreading what he’d hear next.
“Ten!” the boy said incredulously, and Dick turned to snap at him. Except he
remembered that the boy had called Bruce “Father” and old Bruce certainly
looked old enough to have a child his age. He was surprised when the boy’s
brilliant blue eyes focused on him—they looked familiar, why do they look
familiar?—and then he was crawling up the bed towards Dick.
“Damian!” Bruce said warningly, but the boy—Damian, apparently—ignored him.
“The witch boy did this to you,” he growled, looking angry at this presumed
witch. Dick scrambled backwards but the boy was relentless, and soon he found
himself being hugged by the other boy. “I’m going flay him alive for it.”
“What,” Dick managed to gasp, before he finally registered what he was
smelling.
This boy smelled like him. Like blood-relations family, a kind of scent he
hadn’t smelled since—since his parents—
“Damian, you’re overwhelming him,” Bruce said, sounding actually nervous. When
he tried to haul Damian off of Dick, however, the boy just growled and latched
on tighter. “He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t care,” Damian said defiantly. Desperately. Dick realized by the
tremble of his arms around him that the boy was scared. Whatever had happened
to Dick scared him, and thinking on it for a bit Dick supposed it made sense.
Obviously he’d been transported into the future. That explained old Bruce and
the kid. Maybe Damian was missing older Dick?
“Am I in the future?” he asked Bruce bluntly, because there was no point
speculating if someone could just tell you the truth.
Bruce sighed and sat down beside them. “Not—not exactly. You’ve been de-aged,
Dick. You’re supposed to be twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven,” Dick’s voice went high pitched. That was seventeen years older
than he was supposed to be. That was more than twice his age!
“You and Damian were on patrol yesterday and encountered a known enemy. He must
have cast a spell on you without you knowing.” Bruce ran his hand through his
hair. It wasn’t the first time he did that. Dick wasn’t sure how he felt, with
Bruce being so strangely nervous around him. Bruce wasn’t ever nervous.
“What do you mean Damian and I,” Dick said. “What about us?”
Damian pulled back, blue eyes sort of blotchy-looking. He opened his mouth like
he was going to say something scathing. At Bruce’s warning look, he closed it.
“It’s… complicated,” Bruce admitted, with startling hesitance. “But long story
short, you go by Nightwing now. And Damian… Damian’s Robin.”
“What,” Dick gaped at his guardian. He looked at Damian—Robin?Dick had just
gotten used to the idea of being Robin on the field, and now some other kid had
his name?—who was looking right back at him, upset.
“Damian and I will need to do research,” Bruce declared. He stood up. “I’ll
call Alfred, let him prepare your… old room. Damian, come on.”
“You’re Bruce’s son,” Dick said to the boy who was still looking at him
accusingly. He wanted to be angry at him—same age, Bruce’s real son, and Robin
to boot—but he looked so honestly upset that older Dick was gone it’d be like
kicking a puppy. “Sorry bigger me isn’t here. He’s like your big brother,
right?”
“Oh god,” Bruce muttered under his breath as Damian’s eyes turned flinty.
“No,” the boy snapped, sounding even more upset than before. He scrambled off
the bed and stood stiffly by his father. “No, he is not.”
And before Dick could register what he meant by that, the two of them were
gone.
--
Alfred was older, thinner, but no less unflappable than he was in Dick’s time.
He endured Dick’s crushing hug with reluctant acceptance, then led Dick to his
room.
It was—it was different. Clean. Obviously not lived in, but that made sense.
Older Dick probably had his own place by now if he was twenty-seven.
“I want to help with the case too,” he told the old beta defiantly the next
day, after hours sneaking around the manor and seeing what’s changed. A lot,
really. And also very little. “Since it affects me the most.”
“That may be, Master Dick,” Alfred sighed. “But remember how hard it is for
Master Damian and Master Bruce to see you in this condition. Master Damian,
especially, is only a little more than your age at the moment. Imagine how you
would feel if—say—if I suddenly turned into a teenager who had no idea who you
are?”
Dick couldn’t even imagine Alfred as a teenager, but he got the point.
“Yeah, okay,” he conceded, putting his chin onto the counter. “But I still want
to help.”
“You can help me bake these cookies,” Alfred said, and Dick lit up.
Later, Bruce and Damian returned from the Batcave looking grimly determined.
Dick spun out of his chair and leapt onto his guardian, who looked startled but
still caught him mid-air like he always did. Or used to, in this case, but it
didn’t feel that way to Dick. He curled his arms around Bruce’s neck and
snuggled against him again. It always felt good to be close to Bruce,
especially when he was still thrown off by everything. Of course it did: Bruce
was his alpha.
“You are surprisingly affectionate,” Damian interrupted Dick’s cuddling midway.
Dick frowned down at him. “Is bigger me not usually a hugger?”
“Not usually towards Father,” Damian said with a roll of his eyes. “The one you
like hugging most is—” and then he paled and cut himself off. “—never mind.
Father, may I be excused?”
“Eat your soup,” Bruce told the boy, and Damian glowered up at him. He did,
however, wolf down a bowl of Alfred’s soup in the time it took for Bruce—with
Dick still curled up in his arms—to sit down. Dick waited for Damian to stomp
off before looking at Bruce.
“When can I go back to my time?” he said quietly. For all his pretending, he
knew this Bruce wasn’t his—just like this Damian knew Dick wasn’t the one he
knew either.
“You’re not actually moving in time,” Bruce sighed. He let Dick slip onto his
lap. “You’ll be rememberingeverything that’s happened since then.”
“Oh,” Dick said. “So when?”
“We’re working on a viable solution,” Bruce said, dodging the question. “But
rest assured, we’ll have you back by the end of the week.”
A week.
“Can I sleep with you?” Dick said, remembering how strange and lonely it felt
to sleep in his old, unoccupied room. It didn’t smell like him. It didn’t smell
like anything. And he slept in Bruce’s bed often enough, especially those first
few nights where he woke up screaming. He didn’t expect Bruce to tense up
beneath him.
“…that might not be such a good idea.”
“Why?” Dick said, confused. He really didn’t want to sleep alone. “You always
let me sleep with you.”
“I shouldn’t have,” Bruce said, almost under his breath. Dick felt his lip
wobble. He hadn’t even considered that Bruce wouldn’t want Dick around—he
seemed generally fine with the way Dick kept sprawling over him. Maybe older
him and Bruce were fighting?
And then he remembered the occupied bed stand across from Bruce’s, and his
anger took on a very different note.
“Fine,” Dick stood up abruptly, jumping off Bruce’s lap. “Fine, I’ll sleep in
my room. Good night, Alfie.”
“Dick…” Bruce called out, but Dick was still too upset.
He ran to his room and tore through all his belongings: some new, some old, but
nothing he wanted. Everything important was missing: his family keepsakes; his
lucky charm; his stuffed elephant, Zitka. The last one was particularly
upsetting.
Older him obviously had them at his real place. Dick certainly wouldn’t have
left them in this well-kept but empty childhood bedroom where he wouldn’t be
able to bury his face into their familiar scent. He considered asking Alfred if
he could go and stay at where Older Dick lived, but he didn’t actually want to
go somewhere he didn’t know.
For all the manor was different now, it was the still home… at least for him.
--
Dick woke up blearily to his door opening. He felt someone clambering up his
bed, and soon Damian’s face was frowning down at his own.
“Damian?” Dick said sleepily, and was surprised when the boy dipped down to
sniff at his neck again. He squirmed. “Hmph. That tickles.”
“You don’t smell right,” Damian said, sounding frustrated. He pulled away and
gave Dick a devastated look. “Why don’t you smell right?”
“I dunno,” Dick rubbed his eyes. “What’dyou mean I don’t smell right? I’m me.”
“Yes, but there’s something missing. The—the sweeter smell.”
Dick wrinkled his nose and tried to will his sleepy brain into action. The boy
was being terribly rude for barging into his room and climbing onto the bed
when it was like four o’ clock in the morning, and on top of that asking
questions. But his entire body thrummed with tension like Bruce’s did on a
particularly hard case. Dick seemed innately programmed to soothe that thrum no
matter who was emitting it.
“If I’m twenty-seven,” Dick said slowly, “then I’ve presented, yeah? I haven’t
presented yet. That’s probably it.”
Damian scrunched up his nose in a way that was Bruce all over. Dick wasn’t sure
how he’d ever questioned their relation before.
