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Something’s wrong.
No one’s reached out to him about it, but Dick knows it from the ache in his jaw and the way he finds himself creeping closer and closer to Gotham without really meaning to, until suddenly he’s on the bridge and the familiar cityscape becomes impossible to ignore.
He switches over to the Gotham team frequency before Barbara can spot him in the city and call him out first, and immediately, there’s chaos.
“—doesn’t make any sense,” Babs is saying in that frustrated tone that means she’s tugging on her hair at the roots. Then she snaps to business. “Nightwing? What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
“Was nearby and thought I’d check in,” Dick says, as casually as he can when he feels like his heart is about to beat out of his chest. “What’s the situation?”
“Please tell me you can get to the manor,” Tim says, sounding strained and, judging from the background noise, also on the move. “Like, now. I was about to call you.”
“It’s Bruce,” Babs says, which Dick could have easily guessed. But it couldn’t be that he’s— Dick should know, if Bruce were dying.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Fear toxin,” Tim says. “The antitoxin should’ve worked, but now he’s just…”
“Exhibiting all the classic symptoms of a mating bond break,” Babs says, frustration leaking back into her voice. “Which might make sense, since this toxin strain was meant to disrupt coesthesiac receptors, but since he never had a mating bond to worry about breaking in the first place—”
“Maybe it’s Talia,” Tim says.
“We would know if it was Talia,” Babs says. “Damian would know if it was Talia. Dick, do you know?”
“Where is Damian?” Dick says, talking over Babs as soon as he hears her starting to say his name. “Sorry, what was that?”
Tim answers first, as Dick hoped he would. “Damian’s back at the Manor with Bruce. We thought it might help for him to stay close. I think it’s helping. Or, helping Bruce, anyway. Damian’s kind of freaked out.”
Dick sucks in a breath through his teeth. “That bad, huh.”
“When I say classic symptoms of a bond break, I mean it,” Babs says. “Started with a panic attack, went straight through an inconsolable breakdown, and now we’re onto catatonic depression. I don’t think Damian was ready to see him like that.”
There’s a secret, ugly part of Dick that’s pleased—but mostly he’s worried about making sure they’ll all get out of this unscathed.
“Tell him I’ll be there in—” Dick checks his speedometer, “—ten minutes.”
“I’m on my way to Doc Thompkins’ for Sudabond,” Tim says. “It’s not a real bond break, but we’re pretty sure this will still help. At least temporarily.” He hesitates. “If he doesn’t get better, even with you there—”
“He’ll be okay,” Dick promises. Bond breaks aren’t always fatal; simulated bond breaks must be even less so. He isn’t worried about fixing it, even if Bruce may not be happy with the solution.
But Bruce’s reaction would be nothing compared to the others’ if they found out the truth.
“We need to talk about Dick,” Leslie said one night as she finished shredding Bruce’s x-rays.
Bruce’s heart pounded irrationally. If something were seriously wrong, Leslie would have mentioned it at Dick’s physical the week prior instead of waiting until now.
But if it wasn’t serious, she wouldn’t have needed to approach Bruce in private rather than saying it in front of Dick.
“What?” Bruce said.
“It’s been two years,” Leslie said, “and he hasn’t formed a familial bond with you yet.”
“We’re not family,” Bruce said, then, at the look Leslie gave him, “Not in the traditional sense, I mean.”
“Bruce Wayne.” Even after so many years, Leslie’s disapproving tone still made Bruce wince. “I hope to God you haven’t said that to that poor boy.”
“Of course not,” Bruce said. “But he’s made it clear I’m in no way a replacement for his father.”
Leslie crossed her arms. “You don’t have to be. Frankly, I don’t care if you have a name for your relationship or not. He needs to form a secure, unconditional bond with you—and if not you, then someone.”
“He will.” Bruce hoped. “Eventually. It isn’t ideal, but a lack of a bond won’t kill him.” He said that part with a decent amount of confidence from lived experience, but the twist in Leslie’s expression suggested he was wrong.
