Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13024521.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Dick_Grayson/Bruce_Wayne, Dick_Grayson_&_Damian_Wayne
  Character:
      Dick_Grayson, Bruce_Wayne, Damian_Wayne, Tim_Drake
  Additional Tags:
      Dick_Grayson_is_a_Talon, Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Mpreg, Dubious
      Consent, Mating_Cycles/In_Heat, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending, Implied/
      Referenced_Torture, Omegaverse, Parenthood, another_mamabird_verse_au,
      this_is_the_bad_ending, Implied/Referenced_Mind_Control, Dissociation,
      Rough_Sex
  Series:
      Part 6 of Mamabird_Universe
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-12-16 Words: 10546
****** (to think we could fall so far) ******
by Laroyena
Summary
     First Damian, now this. There was no way he could return to Bruce
     now. No alpha would take him back.
     (Talon AU; Batman Omegaverse) The Gray Son of Gotham is the perfect
     Talon. Until he comes across Talia al Ghul in a hotel room, and finds
     a five-year-old boy that is impossibly familiar.
Notes
     This was originally an AU requested by an anon on my tumblr
     (laroyena.tumblr.com). If (please_come_home) is the good timeline of
     the mamabird verse, then this fic is the bad timeline. LOTS of angst
     ahead. The only fic you need to read before this one is what_happened
     across_the_sea.
     Upfront: I don't know a lot about the Court of Owls/Talon arc from
     the comics. I did some research, but I know I've probably gotten
     stuff wrong so please forgive me!!! And the recent Dark Metal comics
     add another layer to the Court's role so who knows what is happening
     in the canon now OTL
     Apologies for the relative silence here these last few months-- I've
     been super busy with work and still feel the weight of my unfinished
     WIPs hanging over me /koff/ROSEANDSTONE/koff/. Also working on the
     Batfam holiday exchange, so that fic will be coming up soon too! If
     you want to see what I've been up to, feel free to check out my
     tumblr above. I fill prompts sometimes when I have free time and
     there are loads of small mamabird snippets hiding there.
See the end of the work for more notes
It wasn’t the torture that broke him. It wasn’t the starvation, the fighting,
the mind games. No. He’d endured all of that and more since he’d been an
elementary school student.
What broke him was the kill.
When, after yet another fierce battle between clear-headed consciousness and
dreamlike delusion, he came back to himself and found his hands bloody. He saw
the knives embedded in the corpse sprawled at his feet, the Talon mask glinting
gold in the dark streetlight.
First Damian, now this. There was no way he could return to Bruce now. No alpha
would take him back.
And that. That was what finally broke him. It allowed the ghostly figures in
the dark to place a mask over his head and whisper their goals into his ears.
That was the day Robin finally, truly died—and the newest Talon was born.
–
Dick was used to slipping through the shadows. It had become a necessity those
first few years, when Bruce realized Dick’s lack of communication was more than
an attempt at passive-aggressiveness. When the superheroes of the Justice
League joined in on the increasingly frantic search, and it was only his
personal knowledge of each hero that allowed Dick to escape their notice.
He wanted to leave evidence of his death to divert their attention—to give
Bruce closure, because he knewBruce, knew the man wouldn’t stop looking, and
the original Dick would’ve felt so terribly sad at that thought—but the Court
wouldn’t allow him.
Instead, he investigated Gotham: its ties and connections and influences; the
way the Batfamily changed the dynamic within the city; and the best ways to
halt them in their tracks. The original Dick would have been mortified.
Betraying the Bat, selling out his old secrets… but the original Dick had been
pathetically loyal. Bound by hormones and trauma bonding, by the soft and
distracting pleasures of the flesh. It was cringe-worthy.
He served the Court, and the Court demanded he carry out their orders.
So he did.
He did it for years until one day, he intercepted a message from a League of
Shadows agent. The Court of Owls had been keeping an eye on the Shadows,
mulling over the choice to keep them away from Gotham or to play them to their
advantage. Dick had opinions, but his opinions didn’t matter.
They didn’t matter.
So when he found himself in a hotel room with none other than Talia al Ghul
bleeding out at his feet, he realized the original Dick—Before Dick—may not be
as dead as he’d thought. And by killing a target of his own—a target the Court
had unanimously agreed to keep alive—he’d failed.
And the Court always retired failed Talons.
“You won’t be able to kill me with that,” he turned and caught the knives mid-
throw. The little boy behind the bed snarled at him. “Come here. We’re going.”
“Grandfather is going to hunt you down!” the boy spat. “No one crosses the
League of Shadows!”
“This is Gotham, boy. The Court is the one you should be worried about.”
Speaking of, he could already feel the dominoes falling. In approximately two
minutes, the lower-tier Court soldiers would locate him after he failed to
report in that morning. Their mutated visages were the last thing he needed to
see right now. He flipped over the mattress, grabbed the boy, and then smashed
right through the window.
The boy bit and scratched and wriggled like a little demon, but Dick simply
hauled him even higher into his arms and pressed his little head against his
chest. He made it halfway across town before realizing his hostage had gone
eerily complacent. Once they were secure in one of Dick Grayson's old
safehouses, he set the boy onto the floor and examined him through his mask. He
was five-ish. yYung but clearly already equipped with League Training. He was
staring up at him with familiar blue eyes—why was it familiar—expression
shocked and curious and almost afraid.
Dick reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from the boy’s face.
“Who are you?” the boy asked. “Why— you killed Mother. Why did you do that?”
Dick didn’t respond. He brushed the boy’s hair back again, his gloved thumb
sweeping up his temple. A memory threatened to shatter him whole, and Dick knew
he should kill the boy.
Leave no witnesses. Show no weakness.
Except the child reached up and tapped his Talon mask, and Dick.
Dick, ignoring all the warning bells going off in the organized, assassin part
of his mind, took it off.
Smells assaulted him from every angle, every corner. Most of all from the
little boy in front of him, who smelled sweet and soft and like his—
“Damian,” he gasped, memory slamming into him like a truck against glass. It
hurt so bad. “Damian, oh.”
And then he was gathering the little owlet up into his arms, feeling the thick
porcelain veneer he’d worn for so many years simply shatter. It broke off in
jagged, uneven pieces that cut him deep, and it had been so long since he’d
felt this kind of pain. This kind of—of passion.
Damian was alive. He was alive and here and if killing had broken Before Dick,
then finding his son had shocked him back to life. Enough to know he couldn’t
keep running.
Enough that he knew what he had to do.
–
He abandoned the suit, the knives, and all other physical aspects of the Talon.
He found cash he’d squirreled away around Gotham before everything, and used it
to buy unassuming clothes for Damian and himself. Damian was already trained to
hide and defend and slip through the night, thankfully. He became Dick’s little
shadow in their excursions.
They were on the run from three dangerous groups: the League of Shadows for
killing their Mistress; the Batfamily for killing the Bat’s former lover; and
the Court, not only for his abandonment but for revealing their existence to
the one person that should never know: the Dark Knight, the Court’s most
volatile chess piece in recent years.