“Very well,” the boy said stiffly, like he just realized how embarrassing he
was being and wanted to retreat with as much of his dignity as possible. “Good
night, Grayson.”
He reluctantly pulled himself from Dick and set his feet onto the floor. Before
he could move too far, however, Dick reached out towards him.
“Damian, wait.”
The boy froze.
Dick wasn’t sure why he suggested it, but he said: “Do you want to sleep with
me tonight?”
Damian frowned minutely, but didn’t look against the idea. In fact, he looked
hopeful. “…is that alright?”
“Yeah, sure,” Dick scooted over so there was room for Damian to climb under the
covers beside him. For all his awkwardness, Damian curled right up against Dick
like a cat—natural and intentional and warm. His hair looked really fluffy.
Bruce only rarely let Dick pet his hair, because Bruce was an adult and seemed
hell-bent on making sure he never enjoyed anything ever. Damian, however, just
curled closer when Dick ran his hand through his dark hair. If he really was a
cat, he’d be purring.
When the other boy started to doze off, Dick pressed his mouth to his forehead
and said: “Don’t worry, Damian. Bruce will fix this, and older me will be back
sooner than you’d think.”
--
Dick only realized it after Damian had slipped out of his room in the morning
and Dick was trying to sneak into the Batcave to help Bruce out. Having cuddled
with the boy all night, he had a very vivid recollection of his scent. A scent
he thought he’d processed incorrectly when he first woke, but now knew was
true: Damian smelled like him.
Not the expected familial bond that arose between non-blood-related friends and
family, which he’d expected given that they were in the same household under
Bruce’s tutelage.
Damian clearly, definitively, smelled like Dick’s blood. Which was impossible.
Dick was the only Grayson left.
There was another possibility, but Dick’s mind seemed to slide over it every
time he even considered the idea. It was ridiculous. Besides, Dick was only
twenty-seven in the future, and Damian was ten. Seventeen was way too young,
and… no.
Dick was in the middle of rewiring a few tracers he’d found hidden around his
room when the front door creaked open.
“Alfred!” a new voice called out. “Kon’s coming over, is that alright? Is Bruce
or Dick home?”
Dick dropped his tracers and scurried to the welcoming hall, where a teenage
omega in a prim Gotham Academy uniform was draping his jacket over the
banister. It took him only a split second to notice Dick hiding behind the
railing. The teenager’s mouth dropped open.
“…Dick?” he said incredulously.
“Master Tim,” Alfred finally arrived, looking like he’d just run—no, briskly
walked there from across the manor. “As you can see, we have a bit of a
situation.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” this ‘Tim’ muttered. He looked at Alfred. “…I should
probably call Kon and cancel, shouldn’t I?”
“That would probably be best,” Alfred agreed, and the teenager sighed and took
out a flat device that, upon closer inspection, Dick deduced was a miniature
phone. Wow, the future was kind of cool when he wasn’t being constantly hit
with just how different the Wayne family was.
“Who are you?” Dick asked bluntly. He half expected Tim to say he was Bruce’s
son too, but he looked just a bit too old for that. “Do you know older me?”
“Older—yes, we know each other,” Tim blinked. He carefully approached Dick with
his hands visible, and crouched down to Dick’s eye-level when they were at a
conversational distance. “You’re like an older brother to me, Dick. What… what
happened? What do you remember?”
“Damian said I was hit by a witch,” Dick said. “Bruce said I was a Night-
something, and Damian was Robin.”
Tim’s lips thinned for some reason. “Ah. Yes, that’s a new development.”
“What about?”
Tim seemed reluctant to answer, and Dick was about to push him when Alfred
seemed to take pity on the teenager. “Master Timothy was the previous Robin
before the mantle passed to Master Damian. He fought by the Batman’s side for
many years.”
“How many Robins are there,” Dick complained off-hand, and wasn’t prepared when
Alfred said “Four” and Tim said “Five.”
“Steph’s still a Robin,” Tim told the butler. “Even if she did die that one
time.”
“One of the Robins is a girl?” Dick said, trying to imagine a girl jumping
about in scaly green shorts. That seemed far more scandalous than a boy. Or
maybe it was scandalous in general? “Did I okay all of them?”
“Master Dick has been de-aged to ten years old,” Alfred informed Tim in a low
voice, ignoring Dick’s question completely. Dick scowled: that was a resounding
no. When he got back to his time, he was going to give Bruce a good yelling.
Alfred continued, “And he only has memories up to that age. He is… quite
confused.”
Tim’s mouth opened into an ‘O.’ “Shit.”
“Quite.”
“And Bruce?”
“Sulking in the Batcave and feeling guilty as usual,” Alfred’s voice sounded
dry. “Not letting Master Dick help at all, which seems good in theory, but…”
“Ah Jesus,” Tim rubbed his eyes. “He’s bouncing off all the walls, isn’t he?”
“I can hear you!” Dick said loudly, and Tim just turned and blinked at him.
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you live here? Why? Damian’s Bruce’s kid,
apparently, but you’re not. Are you?”
Tim seemed taken aback by the barrage of questions, but recovered enough to
say: “Well, I’m technically Bruce’s adopted son. My full name is Timothy Drake
Wayne.”
“Another son,” Dick muttered, crossing his arms. “Why did he adopt you but not
me?”
“Uh,” Tim looked even more flabbergasted. Dick wondered if he should be
insulted. “Did you… want him to adopt you?”
“Yes! No. I don’t know,” Dick frowned. “Damian said I wasn’t his older brother,
so I can’t be Bruce’s son. But you are. I feel left out.”
“Trust me,” Tim said. “You’re just as part of the family as we are. And
Damian’s never really liked me to begin with, mostly because I’m his ‘older
brother.’ Be grateful.”
“Hmph,” Dick huffed, and then stood up. Tim wasn’t as big as Bruce, but he was
still older and taller than Dick was. Dick held out his hands. Tim looked at
him blankly.
After a beat, Dick waved his hands pointedly. “Pick me up?”
“Ah,” Tim said. Carefully, like he was holding a delicate flower, he scooped
Dick up into his arms. He was telling the truth, then: no average teenager
would have been able to pick a ten-year-old boy up so easily. And an average
teen definitely would've dropped said boy when he wriggled from his hold and
clambered onto his shoulders. “Oof! Dick!”
“You’re not as fun to climb as Bruce,” Dick complained, and back-flipped off
the teenager’s shoulders and onto the ground. When he looked up, Tim seemed
unsettled.
“I don’t want to imagine you climbing Bruce,” he said, which made no sense.
“Look, uh. Dick. I need to go and talk to Bruce about this. See if I can help
out.”
“You’re going to leave?” Dick said, suddenly disappointed. “But I’m so bored.”
Tim and Alfred shared a long-suffering look.
“Perhaps the zoo, Master Tim?” Alfred strongly suggested—read: ordered—and Tim
sighed and went to fetch his coat.
--
Dick warmed up to Tim quite quickly, especially when the boy bought him a new
stuffed elephant from the African Animal Souvenir Shop.
“I had an elephant once,” he told the teenager while they strolled towards the
Arctic exhibits. Dick loved the tiny penguins, chittering foxes, the napping
seals. The zoo in general always reminded him of soft days bedding down in the
hay beside the circus animals. “Her name was Zitka.”
“Your stuffed elephant, or the one from Haly’s circus?”
“You know Pop Haly and his circus?” Dick was surprised. He hugged the stuffed
baby Zitka to his chest.
Tim nodded. “You told me all about them, yeah, but I’ve also seen the show
myself a few times. I think they’re in Europe right now.”
“Oh,” Dick deflated. He didn’t realize he’d been hoping to see Pop Haly and the
rest of the circus until Tim had it made it clear how impossible that was. “Are
they… alright?”
“They’re fine,” Tim reassured him. “You helped them quite a bit when they were
in trouble…”
Music suddenly began blaring out of the teenager’s pocket. Dick watched,
fascinated, when Tim took out his miniature phone and pressed something on the
smooth screen.
“Kon, you know I can’t,” he hissed into the little box. “…Dick’s ten. Yes, he’s
ten! He’s younger than Damian, and I know the brat’s going to inconsolable
until Dick’s back to normal—ow!”
“Don’t be mean to Damian,” Dick said to the surprised omega in a stern voice.
He wriggled his fingers in warning of future pinches. “You’re brothers. You
should like each other.”
“Oh my god,” a tinny voice came from the little phone. “Is that Dick? Fuck, he
still talks the same, even at ten.”
“Bad word,” Dick told the phone.
