Note: Non-canon Batfamily omegaverse AU. Definitely not meant to reflect canon dynamics ,everyone is written more OC for angst/whump purposes. hehe just a big blob of my rambling. Might delete it later cause I'm too lazy to beta-read this. I will post the second part though. Have fun :)
No sexual angle: heats, scenting, and bonding are used here as family/pack care and medical-emotional support.
When Jason had been brought back into the pack, the entire Manor had adjusted around him with the quiet inevitability of a house remembering an old wound.
No one said it aloud. They did not need to. Jason had been dead once, buried as child. Grieved so violently that his absence had shaped the family more completely than his presence ever had. When he returned- furious and wounded, but alive in a way none of them knew how to hold properly- Bruce treated every sign of pain in him like a debt coming due.
Alfred prepared the west bedroom because it caught the least morning light and Jasonās Pit-warped heats made brightness unbearable. Bruce ordered medical-grade monitors after the first episode, not because Jason asked, but because Bruce could not stand the thought of missing even one dangerous fluctuation. He said it was practical and could be used for other emergencies too. But Bruce check the readings himself at three in the morning, silent and hollow-eyed, one hand resting near Jasonās wrist without touching until Jason allowed it.
Bruce was careful with Jason in a way that made the whole room quieter.
Not soft in any easy sense. Bruce Wayne did not become gentle simply because he regretted something. His guilt usually came out as control, as contingency plans, as a grim refusal to be caught helpless twice by the same grief. But with Jason, there was always something underneath the discipline, something more raw than one would link to the dark knight: the memory of a bright, laughing boy in pixie boots. The sharp-mouthed child who had stolen tires and then somehow stolen the whole of Bruceās own heart. The son Bruce had lost so violently that its memory still made the man shiver in grief.
So Bruce watched Jason like he was too scared to lose him again. Dick thought differently.
Dick had his own anger about Jason. His own principles, his own lines he did not like crossed, even by family. He could be sharp with Jason, could call him out, could refuse to romanticize the damage Jason carried back with him. Dick did not excuse every cruel word just because it came from someone who had clawed his way out of a grave.
But he too had his own regrets with his brother. How he should have treated him when he first got to know him. How he should have pushed more to protecting the kind boy. He knew loved Jason. Oh, how he loved Jason. And this time he made sure Jason knew it.
He showed up after patrols with Batburgers Jason pretended not to want. He sent articles when Jason started attending literature seminars under names that were not legally his. He argued with him, checked on him, invaded his safehouses with practiced older-brother arrogance, and left before Jason could throw him out if Jason looked too tired to fight properly.
During the heats, Dick stayed close without making a performance of it. Sometimes he sat on the floor by the bed with his back against the wall, talking about Bludhaven cases or old Titans disasters or anything ordinary enough to remind Jason there was a world outside the fever. His scent stayed open but controlled, warm without pressing. He did not touch unless Jason allowed it. He did not hover where Jason could accuse him of pity.
He simply made it very difficult for Jason to believe he was alone.
And when the bites came, they came slowly.
Bruce had asked first. Jason had cursed at him, wild-eyed and feverish, because that was easier than wanting it. Easier than admitting that some part of him had imagined this before he ever knew what presenting would feel like. Back when he had still been Robin. Bruce had been Dad in all but name, and Dick had been the brother he pretended not to miss whenever he was gone too long.
Jason had died before he presented. That had always felt like one more thing stolen from him. Not just life or time, not just the chance to grow into himself without blood and Pit-water and a coffin pressed around his bones. But this too: the bond he had once assumed would come naturally, eventually, when he was older and less embarrassed by wanting things.
So when Bruce offered, Jason fought it.
Of course he did. He cursed. He snapped. He made himself sharp enough to cut anyone who came too close. But Bruce waited through every insult. He waited until Jasonās breathing steadied. Until Jasonās fingers stopped clawing at the sheets. Until Jason tipped his head by the smallest fraction and gave permission without having to say the words.
Bruceās bite had been firm and clean, placed exactly where an alphaās bite should sit, deep enough to hold but not deep enough to tear.
Jason had gasped once. Then his body had gone loose with relief, the bond taking like warmth poured into cracked glass.
Bruce held him afterward for hours. Just tight enough that Jason could feel him there if he reached for him. Bruce did not leave, so if Jason woke disoriented, feverish, and furious, he would not wake alone. Jason pretended not to notice.
Dickās bite came later, after Jason had stopped treating every offer of care like a trap.
