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It hurt.
That was the only coherent thing in his head, the only thought capable of making it past the screaming void of emptiness inside of him, panic and terror and oh-god-please-no as something ripped away from him.
“You’re pathetic,” said a voice he knew all too well, sneering and proud and disdainful. “Get up, Replacement. Get up and fight for your pack.”
He couldn’t. He could barely even breathe. He was curled up on the ground, gasping as he hugged himself tightly.
“I didn’t even touch you.”
There wasn’t a single scratch on Tim. He wished there was. He’d take broken bones and gouging slashes and searing brands over this—this void. He felt hollow and it hurt so much.
“Did you really think you’d get away with it, Replacement?” his childhood hero, his imagined brother, his Robin asked curiously, “Did you think you could steal what was mine and I wouldn’t care?”
No.
No, he hadn’t.
He’d had this nightmare before—Jason, stepping out of the shadows, sneer on his face, and it didn’t matter if Tim tried to explain about Bruce’s downward spiral, if he begged or pleaded, if he started crying.
Jason only looked at him, cold and distant, and threw him out of the pack.
Jason had been the pack omega for those few short weeks before he died, and Tim had stolen in like an interloper, had fit into the gap Jason’s death had caused and tried his best to close it, and he knew there would be no mercy for that.
He just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.
“I want you to remember this, Replacement,” steel-toed boots paused right in front of his blurry vision, “I want you to remember what I’ll do if you ever dare show your face near my pack again.”
I’m sorry, Tim tried to form.
I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Jason, please, don’t.
Words were beyond him now. All he had was the screaming inside of him, the shrieking of an empty hollow where his pack bonds had used to be, the void growing with every bond that Jason snapped like they were nothing more than dry twigs.
Tim had clung on as fiercely as he could, but it didn’t matter.
The pack omega had the final say.
And he’d come back from the grave to show Tim that he didn’t belong.
“Goodbye, Replacement,” Jason said, and the last bond thrumming in Tim’s grasp, high and fluttery like a hummingbird, the last pinprick of warmth, the one that connected him to the brother he always wished was his, the bond Tim hadn’t dared to believe was real until the Tower had gone dark and the threads inside of his chest broke—
It fractured.
There was nothing inside him now.
He was nothing.
The last thread connecting the parasite to his pack was gone, and Jason smiled as he let the pack bonds hum inside of him. There was a lot of alarm and worry and panic vibrating through them, but Jason didn’t care.
Batman had turned away from him. Turned away and left Jason behind. Replaced him, like Jason was a pet and not a son, like he wasn’t pack, and Batman was going to regret that.
Because Jason still had control of the pack bonds, was still pack omega despite dying and coming back, and Jason wasn’t going to let Batman forget that the Red Hood was a member of his pack. His first order of business was throwing the Replacement out of it.
He nudged the sobbing, nearly unconscious body on the floor, and it didn’t even twitch. If Jason had gone to pieces like that when his pack had died, he would’ve been fair game to any trafficker in Crime Alley.
He pushed down the memories of feeling his last pack bond snap, and knowing his dad was dead, and he was all alone, and no one was going to protect him, and the cold, aching hollow inside of him, the void he had to live with every day, the reason he’d so easily followed Batman when he’d asked—
If he hadn’t lost his pack, Batman would’ve never been able to get him, Jason would’ve never been Robin, he never would’ve died.
Jason was doing the kid a favor.
The Replacement’s scent changed as Jason walked away, his normal blueberry-ice-mint omega scent sweetening and turning stronger—a false heat, as his body tried to adjust to being packless and fix it the only way biology knew how. Attract a new pack.
Heats alone were brutal—Jason knew that full well, he’d suffered one in the League of Assassins before getting his hands on suppressants—and the Replacement was in no condition to even get off the floor. Quiet sobs changed to pained whines as the omega curled up further, gasping as the cramps started.
Jason headed for the stairs. He’d blocked the zetas and made sure no one else was in the Tower—Batman wouldn’t get here any time soon. Sure, Batman could claim the kid again, but Jason had all the time in the world, and he could do this over and over and over, until the claiming itself was the torture and the Replacement gave up and left. He wondered how many times it would take—the kid was supposed to be smart, but he was also supposed to be stubborn, not that Jason had seen either quality when he’d broken the bonds and the kid collapsed.