“Like you haven’t heard worse, Nightwing!” the voice said.
“Nightwing,” Dick said. It was strange hearing someone refer to him by that
name, even if Bruce had already told him it was his new handle.
The voice continued talking, “Tim, I’m not kidding though. There’s some crazy
shit happening up here. Magic stuff. Kind of like your whole deaged Dick
situation, to be honest.”
“Not a coincidence?” Tim asked.
“When is it ever?”
“I have to get Dick home,” Tim said. “Then I’ll head right over.”
“I want to go too!” Dick piped up, even as Tim ended the call and put his phone
back in his pocket. “I’m not a kid, Tim! I’m Robin!”
“You’re ten.”
“So’s Damian!”
“Damian is not the best example of a normal ten-year-old child,” Tim informed
him. He sighed and rubbed his temple with a hand. “It’s a long story, but
Damian was trained as an assassin for years. Bruce didn’t know. He didn’t even
know he existed until a few months ago.”
Dick blinked at this revelation. He’d been wondering why Damian had bonded with
Dick more over his own father, who he assumed had watched over him growing up.
But this made way more sense.
Bruce was too emotionally constipated to handle an actual ten-year-old son—and
Dick, being a semi-adopted ten-year-old, could attest to that from personal
experience—which meant the parenting fell to someone who wasn’t emotionally
constipated. Which was Dick.
And what kind of mother left a kid with Bruceanyway?
“Let’s go home,” Tim sighed, interrupting Dick’s thought process. He held out
his hand in perfect imitation of Alfred’s take-this-or-else way, which no one
but a Wayne would have known. Dick scowled at it.
It disturbed him, suddenly, when he realized that this teenager probably knew
more about Wayne manor then he did.
--
For all he was supposed to be a former Robin, Tim seemed completely unaware
that Dick had followed him out. He’d put on a strange costume—belts crossed his
chest; an ear-less cowl wrapped around his head—and snuck over Gotham rooftops
and alleyways until he came to an obviously broken phone booth behind a gas
station.
Dick watched closely as he stepped inside and an automated voice called out:
“Recognized: Red Robin, B20.” A bright flash of light filled the booth… and Tim
was gone.
Huh.
Well if Tim could do it, Dick could do it too.
He waited a bit before venturing to the booth. It didn’t look like anything
special from the outside, but the minute he slipped in his eyes lit up in
wonder. The floor looked like a strange alien launch pad with blue rings around
its outer border. On the wall there was a screen that had Tim’s selected
destination still loaded: The Watchtower.
So this thing was a kind of teleporter. The future was so cool.
Dick clicked the CONFIRM button.
“Recognized,” the automated voice called out from above him, “Nightwing, B01.”
Dick barely had time to think, I’m number one! before his entire body just…
fizzed out.
After the particularly disturbing feeling of his molecules rearranging
themselves into one Dick Grayson, unfortunately still ten and not twenty-seven
like everyone kept saying he was, he finally blinked and found himself in the
middle of a warzone.
No, that wasn’t right.
“God! Damn! RABBITS!” an alpha girl downed several strange, mutated-looking
rabbits with some impressive punching. “Klarion, you asshat!”
“Beast Boy’s down,” a blue… bug creature was talking into an earpiece Dick
couldn’t see. “Red just got here, thank god, but he and Kon are trying to
distract Klarion so Bats can… shit, never mind, he got away. Um…”
He whipped his head around and stared right at Dick. How he caught sight of him
through the chaos, Dick didn’t know, but one moment he was on the teleporter
pad, and the next he was flying right through the air.
If he wasn’t a Flying Grayson, he would’ve been terrified.
“What’s going on?” he asked the blue bug carrying him by the waist. On the
bright side, the view from the air was fantastic: there were a dozen or so
superheroes fighting off mutated rabbits and weird demonic henchmen. Mutated
rabbits. “Where is this place?
“The Watchtower. And for what’s going on… I have no idea, niño,” the bug said.
“I mean, yeah, the rabbits and goonies are from Klarion messing around as
usual, but you?Have to ask Bats about it.”
And lo and behold, there Bruce was. Dressed in a fancier, bigger Batsuit than
the one he’d worn in Dick’s time, but obviously Bruce all the same. He was
finishing his fight with a few upper level henchmen, and Dick wriggled when he
saw a felled foe stagger up with a gun. Bruce could probably deflect it, but—
“Let me go!” he told the bug.
“What? Estas loco!”
“I’ll bite you,” Dick threatened, and the bug’s face went all constipated like
he was arguing with himself. He relented, finally, and Dick hurled himself
right onto the gun-wielding foe’s head.
By the time the dust had settled, Dick was sitting happily atop his own
collection of knocked out foes and decimated rabbits. Happily until Bruce
stormed up to him and rained righteous fury down onto his head.
“What are you doing here?” he roared, looming over Dick like that he hadn’t
outgrown being scared of that the second week of moving into Wayne manor. “You
were specifically ordered to stay home, Dick! You don’t have armor, or weapons!
And you’re a child!”
“I’m Robin!” Dick screamed back, because to hell with Bruce’s insulting
protectiveness. And his distance. Dick hadn’t seen Bruce nearly as much as he’d
liked since he’d come to the future, and now he discovered that Bruce was here,
with the other Robin—not Damian—fighting crime like the two of them used to.
Like they were supposed to be doing.
“I’ve jumped off taller things since I was six,” Dick clenched his fists. “I
fought foes harder than these stupid rabbits, and I do NOT appreciate you
constantly writing me off just because I’m not an adult!”
“Oh jeez,” one of the other heroes muttered, “Nightwing’s epic temper,
everybody.”
“Wait, that’s Nightwing?” the girl from before exclaimed. “Oh, he’s adorable!”
Dick whirled and bared his teeth at her, and was mollified when several
superheroes stepped back. He wasn’t adorable. He was Robin, the Boy Wonder, and
even if he wasn’t exactly the Dick Grayson everyone wanted, he could still kick
butt.
Dick hadn’t realized he was crying until Bruce slowly approached him. He
sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He hated Bruce seeing him
cry. It was weakness.
“Oh Dick,” Bruce sighed, sounding more like Bruce Wayne than the raging Batman
from a moment ago. He knelt down and opened his cape with a sweep of his hand.
Dick rushed into his arms immediately and buried his face into Bruce’s chest,
tears falling without his permission down his face and wetting the Bat’s armor.
“I wanna go home, Bruce,” he whispered. “Not the manor, but to my time.”
“Not time travel,” Bruce reminded him, draping his arm around his shoulders and
pulling Dick completely under his cape. Dick purred at the warm darkness, the
steady rise and fall of Bruce’s chest as he hid from the outside world.
An outside world he’d tried so hard to understand, but just couldn’t do it
right.
“…didn’t realize,” Tim was saying something to Bruce. Dick kind of felt bad for
Tim getting in trouble, but he didn’t want to leave the cape or the darkness or
Bruce’s comforting alpha scent. “But he’s right, you know he hates sitting
still. You have to tell him. Not just for you two, but think of Damian.”
Bruce squeezed Dick closer to him, almost… scared. But Bruce was very rarely
scared. “I don’t want to hurt him,” the older man whispered. “Not again.”
More voices. Another mention of this Klarion, who Dick gathered was the
supervillain behind the rabbits and the henchmen and… him, he supposed. A
magic-user pulling the strings behind a nationwide attack on unsuspecting
twenty-seven years old, apparently.
Dick wanted to kick his teeth in.
He stiffened when he felt Bruce attempt to stand. He clung to his guardian
tighter, until Bruce acquiesced with a sigh and swept him up into his large
arms. Dick poked his head out of the cape and glared at the significantly fewer
superheroes still standing around. They were cleaning up the rabbit mess,
mostly, but some of them were leaving via the same teleporter Dick had used.
Tim stood by Bruce with a bo-staff and a guilty expression on his face.
“You shouldn’t have followed me,” the teenager tried to say, and Dick narrowed
his eyes at him. The boy looked affronted. Surprised? “Woah, that’s…
unexpected.”
“Don’t tell me big me never got mad at you,” Dick snapped.
“Of course you did. But you weren’t a child when you did it, and now that you
are, you look an awful lot like…”
“Tim,” Bruce said.
“Oh really, Bruce!” Tim threw up his hands. “We just talked about this!”
“Not here,” Bruce growled, “and not now. Head back to the Manor, we’ll talk
about this there.”