But Jason was not that healed, and Dick was not that patient. They still fought. Still circled each otherās old wounds. Dick still had principles Jason kept stepping on just to see if Dick would shove back. Dick did. That was one of the reasons Jason trusted him more than he did Bruce.
Dick did not make the bond sentimental. He rarely did when things mattered too much. He sat beside Jason first, quiet for once, his expression serious in a way that made Jason stop bracing for a joke.
āYou can say no,ā Dick said. Jason rolled his eyes but Dick did not smile.
That, more than anything, made Jasonās inner Omega calm down.
The bite itself was careful. Not hesitantā¦ Dick Grayson rarely hesitated once he decided where he stood. But he gave Jason time and the dignity of choice. Jason shook afterward, not from pain, but from the terrible unfamiliarity of being wanted so openly.
It came at the exact moment he needed it most. He would never have admitted that.
Tim had been Robin then. He had been steady, clever, useful Tim, standing in places Jason had once stood and wearing colors Jason had died in. Tim, who had not done anything wrong except survive into a role Jason had left empty. The Third āRobinā whose scent lingered in the Cave sometimes, calm and careful and too familiar in all the wrong ways.
He had not presented yet, not fully, but Jason could tell. Omega. It was there in the way Tim softened rooms without anyone noticing. In the way Bruceās shoulders eased when Tim hovered nearby with reports and tea and that quiet, rain-cool scent tucked carefully beneath blockers. Jason hated that most of all.
Jason hated how insecure it made him. Not because Tim had done anything wrong (he did steal his suit), but Jason knew Tim was trouble. When Tim had laid there in the Tower, bones breaking under Jasonās hands, and still found enough breath to sneer back at him.
Jason had known then. Tim Drake was trouble.
So, Bruceās bite mattered. Dickās mattered. More than Jason would ever admit it would.
Then, two years later, Damian came barreling into their lives.
Jason had seen him before. Not at the Manor or in Gotham, but long before any of that, in the League. Only in passing: a sharp-eyed tiny kid moving through stone corridors with a blade at his hip, watched by assassins who treated him less like a boy than a weapon being polished.
They had never spoken. Jason had not known, then, that the kid was Bruceās (or he did but back then all he saw was green, the rage.)
He had only known that the League had a habit of turning children into sharp things and calling it discipline. So when Damian arrived at the Manor, all blade-sharp pride and bloodline-based arrogance, Jason was not surprised by the cruelty.
The pup was a brat. A spoiled but traumatized one for sure.
Ā He looked at Jason first with the smug certainty of someone who had been taught hierarchy before affection. Jason could see the calculation in his eyes. Jason was an omega. He was loud, undisciplined, legally dead, socially inconvenient, and yet somehow still treated by the family as if his pain mattered. He could see it in Damianās eyes, he did not understand it.
He could see it in the way the kidās gaze flicked toward Bruce whenever Bruce softened his voice around Jason. In the way Damianās mouth tightened when Dick gave Jason space instead of reprimand. In the way he watched Alfred bring Jason tea without being asked, as though care given freely was some strange tactical error.
An Omega, Damian seemed to think, with all the arrogance of a child raised to mistake tenderness for weakness.
The first time Damian looked him up and down and said, āI expected someone more impressive,ā Jason stared at him over the rim of his coffee mug.
Then he said, āAnd I expected Batmanās blood kid to be taller. Guess weāre both disappointed.ā
Damian went red, behind him, Dick made a strangled sound into his cereal almost snorting the milk. Bruce closed his eyes like a man briefly reconsidering every decision that had led to this breakfast table.
Jason had only grinned. After that, Damian decided Todd was insufferable, while Jason decided Damian was hilarious brat.
It began with Jason refusing to be impressed by him. Jason calling him āankle-biterā after Damian attempted to correct his stance during sparring. It began with Damian declaring that Toddās form was sloppy and Jason replying that Damianās attitude was doing most of the work his height could not.
But beneath the insults, Jason accepted him from the first moment.
He never said it aloud, of course. Jason had never been in the habit of making life easier for himself or anyone unfortunate enough to love him. If he had been, half the familyās headaches- and one memorable duffel bag incident- might never have happened.
But Jason did not make claims to the young pup. He simply made room.
When Damian stood too stiffly at dinner, Jason kicked out the chair beside him without looking up. When Damian refused to ask where the training equipment was, Jason left the door to the east gym open and made sure the lights were on. As the norm, Damian got into a fight with Tim and vanished into the grounds for three hours, Jason was the one who found him sitting in a tree with a knife in one hand and murder in his eyes.