For this, Dick had had to leave Damian in his safehouse. He’d given him a juice
box and a box of crackers and a little elephant toy, ignoring all of Damian’s
protests that he wasn’t a baby. He kissed his forehead and slipped out of the
window.
When he snuck back into the still-undiscovered crime scene, the hideous Court
underlings were waiting for him. He dispatched them easily. He piled the bodies
around Talia and glanced around the room.
The League ninjas hadn’t arrived yet, which meant he still had time to ensure
Talia’s true death. Yet another reason to keep Damian away. The smell of
burning flesh wasn’t for the faint of heart, even if it was poetic justice.
Afterwards, he arranged shattered debris on each underling’s chest. Not an “R.”
Not a bat. No.
A “V” like symbol he knew Bruce would recognize from that fateful day in the
circus. It was the symbol of the Flying Graysons, who’d long forgotten the
origin of those bold wings.
The Court had reclaimed that origin. Now, Dick was taking it back.
–
While Bruce inevitably lost his shit over the discovery of some secret
organization living beneath his Gotham; Talia’s death; and Dick’s undeniable
mark on the bodies—while Bruce did that, Dick took Damian on vacation.
“What’s Disneyland?” Damian frowned once they finished riding trains and buses
on their cross-country adventure. He hugged his stuffed elephant against his
chest and looked over his shoulder at the pamphlet in Dick’s hands. “Mother
says these places rot your brain.”
“She’s not your mother,” Dick said, voice sharp. “That woman was nothing more
than a thief.”
Damian sniffed, and Dick softened immediately. He wasn’t a Talon, an assassin,
a piece on a chessboard. He wasn’t trying to inspire fear. He wrapped his arm
around Damian’s waist, and the boy cuddled against his side.
Damian was his little owlet. The chick that was torn away from him before his
time; the first, nearly fatal wound that had crippled Robin enough for the
Court to strike the finishing blow.
“She took you away from me,” he whispered to the boy after a day strolling
through the park and growing dizzy on rides. Damian had nearly scared some poor
Mickey Mouse to death when he kicked off his mascot head, convinced it was a
League Assassin waiting to take them back. They’d settled in a hotel for the
night, and something about the moonlight loosened his tongue. “She took you
away, hid you, claimed you. But you’re mine, Damian. And I took you back.”
“I didn’t meet Moth—I didn’t meet Talia until a year ago,” Damian confessed to
him in a whisper. “My teachers took care of me mostly. But then she wanted to
meet with Father and thought it’d be a good idea to take me along. I mean.” An
awkward pause. Damian shuffled closer and curled up right against Dick’s chest
like a kitten. “He’s… still my father?”
“Yes,” Dick confirmed, and the boy’s body relaxed. He felt like he was talking
about someone else’s lover; someone else’s life; except it was his. It all felt
so distant. “He is. And he’ll come for us, Dami. We just need to give him
time.”
He’d left enough breadcrumbs to lead Bruce on a merry chase. A chase that would
allot him information in acceptable portions, spaced out enough that he’d be
able to take time to emotionally recover before devouring the next clue.
Because even if it felt like a dream, Dick knew what Bruce was like. Knew he
couldn’t be confronted too suddenly with a horrible idea—like the idea that his
Robin was a killer.
Like the idea that “Robin” was dead.
So he took his time introducing Damian to the creature comforts of the American
life, experiences he’d never really had in the cold halls of the League of
Shadows headquarters. He smiled and played and sometimes felt so much like the
old Dick Grayson he almost tricked himself into thinking he was.
Until the Court of Owls decided to ruin his plans by unleashing a wave of
retired Talons onto Gotham—and Dick bought two plane tickets to fly them back
home.
–
Bruce had built up quite an army of bats in Dick’s absence. He’d known about
the new Robins in the abstract, though he’d never fought side-by-side with them
until now. It was scary how easy it was to fall back into the assassin mindset.
How nearly a month spent with his son seemed to evaporate once his target was
set. Still, things were different. No matter how far he went into the assassin
rabbit-hole, simply glancing over at Damian reminded him of who he was.
He was Dick Grayson. Damian was his son. And he was going home.
He’d retrieved his Talon outfit and outfitted Damian in a miniature one he’d
patiently crafted on their long flight. He gave the boy two sharp knives from
his collection and watched him cut through an arm with deadly precision.
Then, they joined the fight.
Retired Talons were deadly, unstoppable, remorseless. Actual zombies that had
no real weakness except for a poison Dick knew he couldn’t retrieve on his own.
He waited until the vigilantes fell back before finding his little owlet
collecting fallen knives from the ground. The shadows trained him well. It made
half of him very, very proud; and the other half very sad.
“Our timetable’s been moved up,” he called out, reaching for the boy. He hefted
Damian up into his arms and glanced over to where he knew Wayne Manor stood in
the distance. “We’re meeting your father now.”
“Now?”
“If we want to get the Court off our backs for good—yes, now. He’ll probably be
upset.”
“Why?”
”Because he likes knowing everything. Not knowing things drives him crazy.”
“If he is upset by his own failure to research, then he is a weakling,” Damian
declared, and Dick ruffled his hair with a warm smile.
–
He walked right into the Batcave without preamble: Talon mask in place, knives
strapped to his chest, Damian in his arms. The boy, still outfitted in his
miniature suit, pressed his face to his collar.
Batarangs, knives, even a gun was leveled at his head within a second, but Dick
wasn’t scared by any of those. No. He only had eyes for Bruce, who’d gone white
as a sheet at the sight of his Talon suit.
“Bruce, that’s a Talon!” The smaller Robin—Timothy Drake, son of Jack and Janet
Drake, an omega who would’ve inspired a bit of jealousy in the old Dick
Grayson—hissed as Dick stepped closer. “How the hell did one find the Batcave?”
“B,” Jason Todd—the Robin whom Bruce had reluctantly replaced him with, who’d
been killed and revived in some form of ironic justice, who the Court had spent
an entire hour deliberating over while he went on his criminal killing spree
that one time—thatJason Todd flicked off the safety off his gun. “He’s getting
closer.”
Dick stopped within arm’s reach of the vigilantes. Damian sniffed and looked at
each family member in turn, just as each family member stared at Dick without
blinking. Robin two. Robin three. Batgirl. Alfred.
Bruce.
“There is only one way to kill the revived Talons,” he spoke, cutting niceties.
Niceties were a waste of time. “A poison developed by the Court of Owls. They
keep it to themselves—we’ll need a team effort to retrieve it. Without it,
there is no hope for the Batman in Gotham.”
“Team effort? Seriously? That’s Trap Basics 101, man,” Jason laughed. “Bet
there isn’t even a poison. You think we’d just believe you? Why?”
“Because he knows I know who he is,” Bruce finally found his voice. There was a
pinched quality to his face even half-hidden under his cowl, and he ignored the
other’s warnings as he stepped closer. Close enough for Dick to sink a knife in
his gut with barely a flick of a finger.