“You better,” Tim gave Bruce a tight-lipped frown. “I was serious when I
mentioned Damian. He’s your son, Bruce. Can you for once consider his
wellbeing?”
“I do…” Bruce went rigid like he was about to start shouting, but no matter how
angry Dick was at Tim for sneaking out of the manor without him, he knew the
guy didn’t deserve a Bruce’s ire. Dick slipped his arms around Bruce’s neck and
put his head on his chest.
“I want to go home, Bruce,” he interrupted loudly, cutting the Batman off
before his rant could gain traction.
Bruce shut his mouth. Tim looked half awkward, half relieved, and the three of
them reluctantly trudged towards the teleporters.
--
Dick was surprised when, after undressing in the Batcave and wrangling Dick
away from all the shiny new tech, Bruce then carried him to his own bedroom
rather than Dick’s ghostly scentless one. He settled Dick on the large four-
poster bed and rubbed his face with a large hand.
Dick sprawled across the covers. Like before, they smelled comfortingly
familiar. And then he remembered the other bed stand and sat up.
Bruce saw him looking at the strange, occupied bed stand and gave him a nod.
“You can look through the drawers.”
“Uh,” Dick wrinkled his nose. “Won’t your omega get mad?”
Bruce winced, like Dick was torturing him by sticking needles under his
fingernails or something. “It’s fine. Look in the middle drawer, Dick.”
After casting Bruce a wary look, Dick crawled over to the right-side bed stand
and slowly pulled open the middle drawer. Suspicion gave way to joy in an
instant.
“Zitka!” he shouted, pulling out his worn elephant from the drawer and hugging
it to his chest. She smelled dusty but also familiar, and Dick found tears
welling up in his eyes. He sniffed and looked back in the drawer. It was a
mess, but he could see the lucky charm one of the strongman had made just for
him for his seventh birthday. There was his mother’s scarf. His father’s watch.
Dick’s things in Bruce’s room, and Dick’s scent in the covers. He’d only
noticed Bruce’s because he was so used to his own that it didn’t register—but
now…
Slowly, Dick closed the drawer and curled around Zitka at the head of the bed.
He looked up at Bruce, who had upgraded his look from “torturing via fingernail
pulling” to “about to be beheaded at the gallows.”
They stared at each other for a long, tense moment.
Dick swallowed. Everything his mind had kind of danced around or ignored was
coming together, insistent and infuriating and devastating, really, because if
this was true… if this was…
Dick had woken up in Bruce's bed naked.
He scrunched up his face and chucked Zitka at Bruce’s stupid head.
“You jerkface!” he shouted, tears really springing up from his eyes. Bruce
didn’t even try to stop the elephant from smacking his face. Just stood there
like he deserved it, which was all the confession Dick needed. “They were
right! When they—when you took me in, those awful people kept saying I was
pretty and small and obviously an omega, and you were just taking me in to—to
use me—”
“Dick,” Bruce’s voice cracked, and he took a step closer. Dick picked up a
pillow and threw it at him.
“I thought you were different!” he was crying now. “I trusted you! Seventeen,
Bruce! How could you?”
“Seven—” Bruce paled, suddenly realizing what Dick was talking about. “Dick…”
“Get out! Get out, get out, I don’t want to look at you anymore!”
Dick hurled two more pillows at his guardian, and was actually surprised when
Bruce obeyed and slipped out the door. He buried his face into the remaining
pillow and shook violently. It smelled like Bruce.
He should hate that smell, but he didn’t. It still comforted him despite Bruce
being a child-molester like everyone had warned him he was, and that upset Dick
even more. He liked Bruce. He really did, even before he’d known about his
superhero identity and what he got up to in the middle of the night. He was
handsome and tall and smelled good, and if Dick was five he might’ve found the
idea exciting. At ten, however, he knew how the world worked.
Some hopeful part of him suggested that it might not be as bad as it looked; if
twenty-seven-year-old Dick Grayson was still living in the manor and sleeping
in Bruce’s bed, then maybe they did… love each other?
Seventeen, he hissed at that part of the brain, and it fell silent.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew a bite on an omega’s neck could make them do stupid,
stupidthings, like not escaping an alpha when they should.
He buried under Bruce’s covers and prayed that this was a nightmare. A
hallucination. Anything but this. He regretted throwing Zitka at Bruce, because
that meant she was on the floor and he didn’t want to get out from under the
covers.
He just curled up and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.
--
“Grayson?”
Dick shivered and slowly, slowly uncurled. He wasn’t sleeping. After he’d
finished crying, he just lay there cursing Bruce and hating Bruce and still
loving Bruce, which just made the first two parts of his brain so angry he
spiraled right back to the beginning.
He heard the pitter-patter of feet walking towards him. It only paused once,
and when it finally made it to the bed Dick felt something soft pressed to his
side. “You dropped this.”
Dick poked his head out of the covers and saw Damian holding Zitka. Damian.
The boy looked cool-headed and awkward, but for all his posturing Dick could
read his body language as well as he could Bruce. Nervous. Upset. The
resemblance to Bruce was uncanny, yes, but Dick finally pinpointed what those
blue eyes reminded him of.
Himself.
“Thanks,” Dick sniffed and took the elephant. Damian stood beside the bed even
more awkwardly, until Dick shook his head and pulled the covers back. “Come
here.”
Damian looked conflicted.
“Father said…”
“I don’t care what Bruce said,” Dick declared. “He’s awful and a criminal and
can stay out of the room for all I care. Come here.” After a beat, he added,
“Please.”
Damian sighed and obeyed, slipping in next to Dick with as much ease as he did
the other night. Of course he did: Dick was confident older him was still a
hugger. Except…
Dick put Zitka in-between them and stared at this strange boy. This strange,
lost boy whom Bruce knew nothing about, and whom Dick had… or Dick hadn’t… this
boy who was his son. Dark hair and a temperament like Bruce's, but with eyes
and skin like Dick. Who seemed so aloof and upper-class that Dick would've been
hesitant to approach him, if the boy hadn't clung to him first. Of course he
did: cuddling ran in their family.
“Why wasn’t I there for you?” he whispered softly. He couldn’t fathom how
Damian could have ended up in the hands of some assassins. Damian must have
been a cute baby; knowing himself, Dick must have spoiled him rotten.
Damian blinked slowly. “I was taken,” he finally said, like he was reciting a
fact out of a history book and not recounting his own life. He didn’t react to
Dick’s sharp intake of breath, just continued: “You thought I was dead. Father
had no idea until I was returned a few months ago. I had no idea… I always
thought the woman who kidnapped me was my mother.”
Dick’s lip trembled. Of all the things he’s expected, this wasn’t it. “I
thought you were dead?”
“Yes,” Damian said. After an excruciating pause, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no,” Dick whined. The soft imaginings of baby Damian shattered. Older
Dick must have been devastated. He was devastated. “No, Damian, no.”
“Grayson—”
“I’m sorry,” Dick wound his arms around the surprised boy, and was both moved
and saddened to feel how Damian tensed. So many moments had been lost. “I’m
sorry, I’m sorry, I—where was Bruce? Why didn’t he help? I can’t believe—you
thought the person who took you was your mother?”
“Father didn’t know,” Damian said, trying to sound reassuring. “You—you never
told him, and then I was gone, and you didn’t tell him that either.”
“Why?” Dick cried, the tears returning with a vengeance. He clung to the boy,
his—his future child, whom he was destined to lose for years. He wanted to
demand details. The woman’s name. Wanted to know if he could prevent it all,
prevent that wary, unsure look in Damian’s eyes whenever Dick failed to
recognize him.
Except he couldn’t. He hadn’t actually gone to the future—everything that had
happened had already happened. A fresh wave of tears welled up.
“Why didn’t I tell Bruce?” his voice came out small and scared.
“You were afraid,” Damian said, voice going quiet. “And… and you really loved
him. You wanted to keep me and knew staying would. It would get Father in
trouble.”
Dick tensed but didn’t draw away from Damian’s neck.
“I loved him?” he said in a tiny voice, and was surprised when Damian snorted.
“Still love him, though for what reason I don’t know.” It sounded like
something Damian’s complained about many times, which was as bizarre as it was…
endearing. “Father’s emotional incompetence is unacceptable. He hurts you
carelessly and you deserve better.”
Dick’s mind was a maelstrom. For all his angry side found validation of Bruce’s
assholery exhilarating, the other part of him was affronted at someone talking
badly of the Batman. Even if that someone was their son.