Jason looked up and said, āYou planning to brood there all night, or are you coming down before the bats start charging rent?ā
Damian glared down at him, all sharp angles and wounded pride, but Jason waited with a patience he was not exactly famous for. Eventually, Damian did come down. Jason did not ask what had happened. He only handed him half a sandwich wrapped in a napkin.
Damian stared at it as though Jason had offered him poison.
āI am vegetarian, you imbecile.ā
āGood,ā Jason said. āThen youāll be thrilled to know itās the disgusting plant patty Alfred keeps pretending is food.ā And, so Damian took it.
That was the first time he let Jasonās scent linger near him without stepping away.
Not scenting, nothing so deliberate. Jason only stood beside him while he ate, close enough that the warm edge of his scent settled over Damianās sleeve. Leather, smoke, old books, gun oil, and the low, watchful warning Jasonās scent carried when he was trying not to seem protective.
Damian noticed all while Jason pretended not to notice him noticing. After that, it became easier.
As easy as anything could be when Damian was still Damian and Jason was still Jason. They fought over weapons maintenance, patrol routes, literature, the correct way to make tea, whether Jane Austen counted as āa tactical genius of social warfare,ā and whether Damianās pets had more sense than most humans.
Honestly, they fought over everything under the sun, above it, and probably several things buried beneath it too. However, Damian did stop leaving when Jason entered a room.
One evening, Jason found him asleep in the library after Damian had spent twenty minutes insisting, with great offense, that he was not tired. He was tucked beside Titus with his spine still stubbornly straight, chin lifted, book sliding slowly from his hands.
Jason took one look at him and snorted.
āGreatest assassin bloodline in history,ā he muttered. āDefeated by book I see.ā
Damianās eyes cracked open, āIām just resting my eyes.ā
āDo not scent me.ā Jason paused. He had not been moving closer, not consciously, but his scent had warmed with amusement, curling into the room in a way that made Damianās shoulders loosen despite himself. Jason lifted both hands in surrender.
āWasnāt gonna, brat.ā
Damian watched him with narrowed eyes for another moment.Then, very stiffly, he held out his wrist.
Jason froze. Damian had not even let Dick scent him properly yet. Bruce was Father, Alfred was Alfred, but this was different. This was Damian offering.
The room shifted just enough that Damian almost pulled back from embarrassment.
āDo not make it strange,ā Damian snapped. Jasonās mouth twitched, but he kept the smile small.
āWouldnāt dream of it.ā
āYou may scent me once.ā
āWow. Such generosity. Iām overwhelmed.ā
āAlright, Alright, Briefly.ā
Jason stepped closer with unusual care. Mine, his instincts said before he could soften them.
Damian stared very hard at the fireplace. Jason stepped back.
āThere,ā he said. āAll done.ā Damian sniffed, still refusing to look at him. āNot the worst smell, I suppose.ā Ā Jason grinned.
āCareful, brat. Thatās almost praise.ā From then on, Jason scented Damian more than anyone else in the family. He was not subtle about it either.
If Damian walked into the Cave after a difficult patrol, Jason would hook a finger into the back of his collar as he passed and tug him close just long enough to smear scent into his hair.
If Damian sat too rigidly through a family dinner, Jason would drop into the chair beside him and stretch one arm across the back of Damianās seat, lazy and possessive, daring anyone to comment.
If Damian returned from school smelling of too many strangers and too much restraint, Jason would shove a book into his hands and say, āHere. Read something decent for once,ā while pressing his wrist briefly against Damianās shoulder.
Damian complained every time. But he also stopped washing Jasonās scent off immediately. That was how Jason knew he had won.
And so, five months after Damianās arrival, when the worst of the sharpness between them had worn down into something that looked almost like trust, Damian asked to complete the bond.
Asked was a generous word.
He appeared beside Jasonās bed after a rough heat, spine straight, chin lifted, and announced that if he was to be integrated fully into the pack, then Toddās bond was necessary as well.
Jason stared at him for a long moment.
āThat your way of saying you like me, brat?ā
Damian flushed, and sneered at him.
Damian was still inexperienced, still too young to know how to be gentle without feeling exposed by it. But when he leaned in, he did it with care that had not been there five months ago.
His hand hovered near Jasonās shoulder without pinning him. He waited until Jason tipped his head. When Alfred quietly said, āSofter, Master Damian.ā, he listened.
