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The door to his office flew open, and Jason stormed in with a scowl on his face. He was still wearing his scent blockers in the house, which Jason never did. Scent blockers weren’t worn around people you trusted.
Bruce dropped his pen and shot to his feet. “What is it?”
Jason clenched and unclenched his fists, taking a deep breath. Fear and fury danced in his eyes.
“Jason,” Bruce snapped, not harshly but urgently ash he rolled back his cuffs to uncover his scent glands.
Mother-safe-protect filled the air, and Jason’s pupils dilated slightly and the worst of the tension left him with a shudder, leaving a frightened pup in its wake. Bruce wanted nothing more than to gather Jason into his arms and hold his son until he felt safe, but he might not have time.
Instead, Bruce steeled himself and took Jason by the shoulders. “What happened?”
Jason didn’t appear to be injured, at least, but that didn’t mean he hadn't been hurt. Jason had some training in self-defense, but he was also a fourteen year old who hadn't even hit five feet yet. A large alpha would be enough to—
“Someone knows who you are,” Jason said.
Bruce blinked at Jason several times before he understood what Jason was saying. Someone knew that Bruce was Batman. That someone not only knew, but they had gotten close to Jason, his young, tiny, vulnerable pup to share that information.
Oh god.
What if it had been an alpha who’d found out, and they’d blackmailed Jason into doing something horrible for them to keep Bruce’s secret? Or maybe it had been a Rogue, and this was all some sort of horrible mind game? Or so many other horrible things.
“Who?” Bruce snarled viciously. “Did they hurt you? If they so much as touched you—”
“It’s not even a grownup!” Jason cut him off, panicked. “Bruce, he’s a kid, but he knew, and if he could figure it out, then anyone could!”
Intense relief swept over him, and Bruce pulled Jason into a tight hug. His pup was safe after all, and whatever damage had been done could be dealt with in a bit. Jason squirmed in his hold, but Bruce only hugged tighter and pressed kiss after kiss to the top of Jason’s head until Jason stopped struggling and let Bruce cover him with a thick layer of protective motherly scent, just in case.
Jason tolerated the smothering only another minute before he started protesting again, and Bruce reluctantly released him.
Jason huffed, but the pleased blush on his cheeks made it clear that he was not as unwilling as his tough-boy persona wanted Bruce to believe.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Jason grumbled. “He’s in our kitchen.”
Bruce blinked at Jason in confusion for the second time. “You brought him home? The child who knows who I am?”
What did Jason expect them to do with a pup? The pup’s parents were probably frantic, and taking him back to their house looked far more suspicious than it would have been to simply laugh off the accusation and pretend it was nonsense. Or maybe the pup had blackmailed Jason into letting him come to Wayne Manor.
“Yeah, of course,” Jason said, scowling in offense like that should have been obvious. “I told him I’d gut him if he didn’t get in the car.”
…
……
……….
“You what?”
“I told him to—”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to cringe too hard. “Jason, sweetheart. How did you find out that he knew?”
“He told me!”
Bruce shook his head. “Start at the beginning. What happened?”
Jason took a deep breath and glanced to the side, seeming to run through the events to find the right starting point. “Some big alphas were picking on a little pup, one of the sixth graders who haven’t even presented—” Jason’s scowl was fierce. His son did not like bullies. “—and I told them to stop.”
Bruce was pretty sure he knew where this was going. One of the boys had said, either fooling around or genuinely making an educated guess, that Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Jason had panicked and reacted the way he did.
“And one of the older boys threatened you?”
Jason scoffed. “No, they ran off. Then I was checking on the kid, and I said we should talk to the principal, but he said that he’d tried that already, but the teachers won’t do anything about it, so I said I’d talk to my dad—” A tiny, happy spark lit in Bruce’s chest. Jason had called him dad. “—about it, and the kid got all big eyes and scared and said that he didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and that they were jerks, but that didn’t mean that Batman had to come stop them. ‘specially with you being so busy with WE. Then he got all defensive and tried to take it all back, but it was too late.”
Bruce frowned, considering. That…did sound more like a pup who knew rather than a pup joking around or grasping at straws. It could have been that his parents had figured it out and had told him about it. Either way, the pup was a definite danger.
But still.
“You saved a pup from bullies and then threatened to gut him?” Bruce asked incredulously.
Jason’s eyes widened in that impertinent way teenagers were so good at, clearly not understanding how Bruce could not be so proud of him for how he handled the event.
Before it could turn to an argument, Bruce sighed. “Where is he now?”
Jason huffed. “In the kitchen. Alfie’s guarding him.”
Guarding the sixth grade pup Jason had kidnapped, of course. Bruce stepped past Jason to the door, quickly making his way down to the kitchen. Jason trailed behind him, courtesy of his short legs, but he kept up.
“What’s the pup’s name?” Bruce asked.
“Tim. Timothy Drake.”
Bruce paused so suddenly that Jason ran straight into his back. “Drake?”
Bruce knew Jack and Janet Drake, but more importantly, he knew that they were both rarely in Gotham, probably less than a month with all their visits combined. They left their pup behind? He’d always assumed that their pup traveled with them. Had Jack and Janet of all people managed to figure out his secret?