“But,” Damian said. His voice took on a frail tone, half wondrous and half
scared. “But he really does love you too. Frightfully so. I—I know I’ve
disapproved of your relationship before, but I do not wish to see it end over a
misunderstanding.”
Dick sniffed. He wanted so badly to believe everything Damian was saying,
because it would mean that Dick had had a choice. That Dick had wanted Bruce’s
attention and love and his child, and that it was his choice to stay, and maybe
this handsome alpha really was hislike a real couple should be.
But Dick wasn’t naïve.
“Omegas that are bitten young,” he whispered, tamping down his hope
mercilessly, “many of them form a… fake relationship with their alpha. Even if
it was against their will.”
He felt Damian frowning into his hair.
“I’m aware of that, Grayson,” the boy said. “If that’s what is bothering you,
think nothing of it. Father only bit you a few months ago—I was certainly angry
enough about it.”
Dick said, “…a few months ago?”
“After you found me again,” Damian’s voice was dry. “Apparently you spent a
decade refusing to let him bite you due to misplaced guilt or something
similar. Father had all but given up.”
“So I let him,” Dick stressed, wanting to make sure there was as little mistake
as possible. “He waited until I let him?”
“Of course he did,” Damian sounded affronted at his implication. “Father may be
a—a jackass sometimes, but he is a good man. You know this.”
“Yes,” Dick whispered, finally feeling some of the weight in his chest lift.
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay,” Damian said. He seemed at a loss of what to do next, and finally chose
to pat Dick’s back like he was reassuring him. Except he didn’t pull his hands
away, just clung there with his face pressed into Dick’s hair, and then it was
Dick reassuring him instead. Damian whispered, “Okay. So don’t cry anymore,
Mum. Everything is. Everything is going to be okay.”
“My mother used to say that to me,” Dick actually smiled through his tears.
“I know,” Damian said, and it was irrational how thrilled Dick felt that he’d
gotten at least one thing right: had at least passed on one Grayson tradition,
despite having lost this boy for so many years.
--
Dick didn’t want to go downstairs, but even he knew he couldn’t hide in Bruce’s
room forever. Their room. Whatever.
Damian seemed anxious at the mere suggestion.
“I know Alfred strongly suggested it,” the boy said stiffly, hands clasped
behind his back like a little soldier. Dick gently pulled the boy’s hands apart
so they were by his side. There, that was better. “But you don’t have to face
Father if you don’t want to. Your anger is justified.”
“No,” Dick sniffed, pulling back and clutching Zitka tightly to his chest. “No,
I—I assumed wrong and Bruce needs to know I don’t. I don’t hate him.”
“Why not,” Damian said flatly, but didn’t press the issue when Dick frowned at
him. They slipped out into the hallway together and down towards the stairs,
and the more they walked the more Dick’s heart felt like it was about the beat
right out of his chest. Dick reminded himself that he was Robin.
And Robin didn’t get scared.
“What if he hates me?” he whispered to Damian right before they made it to the
first floor.
“Impossible,” Damian said like it was a fact, and led Dick the rest of the way
to the dining room.
Everyone was there.
Alfred and Tim and—and Bruce, sitting at the head of the table looking
devastated. It hurt him to see Bruce so upset, and Dick had restrain himself
from running into his arms immediately. Careful, Robin. Assess the situation.
Most importantly there was someone new sitting besides Tim: a bulky alpha not
much smaller than Bruce, whose face lit up in glee when he set his eyes on
Dick.
“Christ, you’re really little!” the stranger said happily, like he got off on
Dick and Bruce’s collective pain. From the way Damian tensed beside him, he
probably wasn’t far off.
“Who invited you, Todd,” the boy said coldly. From his tone, Dick strongly
suspected this new stranger was also “family.” Amazing to see a full house when
Dick was used to loneliness.
“I invited myself,” Todd shrugged. “Word through the grapevine was that
Dickiebird’s gotten himself turned ten. Just the cherry on top when I arrived
to find Dick calling Bruce out on being a skeevy child molester.”
“Jay!” Tim hissed.
“Oh come on! It’s hilarious,” Jay—Todd? Whatever he was called—sobered up so
quickly Dick was taken aback. “Trust me, the same thought occurred to me when I
found out the first time.”
“Would you like to sit, Master Dick? Master Damian?” Alfred finally, finally
intervened, before Tim could strangle Jay like he obviously wanted to. The
butler pulled out two chairs across from the two older boys. Damian sat in one
like a prim little prince; Dick hugged Zitka tightly to himself and
determinedly walked past the other one.
Towards Bruce.
“Bruce,” he said when the man refused to look at him. Finally, after a long
enough moment, the Batman turned and gave him a raw, half-guarded look. Like he
was preparing himself for more of Dick’s ire and knew he deserved it.
“Dick,” he said, voice rough. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Jay snorted. Tim kicked him under the table, and Alfred gave everyone a look
that screamed Don’t think I won’t boot you out of this room if you keep
misbehaving.
Dick ignored them all and regarded his guardian with big, clever eyes. After
Damian had reaffirmed the idea that it had been Dick’s choice to stay, it was
much easier accepting how handsome Bruce was even after seventeen years. How
fiercely he still guarded Gotham; how much he still loved, judging from how
wrecked he appeared over Dick’s rejection. A real criminal would’ve been angry
at losing their toy, and a real child molester would have lost interest when
Dick became an adult.
Bruce was none of those things. To be honest, that one tiny part of Dick that
had been so vehement in defending Bruce had known that.
Dick curled Zitka under an arm and lifted both his hands up.
Bruce actually looked surprised.
When he didn’t move, Dick waved his hands at him. Bruce slowly, tentatively
leaned over and picked Dick up. He hauled him into his lap where Dick curled
his head beneath his chin.
“How sickeningly adorable,” Jay said, which was when Alfred finally put his
foot down and herded everyone out the door. Tim and Damian looked put out over
being exiled; Jay just grinned like he’d expected it.
“Ring when you want me to bring dinner, sir,” Alfred said quietly, and then
shut the door behind him.
Bruce’s large hands were awkwardly curled in his lap. Dick pulled one up and
around him, which seemed to jog Bruce into hugging him around the waist like he
was something precious.
“Damian said,” Dick started, breathing in Bruce’s infuriatingly, tantalizingly
comforting scent. He liked this scent. Loved it. It curled around Dick like a
kitten that adored him, a fact that didn’t change no matter how angry he was.
“Damian said you didn’t bite me until a few months ago.”
Bruce breathed steadily above him. Finally, the rumble of his throat against
Dick’s cheek: “Correct.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t want me to before,” Bruce said. After a considering pause,
he continued: “Because I didn’t deserve to before.”
“I asked you to,” Dick said, voice pitched like it was question. “I wanted you
to?”
“Yes,” Bruce sighed. His large fingers squeezed Dick’s waist, and the boy
snuggled against him even more. “Though I deserve it no more than usual.”
“It’s not about deserving, Bruce, it’s about me wanting,” Dick declared, a
point older him obviously failed to emphasize judging by Bruce’s surprise. In a
quieter voice, Dick said, “I’m sorry for saying awful things to you.”
“It was a perfectly reasonable conclusion.”
“But I knew you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t trust anything upon first glance,” Bruce said. “First thing I taught
you, Dick. And even under these… circumstances, there are many others who still
disapprove.”
“Let them,” Dick said. He wound his arms around Bruce’s neck and looked up into
Bruce’s face. Bruce seemed far calmer then before, but still nervous, like
their fragile truce could break at any moment. Dick traced a line under Bruce’s
eye with his thumb and watched, fascinated, when the man actually blushed.
Cute.
“If I want it, and you want it, then I don’t see what the big deal is,” Dick
told him.
Bruce furrowed his brow. “But even so, I still shouldn’t have… there are rules
for a reason.”
And Dick just pressed his small hands to Bruce’s chin, framing his handsome
face with deft fingers that could undo a knot in seconds. He pressed their
foreheads together and felt Bruce let out his breath.
“I forgive you,” Dick whispered. “For whatever you think you did.”
“You really shouldn’t,” Bruce said, choked, and Dick wasn’t nearly as surprised
as he should’ve been when the man vaulted forward and hugged Dick as tight to
him as he could afford. Buried his nose into Dick’s neck and scented him, which
had the blessed effect of letting Dick stroke Bruce’s fluffy black hair to his
heart’s content. It curled slightly at his nape, and Dick ran his fingers
through those locks too.