And the bite, when it came, was small, impossibility controlled, and as expected of a pip tender. It was so painless Jason breathed through it, then huffed a laugh against the pillow.
āNot bad, demon brat.ā Damian stepped back immediately, face red with embarrassment.
āDo not patronize me, Toddā But his scent had warmed.
Even Damian, who had once seen softness as weakness, had given Jason kindness when it mattered.
That was the strange thing about Jason Todd.
He was the adored omega of the Wayne pack, though he would have bitten anyone who said it to his face. He accepted care like he expected it to be taken away, and still the family gave it. Bruce watched him too closely. Dick argued with him, challenged him, loved him with a stubbornness that refused to become pity. Alfred was only one who he would bend before.
And Damian, who had once looked at Jason and seen only a difficult omega with too much temper and too little discipline, learned to stand close enough that Jason could scent him without asking.
Jason belonged to them and they belonged to him.
..................................................................................................................
Not in a way any of them would have admitted to later, but Bruceās hand was at the back of his neck, heavy and unyielding, and Dickās fingers were curled around his trembling wrists, and Damian stood too close to the door for Tim to run even if his legs had been strong enough to carry him. Bruce and Dick were trying to soften their holds but Tim was struggling too much for that.
Jason was on the bed, burning through the sheets, his body bowing under a heat that had been dragged out of him too early and too violently. Sweat soaked his hair to his temples. His skin shone fever-bright under the low lamps. Every breath came wrong, too fast and then too shallow, hitching into broken, keening sounds that made the whole pack flinch. His blue eyes turned emerald were pouring tears, a rare sight.
It did not sound like Jason. Jason cursed, snarled, heād bit down on pain and spat blood back at the world before he ever let it hear him beg. But this was not defiance but utter agony.
A thin, wounded sound tore out of him as another wave hit, and Bruce went pale in a way Tim had only seen a handful of times. Dick swore under his breath, his eye darting from Tim to Jason.
Damian stood rigid at the foot of the bed not knowing what to do, his hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had gone white.
Alfred was the only beta in the room, the only one not flooding the air with alpha distress.
He had moved around the bed with clipped precision, checking Jasonās temperature, changing the cloth at his throat, trying to get him to swallow water he could barely keep down. His face was calm because Alfredās face was always calm when children were hurt, but his scent had gone thin with fear.
āMaster Jason,ā Alfred murmured. āMy boy, Breathe through it. There now. Just breathe.ā
Jason tried. Tim could tell he really did. His chest hitched once, twice, then seized around another keening cry.
Bruceās scent rose instinctively, dark and commanding, trying to force rhythm into the room. It usually worked. With anyone else, it would have. Prime alpha, pack head, the kind of scent that could make panicked bodies listen before minds caught up.
Unfortunately, Jasonās body rejected it. He thrashed harder, teeth bared, scent spiking bitter and scorched.
Dick stepped closer, his own scent opening warm and bright, the way it did when he was trying not to panic. Usually Dick could soften a room. He could make his presence feel like a hand extended instead of a command given.
It slid off Jason like water off glass. Damian tried too, though he would have denied it until his dying breath. His scent sharpened at the edges, young alpha fear dressed up as authority. Protective-Angry-Desperate.
Jason flinched from that as well.
None of them could reached him.
The drug had dragged his heat to the surface weeks too early, but it had done more than that. It had twisted the whole thing sideways. For most omegas, an induced heat was dangerous. For Jason, with the Pit still tangled in every instinct his body had, it was unbearable. The fever did not know the difference between want and threat. The Pit did not know the difference between heat and being trapped underground again.
Alpha scent only pressed against him, crowded him. Timās scent did not, which is why they had brought him.
He had been out of the hospital less than a day.
Released was a generous word. He had been unplugged from artificial pack regulation, given strict instructions against scent shock, harsh pheromones, forced scenting, and any bonding attempt for at least three weeks, and sent home with a folder full of warnings Bruce had signed without really looking at him.
Tim had watched the pen move across the paper.
Bruce Wayneās signature, clean and decisive, beneath a paragraph that said Timās body was unstable. That the temporary bond his body had formed with Jason had been severed under medical supervision. That any sudden alpha pressure or pack-bond stress could trigger a drop.
Bruce had signed it, and now Bruceās hand was on the back of Timās neck.
āTry again,ā Bruce said.
