Chapter Text
Bruce woke up to an aching, unescapable feeling of wrong.
(It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, of course. Wrong and Bruce were old companions, who lingered in the shadows together and greeted each other often.
Wrong was a bang and the sound of clattering pearls on cement and tacky, dried blood on his hands. Wrong was the metallic taste of copper in his mouth and the throb of a bullet in his back.
Wrong was a small, broken body, cloaked in the flames of a burning warehouse, and manic, cackling laughter.
Wrong was a blood-red helmet and a duffel bag full of heads and blue eyes turned green.)
His eyes opened to the familiar sight of his darkened bedroom, colored in the soft grey of the hours before dawn. His skin prickled.
He ran down the familiar checklist as his eyes absently flitted around the room — Alfred would be in his bedroom, connected to the family wing by an old passageway for ease of access; Dick was at his apartment in Bludhaven, 143 Bluesmoke Drive, surveilled by the 5 cameras that Barbara let him keep access to; he could hear Tim’s soft snoring from two doors down, in the room he still stubbornly insisted was a guest bedroom.
And Jason was somewhere in Gotham. The thought twisted in his chest with more force than usual.
Tonight wouldn’t be a good night, he knew. So he climbed out of his pristine blank nest, taking some scented clothes as he went, reluctantly leaving the faint call of sleep behind.
He settled into his preferred chair in the Cave, and opened the most recently created case file, a particularly nasty collaboration between Crane and Ivy, who was apparently having a bad week and wanted to take it out on some “over-processed and under-funded” public parks — all the while ignoring the throbbing of his bones and the itch under his skin. He resisted the urge to keep his eyes trained on the side screen with cameras showing Alfred, Tim, and Dick’s sleeping bodies and the program compiling a list of Jason’s most likely safehouse locations.
It took him half an hour to notice the stressed scent seeping into the surroundings. He hadn’t properly smelled it on himself in 3 years, 8 months, and 16 days.
Bruce had first learned to hide his scent standing in front of crowds of reporters on the Manor family plot, watching as Thomas and Martha Waynes' graves were lowered into the ground. He had mastered the ability in Nanda Parbat, while locking eyes with Ra’s Al Ghul and pretending his instincts weren’t screaming at him to run. His true scent was rarely perceptible, and it only ever reached the rest of the world without his knowledge during his pack heats. He hadn’t had a pack heat since after Ethiopia.
Alarm bells were ringing in the back of his brain, telling him to go back up to the manor and alert Alfred, to curl up in his nest and bear the aching loneliness until Dick could drive over or Tim could be convinced to join him. He needed to consult Leslie about any possible complications involved with having a heat after an extended period, he needed to arrange for his patrols to be covered, there were a thousand things that he needed to do—
...his feet were pulling him towards the glass case holding burnt kevlar.
(Maybe his loss of control would have been easier to bear if he could tell himself that it was just omegan instincts, a natural response to the loss of a pup packmate. But that didn’t explain why he had hired the best, most discrete scientists to come up with a permanent way to fully preserve scents in a contained space three years ago. Or why he fought the urge to press the button and open the sealed glass, just for a second, every moment of every day since the memorial was installed.)
He had reached the case, almost without realizing, and his hand had found the hidden catch on the back of the base before he could stop it. There should have been a moment of hesitation, a moment where he recognized what would happen and pulled himself back from the edge, as he had done so many times before. Instead, he watched the glass descend into the base, and as his eyes finally met the familiar, mangled red, yellow, and green, the rest of the world promptly disappeared.
...
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His body was frozen.
Fear had frozen his every tensed muscle, but it didn’t even register, because there wasn’t space in his brain for anything else other than his Jason, his pup’s milky scent covered in layers upon layers of pain. His puppy was in pain and covered in fear, and suddenly his chest was heaving with the effort it took to breathe through the panic but all he got was another lungful of scared puppy and then he was moving again, desperately clawing at the fabric because that was his Jason but suddenly it was fading, his puppy’s scent was fading so where was he, Bruce had to find him—
The sheer amount of adrenaline flooding his system pushed back his hindbrain for a moment, leaving him to desperately gasp for air and remember Jason is in Gotham somewhere, but then he was drowning in the knowledge that his puppy was somewhere in his territory, alone, and smelled like pain and fear and he needed to f i n d h i m findhimfindhimfindhim —
The Batcomputer beeped an alert, and he shakily stumbled over to the controls, only to see cameras on all his other packmates but not his lost puppy and he dissolved into panic again until he faintly heard “Jason,” and it took him far too long to get his brain to release its chokehold on his sense of smell and remember how to properly hear, but then:
“...repeat, there is an 83.76% chance that Jason Peter Todd, also known as the Red Hood, is currently located at 207 Willow Drive. Sending coordinates to the Batmobile, estimated time of arrival is…”
When questioned later, Bruce could honestly say that he had no idea how he made it to Jason’s safehouse. He blinked, and he was curled into a ball in the backseat of the Batmobile, hands pressed to his ears as though they could muffle the echo of explosions and gunfire in his skull. He blinked again, and the car had jolted to a stop, the doors sliding open with a faint whoosh that finally caught the attention of his hypervigilant senses.