If he wanted to.
He reached out and carefully removed Dick’s mask. Disbelief, horror and yes,
even a bit of joy flickered across Bruce’s face.
“Dick,” he breathed.
“Hiya Bruce,” Dick replied, plastering Robin’s old grin across his face. “I’m
home.”
--
After the Talons were once more safe in their caskets, never to be awoken from
slumber again—
Once Dick was safe from one enemy and mostly protected against another—
He left.
The hardest decision had been whether or not to take his owlet. On one hand,
the fierce maternal instinct inside him rankled at the idea of parting with his
son. On the other, Before Dick would have balked at the idea of dragging a
five-year-old on a cross-country jaunt rife with danger, even if said five-
year-old was a League-trained assassin that could kill a man in two moves.
Bruce, the utter bastard, saw his vulnerability for what it was.
“Damian,” he crouched down before the boy, looking surprisingly gentle in his
simple collared shirt and dark slacks. Batman may be a terrifying shadow of the
night, but Bruce Wayne had always had a soft spot for kids—even if he wasn’t a
hundred percent comfortable with dealing with them. Damian narrowed his eyes
warily at his father. “You’ll be safe here. Stable. You can learn and grow into
your own person, and you will be loved.”
“I want to stay with Mom,” Damian said.
Bruce’s gaze flickered up at Dick’s masked face. He hadn’t taken it off since
that first reveal, down in the cave where the other Robins had nearly blown his
head off. It made easier to ignore Bruce’s alpha scent, but it was also more
difficult gauging his next move.
“I was the one to train your mother,” and Bruce betrayed a bit of his own
weakness when his voice hitched at the word ‘Mother.’Just one more shocking
secret laid bare in this mess of a situation. The only good thing to come from
it was the family’s silent but unanimous decision to drop the case of Talia’s
death.
R’as had gone silent as well once word had trickled back to Nanda Parbat.
Talia’s own lies were enough to keep the man occupied with his own affairs, too
much to bother avenging her death in Gotham. It gave Dick just enough breathing
room to loosen the tight reins he’d had around Damian since finding him again.
To let Bruce bargain with Damian like he wasn’t planning to rip their child
from his hands, like Talia had done.
That might not be fair, but Dick wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
Bruce continued, “I can train you the same way. R’as al Ghul once saw something
inside of me that convinced him I was to be his heir, and I was strong enough
to escape his grasp. You can learn that too.”
“I want to stay with Mom,” Damian repeated. He wrapped an arm around Dick’s
leg, tight and possessive. Dick felt a surprising flush of warmth at the
gesture. Damian tugged his belt, and he obediently hefted his owlet into his
arms and pressed his masked face into his fluffy black hair. The devastated
expression Bruce wore was hard to take in: not because Damian had rejected him,
but because of what his actions revealed about Dick’s psyche.
Before Dick would never allow this.
He took a deep breath. Tightened his grip around the owl costume fitted around
Damian’s waist, where at least four knives were hidden beneath its folds. He
never wanted to let him go. Not now, not ever, not when his baby was one of the
few things keeping him from going back into that icy assassin façade. He’d lose
Dick Grayson for good, and then who’d he be? A Talon? TheTalon?
Being a clean slate might appeal to some, but it terrified him. He wasn’t Dick
Grayson anymore, but he wanted to be. He wantedto feel those emotions again; to
find comfort in this sprawling mansion around them; to know and remember who he
was. The fraction of love he felt for the owlet curled in his arms was enough
to convince him he was missing something.
Dick Grayson would never take his precious baby away from this sanctuary.
“Dami,” and Dick turned and gently settled Damian down onto the ground. With
his back to Bruce and the others, he carefully removed his mask and took a
shuddering breath. Scents hit him from all angles. Damian’s sweet, fierce
child’s scent. Alfred’s usual calm beta air, mixed with just enough sadness for
him to understand how hard this must be for him to watch. And Bruce’s tense,
suspicious alpha scent cutting clear across the room.
Too long. It had been way too long since Dick had paid any attention to his
body’s needs, given the chemical cocktail he'd been given while under the
Court's thumb. A cocktail that was clearly out of his system by now, which gave
Bruce's stupid, primal scent the power to open the floodgates.
Damian understood his intention at once.
“No,” he said, throwing himself into Dick’s arms. He wrapped his arms around
his neck and clung to him hard, like nearly suffocating him would convince him
to take him along. “No, no, no!”
“You’ll be the safest here,” Dick said, trying to pry his little fingers from
his Talon suit. “With your family. Dick’s—my family. The Court’s got allies
around the world, and the League of Shadow’s gonna come after me eventually.
Gotham’s the safest place for you, and your dad—”
“I wanna help! Grandfather—R’as, he taught me things about the League,” Damian
raised his chin. “I can be useful. I was trained a warrior. You sawme fight!”
“You are five.”
“I’m not a baby!”
“No, but you still deserve a childhood. You can’t have that traveling with me,
Damian. Do you understand?”
Damian stamped a foot and tried to dart away, but Dick was faster. He grabbed
the boy’s arm and wrestled him back. Then, he let himself take one shuddering
more breath before picking his mask up from the floor and securing it onto his
face. When Damian tried to pry it off, Dick readjusted his grip mercilessly.
“Your father loves you,” he said, voice as unwavering as he could manage. “You
always wanted to know more about him, yeah? I just need a bit of time to
myself, but I’m not abandoning you—I love you, Dami. My little boy.” He carded
his free hand through Damian’s dark hair. The boy struggled for a few minutes
more before suddenly slumping in his arms, tears streaking down his cheeks.
Dick wiped a trail away with a thumb.
“I’ll always come back,” Dick said, both a promise to himself and to Damian.
“Promise you’ll be good. And don’t run away to follow me. I’ll know.”
Damian glowered. Clearly, Dick had correctly guessed his next train of thought.
“Promise,” Dick said. His voice left no room for argument.
“I promise,” Damian muttered under his breath. Damian pressed his mask against
his forehead once more, unable to kiss the crease in his brow but also unable
to remove it. Not with their audience, and not with the increasingly
intolerable itch running under his skin. He’d breathed in too much of Bruce’s
scent already, and he needed to get out of here.
“Take care of him,” he said, squeezing Damian’s shoulder at the manor entrance.
The boy looked especially small and downcast in the great shadow of the door.
Bruce narrowed his eyes at him consideringly, and that was—
It was too much.
A heartbeat later, he was gone.
–
Wally West. Roy Harper. Donna Troy. The Court of Owls had spent its time
tearing away the loyalties he’d had for the Batfamily of Gotham. The rest of
his relationships had been less carefully destroyed. A cross-country visit was
his best option to find Dick Grayson again. To make sure it was Dick who came
home to his little boy, to show Damian the kind of brightness he so clearly
deserved.
But first, he had business to attend to.
He stumbled into one of his safehouses at the edge of Gotham City, the one he’d
hidden Damian in what felt like a lifetime ago. Alarms and traps still
functional. Cot in the corner and money beneath a removable tile in the floor.