Tim swallowed. His throat hurt. Everything hurt. The synthetic pack-scent from the hospital still clung under his skin, cold and false, leaving him feeling hollowed out in places he did not have names for. His knees shook beneath him. His body had not stopped aching since the doctors broke the temporary bond with Jason.
āI am,ā Tim whispered. His scent flickered weakly. The scent of bitter coffee, and rain-wet concrete tries to explore the room but It barely reached the edge of the bed before collapsing back into him.
Jason sobbed. Just a broken, wet little sound that seemed to tear the air out of Bruceās lungs.
āAgain,ā Bruce said, sharper. Tim flinched.
āBruce- I canāt. I really caā.ā
Jason made another keening sound and twisted against the sheets. His hands clawed at the bedding, fingers trembling so badly they could not hold on. Tears had slipped from the corners of his eyes, disappearing into his hairline. He looked furious about them, even half-delirious, like his body had betrayed him by letting anyone see.
This feral scent: smoke, leather, cinnamon thrashed at the nest.
Tim looked at him and could not say no. That was the worst part.
He wanted to help. Gods, he really wanted to. But his body was screaming at him to stop. The hospital warnings beat against the inside of his skull. No bond stress. No forced scenting. Rest. Recover. Let your body stabilize.
But Jason was crying. Jason, who had died before he ever got to present. Jason, whose first true pack-bonding Tim remembered too clearly.
Tim had seen the aftermath. Jason feverish and wild-eyed, cursing because wanting it had scared him more than pain ever had. Bruce waiting through every insult. Waiting until Jasonās breathing steadied. Waiting until Jasonās fingers stopped clawing at the sheets. Waiting until Jason tipped his head by the smallest fraction and gave permission without having to say the words.
Bruceās bite had been firm and clean.
Jason had gasped once. Then gone loose with relief. Bruce had held him afterward, for hours.
Tim remembered standing in the hall afterward, close enough to smell the new bond through the cracked door.
He had been envious of Jason, but could not have hated him for it.Ā That would have been easier. He had hated himself for wanting to know what it felt like.
Now Bruceās hand tightened at the back of his neck. Jason was still crying, Alfred tried his best to calm him.
Dickās fingers curled more firmly around Timās wrist. āTim,ā Dick said, voice low and strained. āPlease. You are the only one who can help.ā
Dick sounded terrified. Tim turned his head just enough to look at him. Dickās face was pale, eyes fixed on Jason and then Tim and then Jason again, as if looking too long at either one would make the other worse. He did not want to hurt Tim. Tim knew that.
Knowing did not make his grip any looser. Damian made a sharp sound.
āFather his scent glands are bleeding.ā
Jasonās monitor chirped too fast. Truly, the glands near the neck were dripping blood. Ā Alfred looked at the bleeding neck and the readings and went still for half a heartbeat.
āMaster Bruce, We should call Ms Leslie-ā he said quietly. Bruce did not look away from Jason. Tim felt the decision forming before anyone spoke it.
His stomach dropped. āNo,ā he whispered.
It was too quiet or maybe no one could afford to hear it. Bruceās hand shifted from steadying to holding.
āHis body needs a familiar omega,ā Bruce said.
Timās heart lurched. āBruce, I can't, theyāā
Jason keened again, back arching off the mattress, sweat running down his throat. Alfred pressed a hand to his shoulder, murmuring something consoling. Dick made a helpless sound as Damianās scent spiked, frightened and furious.
āMy body canāt take this,ā Tim whispered, but his voice was so thin beneath Jasonās pain that it barely reached anyone. āBruce, please. They said no bond stress. They said if I destabilize again, Iāll have a drop. I donātāā
Jason groaned, low and broken. Bruceās face closed, and Tim saw it happen.
He had seen Batman make that face over bombs, over collapsing buildings, over children trapped beneath rubble. The terrible, immovable certainty that there was only one way forward, and anyone standing in the way of it was simply another obstacle.
āHe wonāt survive this if you donāt scent him, Tim,ā Bruce said.
Neither will I, if you make me do this. But he did not say it.
Not because he thought Bruce would not care. That would have been easier, maybe. Cleaner. Crueler in a way Tim could hate without hesitation.
Bruce cared so much it had turned into terror. Terror had turned Tim into something movable, something usable, something that could be placed between Jason and death because Bruce could not survive losing Jason twice.
They had never meant to make Tim a tool. They had only treated him like one for so long that no one noticed the difference anymore.