“His bloodwork suggests he’s hypercoesthesiac,” Leslie said. “Which means he’s more sensitive to and reliant on the stability of pack bonds than average.”
“But he won’t die from it,” Bruce said, hoping it was true. It had to be true.
He knew what it was like to lose his parents, and to grieve them. He wouldn’t be able to force Dick through that process, no matter how much he wanted to—and he didn’t want to.
Leslie paused for a long few seconds. “It’s unlikely to be fatal,” she said, though she seemed reluctant to admit it. “But only for now. After he presents, and especially if he presents as an omega—”
“He has plenty of time before then,” Bruce said. Dick was ten, almost eleven, which meant they still had at least five years before this would be a true concern. Much could change in five years. “I can’t force a bond between us if he isn’t ready for one. What he needs is time.”
“What he needs,” Leslie said, “is to not be in a constant state of bond anxiety. We’re pack animals, Bruce. He needs to know he’ll always have a pack to come home to.”
“He will,” Bruce promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“You’re here,” Damian says, standing from the chair beside the bed as soon as Dick walks into the room.
Bruce, lying on the bed, doesn’t stir, but his scent is tinged with a bitterness that makes the air in the room feel heavy.
“Hey, kiddo.” Dick leaves his stance open in invitation for a hug, if Damian wants one. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s been quiet now,” Damian says, tucking himself under Dick’s arm. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse, but… I don’t think I was helping.”
Dick squeezes him lightly around his shoulders. “You are. I promise you are. The toxin made him think he lost his bonds. You’re proof they’re still there.”
“But not the one he’s looking for.” Damian looks up at Dick with a certain clarity in his expression that tells Dick he knows—or at least highly suspects.
It would be hard not to. Bruce usually wears scent blockers everywhere, even at home, but now the room is filled with sandalwood and musk and vanilla and lavender, tinged with a bitterness that clings to the back of Dick’s throat.
Damian knows how Dick smells, too.
Dick pastes on a smile and squeezes Damian’s shoulder. “Why don’t you get something to eat downstairs? I’m sure it’s been a long night.”
From Damian’s expression, he clearly sees through Dick’s transparent excuse to get him out of the room, but he doesn’t argue.
“Fix him,” Damian says, and leaves.
Dick waits until he hears Damian’s footsteps on the stairs before he approaches the bed, peeling off his scent blockers as he goes. Bruce still doesn’t stir, and when Dick pries at their bond, he finds Bruce’s end firmly sealed—though that’s not an unusual thing for Bruce to do intentionally, so it’s hard to blame it on the toxin.
Dick sits on the edge of the bed and gently rests his wrist against the side of Bruce’s neck. “Hey, Bruce.”
Bruce tilts his head a bit, mindlessly nuzzling his unblemished mating gland against Dick’s wrist. Then, slowly, his eyes blink open. “Dick?”
Dick smiles. “It’s me.”
“Dick?” Bruce says again. His eyes aren’t quite focusing, in a way that suggests he isn’t truly seeing Dick in front of him. He frowns. “You’re not real.”
“I’m real.” Dick applies a little more pressure with his wrist, lightly massaging Bruce’s gland as his fingers thread through the curls at the nape of Bruce’s neck. “I’m here. Your bonds got a little messed up with fear toxin. If you let me in, I can help.”
Bruce is shaking his head before Dick’s finished speaking, his scent souring with distress that makes Dick’s anxiety rise in turn. “You can’t. Not now. It’s gone. You’re finally gone.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” Dick leans his forehead against Bruce’s and mentally shoves at the wall between them as hard as he can. It’s as useless of an effort as ever. “Just let me in, Bruce. For once. Please.”
Bruce turns his head away. “You’re not real.”
Dick puts a hand around the back of Bruce’s head and turns his face back, pressing Bruce’s nose against the side of his neck. “You can smell me, can’t you? You know the difference between a real scent and a memory.”