He wrestled off the Talon mask from his face and took a deep breath. One. Two.
The air tasted stale but was thankfully scentless. He tugged at his suit and
began unzipping it with a trembling hand.
Dick had been ignoring the building itch under his skin since confronting Bruce
again face-to-face. Out of necessity, mostly. His Talon mind hadn’t been able
to handle Bruce’s stupid alpha scent confusing him.
(Wally would have been able to give him suppressants, birth control, anything
to keep the tide from crashing—but there was no way he’d make it to Central
City in time. Not with his heat so close.)
He recognized the taste in his mouth even after nearly five years without
heats. He was an omega. There were things he just knew. 
Hence, the safehouse.
He checked the perimeter once, twice. He carefully bolted the windows shut. He
reinforced the traps above the door just in case and laid out two glinting
knives on the floor beside the cot.
Then he curled up on the dingy cot and forced himself to slowly fall into a
Talon Trance—a state of mind he’d hoped he’d never have to use again. Once upon
a time, the solution would’ve been as easy as crawling into Bruce’s bed. But
thatDick wasn’t here, hadn’t even tried to resurface when the beginnings of
heat began cropping up back at the manor. Sharing his heat would be too much,
too fast, too volatile. Damian needed him to make a clean cut from the manor,
not stick around and confuse him further.
A trance was the best way to guard himself; to strip away the weaknesses a heat
would force onto him. The Talon wouldn’t be so easily distracted.
If anyone tried to pry open the door and approach without his consent, the
Talon would eviscerate them with a flick of the wrist.
–
He expected it to last around three days, as usual. Fortune, however, wasn’t on
his side.
–
Hell raged for four days before Dick realized something was wrong. He’d come to
every once in a while to see a flashing light blinking through the window. The
Bat was clearly keeping an eye on him, and he was as grateful as he was
enraged. The omega inside his chest howled with indignity, because if Bruce was
getting a free show he might as well put out.
But the Bat’s gaze kept the remaining Owls’ attention away. The distraction
Dick had hastily put together before returning to Gotham hadn’t been as neatly
planned out as it should have been. The Court never stopped until they got what
they wanted, and the Gray Son of Gotham was an asset too valuable to let loose.
Retrieve or kill. Those were the only options.
Except Dick Grayson was apparently jumping across town on a clear path to Star
City, and the Owls were watching himinstead.
God bless J’onn and M’gann and their shapeshifting. The Talon part of him
would’ve suggested countermeasures if he’d still been under the Court’s
control, but he wasn’t a Talon anymore. And he needed them off his back for
Damian’s sake more than anything else.
It was the perfect distraction until Dick could pick himself up and get out of
the city. And as usual, perfection invited disaster.
--
Dick woke up on the fifth day of his ravaging heat to find himself half-
sprawled across the cot and his skin feeling like it was onfire. Survival
instinct—instilled by Bruce and then beaten into his head by the Owls—flared up
in warning.
Five days and his temperature just kept on rising with no end in sight. Over
115 degrees Fahrenheit was death, and he didn’t need a thermometer to know he
was getting dangerously, sickeningly close.
–
“Christ!”
Dick came back to himself to find a bloody knife in his hands. The flap of a
red cape, and suddenly he was rolling out of the way of a bo-staff. He swung
his legs up in an attempt to sweep his attacker off his feet, but a sudden bout
of dizziness had him stumbling.
He landed awkwardly on a knee and tried to recover by scrabbling for the knife
instead. His attacker pounced on his back, and Dick found his hands forced
behind his back and handcuffed together by the wrist.
“I’m not trying to hurt you!” he finally heard the boy shouting at him. Had the
boy been shouting at him the entire time? He’d only heard the rush of blood
upon waking, the kind of panic he’d felt too often at the Court’s hands. The
boy rambled as he checked Dick’s constraints: “I’m here to help. Oh fuck,
you’re burning up. Bruce should’ve never let you leave the manor—respect and
privacy my ass, he only brings those up when we least need it. Hey, don’t close
your eyes. Damian will kill me if you die, and he’s enough of a demon brat as
it is—”
“Who are you,” Dick interrupted.
“Robin,” the boy said. “And you’re Dick Grayson.”
Robin. Tim Drake, the omega boy Bruce had picked up. A threat to his claim over
his alpha, despite the rational part of Dick’s brain knowing he was just a boy.
Bruce’s twisted moral code didn’t—wouldn’t—sink that low.
“I need to take you back to the cave. We already prepared for this result since
Hood retrieved logs confirming the Court’s refusal to let you ride out a yearly
heat. Good for Bruce’s temper, not too good for your body. Once we get back—”
“No,” Dick managed. “Can’t go back.”
“You either go back and suffer, or stay here and possibly die,” Robin said.
“You know that. It’s why you sent us a signal, remember?”
A signal? Dick realized he was clutching something in his left hand. A panic
button. He vaguely remembered his terror at the thought of death; at the
thought of leaving Damian alone. It’d been enough to break through the Talon
sociopathy he’d wrapped himself in like a shield, and then…
“Hey,” Tim said, reaching out to grab a shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep.”
Dick bucked him off right into the wall. Robin crashed onto the floor with a
choked oomph,giving Dick enough time to try and wriggle his way towards a
discarded knife on the floor.
But Robin was quicker than he’d thought, because a split second later the boy
was back and pressing a syringe into his exposed neck. He hissed and fought
back, but already he could feel his limbs starting to grow heavier. Some kind
of knock-out drug, then. Inadvisable given his current medical state, which was
probably why Robin didn’t drug him from the start.
Robin looked over him, his face growing fuzzier and fuzzier with every second.
He touched something in his ear. “Yes—yes, hey, you don’t have to yell. I’ve
got him, and it’s worse than we thought. No, he’s even lashing out at meand I’m
an omega, there’s no telling how violent he’ll get if he’s cornered by some
alphas. Let me take him in.”
Bruce. It had to be Bruce.
“…yes sir. Look, just my estimates but the speed it’s come on, it’s bad enough
I think we dohave to drop pleasantries…”
“Dami,” Dick whispered, more to himself than to the omega watching him burn
alive. He could probably fight his way out of this, but that meant death. The
Talon would have killed this Robin, but not Dick Grayson.
Damian reminded him of that. He couldn’t forget.
–
(“No.”
“It’ll take too long for the anesthetic to wear off, and there’s a reason
omegas on suppressants need to allow one heat every year. Four, five years non-
stop is way too long.”
“It istoo long, Tim. We haven’t… is there no way to wake him up earlier?”
“Mom?”
The vigilantes froze at the sound of Damian entering the Bat Cave. Tim
immediately pulled closed the curtains surrounding the medical cot they were
keeping Dick in, even when Damian’s big blue eyes zeroed in on it at once.
“Mom!”
“Damian,” Tim tried, and Damian rounded on him at once.
“You! Imposter son—what are you doing to my mother?”