He couldn’t believe that, though. They philanthropic enough to keep their mouths shut if they knew about it. More likely, they would have already tried to blackmail him. Had Tim managed to figure it out some other way? Maybe he had had a very clever nanny.
“Yeah, Drake. Never met him before, but I’ve seen him in the lunch room. He doesn’t talk much, doesn’t have many friends,” Jason told Bruce as they hurried down the stairs.
“Hm,” was the most eloquent response Bruce had to that.
A minute later, Bruce flung open the kitchen door and marched into the room, assessing the scene before him.
Alfred was standing at one side of the island, layering deli meat onto sandwich bread. Across from Alfred, with his back to Bruce and perched on one of the high barstools, huddled the tiny child who must have been Timothy Drake.
Tim was small, just as small if not even smaller that Jason had been at that age. The way the pup hugged himself tightly, curled in on himself made him look even smaller. Little shoulders were all the way up by little ears, and watery little blue eyes turned to stare at Bruce in complete and utter horror. As he stared at Bruce, one little tear slipped free.
Any anger, any leftover anxiety that Tim might have nefarious purposes for revealing that he knew who they were. This was a pup. A frightened little pup.
Alfred fixed Bruce with a Look™, and Bruce gave him the slightest nod. He knew to be gentle. Jason, however, might not. Children had a far broader definition of what was acceptable to do to other children, usually based on what they themselves had endured without much physical or emotional scarring.
Bruce held out a hand to stop Jason from coming any closer to Tim. Jason made an unhappy noise, but he didn’t try to approach, which was good.
Once he was sure Jason wasn’t going to terrify the pup any more than he already had, Bruce walked closer, one slow step at a time.
Tim watched him with widening eyes, and another tear escape. “I—I—”
Tim whined and threw his head back, baring his throat in complete submission. He was so scared, too scared. Bruce needed to get in touch with whoever was taking care of Tim so they could let him go home. No one was likely to listen to a child anyway.
Bruce leaned in and just barely touched his teeth to the pup’ neck to accept his submission. His lower lip brushed across the edge of a scent blocking patch, and Bruce hummed to himself before carefully peeling the blocker away to be sure he was getting the true, honest emotion from Tim. Tim whimpered.
All Bruce could smell was the unadulterated terror of an unpresented pup.
Alfred made a sorrowful noise and paused in his assembly of the sandwich that was no doubt for their guest. Even Jason trilled lightly for the pup to trill back to.
Bruce wanted to focus on the pup’s fear, on getting him to feel safe, but his mind was replaying the moment he leaned in and smelled Tim up close. Fear was prevalent, so was youth, but what Bruce couldn't find even the trace of was any pack scent at all. Not even the light type a babysitter or a nanny might give him.
“Tim,” Bruce rumbled, trying to soothe the boy. “Who takes care of you?”
Tim squeezed his eyes shut. “I—I do, sir.”
“No one lives with you?” Bruce pressed.
Tim whimpered, but he shook his head. “Please—please don’t—”
Bruce was used to broken pleas from young, traumatized boys. He wrapped an arm around Tim’s shoulders and tugged him into a side hug. Tim’s chest hitched, but he didn’t try to get away.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Bruce promised Tim. “No one is going to hurt you.”
“But—but Jason said!” Tim burst into tears, his fear cutting himself off.
Bruce crooned for Tim and wrapped him more firmly into a real hug. Tim sobbed harder, throwing his arms around Bruce’s neck and his legs around Bruce’s waist. Bruce squeezed Tim, and he didn’t think he could be blamed for how he subtly rubbed his own possessive scent over Tim’s little back.
“Jason won’t hurt you either,” Bruce told Tim with a stern glare to Jason. “You’re safe here. We won’t hurt you.”
“But I know!” Tim shrieked. “I know, and you have to kill me, so just—just get it over with!”
A deadly hush fell over the room. Even Tim’s tears had switched from racking sobs to silently crying into Bruce’s shoulder as he awaited his own execution. At the hands of Batman.
The worst thing about it all was the fact that Bruce could do it. He could hurt Tim any way he wanted, and no one would ever know, because Jack and Janet Drake wouldn’t slow down long enough to be real parents.
Bruce wanted to hold Tim a coo over him and feed him and keep him safe. His instincts ached to cover the boy in his own scent and dry away every tear. He wanted the boy in his nest, where it was safe for everyone.
Someone else might also want to hold Tim and cover Tim possessively in claiming scent in a nest. That someone would be able to get away with it, too.
Bruce squeezed Tim even tighter for a split second before the pressure was too much for the boy. He couldn’t bear the thought that someone could grab hold of the tiny body that was draped, warm and breathing and mostly together, and hurt Tim irreversibly, maybe even kill him, all because no one would ever know.
That wouldn’t happen.
“Alfred, Tim can have his sandwich in bed,” Bruce decided firmly. “We’re going to my nest.”
Tim keened quietly. Bruce responded with a contented purr. His new little one was so tiny and so precious. Bruce couldn’t wait to spoil him rotten.
Of course, at some point, they’d need to figure out how he knew what he knew, but that time would be later, after Tim was in Bruce’s nest, safe from all harm.
Bruce had his priorities straight.