Bruce needed Tim to be capable, because if Tim was capable, Bruce did not have to remember how young he had been when he walked into the Cave and offered himself up to grief.
At fourteen, he had learned to stand close enough for Bruce to breathe easier but not close enough to be pushed away. He had learned to let his scent soften the Cave without making it obvious. He had learned that Bruce would accept comfort only if he could pretend he had not needed it.
He had learned that Jason could take Timās scent like air during heat and scrub it off his skin afterward like contamination.
Tim had learned all of them. Their silences. Their tempers. Their grief. Their limits. He had built himself around the shape of what they needed.
And maybe that was why none of them ever noticed when there was nothing left of him that had not been carved into use.
Jason made another sound, thin and terrible, and Every person in the room flinched toward him.
He wanted to. He wanted anger, clean and hot and simple, but all he felt was a tired, aching sort of understanding.
Bruce stepped closer. Dickās fingers tightened around Timās wrist as Tim closed his eyes for half a second.
He wanted, suddenly and terribly, to be angry enough to refuse them. But Jason was in pain. Jason was his brother even though the latter would never accept him as one.
And Tim had always been very good at making his own pain smaller than someone elseās. Tim had learned that young. When he first became Robin, Bruce had not been himself.
Everyone knew that. Jason had been dead and Bruce had been alive in the technical sense only. He moved, fought, breathed, bled, issued orders, solved cases, but the man inside him had gone somewhere cold and unreachable.
Tim had walked into that grief at thirteen and called it duty because duty sounded less frightening than wanting to help.
Bruce had been distant then. Sometimes he forgot Tim was a child. Sometimes he looked at Tim across the Cave and saw a cape that was the wrong shape, a voice that was not Jasonās, a living boy standing where a dead one should have been.
But sometimes he was mean. Cruel in the way grief could be cruel when it had nowhere else to go. Tim had taken it because Gotham needed Robin. Because Batman needed Robin. Because Bruce needed Robin, even if he hated needing him.
Dick had been mean too, at first.
Different from Bruce, less cold but equally wounded. Dickās anger had edges because Dick loved with edges when he was scared. He looked at Tim and saw replacement before he saw kid. Saw Bruce moving forward before Dick had agreed the world was allowed to. Saw another boy in colors that still smelled, to him, like grave dirt.
But Dick came around, slowly but much more faster than Bruce did. It was awkward to know you were not welcomed to a place and still forcing your way into it. Alfred once scolded him for sitting. Bruce had called him Jason so many times, it stopped bothering him.
But Dick was his brother. Dick made sure he knew that. With guilt tucked behind nicknames and distance hidden under jokes. He started checking Timās bruises after patrol. Started asking if he had eaten. Started calling him little brother in the easy moments, when no one was bleeding and Jasonās ghost was not standing between them.
Alfred helped from the beginning. Alfred always helped even though sometimes he couldnāt bare look at Tim.
Tea. Bandages. Quiet corrections. A hand at Timās shoulder when he swayed too hard after patrol. A blanket left over him in the Cave when he fell asleep over case files.
Every time Bruce stared too long at the Robin cape. Every time Dick stopped mid-sentence because Tim had turned his head in a way that must have reminded him of someone else. Every time Alfredās face softened and broke, just slightly, before he called him Master Timothy instead ofā
Tim had not replaced Jason.
He had only filled the silence Jason left behind, and sometimes that felt worse.
Then Tim turned fifteen. He presented a few months after Jason did.
It should have been terrifying. Maybe it was. He had just lost his father, his mother had been dead for more than a year. Tim barely remembered the fear now beneath the humiliation of wanting.
Because he had wanted. God, he had wanted so badly.
Pack scent had always been something he watched from the outside. Bruceās scent settling over Dick after a bad patrol. Alfredās steady beta calm woven through every room of the Manor. Later, Jasonās scent pressed into blankets, clothes, doorframes, into the very air of the house like proof that he had been brought back and would not be allowed to vanish quietly again.
Tim wanted that. A place his body could recognize. A scent on his skin that did not have to be stolen from laundry or caught accidentally in hallways. A hoodie offered before he had to ask. A hand on the back of his neck that did not push him away.
It took him weeks to gather the courage. He had rehearsed the question in the bathroom mirror until it sounded practical. Mature. Reasonable.
āBruce, since I presented, I was wondering ifā"
āBruce, I know things are complicated, butā"
āBruce, would it be possible for me to be includedā"
He never got the whole sentence out. Bruce heard enough to know what Tim was asking and looked away before Tim could finish.