“Master Damian!” Alfred appeared at the cave entrance, flustered. Seeing as
Damian should have been safely tucked in bed by now, it was no wonder. “Master
Damian, I insist you return to bed. Master Dick is in no state—”
“You didsomething to him!” Damian shouted, tearing away from Alfred’s grasp.
And honestly, the way he ducked and wove around the other Bats was unreal; not
even Dick as a child had been so slippery. He nearly made it to the curtain, a
knife he whipped out of nowhere in his hands ready to slash it through, when
Bruce grabbed him by the waist and tore him away. “No! Lemme go! Lemme go!
Mom!”
Bruce turned and dumped the screeching boy into Alfred’s arms. He jabbed a
finger at him, voice deepening into an alpha growl. “Damian, your mother is
very sick and needs help. We do not have time to deal with one of your
meltdowns. Do you understand?”
Tears gathered in Damian’s eyes. He let out a little frustrated growl of his
own, and if there was any doubt he was Bruce’s son…
“Damian, answer me.”
“Yes, Father,” the boy finally said, stopping his writhing altogether. Alfred
glanced down at the sullen child and then up at Bruce, who’d resumed his fuming
and pacing around the medcot. The Bat was far more controlled than the average
alpha, but even he had limits. And with the scent Dick was letting off in
waves…
“I’ll take him upstairs, sir,” Alfred patted Damian’s head and turned back
towards the stairs. “Come along, Master Drake. Let’s give them some semblance
of privacy.”)
–
Dick was back at the manor. He knew that, could identify the unique blend of
familiar scents even half drugged out on anesthetic mixed with a heat headache.
And what a goddamn headache.
Hot, unrelenting pressure squeezed his brain from inside his skull. Not fun. He
was slowly waking up, but to what he had no idea. His struggle to consciousness
was marked first by sensation. Shallow relief. Comfort. The soft thrill of
being fucked and enjoying it, even if it wasn’t nearly enough to slake the
thirst of his heat.
(God, it’d been so long. Even before the Court, before Damian’s birth, he
remembered how he sat in a little apartment in Italy and ached.)
“Bruce,” he mumbled, still trying to claw himself to consciousness. Everything
was over-sensitive, sore, and burning hot at once. He patted the air until he
found a stubbled jaw, running his fingers up until he could bury his fingers
into short-cropped hair.
“Dick, calm down,” Bruce’s hand wrapped firmly around his wrist. He stopped
moving, and oh. For some absurd reason, Dick hadn’t really noticed the hot
stretch of Bruce’s cock inside of him. Instead, he noticed the air—the warmth,
the sound, the sharp scent of Bruce’s alpha pheromones surrounding them both.
Looking into his face was a mistake, because B looked wrecked.Hair tousled,
cheeks flushed a somewhat familiar red. Raw bites littered his shoulder, the
sight so familiar it felt like Talon and Dick Grayson literally overlapped each
other for a disorienting moment.
(Focus, Dick. What’s happening? Heat gone wrong. Robin arriving. Health hazard,
most reliable cure was sex with his alpha, and hisalpha had been close.
Explicit consent would have been nice, but Dick was beyond caring. Bruce and he
both knew Dick wouldn’t say no—even with his Talon history breathing down their
backs.)
Bruce waited a beat. Two. Dick stared up at him as the world righted itself.
Hot need quickly overtook the sluggish drugged haze, but Bruce was a sight he
couldn’t tear his gaze away from. He could stare forever, but god, they were
suddenly moving again. Picking up where they left off, apparently, with Bruce’s
hands grabbing him under his thigh—
(Stupid red drapes around bed posts. Bruce’s room. Pitch blackness outside the
windows. Still nighttime. Probably their second round given the wetness of the
sheets below him, the residual soreness around his entrance from being knotted.
It was the perfect scenario for Before Dick to come rushing back, but he
didn’t. He knew it couldn’t have been that easy.)
The bites on Bruce’s shoulder meant Dick had at least been responsive in his
drugged-out state, not lying there limp like a doll. Which was good, but
nothing compared to him reallyparticipating. He kissed Bruce harder, deeper,
his fingers tangling in his hair, until he was able to suddenly flip them over
and straddle his lap.
Much better.
He rolled his hips into the alpha’s erratic thrusts, hitting the perfect spot
inside him with uncanny precision. Five years going without and yet apparently
coming out of his fever to find Bruce balls-deep in his ass was enough to bring
the body memory back. It would be annoying if it wasn’t convenient, because
once they were fucking again Dick didn’t know how to stop.
He needed this like he needed air, and even with his alpha at his mercy it
wasn’t enough. He could barely breathe. He came, sudden and hard and wholly
unsatisfactory, and let out a frustrated whine when the heat only seemed to
increase. Fucked down on his cock until he came again, and it wasn’t enough.
Dick leaned down and bit Bruce’s shoulder hard in punishment. Anger.
He kept biting as Bruce manhandled him onto his back—and it wasmanhandling,
because Dick wasn’t giving up his preferred position without a fight.He made
sure to draw blood when Bruce managed to successfully flip them over; he drew
blood again when Bruce fucked into him hard.
Retaliation for before, sure, but also him fighting brattiness with violence.
Messy, self-pleasuring thrusts that had Dick baring his teeth in preparation
for a complaint, until the familiar weight of his knot stretched him enough to
steal his breath away.
Oh. The anger dissipated. He’d missed this.
Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes. He wanted to keep going, but he also
kind of wanted to burst out crying, and neither seemed to be very good options.
Burning heat inside meant Bruce was coming, which would be fine if he didn’t
notice how quiet the man was. How still. Even as he trembled minutely in
release, he still hid his handsome face in Dick’s neck. It told him all he
needed to know about the last five years.
It was one thing to watch from afar, and another to be confronted with the wave
of mixed alpha pheromones washing over him. Bruce had missed him. Mourned him.
Had let him slip away for who knows how long, because god knows what would
happen if he tried reining Dick in again.
But it had hurt, and they both knew it. Dick wrapped his legs around his waist
and cradled the back of his head with a hand.
He may feel oddly distant about many things; may have forgotten many things;
but he remembered this. This pain and concern and love, where all he could do
was offer comfort. It wasn’t the sex that brought a piece of Dick Grayson back.
Of course not.
It was the sense of mourning. The hurt.
Every piece of Dick he managed to piece back together was going to hurt, he
knew. Damian’s discovery first, and now this one. It would be easier to give up
and forge his own path. To escape and figure out what a Talon could do on his
own.
But there was a little boy sleeping down the hall who needed Dick to get
himself together—literally, as it happened. And there was nothing he wouldn’t
do for his son.
And nothing he wouldn’t do for Bruce either, no matter how the two of them
denied it.
–
“You’re going,” Bruce said, narrowing his eyes while Dick soaped his hair under
the spray of the showerhead. The man had showered first and then sat at the
open door like a creep while Dick took his turn, whether to appreciate the free
show or keep an eye on their resident questionably brainwashed Robin. “Damian
will be upset.”