His brain had, at this point, fully given way to the fog of heat, brutally smothering all rational thought in a thick haze of instinct, all notsafe-wantmypuppy-keephimsafe-hidemypack-NOTSAFE — but Bruce, unlike most omegas, had spent decades cultivating an entirely different set of instincts. His brain knew, almost as well as it knew that pack’s safety was paramount, that an open door was an open exit, and an open exit meant it was time to go, to move out, even if his body thought otherwise. So though his rapidly-heating, cramping muscles begged for him to stay tightly curled up, covering his stomach, he found himself stumbling out of the car and up the steps, to the nondescript wooden door he didn’t recognize. He clumsily grabbed at the doorknob, and, finding it locked, he leaned against the door, his fogged mind leaving him out of options. What was he—
There it was. Just a faint tinge, under the old wood and polish and chemical-paint smell, but his puppy was there. Jason was there, his puppy who was in pain and scared, but all he smelled was tired-safe-secure and it was so nice, but his puppy wasn’t with him so of course he wasn’t safe so Bruce had to get to his puppy, and he was weakly clawing at whatever was between him and his puppy’s scent, blindly pressing himself hard enough into it to hurt— and then the barrier gave way to air, and Bruce was falling into strong, warm arms.
Bruce was immediately enveloped in warmth, and it felt so good. His aching body gave in without a fight, letting go completely until he was only being supported by— he took a startled breath in, his body tightening in fear, only to be met with the familiar cinnamon-smoke-fresh-bread-coffee-jason, immediately washing away the panic that had choked his throat.
He’d found him!
For a short, blessed moment, Bruce’s brain just melted away into disbelief-relief-joy- love. But then he caught a quickly-hidden burst of SHOCK-confused-fear , and he remembered — his puppy was still scared. Hating himself for drawing away from what Jason needed, even for a second, he growled, and quickly tried to push away his remaining panic in order to project the fierce-love-protection-ihaveyounow-safe his Jay needed. His muscles were refusing to cooperate, but he stubbornly forced his hand up — when did his puppy get so big? — until he could scrub his wrist over his puppy’s neck, covering him in protective omega until just the barest traces of his Jaylad’s real scent remained. Finally, he’d found his puppy, and now that they were together, everything would be alright. Apparently his Jason agreed, because after a brief spike of confusionfear, Bruce was suddenly hit with a wave of calm-safe-happy-loved. He couldn’t help it — the relief was so strong that he sighed, his mouth dropping open slightly as though he could taste the scent. He took another deep breath in, and drowned in the knowledge that his lost puppy finally smelled right — nothing else mattered. The very air around him was ambrosia, and he had been starving for far too long. He thought he might have ended up on the floor somehow, and there was some faint noise in his ears, but he honestly didn’t care, not when his precious puppy was right there.
He buried his nose in his puppy’s neck, inhaling that familiar cinnamon-smoke-safe, and shivered. His puppy was so warm, was he sick? The panicfear threatened to rise again in his throat, even as his arms tightened around his puppy’s back, but a new wave of pup-is-safe-calm-love slammed into him, just as he was gently pressed further into the soothing warmth. Bruce had struggled for so long to find his puppy — now that they were together, even his iron will couldn't possibly withstand the temptation to give into the relief and joy and safenow-ifoundyou-packistogether that he'd been missing for so long. He knew his puppy would always be his anchor, making sure he never fully drifted away into the sea of bliss.
He'd just… let go, now, and trust his puppy.
(Bruce floated.)
He was brought back to reality by the sensation of sinking into something soft. As Bruce slowly forced his eyes open — when had they closed? — he remembered searching for his lost puppy, and his whole body tensed. But soon, his eyes met Jason’s, and he let out a breath, fully relaxing into the comfort; everything must be fine, now. Something about his puppy’s face was niggling at his brain, but he ignored it. Nothing else mattered, as long as his pup was with him.
Suddenly, he was moving closer and closer, and then they were shifting, so that his face was on his puppy’s chest, where Bruce could feel his heartbeat and still look at his face. Bruce couldn’t help but purr — his precious puppy was so good, he knew exactly what to do. He was so happy.
But something was wrong: his puppy suddenly went still, and his scent spiked with a jumbled mix of shockfearhopeisthisreal that Bruce couldn’t parse. He stared helplessly at his puppy — what was wrong? His vision was blurring, so he blinked, because he needed to see his puppy — but then there was salt in the air, and he frantically reached up to scent his pup’s face, because why was his puppy crying? They were safe now, weren’t they?!
He hadn’t noticed his cramping limbs slowly freezing, but his entire body felt so cold and dead now, as he fought to turn away from his puppy’s warmth, so he could protect him from whatever was scaring him. He had almost succeeded, forcibly bracing himself against his puppy’s shoulders to give him enough strength to face the threat—
And then the call came. He hadn't paid any notice to faint ringing in his ears, someone saying “…B! Bruce! Bruce! Omega— “ until it was cut off by a keening pup-call and a riptide of omega-come-protect-me-nest-together-safe, sending his whole body swaying back towards his pup. Bruce stubbornly resisted his puppy’s call, even as his limbs protested being torn away from the warmth of his pack. He had to protect his puppy!
But wave after wave of omega-packissafe-restnow-sleep caught him, and he was so tired.
He’d found his puppy, and he was so tired.
And he’d been lonely, and cold.
He had his pack, his puppy — he should be warm, but he was cold.
His puppy was warm, and he said they were safe.
Bruce trusted his puppy, and he was so tired, and so cold.
(His body gave out.)