That was the first answer not a no. Bruce would never have been cruel enough to say no cleanly. A clean no would have been honest. A clean no would have given Tim something solid to grieve.
Instead, Bruce said, āWeāll discuss it when things are more stable.ā
Things were never stable. Then, Bruce said, āI donāt want to rush a bond you may not fully understand yet.ā
Tim understood. That was the problem. Later, when Tim asked again after a difficult heat left him shaking and feverish in a nest that smelled only of detergent and his own distress, Bruce did not say no then either.
He only sat beside the bed, too far away to scent properly, and said, āThis isnāt the right time.ā
Tim nodded because he knew how to make rejection easier for the person giving it.
āItās okay,ā he said. Bruce looked relieved. That hurt more than the 38hrs of agony of heat he had just been through.
Dick told him he was pack, Tim thinks he meant it, too which only made things more complicated.
āYou are,ā Dick had said, sitting on the edge of Timās desk with his arms crossed, expression serious beneath the easy warmth. āYou know that, right? Youāre family.ā
Tim had looked down at his hands. āThatās not the same thing.ā Dick had gone quiet.
For a second, Tim thought he understood. Then Dick sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
āThe biting and claiming stuff just has to wait, okay? Jasonās heat cycles are still unstable. His bond response is all over the place. Bruce is terrified of making him feel replaced again, and honestly? I get it.ā
Tim had just nodded and didnāt bring it up more.
Because Dick was not wrong. Jasonās cycles were unstable and it was really really bad. Jasonās heat made Timās worse heat make seems like a piece of cake. And although Tim helped Jason during it, it seemed like Jason didnāt want to accept Tim as pack when they were not in heat.
Then Damian arrived. Everything became about Damianās place, Damianās violence, Damianās blood, Damianās right to Robin.
Not permanently, as it turned out, but dead enough for everyone else to mourn and move on in different directions. Dead enough for Tim to be told he was wrong, obsessive, grieving badly, embarrassing himself with hope.
Tim searched anyway, alone.
Damian became Robin. Dick became Batman. Jason spiraled in and out of their orbit like a storm no one could predict.
And somewhere in all of that, Timās pack bond became one more thing everyone intended to handle later.
Later became never so quietly no one had to feel guilty all at once.
Tim learned to live around it. Suppressants helped. At first, they were safe. Leslie said so. The specialists said so. Tim was young, his cycles were irregular, and no one wanted an unclaimed omega going through heat in Wayne Manor when the pack bond situation was still ādelicate.ā
That was the word they used.
He could not have a heat in the Manor. Not really. Not without being pack. His omega instincts would reach for bonds that did not exist, scents that were not offered, bodies that would hesitate at the door because they cared but not in the way his body needed.
Little pills. Injections when patrol schedules got bad. Medical routines folded between school, cases, WE obligations, and whatever disaster needed Robin or Red Robin or Tim Drake that week.
Then Jasonās heats got worse.
The Pit had made everything in him complicated. Heat became fever, panic, rage, pain. Alpha scent helped but could not reach deep enough. Bruce could command Jasonās breathing into rhythm for a while. Dick could warm the room. Alfred could keep the medical side from tipping too far.
But Timās scent was different. Omega to omega.
Quiet where Jason burned. Cool where the Pit made everything sharp. It did not challenge Jason. Did not command him. Did not press dominance against a body already mistaking need for danger.
Tim was happy to help. That was the pathetic part, maybe, because helping Jason through heat was the only time Tim was allowed close to pack-scent the way his body needed. The only time he was allowed into a proper nest in Wayne Manor. The only time Jasonās blankets, Bruceās old shirts, Dickās hoodie, Alfredās warmed quilts, even Damianās reluctantly offered t-shrits, all existed in one place around him like proof of belonging.
Tim would sit beside Jason through fever and snarling and Pit-soured distress, letting his scent fill the edges of the nest until Jasonās breathing eased. Sometimes Jason was awful. Often, actually. He could be mean with the precision of someone who knew exactly where to cut.
āDonāt get comfortable, replacement.ā āDoesnāt make you pack.ā
āDonāt look so thrilled. Youāre here because youāre useful.ā
Tim usually smiled thinly. āGood thing one of us is.ā
Jason would bare his teeth. Tim would raise an eyebrow. Sometimes, in the exhausted lull between waves, they almost joked like brothers.
Then the heat would pass, and Jason would scrub Timās scent off himself the first chance he got.