“Damian needs to bond with you and the others,” Dick replied. He ignored
Bruce’s gaze and rinsed his hair. “I’m not good for him. Not like this.”
“He spent the first three days circumventing our security system and nearly
getting himself killed on the streets of Gotham.”
“What, the great Batman can’t keep a five-year-old kid still?” Dick shut the
water off and slid open the glass door. He looked down at the still reddened
marks on his wrists, his inner arm. Tim’s tranq had even left a puckered dot on
his neck, and he scowled at it. “Let me guess, you just left him at home and
hid in your office all day. He’s running away ‘cause you’re not getting to know
him. He’s your son, B. Take him to the zoo or something.”
“Dick,” Bruce said, and oh, he recognized that tone of voice.
“Don’t you start.”
“Is this why you ran?”
“No,” Dick stepped over Bruce’s legs and rummaged through his drawer like he’d
been doing it forever. Five years wasn’t enough time for B to change his sock-
folding habits. “I ran because you were being a controlling jackass. I got
captured because—”
He cut himself off. By the time he finished pulling on a nondescript pair of
pants and white t-shirt, Bruce had stood up and was looming over him.
“Dick,” Bruce said, voice low. Dick didn’t look up. “Why did you kill Talia?”
He glared up at him. “Don’t.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because this isn’t about you, Bruce!” Dick whirled and smacked the alpha hard
in the chest. “You insensitive ass!“
“I mourned Jason when he died,” Bruce caught his wrist. “And I mourned you when
I thought you were gone, too. I know what that kind of pain feels like.”
“Well fine, whatever. We both win the tragic backstory contest. But it’s done.
I broke through the programming, got the hell out of Dodge, and brought Damian
back where he belongs. Now let me go.”
“You belong here, too.”
“No, Dick Grayson belongs here. This me—” Dick tugged himself away and backed
up towards the window. His Talon gear was probably stowed away in the Bat Cave,
but the itch beneath his skin screamed at him to leave now.“This me isn’t him.
And I can’t put myself together with you—and Dami—and everyone—”
Bruce didn’t follow him. He simply watched Dick with those stupidly deep blue
eyes, until Dick’s hands were pressed against the glass and fumbling the lock
open.
“You’re always welcome here, Dick,” he finally said, once Dick was halfway out
the window. “I never said it before, but I need you to know.”
“Yeah B,” Dick resisted the urge to shiver when a wind blew through his still-
wet hair. His heat might be over, but he was still weakened from the
experience. Thank God he knew Gotham like the back of his hand. “I know.”
He dropped down from the window and onto the ledge below. Escaping wasn’t a
problem when Bruce and the family weren’t chasing after him. When Bruce was
just going to let him go.
(If he stopped by Damian’s window and peered in on his little owlet on the way
out, well. No one had to know.)
--
Three months was a particularly meaningful measure of time.
--
Wading through the cold waters beneath Gotham brought back memories he’d rather
have kept hidden forever. It was both terrifying and comforting, because as
much as he loathed his time under the Court’s thumb, it had been… peaceful, in
a way. No more doubts, emotions, attachments.
If these last three months had taught him anything, it was that caringwas so
very, very painful sometimes.
“The Gray Son,” a voice called out from the dark.
Dick turned and stood, undaunted, as the Court of Owls slowly stepped forward
from the shadows around him. They were all interchangeable behind their owl
masks. A sea of white porcelain staring back at him.
“You have returned,” one member said.
“Foolish, given the disaster you have caused since betraying the Court.”
“Or have you decided to come beg for our forgiveness?”
“No,” Dick said.
A considering silence.
“It's over,” Dick said, voice like ice. “You shredded my identity and broke me
like so many others before, and for what? To turn me into a knife to stab
Batman with?” He refused to move, not even when those closest to him shifted
closer. “Like breaking me would break him, and in that perfect moment you’d
finally be able to trap the Batman in your cage.”
“We can still put you down, Gray Son,” an Court member said. “Even if the
timing is no longer right. And when the Batman comes seeking revenge, all the
pieces will fall into place.”
Dick didn’t even twitch when a member suddenly grabbed his chin and tilted it
up. He caught a glimpse of an upside-down Gotham above them and, instead of
cowering like a good, submissive omega, just bared his teeth. “No.”
“The choice isn’t yours.”
“It’s not,” Dick slowly reached up and unzipped his collar an inch. A tendon in
the Owl’s neck jumped. “But you’ve waited centuries for the right time to
fulfill your prophecy. Are you really going to ruin it for something as petty
as impatience?” He could see the exact moment the Owl realized what he meant.
When his scent made its way past even the starkest of owl masks, and the
stirring of the council meant they realized what a prize they had in their
hands.
“You can have a battle-worn Wayne too stubborn to bear the burden of your god,”
Dick said, finally jerking back from the Owl’s grip. He let him. They all did,
fanning around him like marble statues. Watching closely but not touching. “Or
you can have a Wayne of even stronger blood. A Wayne and a Gray Son in one,
blood reinforced with your goddamn precious metal. Your choice.”
“We can keep you here,” one member finally said. “Raise the child ourselves,
under our influence.”
“No.”
“You have nothing to wager with, boy.”
“Neither do you. He knowsyou’re here now. He knows what you’ve done. And if you
keep me here, he’ll come blazing in when you’re not ready, and it’s. Not.
Time.” Dick narrowed his eyes. “This wasn’t a negotiation. It’s just a polite
declaration of intent. Leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone—and in a
decade’s time, when you come for us again? We’ll be ready.”
“Boy,” the Owl repeated.
“I’m not your boy,” and Dick finally allowed a small flicker of his rage to
come across his gaze. He refused to move, not even when the Court's rage washed
over him.“This conversation is over.”
Hands were reaching out for him now, carelessly grabbing at his uniform, mask,
belts; the fingers gripping his chin was like a painful vice; the enraged
raucous of the crowd was washing over him like an angry beast.
And as suddenly as he’d been manhandled, he was let go.
He nearly fell into the water below him, and only stayed on his feet from his
body-memory as an acrobat. It gave him the perfect, satisfying view of each
member of the Court slowly stepping back into the shadows. One by one the pale
masks faded from sight, until Dick was once again alone.
He took a deep breath. And then another. When the minute shaking of his hands
finally faded, he pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the watery
darkness. Reached into his own mouth and ran a finger pad against the crown of
a molar he’d memorized the shape of in the three months he’d spent away from
Gotham.
Without any more hesitation, he dug his nails into the implant and tore it out.
The resounding crackrang sickeningly through the cave.
“Fuck,” he spat.
The electrum implant glittered in the low light of the dark. His entire jaw
ached with a dull, coppery pain, already missing the superhuman effects of the
metal lying bloody in his palm.
He’d done his research. Consulted with the experts. He’d never be truly free of
this damn metal’s effects; not when the years it had been spent in his mouth
had poisoned his very cells.
Poisoned her.
He threw the offending thing into the water and watched it vanish into its
depths.
Then, Dick slowly turned around and began wading his way back towards the exit.
It was done.