And who knew, a darker part of his mind whispered, maybe the Replacement would attract someone in one of those false heats, maybe a whole pack if he left him in Crime Alley, and then he’d no longer be Jason’s problem—
Jason stopped, mid-step, heart suddenly hammering.
What the fuck.
No. No. Jason hadn’t—he hadn’t seriously just contemplated—no. What the fuck was wrong with him?
The world around him looked startlingly clear. Less…green.
In contrast, he felt so nauseous he had to sit down, bile at the back of his throat as he tried to take deep breaths.
He just—he just wanted the Replacement out of his pack, he didn’t—he definitely didn’t want him gang-raped in the middle of Crime Alley, what the fuck was going on in his head—
Don’t you? the voice whispered, angry and sibilant and poisonous green.
Jason clung to the railing and tried to remember how to breathe. There—there was something in his head. There was something in his head and he wanted it out.
He had to—he had to separate his real thoughts from the monstrous ones, and he focused on the fight, on the grim determination that the Replacement didn’t belong in his pack, his outrage that Batman had put another kid in the suit he’d died in, on his vicious glee as the kid cried—
No.
No, that wasn’t him.
He tried again—the Joker, it burned inside of him, fear and fury both, the Joker deserved to die, that was a good thought, a right thought, and Batman had failed him, and Batman needed to kill the Joker, needed to protect Jason, but he was walking away and Batman needed to die, needed to suffer, needed to feel exactly what Jason felt when a bomb ripped through his insides—
Jason stared at the wall between the bars of the railing, gasping breaths echoing in his hears.
Oh god, he thought distantly. He couldn’t tell the real anger from the green. He couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended, couldn’t tell how far he’d slid on this slippery slope, couldn’t tell how many despicable things he’d done before he’d gotten to ‘dump a defenseless in-heat omega in Crime Alley’.
No, echoed in his head, no, said something darker as Jason tried to separate the two, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t find the seam, he couldn’t tell if there was a seam, or if it had been him the whole time.
All it takes, the Joker’s laugh cackled around him, is one bad day.
No. Fuck him. Fuck him. Jason was not the Joker, even if he wore his name, and if he couldn’t separate his actual emotions from the green-tainted ones, the real plans and goals versus the ones just to make people suffer, he’d dump them all.
Dump them all, and start over.
He was Jason Todd.
Not Robin.
Not the Red Hood.
And he was going to fix this.
Starting with the kid he’d just tortured.
He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Desperate keens kept escaping, no matter how hard he tried, calls for a pack that wouldn’t come. That would never come again.
He was alone, and it was the most terrible feeling in the world.
Everything ached, not just in the emptiness inside of him, but cramping low in his stomach, and sweat drying along his arms, and a growing headache. Heat, something told him distantly, but he couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but grieve the absence inside of him, the pack he hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye to.
He knew that Jason would hate him. It was the voice the insecurities whispered into his mind, his nightmares, the silent, judging stare of the torn and tattered Robin costume in the glass cage. You do not belong here. Tim knew.
It still hurt.
He wept, lying on the ground of the Tower he would no longer have access to—no pack meant no Robin, meant he had to leave, and no one in the whole world wanted him. Tim was alone. He’d—he’d have to start over, from scratch, and the very thought made his heart shred itself into little pieces.
How many times?
How many times did he have to start over, again and again and again, his parents and Bruce and his dad and Dana and Bruce again and now what? Now where would he go, which pack would want him, what could he even bring to the table?
Tim stifled a gasp as something curled tighter in his stomach, like someone had clenched a fist around his organs and refused to let go. It hurt. It’d never hurt this bad before—not with Alfred fetching him snacks, and Bruce stroking his hair, and Dick flopped on top of him—and now it felt like his stomach was ripping itself in two for the temerity of going into heat.
Make it stop, he begged, but it wouldn’t, because Tim had failed again, because he was a failure, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Tim curled up, as tightly as he could, and cried against his knees.
Boots.
He—he could hear boots, and panic flared. He was in heat, he couldn’t protect himself, he could barely even lift his head—
Omega. He smelled…omega, sweet and rich and protective, soft, pulsing waves of concern, and Tim couldn’t suppress the trill for help.
Please, he prayed inside his head, please help, please, please—
The boots stopped, and there was a period of stillness before a hand fit around his cheek. Tim almost gasped at the contact, at the scent, and it was pathetic and desperate but he quietly keened for pack again.
“Shh,” said a low, hoarse, very familiar voice.