Bruce is still as he breathes, and a bit of tension eases from Dick. He lightly pets the back of Bruce’s head. His hair is damp with oil and sweat. “Believe me now?”
Bruce turns his face up. His lips brush over Dick’s mating gland, and he rears back as if electrocuted. It might be a little funny, except for the way it’s really not. The scent in the room turns so acrid Dick gags.
“No,” Bruce is saying. “No, you’re not here. You can’t be here. You were gone. You’re supposed to be gone.”
“Bruce.” Dick grabs onto Bruce’s shoulders. “Bruce, it’s okay. We’re okay.” Focusing on controlling the impending panic attack takes some of the sting off you’re supposed to be gone, though it shouldn’t really sting at all at this point.
He knows what it means. He knows what Bruce means. He knows very well by now what and how Bruce thinks.
Which means he knows for certain Bruce won’t like what he’s going to do next, but as Bruce’s pulse starts rocketing and the scent in the room turns suffocating, Dick knows he doesn’t really have a choice.
“I’m sorry for this,” Dick says.
And then he yanks Bruce’s head back and bites.
“He is thirteen,” Bruce said, pacing around the floor of his study. He shouldn’t be able to hear Dick’s heartbeat upstairs, but still the rabbiting of it pounds in his ears. “He shouldn’t be presenting.”
“Precocious presentations aren’t unheard of, especially in cases with trauma present.” Leslie was slumped over on the armchair. She’d come as soon as Bruce called. “You know what I’m going to say next.”
“We haven’t bonded,” Bruce said. There was a grim finality to it.
“You haven’t bonded,” Leslie said. “It’s been five years, Bruce. You know if the social workers ever caught wind of this they’d have replaced you as his guardian a long time ago.”
“He’s—” Bruce started, then stopped. It wasn’t fair to blame Dick for never having felt secure enough to have developed a true familial bond, when ultimately Bruce was the one responsible for providing that sense of security in the first place. But he didn’t know what else he could have done to convince Dick that Bruce had never seen their arrangement as temporary.
“I know,” Bruce said finally.
“The way I see it, you’re not going to have a choice,” Leslie said. “Even if I could find a way to get him on Sudabond without a prescription and without risking my license, he can only be on it for so long without more serious help. And if I end up needing to write that prescription…”
There would be questions. Sudabond was a medication that produced bonding signals, tricking the brain into believing in the presence of a stable bond where there wasn’t one. It was meant for short-term use only, and was primarily a treatment for bond breaks, to help stabilize an individual as they went through the healing process.
There was little reason for an otherwise healthy thirteen-year-old in a stable home to need it—with the emphasis being on stable home.
“He needs Robin,” Bruce said, which was easier than trying to explain the way he immediately felt his nausea rising at the thought someone might take Dick away.
“Does he?” said Leslie, who had never been shy about her low opinion of their after-hours activities. “Have you even tried to stop him?”
“The time he ran away was the time I tried,” Bruce said, clenching his fists. “He’s happy here. In the end, where he goes should be Dick’s choice, bond or not.”
“We’re at the point where not could legitimately kill him,” Leslie said. “And if you haven’t managed to get him to bond with you for five years, I doubt a few extra months will do it. It’s not something you can force.”
A horrible thought occurred to Bruce.
Leslie frowned at him. “What—” Understanding dawned quickly, and with it, opposition. “No, Bruce. That isn’t an option.”
“But it would work.”
Leslie leaned forward in the chair. “He is a child.”
“I wouldn’t do anything untoward,” Bruce said. “It would be purely practical.”
“Think about what you’re proposing,” Leslie said. “It’s not about practical. You’re talking about mating with a thirteen-year-old.”
“Forming a mating bond,” Bruce corrected. There was a difference. Admittedly, common parlance conflated the two, but before it was known as a mating bond, it was simply referred to as a lifebond. Nothing about it intrinsically signified mating; it was only society at large that made it so. “And I wouldn’t do it without his agreement, naturally.”
“Bruce Wayne,” Leslie snapped. “You’re not hearing a thing I’m saying. Think of the consequences of this.”