--
(“It’s only been three months,” Zatanna had said quietly, the morning she
teleported him back into Gotham and Dick stood before the rising sun like a man
facing his greatest trial. “You didn’t have to come back so soon, Dick.”
You could have stayed with me, went unsaid, because none of his allies had been
particularly happy with his decision to return to the city that had swallowed
him whole. Not when they’d been there to see the very worst of his recovery. To
hear his screams when he unthawed just enough to feel that pain again, to
realize the true horror of what he’d become, and had seen him almost crumple
under the weight of it.
God, was he grateful Wally had his super-speed.
“It’s fine,” Wally had tried, yanking out the dagger in his gut like it was no
big deal. Raven was already descending from an upper level with a hand
outstretched, because no matter what the speedster said Dick knew the truth.
That had been an attack meant to kill. “I heal fast anyway, and I should have
known better than to startle you.”
“Raven,” he had curled a hand around her wrist when she finally deemed Wally
stable enough to leave the healing bay. He'd been waiting by the door for an
hour. She simply looked into his face. His heart. And then lower, until she
raised a brow.
“You won’t be able to recover in time,” she told him.
“I know,” Dick said, without any of the feigned smiling and Dick Grayson
mannerisms he’d adopted in the days since arriving at Titan Tower. Raven didn’t
expect it, so he didn’t bother. “Which is why I need your help.”
She knew better than to ask if he’d meant it. To ask if he remembered exactly
what it cost to dive into one’s psyche, where fear was a monster that could
swallow you whole and hell could last an eternity.
She’d simply nodded and offered her hand.
It was nearly worse than the torture that had first broke him. Worse than days
crawling about that damn maze and coming across skeleton after skeleton, story
after story. Worse than feeling starvation creeping into all of his senses,
until he couldn’t breathe without his stomach crying out in agony. But when he
clawed his way out of her psychic trial, he knew that killing instinct was
finally gone.
The day after he woke up in the healing bay, he asked Zatanna to take him home.
No one was happy about it. No one stopped him. And now that Dick was here, he
had to admit they were right.
It was too soon.
“This is where I need to be,” Dick said out loud, feeling tired and cold as he
stared out over the city.
Zatanna simply placed a hand on his shoulder. She smelled like safety and
friend and beta, and Dick was grateful she’d agreed to bring him here. After
everything, he craved the safety of a soothing scent. The Dick Grayson of
Before would’ve had no qualms in turning into her touch and burying his face
into her neck. To cling to animal comforts without shame.
This Dick Grayson, however, could do no such thing. That was fine. He could
accept the comfort she offered, and that was good enough. If there was anything
these three months had taught him, it was that this Dick Grayson was the one
that was here to stay.
And this Dick Grayson needed to go home.)
--
“MOM,” Damian screeched when Dick opened his bedroom window from the outside
and slipped in. Seeing him—smelling him—was much more a punch in the gut than
the boy actually slamming into him at what felt like breakneck speeds. God, it
had been. It was.
He’d almost forgotten how sweet his baby boy smelled, and Dick immediately
curled his arms around Damian’s shoulders and buried his nose into his soft
hair.
“You weren’t supposed to come back for another week!” Damian declared,
wriggling back enough from his grip to glare up at him. Dick must have looked
appropriately confused, because the boy stomped his foot and explained, “Given
your movement across the Titans’ homes, it was obviousyou were going to stay
with the Backwards Witch for another week, and I finally got Drake to book an
ap—appropop—“ Damian scrunched up his nose in frustration. “Appropriate place
to celebrate, and you’re early!”
Oh, yes. He should’ve known better than to assume Damian would have spent the
last three months sulking under Bruce’s eye and twiddling his thumbs.
“My clever owl,” he said, and Damian practically preened. He dove in for
another hug, and Dick wasn’t surprised to feel the boy subtly checking for
weapons on his person—he had his knives hidden in his pants and a few more
weapons up his sleeves, but Damian seemed to be expecting them—before grabbing
Dick’s hand and dragging him around the room.
“Drake is clearly unfit to act as Father’s heir,” Damian was babbling. It hurt
to hear Talia’s speech patterns in the boy’s enthusiastic rambling, but the joy
of hearing Damian’s voice at all was worth it. “And Todd’s just as bad, though
he at least knows how to fight. He’s the only one who spars with me. Father
says I’m too young.”
Fatherwas at least talking to their son, at least. Bruce must have really taken
his advice to heart, because there were a few souvenir photos of father and son
together at the zoo taped to the wall: Bruce looking somewhat uncomfortable,
and Damian downright glowering at the cameraman. Large animal posters were
plastered around the photos with much more enthusiasm, as well as a map and a
corkboard filled with article clippings.
Half seemed to relate to the League of Shadows; the other half focused on
Dick’s own escapades across the country.
Only five-years-old and already such a little detective. Dick found himself
more touched than horrified. Another Talon-induced emotional response, maybe,
but his all the same.
(And some part of him suspected that even the Before Dick Grayson would have
found the sleuthing adorable. The Bats were just fucked up like that. No use
arguing about it.)
“You are too young. But you’re not unqualified. They’re not the same thing,”
Dick said once he finished glancing around the room. Damian, who’d stopped the
tour with a nervous bite of his lip, peered up at him. The short burst of
excitement had masked the hurt lying underneath, and it physically pained Dick
to see it on his boy’s face. Dick reached over and ran a hand through Damian’s
fluffy hair. He melted under his touch.
“Don’t leave again,” he said in a quiet voice. The boy’s words gutted him, but
he deserved it.
“Never,” Dick said. He hefted Damian up into his arms and smiled when the boy
clung to him tightly. Possessively. God, how he’d ever let him to begin with,
Dick couldn’t even fathom. “Do you want to go flying, owlet?”
Damian glanced up at him, curious. But not afraid.
That’s all Dick wanted.
After leaving one of his Talon daggers on Damian’s bedroom desk, he cracked
open the window once more and slipped out into the night. One owlet against his
heart and another below his ribcage, this would be a special night just for
them.
When Dick made his first leap that night, Damian spread his arms out in pure
delight. It reminded Dick of himself so many years ago, the first time he'd
swung on a daring trapeze.
A Grayson through and through, this one. And never a Gray Son.
Not for as long as Dick Grayson still lived.
--
Bruce was waiting for them when they returned.
Damian had nodded off on the motorcycle ride back to the manor, despite
multiple declarations that he was not tired and he wasn’t a baby. Dick had
simply placed the boy in front of him on the seat and brought the bike to life.
Within ten minutes, the boy had slumped over in sleep, and the rest of the ride
to the Manor had been peacefully quiet.
Dick took off his motorcycle helmet and placed it on the rack. Unbuckled
Damian’s own little helmet and carefully hefted the mumbling boy off the bike
and into Alfred’s waiting arms.
“Alfie?” Damian murmured, face scrunched up. Suddenly, his eyes flew open and
he glanced around. “Mom?”