“Oh Bruce,” he sighed, strangely endeared by and exasperated at how this
ridiculous man was so emotionally inept after all these years. And Dick was
ten. He stroked Bruce’s hair and purred when Bruce just hugged him tighter. He
felt… powerful, like this.
The Batman at his mercy over a single sentence.
After who knows how long, Dick jumped when he heard knocking on the dining room
door.
“Father? Grayson? Are you done in there?” Damian’s voice called out, and was
suddenly cut off by Jay’s jeering voice:
“Remember he’s still ten, Bruce!”
“Cease your trolling, Todd!” Damian roared at the man, and sounds of a scuffle
broke out from the hall. Bruce sighed and finally released his death grip on
Dick’s waist.
“I should probably help Alfred break them up,” he whispered, and gently set
Dick down onto the ground. Dick frowned. He wanted Bruce to carry him around,
but that was both unrealistic and alarming for a ten-year-old who’d just found
out they were future mates. Instead, he carefully put Zitka on Bruce’s seat,
and then took off after Bruce without any hesitation at all.
--
Jason Todd, Dick quickly discovered, was the second Robin. Dick’s direct
replacement, whom he would normally be wary of if Jay wasn’t so… him. Prickly
and disgruntled and sarcastic, like he expected to be booted out at any moment
and would rather it be for something he did on purpose.
They were all sitting in the living room, sprawled over the beautiful leather
couch that looked just as pristine as it did in Dick’s time. Alfred was
obviously a miracle-worker. Tim had tried to pull out a board game for them to
play, but from Jay’s and Damian’s scowls the effort was wasted.
Dick suspected that he was the one that usually forced family bonding time; and
while he did like Monopoly, he was far more interested in learning about these
other family members.
“One,” Dick pointed to himself. “Two,” at Jay, “Three,” at Tim, “and Four,” at
Damian.
“Steph’s technically in between me and Damian,” Tim said. “So Damian’s actually
Five.”
“Five Robins,” Dick told Bruce, just to see the older man freeze with guilt. It
was perhaps too soon for such shenanigans, but there was something hilarious
about how Bruce expected every little offense to set Dick off into a teary
tantrum. Then again, after his explosive reaction upstairs, his fears were
perhaps justified.
“Did you know me?” he asked Jay, who just snorted.
“Us? Nah. I mean, we hung out a few times before you fucked off to Europe to
pop out baby bats over here,” he pointed at Damian, who glowered at the man,
“and then we ran across each other when you came back to the Teen Titans.”
“Teen Titans?” Dick said, though he was thinking Europe?and remembering
Damian’s slight but still present accent.
“Sidekick baby league,” Jay explained shortly. He took a big bite out of the
dessert sandwich Alfred had prepared and talked with his mouth full. When Dick
frowned at him, he grinned and opened his mouth even further. “But no, we
really didn’t know each other too well. You hated me.”
Dick considered this seriously. “Do… do I hate you now?”
“No,” Tim said.
“No,” Damian said.
“I honestly have no clue,” Jay said. He looked genuinely startled at Tim and
Damian’s quick answers. “I always thought you did, though.”
“I probably wouldn’t hate you,” Dick said. “Not if you’re also Bruce’s son.”
“I am not,” Jay bit out, suddenly bristling with anger. The man’s moods
fluctuated alarmingly quickly, though nothing that Dick couldn’t handle.
Dick was unimpressed. “Did he adopt you?”
“I—” Jay glowered. “Yes, but—”
“Then you’re his son.”
“That’s not how family works! No matter what a paper says, it’s a person’s
actions that define them!”
“You’re sitting here at this family get-together,” Dick pointed out, “bickering
with Tim and Damian like brothers do. Alfred calls you Master Jason. You
probably still have a room here.”
“None of that counts,” Jay hissed. “They’re all remembering the old me.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I can’t be having this conversation with you,” Jay wiped his mouth and stood
up. He was obviously intending to storm off dramatically when Alfred appeared
by the door, armed with a sweater.
“It’s been getting chillier outside, Master Jason,” the butler said primly,
offering the red sweater to Jay. The man flushed at this undignified
interruption and snatched the article of clothing out of his hands. “It
wouldn’t do if you froze to death in one of those warehouses of yours.”
“Thanks,” Jay gritted out like the word literally hurt to say, and fled.
Not Bruce’s son, his butt.
“Dick,” Tim called out. When Dick turned around, he found a steaming mug of hot
cocoa right by his nose. “How about something sweet? Cleanse your mouth of that
awful Jason taste.”
“Sweets before bed?” Bruce said, and they all looked at Alfred in a collective
question.
“Master Dick has had a very trying day,” Alfred titled his head, and Dick broke
out into a wide smile. He took the mug into his hands, and breathed its rich
scent in.
It was the best hot chocolate he’d ever had.
--
Dick woke up feeling disoriented, like he’d been stuck in a Tea Cup ride for
days and then unceremoniously dumped onto the ground with no warning
whatsoever.
He hissed and clutched his head.
“Bruce?” he whined, reaching for his alpha. If he looked pathetic enough, he
could probably get the man to go fetch him a glass of water. He curled his hand
around Bruce’s elbow and pulled himself close, burrowing his head into his
mate’s shoulder. “Bruce, my head is killing me.”
“Dick?” Bruce sounded hesitant and… vulnerable. Dick frowned. He wracked his
brain trying to think of why, but his mind was made of white, unintelligible
mush. Ugh. Okay Nightwing, assess the situation.
Bruce was sleeping in a soft cotton t-shirt and boxers. Dick was naked under a
bathrobe. The room was a fucking mess, like someone just came in here and
tossed everything off the bed and onto the floor. Bruce looked like Dick was
going to slap him, which was ridiculous, and so Dick resolved that issue first:
he wrapped his arms around Bruce’s waist and nuzzled his neck.
“Okay,” Dick whispered, feeling Bruce relax minutely at the contact. “So I’m
guessing something weird went down.”
“You don’t remember,” Bruce’s voice was flat.
“Umm...” Dick shook his head. The white mush was starting to clear itself up,
though from the look of it it’ll take longer than a few seconds. “It’s… it’ll
come back to me, I think? Something about Klarion… and the zoo… and I think I
threw Zitka at your head?”
“You did.”
“Huh,” Dick said. When his alpha refused to be forthcoming, he prodded, “Are
you going to make me guess what happened or are you going to just tell me?”
Bruce opened his mouth. He closed it.
“You were de-aged to ten years old. For the last three days,” Bruce said in his
best emotionless Batman voice, but Dick could smell the melancholy in his
scent. “And with no memories past that age.”
Dick considered this for a moment.
“Well fuck,” he finally said, wincing. That explained the state of the room:
Dick had loved chucking things at people when he was a kid. And from Bruce’s
reaction… “I freaked, didn’t I?”
“You’ll remember it all in a few hours,” Bruce said, still using that god-awful
Batman voice. Dick groaned and buried his head back into Bruce’s shoulder. God,
he could just imagine the shenanigans younger him would’ve gotten into. Besides
freaking the fuck out about waking up in Bruce’s bed—he had a vivid
recollection of how those awful orphanage rumors taunted him those first few
years. Dammit.
He doubted Bruce took any of that well.
Coming to a decision, Dick nuzzled Bruce’s neck again and breathed in his
alpha’s scent. Licked the sensitive spot on his neck where his alpha scent was
the strongest and felt Bruce shiver in his arms.
“Bruce,” Dick whined. When that didn’t get him the desired result, he ran a
hand down Bruce’s chest and stroked the edge of his t-shirt. He rucked it up
and slid talented fingers along his bare skin until Bruce finally reacted,
turning so he could look Dick in the eye.
Dick looked back, unafraid.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Bruce told him flatly, and Dick just rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re a glutton for self-punishment,” Dick sighed, because he could feel the
outline of Bruce's cock thickening in his boxers. He pressed a sloppy kiss to
Bruce’s jaw line and then on the lips: slow and sleepy and gentle. Bruce
indulged him for a moment but turned away. Dick cradled his face in his hands
and forced them to look at each other. “I probably said some awful things,
didn’t I? You know I didn’t mean it.”
“You did,” and Bruce sounded petulant. Dick’s instincts clamored at him to
soothe his alpha, even if some part of him found the Bat cute like this. “I’d…
forgotten how much you could doubt us, after all these years. It was sobering.”
