Bruce answered Clark’s text almost immediately.
*You’re aware of the date right?*
Clark’s mind went back to the little ‘Baby-animal-a-day’ calendar on his desk. A white seal had told him that it was October 14th. He knew that it was a day that was in the middle of Bruce’s League vacation, but also that they could contact him through phone or text. He had explicitly said that he should be contacted in case of an emergency.
Getting quotes for one of Lois's pieces wasn’t exactly an emergency, but Clark did have the woman bothering him about it almost every day and it was one of the perks of being best friends with a billionaire.
*Yes*. He texted back. *Are you busy?*
There seemed to be a long pause before he got an answer back from Bruce.
*No. I’m in my bedroom. Come over.*
Clark didn’t hesitate and, after a few moments of making sure he was in his Superman suit so that people didn’t see a mild mannered reporter flying over the Gotham-Metropolis Causeway, he was at Bruce’s bedroom door.
Instantly, he knew why Bruce had asked him about the date.
There was… a smell.
A scent.
Deeply floral and honeyed and so thick that it filled Clark’s brain, triggering something that had never been triggered before. As a Kryptonian, he didn’t have a designation like all of Earth’s humans. He could smell their scents and guess at designations of others, but he truly didn’t understand the emotions beneath them. He had never felt the press of a pack bond, despite how much Ma and Pa tried, or any of the closeness that came from being able to tell people’s emotions by scent.
He had thought that he was completely immune to have scents affect him and yet, here he was feeling something in the wash of Bruce’s heat scent.
*Say your name when you come in,* texted Bruce again. *Maybe that will keep them from biting you.*
He… didn’t really know what that meant, but as he slowly cracked the door open, the snarling was instant.
The kids, he realised after a beat of staring into the dim room and taking in the lump of bodies at the center of an omega nest. Six pairs of eyes were shooting narrow glares at him and filling the room with the sting of something that smelled like battery acid.
Also, underneath the sound, there was a deep, warm hum.
“It’s just me,” Clark said, stepping fully into the room. “I come in peace?”
Growling from two of the kids stopped, though one kept up. He heard one voice snicker about an alien invasion.
“You can come closer,” this was Bruce’s voice speaking from somewhere under the shifting bodies of his pups. It hardly looked like a comfortable position, but Bruce didn’t seem to be struggling. “Tim won’t bite you.”
Clark doubted that, especially as Tim’s snarling seemed to get louder as Clark approached. He knew that all of Bruce’s kids were alphas, except for Damian was too young to be anything more than puppy. Clark hadn’t ever really thought of what all that meant until he watched Bruce try to extract himself from his nest.
“Where are you going?” demanded Tim, still looking at Clark suspiciously.
“Clark wants to manipulate our friendship for journalistic purposes again,” Bruce said, finally standing and stretching his body out with a yawn. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“No,” said Tim, more aggressive than Clark had ever heard him be before. “It’s heat season.”
“Clark’s also an alien,” said Dick. The oldest alpha was already relaxing back into the nest, curling towards Jason and closing his eyes. “Designations and scents don’t work on him, ‘member?”
Normally, he would have agreed, but that felt like a huge, huge lie as something about Bruce’s honeyed heat scent seemed to tickle his brain and scratch at something he didn’t think was even there.
Which of course made him feel terrible for lying. Even though, he technically wasn’t. Maybe more like, taking advantage of their pre-conceived notions?
Tim retreated back, allowing Bruce to walk Clark outside and away from the nest. When they were out of the room, away from all the scent-soaked furniture and the stew of smells, Clark’s head felt a bit clearer. Less like he was getting high from a smell alone. Although there was still some weird humming that Clark didn’t know whether his mind was making up just out of pure reaction to whatever Bruce’s scent was doing to him.
(Part of him wondered, what it would feel like to press his nose into the crook of Bruce’s neck. To press his teeth to the warm skin there and bite down hard enough to leave a mark.)
“Sorry about them,” said Bruce with a small, close-lipped smile. “They always get more protective during a heat week.”
The Wayne kids were pretty famous for it actually, ever since a nine-year-old Dick had bitten a socialite’s hand that had wandered too close to Bruce’s waist and the rest of the kids kept a tradition of snapping at anyone that showed too much interest in their omega father.
“It’s fine,” Clark said through his internal panic at trying to figure out what the hell he was feeling, why there was still some kind of weird buzz, and, oh god, was he being manipulative right now? “I’m sorry. I forgot it was a heat week.”
“No, it’s okay,” replied Bruce quickly. “It’s kind of nice actually. Everyone treats me so weirdly during these days. It’s nice to be a normal person for a few minutes and not have someone freaking out over my scent.”
Clark felt like the biggest asshole in the world as he stood there, trying not to treat Bruce weirdly and freak out over his scent.
“Did you bring the quotes?”
Clark had nearly forgotten in his quest to try not to treat Bruce weirdly and freak out over his scent. He scrambled a little before he passed over his phone with the document pulled up. Bruce began reading over them and Clark stared at the small gland on his neck that almost seemed to tease him with how out in the open it was.
Also that weird humming was still there.
Finally, he had to ask. “I, umm, do you hear that noise?”
It was frankly a ridiculous question to be asked by someone with superhearing, but Clark was not exactly thinking the clearest at the moment.
Bruce lifted his head to listen, head tilted a bit before he chuckled. “Oh that’s me. I basically purr through my entire heat week. My kids make fun of me and say that I’m louder than the Batmobile motor. I forgot that you probably hadn’t heard it before.”
Clark knew that he was destined for hell because of all the things that sound had made him want to do to the omega in that moment.