“Still here,” Dick soothed him, and the boy settled back down. Alfred looked up
at his former charge, all cool professionalism and stoic aplomb—and so Dick
allowed him to turn and carry Damian back up to his room, because they all had
more important matters to deal with right now.
“You can’t take Damian without warning,” Bruce’s voice rumbled behind him. He
was close, and without Damian or Alfred distracting him—Dick took a deep breath
and regretted it. God, Bruce still smelled good. And he was running out of
excuses not to acknowledge it.
“I did give warning.” Dick turned.
Bruce looked… well. He actually looked better than he did last time, given the
lack of undead Talons clawing at his doorstep and former sort-of-mate haunting
him with a son in tow. Reserved and wary, yes, but better.
Bruce withdrew the dagger from his pocket and glanced at it pointedly.
Dick shrugged. “It counts.”
“Dick.”
“Hello to you too, Bruce,” Dick said.
Bruce stared at him.
It was easier than he thought it’d be, taking the first step and drawing the
Batman into his arms. To actively channel the Dick Grayson of before, not
because he wanted to play a role but because his specter was an unavoidable
fact of life now. Because if it was left to the current Dick, no one would ever
make a move.
Bruce was like a stone wall with how rigid he was with internalized rage, but
Dick had expected it. He pressed his face into Bruce’s stiff neck and breathed,
because angry or not he was here.They were here. Dick sank into the one
familiar alpha scent he’d never be able to forget. If Zatanna’s scent was a
soothing balm, Bruce’s felt like being dunked in a chilling pool after years
spent burning in eternal flame. It was relief.
And soon, after an excruciating wait, he could feel the anger seeping away from
Bruce’s shoulders. Because yes, he’d left, and yes, he’d stolen Damian away,
and yes, he’d returned without any of the warning the Batman preferred—but he
wasn’t just any dangerous enemy of Gotham. He was Dick. He was Bruce’s omega,
and he was home.
Dick let out an involuntary noise when Bruce finally opened his arms and swept
Dick up against his chest. He was lifted up onto his toes and his head tilted
back, and there was a familiar face pressing into his neck like a man dying of
thirst.
“Dick,” Bruce said, tone nearly brittle with how emotionless it was. Dick
squeezed his eyes shut. Felt the weight in his chest grow ever heavier, until
he felt a horrifying wetness prick at the corner of his eyes. “God, Dick.
You’re alive.”
Because three months didn’t cancel out the nearly five years Bruce had thought
him dead. It didn’t cancel out the years Dickhad thought himself dead.
“Yeah, B,” Dick let out a weak chuckle. “I am.”
Bruce squeezed him tighter. Breathed him in once, twice. And then froze in
confusion. Dick sighed when the alpha pulled away with a bemused expression on
his face, which basically translated as a slight furrow between his brows.
“Dick,” he said, voice low. Dick just pressed his cheek against Bruce’s chest
and closed his eyes. “Are you…?”
“Yes.”
“From…”
“Yes.”
A long pause. Finally: “What do you need.”
“I need you to take me upstairs,” Dick said, voice deceptively light. He was so
tired, the exhaustion in his bones unavoidable now that he was finally safe. “I
want to rest. Please, Bruce.”
Bruce tightened his grip around his waist. The meaning wasn’t lost on him, but
nothing ever was. But he carefully picked Dick up into his arms and began
carrying him up the stairs, and Dick.
Dick finally closed his eyes and let sleep claim him. He welcomed it with open
arms.
--
(Dick had expected stiff acceptance, as befitting a Talon, or even panic akin
to how he’d felt when he found out about Damian. But as time crawled on past
the three month mark and his heat refused to come, he found himself
irrationally gleeful of his body’s stubbornness.
After all the suppressants and metals and god knows what else the Court had
pumped into him, trust his body to bounce back as if nothing had happened. It
was so delightfully rude.
And if his stupid omega body could bulldoze its way past physical and mental
torture by doing something as dumb as getting pregnant, Dick was sure he’d make
it through too.)
—
They all would.
--
 
 
 
 
 
small extra
 
“Mary,” he told Bruce over breakfast, weeks afterwards. When things had slowly
but surely began to fit together again.
“Martha.”
“Marytha.”
“That’s not a name.”
“You’re a Wayne, you can make anything a name.”
“Damian,” Damian added, looking particularly sour over his orange juice.
“That’s your name,” Dick reached over him and grabbed a piece of toast. “We’re
not giving her your name, owlet.”
Damian continued to scowl, and so Dick plucked him up from his chair and
settled him in his lap.
“Mom!”
“Maybe family names are out,” Dick said, buttering his toast like he didn’t
have a lapful of sullen kindergartener in the way. “We could go with friend
names. I’m sure Selina wouldn’t mind a miniature her running around. Makes up
for all the grief you’ve caused her over the years.”
“No,” Bruce said.
“Selina, Belina,” Damian said. “Delina, Gelina.”
“Diana would be a good name, too.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Bruce said, frustrated. Clearly, he wasn’t handling
Dick’s sudden sass well. He never did in the early morning. He stood up and
pressed a large hand against Dick’s shoulder. “Just… choose a name that makes
you happy, Dick. That’s all I care about.”
Dick watched Bruce stride out of the dining room and towards the study,
undoubtedly escaping by ‘getting ready for work.’ He probably shouldn’t have
pushed, but it was fun discovering these well-worn tracks. To feel the banter
fall off the tongue and watch where it went.
Damian poked him.
“Helena,” he said, little face so serious Dick burst out laughing. Damian,
taking great offense, pressed a butter knife against the artery at his wrist.
Dick wasn’t cowed, and instead kissed the top of his boy’s head.
“Helena!” Damian insisted. “You get to replace me, I get to pick the name!”
“Not replacing you, owlet,” Dick said. “Obviously. You’re an owlet. She’s more
likely a robin. Very different birds, you see.”
“Robins can’t see in the dark,” Damian mused to himself. Finally, he nodded and
withdrew the butter knife like he was doing Dick a great favor. “Very well.
Helena may keep the robin moni—monik—name; clearly Drake has degraded its worth
with his own dumbness. I need to go now.”
“Oh?”
“I need to draw my costume,” Damian declared, and slipped out of Dick’s grasp
to run right out of the room. Clearly, it was a mission of utmost importance.
Dick chuckled and tipped his head back against the chair.
“Helena,” he said to himself. No one in the immediate family had that name. It
would be a new beginning. After so much time spent struggling under the legacy
of his own name, he could appreciate the freedom it would offer. Everything was
different now, after all.
A sudden crash echoed out from above. Raised voices—Tim and Damian,
undoubtedly. Dick sighed.
Then again, no matter what, some things never changed.
 
End Notes
     The timeline re: the other robins is a bit skewed here, but here's my
     half-assed explanation: losing Dick and then Jason drove Bruce
     crazier than usual, so Tim decided to track down Batman earlier than
     he did in the other timelines. Also, he didn't train with Dick first.
     And that is why by the time Damian is five, Tim is already Robin and
     Jason is back, because WHAT IS CONTINUITY WHY.
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