“You mean how ten-year-old me could doubt,” Dick kissed him again. He ran his
hands over the man’s shoulders, down his shoulder-blades, admiring the tight
muscle and rough scars. When he broke for breath, he said: “But I lived through
it all, and I say it’s all fine. Besides, I forgave you in the end, didn’t I?
Both of me.”
And because Bruce was still tense, still a bit too hesitant, Dick decided to
show him without words. He gently nudged his alpha onto his back, straddling
his hips and sliding the man’s half-hard cock between his legs. It wasn’t
smooth or sexy or the romance of the century or anything, but Dick didn’t care.
He just wanted to be close.
He rolled his hips nice and easy against Bruce’s, the alpha’s thickening cock
sliding in the cleft of his ass through cotton boxers. The cloth quickly grew
wet with slick and pre-cum, almost as distracting as his own cock rubbing
against Bruce’s stomach. The alpha let him take control without protest. Let
him move them together intimately, sweetly, with Bruce pulling him down so he
could bury his nose into the crook of Dick’s neck.
“I missed this,” Bruce growled, voice so breathy Dick could barely hear it.
“Your scent when you smell like mine.”
“’Cause I am,” Dick laughed, and yelped when the man grabbed him by the ass. He
bucked up against Dick so roughly that the younger man considered the logistics
of Bruce fucking into him through the cloth.
Not very likely, no matter what porn said. But the idea trilled him all the
same. He rewarded his alpha with a sloppy kiss, and then another one, and
another.
He kept stealing kisses until Bruce spilled wetly against him with a groan, his
come hot and thick and sticky even through his underwear. He reached back with
a hand and massaged the alpha’s cock, a thumb sweeping against his swollen
knot.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dick murmured against his lips. The man sighed breathily
beneath him, arching into Dick’s touch without protest. Taking pleasure so
simply, with none of the layers upon layers of complexity Bruce seemed to
approach all of life with. Amazing. Dick barely had to touch his own cock with
his free hand before he came too. Much less than Bruce, being an omega, but
enough so that clear fluid dripped down Bruce’s belly. When he got his breath
back, Dick smeared the come curiously with his fingers.
“Unsanitary,” Bruce finally managed, voice rough like gravel
“Hey, you’re the one that just painted my thighs,” Dick laughed. He gave the
older man’s cock one more squeeze before letting him go in favor of collapsing
on top of him. “Hmm, I liked that.”
“We need to take a shower.”
“Don’t want to.”
“We’ll literally be stuck together if it all dries,” Bruce said warningly, and
Dick let out a defeated sigh. He rolled off of the older man and held out his
hands.
Bruce, for once in his life, didn’t complain at Dick’s ridiculous behavior.
Just stood up and hauled Dick’s twenty-seven-year-old body into his arms, and
carried him to the bathroom—which was when Dick knew for sure they were going
to be okay.
--
(Damian’s look of absolute joy almost broke Dick’s heart.
“Grayson!” he yelled, dropping the book he’d stolen from Bruce’s study onto the
floor—Dick wasn’t stupid, he knew what Damian got up to when he got too
bored—and vaulting towards his mother. Dick caught Damian in his arms, laughing
as he lifted the boy up into the air and twirled him around. He finally set him
back down when Damian squirmed, too embarrassed to admit that he enjoyed
flying.
Dick wasn’t sure why; he was, after all, a Flying Grayson too.
“You missed me, Dami?” he teased, hand cradling the back of Damian’s head when
the boy clutched him around the middle. He ruffled his son’s hair and
graciously ignored the dampness spreading from where Damian’s face was buried
in his stomach. When the boy collected himself, Dick gently pried him back.
“You were so great these last few days, Damian. I’m proud of you.”
Damian snorted and looked away, a perfect imitation of Bruce too flustered to
accept compliments. “Don’t treat me like a child, Grayson. All I did was answer
your—the younger you’s questions.”
“Better than most,” Dick sing-songed, and gave Bruce a pointed look from across
the room. The Batman might be hiding behind a newspaper, but Dick wasn’t naïve
enough to think the man wasn’t eavesdropping.
“But you are not allowed to pull such a stunt again,” Damian told him, sounding
petulant. “I can’t—if you go, I will hunt you down and poke out your eyeballs
and drag you back. You’re not allowed to scare me like that again.”
“I’ll never leave you, Dami,” Dick said quietly, already accustomed to Damian’s
violent ranting. He knelt down so he could look Damian in the eye. “Not of my
own volition.”
Damian’s lip wobbled minutely. “Marginally acceptable.”
Dick smiled and wiped a stray tear from under Damian’s eye, and the boy scowled
at him. Adorable. Suddenly remembering the gift he’d brought down with him,
Dick turned and collected it from its hiding spot beneath a pillow.
“As is tradition with the Graysons,” he declared, “I present to you your own
personal Zitka.”
He brandished the tinier stuffed elephant that Tim had bought mini-him. With
the original Zitka safely by his side again, Dick wasn’t sure how he would
appreciate the new one. And then he realized who the perfect recipient for such
a gift was.
Damian just raised a brow. “I am too old for stuffed animals, Grayson.”
“Yes, but it matches my Zitka,” Dick said patiently, having expected such
protest. “And it’s cute. Like you.”
“I am not cute,” Damian said indignantly, but snatched the elephant from Dick’s
hand anyway. He looked at the adorable, plush trunk and wrinkled his nose at
it. “This doll is both disturbing and disproportional.”
“Disturbportional,” Dick said, and Damian just gave him a baffled look. “You’re
welcome, baby bird.”
“You are so embarrassing,” Damian said, voice bordering on a wail. Rather than
flee as he usually would, however, he just stood there and fumed. He then
stepped forward and squeezed Dick around the waist again, tight enough the man
felt like he was being crushed.
“Thank you,” Damian mumbled into his shirt. And then his son was off like a
rocket, scurrying out of the living room and down to the Batcave like Dick was
going to suddenly change his mind about the elephant and demand it back.
Honestly.
“I need to talk to Tim and Jason next,” Dick told the still-eavesdropping
Bruce. “Though I don’t know when Jason’s going to come out of hiding.”
“You were excruciatingly honest with him,” Bruce said, giving up all pretence
of reading the newspaper. “Give him time.”
“And Tim?”
“Bunking at Kon’s,” Bruce scowled like the idea made his stomach turn. Dick
thought it was sweet, even if Kon was sometimes a bit too handsy than he was
comfortable with. “Giving us some more, ah. Alone time.”
“Thoughtful,” Dick said. “Even if he’s really just hiding after drugging me
with hot chocolate.”
“To cure you.”
“He couldn’t have told me?”
“He knew it’d be hard for us to go back to normal,” Bruce said, sounding
slightly ashamed. “That younger you would’ve wanted to stick around longer, and
I would’ve just let you. Damian needed you back.”
“True,” Dick conceded. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s hiding. Ha.”
A stray memory from younger him’s time floated to the surface. “Bet he didn’t
realize how much Damian takes after me, huh?”
“The annoyed glares,” Bruce said, “the constant cuddling.”
“You like my cuddling,” Dick pointed a finger at him, and was more pleased than
surprised when his alpha gave him a soft smile.
“I do,” the Batman conceded, and Dick had no other choice than to reward him
with a sweet kiss in return.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
extra
 
Dick tracked Tim down anyway, and had the foresight to actually knock on the
window before peering inside. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of an alpha and
omega getting it on, but otherwise ignored Tim’s flushed cheeks and Superboy’s
mortified face. Credit where credit was due: at least they tried to pretend
they weren’t canoodling.
“Gave you a scare, didn’t I?” he laughed when, after unsuccessfully trying to
play cool for five minutes, Tim relented and gave him a fierce hug. Dick
squeezed the younger omega tightly to his chest. Kon, proving that he had
learned something from Tim all these years, took the smart option and went to
go “fetch water.”
“I was pretty sure I could figure out a cure,” Tim admitted, pulling back with
a stern look on his face. Oh Tim—Dick wanted to tell him that he could relax,
he didn’t have to always prove himself, and that they all loved him no matter
what he could accomplish. He chose instead to ruffle Tim’s dark hair, and
smiled when the teenager looked up at him. “I mean—I knew I could figure it
out, and all the spells were wearing off in a week anyway...”
“But you couldn’t help worrying,” Dick filled in the blanks. “What if I was ten
forever?”
“That would be awful,” Tim clutched his head. “Damian would’ve gutted me for
failing. And Bruce. What about you and Bruce?”
Dick considered this matter seriously. “…I suppose we’d just have a larger age
difference than usual?”
