Chapter Text
1.
Bruce doesn’t come to her the first night.
He takes them back—her and Jason—not to another shack in the woods, like Willis’s, but to something more akin to a castle. The moat is full of colorful mallards and small, fuzzy ducklings. Dick kneels down on the bridge, leaning dangerously far over the water to pet them, and Catherine can’t help but twitch forward, ready to catch the boy in case he falls. She’s still got Jason pressed up against her side, though, smelling of fear and faint hope underneath a smattering of Bruce’s protective Alpha scent, so she stays where she is.
Dick does tip over towards the water, and her stomach flips over, but the boy somehow rebalances himself and comes back upright, unruffled, and grinning. Bruce hasn’t so much as twitched, Catherine notices. He sees her looking at him, and she freezes, tilting her head to show her throat, anticipating a punch, a snarl, something. Willis had hated her spying on him.
Dick’s running back towards them, though, and he’s holding something soft and yellow in his hands. He grins up at Catherine, and then hands the fluffy duckling to Jason.
“Here, isn’t it cute?” Dick asked. “I can’t keep them straight, so they’re all named Hubert. They’re really gentle.”
Jason is staring, wide-eyed, at the little creature in his hands. It’s a perfect sunshine yellow, and even though it’s been swimming in the green, algae-filled moat, Catherine sees the sharp contrast between the grubbiness of Jason’s hands and the duckling’s clean feathers. She feels a sudden, sharp burst of shame. Even the ducks here take better care of their young than she could.
“Can I pet it?” Jason whispered, and the older boy nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah! You just gotta be gentle. Hubert’ll start flapping if he wants to leave.”
Willis didn’t teach Jason the gentleness with which he starts to pet the duckling’s little head. Willis had never allowed her boy any softness. Catherine can’t take credit for the simple fact that Jason had grown up kind anyway; but maybe, she thinks, she hasn’t done such a bad job after all.
Bruce introduces them to his seneschal—a dry-humored, aging beta by the name of Alfred. She thinks, at first, that Alfred disapproves of her and Jason; but it seems that he disapproves only of the fact that they’re both dirty, unfed, and sporting open cuts and bruises.
He ushers them off to a bath first, it’s a whirlwind of soap and fresh clothes and a hot meal after that, until finally Catherine finds herself, dazed and blinking, warm and full and bandaged, cuddled in a very cosy nest that smells of Dick. The older omega is curled up around Jason, and her boy’s sour fear-scent has faded significantly. The nest is warm and soft, and smells sweetly of contented, safe omega. It’s a smell Catherine has grown deeply unused to, over the awful years with Willis; she’d almost forgotten what it was like.
As the minutes tick by, she begins to think that Bruce is going to give her a night of reprieve. Maybe the fight tired him, or maybe he finds her bruises too unattractive to mate with her, just yet. Not that that ever stopped Willis.
If Dick could smell so content here, though, she thinks the mating will be worth the pain. The Alpha seems competent, even kind as long as he’s not crossed. If Jason could one day lose the constant stink of fear, there is nothing Catherine isn’t willing to do.
She curls around her son, rubbing mother-love-safe over both boy’s heads. Half-asleep, they purr at her, and she settles down, purring in return.
Nothing.
2.
Bruce doesn’t come to her the next night.
Or the next.
Or the next.
Catherine’s resolve should be being strengthened, she thinks. Every day of food, of protection, of kindness. Every day gives her more reasons to stay.
Her heat is coming on fast, and she thinks Bruce is waiting so he can breed her. She won’t even mind having pups, she thinks, as long as Jason still has a place here.
So why does she feel like she’s losing her nerve?
3.
Bruce has never been called Alpha so often in his life.
At meals: thank you for feeding us, Alpha.
When he ran across the hall to Dick’s room after hearing a truly bloodcurdling scream: sorry for disturbing your sleep, Alpha.
She’s looked so scared as she said that. Like she expected to be beaten, for Jason to be beaten, because someone had had a nightmare.
It was killing him. This is killing him. Every instinct is screaming at him to scent her, to wrap her up in his arms and make sure she never had reason to be afraid ever again.
But she was afraid of him.
As he settles into his furs for the night, he lies awake, staring blearily at the ceiling.
He’d only meant to keep her safe. Make sure she had protection now that her (evil, abusive, Bruce should have killed him) alpha was unable to care for her.
But Dick had latched onto her almost immediately, and Bruce couldn’t separate them. Not when he knew how desperately the boy missed his own mother.
He hadn’t been prepared for Catherine to cleave to Dick just as hard. Her soft mother-scent was all over both boys now, and. Well.
Bruce didn’t mind.
He should really be sleeping, but he can’t. He can’t stop thinking about Catherine, about how gentle she was with the boys. How brave and strong she was, protecting Jason. She’d tried to fight him, for her son! Her courage amazed him.
He thought about how good she smelled, on the rare occasions when the fear-scent faded.
He dozed off thinking about it.
--
“Alpha?”
Bruce blinks awake, seeing a shadow next to his bed. A soft voice, hunched shoulders, a scent that’s immediately familiar. Bitter and sharp with fear.
No, he thinks. Don’t be scared.
He reaches out, in the dark, brushing his fingers down her face. She flinches away, just a little, and he rumbles, deep in his chest, without meaning to.
“Don’t be scared,” he says, his voice rough with sleep.
As if galvanized, Catherine begins to crawl into his bed. Part of him is overjoyed—she trusts him! She trusts him! But he can also feel her trembling, hear the breaths that are a little too fast, a little too wet. She’s weeping, terrified, and he doesn’t know why.
He tries to wake up, to regain some lucidity. He sucks in a breath, and suddenly, underneath the scent of fear, he smells it. Sweet and fresh and rich, like honey on fresh bread; it’s the scent of her heat.
Oh.
Bruce sits up fully, trying to remember everything he panic-learned about heats when Dick first presented.
“Nest?” he asks.
That only seems to make Catherine shake more.
“No,” she said. “please, I mean, Alpha, here is—here is fine, please—”
“okay,” Bruce said, rubbing a hand down her back soothingly. Dick always had bad cramps in his heats, and he demanded back rubs every time. It had the added bonus of trailing his protective-alpha scent over her, hopefully reassuring them both.
Omegas needed to feel safe. In general, but more so in heat. Bruce was shocked and honored that Catherine had chosen to come to him, but he was also scrambling, trying to figure out what to do.
He rubbed his hand down her back again, firm but gentle, and cautiously, he tilts his head back.
She makes a soft, confused noise when he coaxes her to press her nose to his throat, but as she breathes in, she begins to relax. Her fingers wrap themselves in his nightshirt, and Bruce rumbles, pleased. Fear scent is still prevalent, but he can smell her, underneath it; the solid, kind, courageous scent that’s just her. It’s a good scent, and he wraps his arms around her, slipping off to sleep.
My perfect omega.
He’s asleep before he can correct himself.