One part of Tim wanted to jerk away—Red Hood—Jason—he had stood over Tim and laughed—and the other part wanted to press closer and beg and plead and promise Jason that he’d do anything the older boy asked, please, please.
The latter won out, and the tears flowed faster as Tim keened again, louder, higher, more frantic, not stopping even as hands fluttered over him.
“Shh—shh, kid, it’s okay, shh, calm down,” Jason murmured, fingers brushing the hair away from his face, and everything was blurry but he could make out the white strip in Jason’s hair. “Come on, kid, you need to breathe.”
Tim tried, but he kept hiccupping, and all his energy was devoted to lifting his hand, stretching it out in the plea he couldn’t verbalize. Jason jerked back, though, and Tim’s hand fell to the ground, limp.
It felt like a physical spike of pain, like someone had cracked him open and left him to die.
“Fuck.”
Tim stuttered through hitched sobs against the ground, unable to move, unable to stop the arms curling around him, unable to take any comfort from the hard armor his head was pressed against.
“Shit, fuck, I’m such an idiot—why did I even fucking do this, fuck my head, and fuck the goddamn League of Assassins—I’ll see how they fucking like a bath in poison water.” The grumbles vibrated against him as tears dripped down his cheeks. “Kid? Tim? Tim, where is your nest?”
Tim couldn’t tell Jason even if he wanted to—he’d made his nest so soft and comfortable, and had something of every member of the pack, and it was Jason’s right to take that away, but Tim had selfishly hoped he could hang onto them, could pretend—
“Okay, it’s probably in your room. We’ll find it.”
Tim cried harder.
Jason found it easily, and Tim waited for him to destroy it, but Jason just…put him inside? He could smell Bruce and Dick and Alfred, and Jason too because he was so close, and Tim didn’t understand.
Maybe—maybe Jason had heard one of Tim’s silent pleas?
Maybe he felt sorry for Tim, and decided to let Tim sleep it off in his nest—it wouldn’t help his cramps, but at least he could smell his old pack, could let it soothe him even if everything inside of him was a black hole. Jason would try to be nice, even if Tim was an interloper. He was Robin. It was what he did.
There was muttered cursing in the distance, shuffling noises, and then Jason’s scent became stronger. Tim cracked open his eyes as the nest dipped under him, and—and Jason was climbing in. To Tim’s nest.
But Jason wasn’t pack, he cut the pack bond, why was he—
“I’m sorry,” the older boy said hoarsely, “Fuck, Tim, I’m so sorry.” Warm arms curled around him, and it wasn’t hard armor this time, it was soft and Tim could feel Jason’s warmth, and smell hurt-anger-upset-guilt, and hands rubbed softly down his back. “You didn’t deserve that, and—and something’s wrong with me, and I’m so sorry.”
Tim…didn’t know what Jason was talking about. He had every right to kick Tim out, Tim knew it and Jason knew it, and—and Tim couldn’t understand.
But Jason was holding him, was—was hugging him, Robin was hugging him, and Tim curled as close as he dared and let the quiet pulse of a heartbeat under his cheek ground him.
It still hurt, it ached and tore and the void inside of him shrieked, but like this, surrounded by warmth, Tim could pretend he still had a pack.
Jason sat there, in the Replacement—the kid—his little brother?—‘s nest, and contemplated. A lot of things, but mainly the fact that he couldn’t trust his own fucking mind.
He’d faced mind control, and fear toxin, but those had ends, those had clear definitions of this is not me. This—this had a disturbing similarity to being drunk, or—or drugged, and some part of him wanted to claw his own skin off at the thought.
No wonder Bruce had looked at him like he was a monster.
Jason shouldn’t even be here, not when he couldn’t trust himself, he should’ve just wrapped Tim up in his nest and called it a day—how long did it take Batman to hack through the zetas anyway?—but the kid kept calling for a pack that wasn’t here, and Jason couldn’t stop himself from crawling in.
Something hot and sick and broken sat right above his heart, choking him, and Jason didn’t want to remember everything he’d done, but he had to remember, he had to face the possibility that every single thing he’d done since he climbed out of the Pit was wrong.
He couldn’t trust his own emotions, and it was terrifying.
Whatever it was, though, it didn’t seem to have any effect on biological drives, and Jason sank deeper into the part of himself that was an omega hearing a packless pup’s cries, and cuddling them close, and waiting for the pack alpha to get here and protect them. Never mind how dangerous that decision was to him—Bruce was going to lock him in a cell in Arkham, and Jason knew he deserved it, he was just as crazy as all the other Rogues—all that was there was soothing the young omega’s cries and trying to help them through the cramps of a heat spent alone and packless.