“Are you saying you would’ve mated with him again,” Tim looked scandalized,
which Dick really didn’t understand. He raised a brow at his adopted sibling
and Tim just shook his head. “You know what? No. I’m glad you’re back to being
an adult and you and Bruce can continue your consensual adult relationship.”
“Thank you,” Dick said generously, and Tim just crossed his arms. “I mean it,
Timmy. Thanks for figuring out the cure so fast. I can’t imagine if I’d been
like that for a week instead of a few days.”
“Damian,” Tim reminded him. “Gutting me.”
“No, he wouldn’t. It’d take him at least a month to work up enough anger for
that.” Tim looked seconds from going on a rant, which Dick warded off by
gesturing at the rumpled bedsheets. “…you know this means religious upkeep of
your pills right? And I have no idea how super-sperm works, but I’d ask Bruce
to look into it just to be safe.”
“Oh my god,” Tim, successfully caught off-guard, turned beet red. “No! No, we
are not having this conversation!”
“Teenage pregnancy is a pain in the ass,” Dick pointed a finger at him. “Bruce
will probably lock you up at home and Damian’s going to try and shower the baby
in your stomach with all the love and attention in the world while glaring
daggers at your face—”
“Can we stop talking about my imaginary baby? We’re not even—I mean—”
“You think I don’t know what sex smells like?”
“Oh my god,” Kon had the misfortune to reappear in the doorway at that moment.
He looked at Tim and Dick with wide eyes and took a step back “Uh. I need to,
uh. Get some… lemons to put into this water?”
Tim looked like he wanted to smack his own head. Or Kon’s. Someone’s head. Dick
just turned his attention onto the Super-clone.
“Kon-El,” he said, “I was just reminding Tim of keeping his pills straight. We
wouldn’t want any accidents to happen, hm?”
Kon visibly paled. “Uh. No. No, of course not.”
“And I’m sure you know all about how to take care of an omega,” Dick said. And
then, to Tim’s absolute horror, he began rifling through his gauntlet. He took
out a sheet of pills and slipped them into Tim’s pant pocket like this was a
normal thing to do between adopted family members. “’Cause if I hear one bad
word about you, Kon, I have no qualms about telling Bruce.”
“You wouldn’t,” Tim said.
“Oh my god,” Kon seemed to be stuck on that phrase.
“Those are morning-after pills,” Dick told Tim bluntly, and the younger omega
finally regained enough body control to flush red.
“Out!” he shoved his mortifyingly embarrassing older brother towards the window
from whence he came. “Out, out, go tell Bruce I’ll be back in like a few days.
You’re so embarrassing!”
“Damian said the same thing,” Dick laughed, and then vaulted out the window
before Tim could physically boot him out himself.
--
Visiting Jason was much harder, not because it was difficult tracking him down
but because Dick knew the younger man hated being cornered. He had to be more
creative in his approach if he didn't want Jason to go so far underground it'd
take another few years to smoke him out again.
“They’re right, you know,” he approached the alpha in the cereal aisle at the
supermarket. Jason jumped about two feet in the air, and then tried his best to
look like he hadn’t. It was strange seeing him in civilian clothes in a
brightly lit supermarket in the middle of the day. He looked much less like the
dark devil skulking in the shadows of Crime Alley, and more like the young
twenty-something he was.
Dick barreled on: “I don’t hate you, Jason. You were—you are—Bruce’s son.
Family.”
“Did you seriously ambush me for this,” Jason hissed at him, looking caught
between angry and mortified. Mostly angry, but Dick had gotten very, very good
at differentiating real-anger from embarrassment-anger after constant exposure
to Damian.
“Yes,” Dick said. “Yes, I did.”
Jason just stuffed a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch into his basket and stomped
off. Dick let him. As the only other alpha in their Bat-family, Jason's fights
with Bruce stemmed in large part from feeling out of control. Unfortunately,
Bruce wasn't about to cede that control anytime soon—hence Dick's omega
instincts forcing him to play mediator.
“You could come home more often,” he said the next time he caught Jason, this
time at a gas station near one of the younger man's favorite safe houses.
“And have Bruce ream me for killing again?” Jason shouted over the loud noise
of his motorbike guzzling oil. Mother nature cried every time Jason refilled
that goddamn monster. “No thanks, Mama bird.”
“I’ll make sure he’s civil,” Dick assured him. “I have my ways.”
“You have your ass.”
“My ass belong to me,” Dick said. “And since it belongs to me, it isone of my
ways.”
“Oh my god,” Jason groaned. Rather than run him over like he could’ve easily
done, Jason just screwed on the gas cap, hopped onto his bike, and zoomed off
without looking back. He even had Dick foot the bill, which he did using one of
Bruce’s credit cards. So technically Bruce footed the bill.
It was an improvement, all things considered: Jason hated using Bruce’s money
to pay for anything.
By the time Dick tracked down Jason's favorite cat cafe, the alpha seemed to
have given up. Sort of. He didn’t try to run off again, which was a major
improvement, and chose instead to plop himself down in the chair opposite his
stalker.
“Mini you was fun to watch,” he said flatly, glaring down at where Dick was
petting a calico cat. “But it’s not worth it if you’re gonna keep stalking me.”
“Mini me thought you were a disgruntled big brother, but still a brother,” Dick
commented. He stroked the cat’s back and smiled when it stretched out and
purred. “I think there are lots of advantages to being with pack.”
“And how would you know?” Jason shot off his mouth, before freezing.
Dick cocked his head and gave Jason a serious look. “Yes, how would I know what
it’s like to hide away from Bruce. Scared he’ll find out and condemn me for
what I’ve done. I’m not saying he won’t—because Bruce is an asshole, alright,
we all know that—but Jay, I didn’t start feeling like me again until I was
around people I loved. And Bruce… well, you know Bruce.”
Jason scoffed but didn’t say anything.
“He loves you. He loves all of us, more than anything,” Dick cuddled the calico
to his chest, who just licked his chin in a disgusting bid for more attention.
“He’s just bad at showing it.”
“I hate talking to you,” Jason informed him nastily. “You, the only one batshit
crazy enough to stay with the guy.”
“I’m crazy, you’re crazy,” Dick shrugged. “We’re all crazy. Come home on
Friday. Alfred’s making Shepherd’s pie.”
A suspicious silence.
Dick knew he’d successfully lured Jason in with Alfred's cooking when the man
finally said: “With cheesy or buttery mashed potatoes?”
“Both,” Dick said, and just beamed when Jason finally, reluctantly nodded.
--
They ended up playing a vicious game of Monopoly that Friday, which resulted in
Damian vowing eternal death-by-stabbing on Jason’s head; Tim’s grinning at his
ruthlessly-earned pile of money; and Dick playing mediator while secretly
sneaking money into Bruce’s stack. Bruce, who knew exactly what he was doing,
snuck the extra money into Alfred’s stack, and the butler used the additional
funds to trounce everyone at the last second.
“Rematch!” Damian hollered, and fumed when everyone shook their head ‘no.’ He
picked up mini-Zitka and stomped into the dining room, muttering threats in
Arabic. Dick laughed so hard he toppled onto the floor.
He laughed hard enough for Damian to hear, apparently, because the boy came
barreling back and jumped onto Dick’s soft stomach in retaliation.
“I am going to throw up,” Dick wheezed, but clutched the boy around the waist
anyway. Damian snuggled against him shamelessly, directing glares at whichever
family member tried to dislodge him. Dick patted his head. “Okay, okay, we’re
all winners. Alfred just won the most. But he deserves it, yeah? He puts up
with all our crap. Thank you Alfred.”
“You’re welcome, Master Dick,” Alfred said dryly, and Tim dumped his pile of
money onto the butler’s head.
Jason ended up sneaking out a window during the commotion, but not before
leaving enough ammo around Damian’s room to give Bruce a heart attack. Dick
called it a win: no one had suffered bodily harm; laughter was had; and Jason
was trying to bond with Damian in his own way, even if Bruce wasn’t able to
tell.
“We’re never doing that again,” Bruce told him flatly as they got ready for
bed.
Dick just gave him a wide, shit-eating grin in response.
“I mean it,” the older man said, but Dick could tell from his alpha scent that
he’d already acquiesced.
“I do love you,” Dick said sweetly, and Bruce looked incredibly startled. He
leaned in and kissed Bruce’s cheek, then slipped into the bedroom with a coy
smile on his face.
It didn’t take Bruce much longer to finish up after that.
 
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