Tim pretended not to notice. Still, he helped because Jasonās nest was magnificent.Tim could admit that in the privacy of his own head.
Jason nested like a pro: dramatically, defensively, with layers upon layers of stolen softness arranged into a fortress. Heavy blankets. Hoodies. Alfredās warmed quilts. Books stacked close enough to reach. Weapons hidden under pillows because Jason was still Jason. Scent everywhere, rich and tangled and real.
Beside it, Timās own nest was laughable.
A sad little lump of unscented blankets and old clothes washed too often to hold anyone. A hoodie Kon had left months ago, almost scentless now. A towel from the Cave med bay that smelled faintly of antiseptic and Bruce if Tim was feverish enough to pretend. His own shirts folded around the edges because there was no one elseās.
He had asked once. For clothes. Bruce had diverted. Dick had hesitated. Alfred had looked pained. Jason had laughed. Damian had not understood why Drake needed anything when suppressants existed.
Then he turned eighteen, and the suppressants stopped working the way they used to.
His body matured into rhythms the old medication could no longer fully hold back. Cycles broke through at bad times. Pre-heat came with migraines, tremors, nausea. His scent turned thin and unstable under blockers. Leslie frowned. The specialist adjusted the dosage. Then adjusted it again.
High-grade suppressants, they said. Temporary and safe under supervision, they had also said. Boy, werenāt they so far off the mark.
Or maybe the prescription was wrong for him. Incompatible. Too strong in the wrong places, too weak in the ones that mattered. Tim started losing time. Started shaking after patrol. Started waking up with his heart racing and his skin too cold, body reaching for a heat it was not allowed to have.
He told them, heād sent messages. Updated his own medical files. Mentioned it between cases because there was never a good time to be inconvenient.
He even asked again. Not for a bond this time, he had learned better, just scenting.
A shirt. A blanket. Anything.
āI may have to ride out a full heat,ā he told Bruce, trying to sound as mechanical as he could because clinical was safer. āThe new suppressants arenāt compatible. If I had something scented, it would reduce the risk of drop.ā
Bruceās expression tightened.
āWeāll talk to Leslie.ā
That was not what Tim had asked.
Dick looked guilty when Tim asked him.
āTim, you know I would, but with Jasonās cycles still weird and Dami adjustingā pack scent can get complicated. Letās figure out the medical side first, okay?ā
Alfred offered fresh blankets. Fresh, clean,Ā and useless.
Jason was not an option. There was no room to ask Jason to help him through heat. Not after everything. Not after Jason had made it clear Timās scent just an thread to meet ends. Not after Tim had spent years being allowed in Jasonās nest only because Jason was too fevered to reject him properly.
So Tim did the next best thing. He took it easy, reduced patrols and sticking to CEO of WE. It made it better as it had less time with other and more to himself.
Then the emergency came. Red Robin was needed. Tim Drake was needed. Wayne Enterprises needed him. Gotham needed him. The family needed him to be functional for one more night.
So Tim took the suppressant. He told himself it would be fine.
It was not. The reaction hit after the meeting.
Pain first. Then fever. Then his scent collapsing inward so violently he could not breathe. He remembered the ambulance in pieces. Fluorescent lights. A paramedic asking who his pack was. Bruceās voice on the phone, sharp with fear and anger, scolding him for not informing anyone earlier, for being reckless with his health, for letting it get this bad.
Tim had tried to apologize. He thought he had. At the hospital, the doctors found what his body had done to survive.
And his temporary bond with Jason: Weak, Unstable, One-sided in all the ways that mattered.
All those heats. All those nights Tim sat in Jasonās nest and poured scent into him until his own body shook. All those moments of Jason calming under him. Timās omega system had latched onto the only repeated pack contact it had ever been given and mistaken usefulness for belonging.
The doctors had to break it. Tim did not remember much after that.
Only the cold, artificial pack regulation humming around him. Synthetic scent pressed into his skin by machines because no real pack was there to do it. Nurses speaking softly. Doctors looking angry in the careful way professionals did when they were trying not to ask why an omega with Bruce Wayne listed as guardian had gone unbonded, unsupported, and chemically suppressed for this long. Any sudden alpha pressure or pack-bond stress could trigger a catastrophic drop.
Then, Tim had watched the pen move and wondered if Bruce understood that the warning included him.
Now Bruceās hand was on the back of Timās neck, and Tim's heart dropped at the thought that Bruce may have understood but simply did not care.
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