“Bruce is coming,” Jason murmured, though he was pretty sure Tim was asleep, “He’s coming, and he’ll protect you.” From me, the thought finished in his head, bitter. Jason had turned himself into someone that pups needed protecting from.
Tim stirred at the fresh wave of misery that Jason leaked, and he tried to get control of his scent before he ended up drowning the kid in negative emotions. Stroking the kid’s hair helped, and Jason took deep breaths.
It was a comfortable nest, and Jason closed his eyes, slipping into meditative breathing, away from his emotions, away from anything the Pit could twist. Someone needed help, and Jason could help, and that was all that mattered.
Jason’s eyes snapped open at the shift in the air.
Intruder, echoed inside of him as he tensed, ready to meet the threat—and froze, when his gaze landed on the dark, cowled shadow.
For a long moment, he and Batman just stared at each other, Jason wrapped around Tim in the nest, and Batman looming in the doorway.
“What happened?” Batman finally growled.
Jason opened his mouth—I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to and I hurt him and fix it please—but Batman’s sanctimonious tone was rubbing him the wrong way, like it had to be Jason’s fault, like there was no other explanation here, like Jason was that much of a loose cannon—
“Something’s wrong with me,” Jason forced out. Something’s wrong with him, came the darker reply, and it was true, wasn’t it, what kind of lunatic dressed up as a Bat and fought crime—what kind of man brought a child into it, and Jason should teach him a lesson, and one of those toys was right in his arms—“Stop me—” oh-so-breakable, he’d just have to twist to make him scream—“Please—”
The attack came from behind him.
Arms wrapped around his neck, one pinning his shoulders, the other forcing his jaw up, and Jason didn’t have any time to react before teeth were sinking into the junction of his neck and shoulder. He managed a strangled cry before the switch flipped in his head, and the hazy fog of submission overwhelmed him.
Terror followed quickly on its heels, but Jason couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop Tim from being pulled out of his limp arms, couldn’t stop whoever was behind him from climbing into the nest, still holding him tight, and Jason didn’t even realize he was making panicked sounds until the arms pulled him back against a broad chest, and a familiar chalk-cedar-caramel alpha scent unfurled around him like a hug.
“Shh, Jaybird, shh, you’re okay,” the voice hummed, wrapped around him, half-protective and half-restrictive, “I have you, you’re okay.”
Tim made a pained whine somewhere in the distance, the same desperate call for pack, and a low growl soothed him. “I’m right here, Tim,” Bruce rumbled, “Give me a moment.”
Jason could feel the burst in the bonds inside of him, the bright flame restored as pack bonds solidified between Tim and everyone else, and some part of him cupped the brilliant thread that connected him to Tim, and held it close.
“There you go,” Bruce said quietly, “Safe and sound.” His voice sounded like he was getting closer. “Dick, can you take Jason out of the nest? The false heat will linger for another couple of hours, Tim needs to be comfortable.”
“Sure,” Dick chirped, and Jason felt himself being manhandled out of the soft blankets and pillows. Rationality returned just enough for him to clamp down on the quiet keen—he didn’t deserve the safety of Tim’s nest, not after what he’d done, and he was going to be locked up soon anyway—but fear pulsed inside of him, icy cold and sharp. “Um. Bruce.”
Silence stretched above him, suffocating and taut, and then Dick let go. Vulnerability slammed into him, choking him, and Jason could do nothing but lie there, limp, on the floor, and wait for the judgement—
“Jason.” Gloved hands on his cheeks, gray-blue eyes peering at him, a face older and more wrinkled then he’d seen it last. “Jason, can you hear me?”
Jason, by all rights, should be terrified. He’d gone against Batman, he’d attacked Bruce, and even years ago, when he presented as an omega, he’d been terrified and furious at Bruce in equal measure, and had run off to get himself killed. The submission turned him practically defenseless in a way he’d never been before, and that vulnerability was staggeringly petrifying.
And yet.
“Dad,” Jason croaked out, and felt himself wrapped up in a hug he hadn’t even realized he’d missed.
“We’ll go home,” Bruce said quietly, “We’ll find out what’s going on.” Bruce was holding him like he was something precious. Like he wasn’t a monster. “And we’ll fix it, Jay-lad, I promise.”