“If we don’t reinforce the bond, we’ll be able to break it when he’s older with minimal discomfort.”
Leslie threw her hands up. “I’m not talking about the practicalities here. I mean emotionally, mentally—legally, even. You understand what would happen if someone were to find out.”
“We’ll be careful,” Bruce insisted. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it would work. “My mental barriers are strong enough to keep anyone out, and Dick has been training his, as well. We’ll be able to maintain mental separation. And there will be no physical reinforcement, so the strength will fade naturally over time. We won’t tell anyone. Nothing will change.”
“You’re very wrong about that,” Leslie said. She propped her elbow on the arm of the chair and leaned her forehead on her hand. “I understand what you’re trying to do here, Bruce, I really do. But I can’t condone this.”
“Then give me an alternative,” Bruce said. “A true alternative. If social services tries to take him, I guarantee he’ll be gone before the week is over, and if he doesn’t think he can return here, then even I can’t be certain where he’ll end up.”
Leslie was silent. The grandfather clock ticked once, twice, three times, four times, five.
“I’ll be the one to speak with him,” she said finally. “I’ll get him medication to ride out his presentation heat so he can have the conversation with a clear mind. You will not be in the room— No, you will not be in the manor until it’s over.”
The relief Bruce felt was enough that he couldn’t bring himself to be concerned by Leslie’s lack of trust. “Thank you, Leslie.”
“Don’t,” Leslie said, weary. “No matter how this turns out, don’t ever thank me for this. And don’t be surprised if he doesn’t in the end, either.”
It was possible that even if Dick agreed now, he might regret it later, and might even resent Bruce for it.
But he would understand, Bruce thought. He would understand, and he would live, and they would be able to stay together.
That was enough.
Even after being bitten, Bruce’s mental shields stay as impervious as ever. It’s as funny as it is frustrating, but Dick doesn’t have long to dwell on it, because after the bite and a round of thorough scenting, he feels Bruce’s arm tighten around him.
He tries to lift his head from where he has his cheek against Bruce’s neck, but Bruce won’t let him move. Disapproval radiates from all around him.
Dick sighs against Bruce’s skin. “I had to.”
“You did not.”
“So I should’ve just sat over there and watched my alpha suffer?”
“I am not your alpha.”
“Yes,” Dick says, “you are.”
Bruce has nothing to say to that, because frankly there’s nothing he can say.
They’d done everything as right as they could, for what Bruce wanted.
Bruce had bitten him exactly once, one month after Dick’s presentation. Dick was on Sudabond for two weeks until Leslie deemed him stable enough to make a decision, and then needed another two weeks to get it out of his system before a mating bond could be formed.
Bruce was extremely perfunctory about it. Leslie was there. She’d cleaned the bite with an antiseptic instead of Bruce using his saliva, slapped a bandage over it, and gave them both instructions on minimizing scarring. Dick did not bite Bruce back.
He made his nest in Bruce’s bed, though there was always at least five feet between them because Bruce had the biggest bed Dick still has ever seen in his life. The only exception was when Dick was in heat; his hypercoesthesia meant Bruce had to at least cuddle a little in his nest, else Dick might fracture the bond out of rejection. But even the cuddling was carefully calculated to the bare minimum.
Normally, even mating bonds need to be reinforced regularly, Dick knows now—full bites over the original marks, playful nips and kisses here and there, everyday scent marking. They did none of those things. Bruce’s mark on Dick is nearly invisible.
And yet their bond never faded.
Secretly, Dick had never wanted it to.
“I know what you’re doing,” Bruce says.
Dick blinks, confused. Then he realizes he’s purring quietly, and putting out a honey-sweet scent meant to soothe—an instinctive response for an omega trying to calm his stressed alpha. And it’s working, judging by the way Bruce’s scent is mellowing out.
Bruce had only ever let him do this once before, after Jason’s death. Then he’d panicked about it and threw Dick out of the Cave and the manor, even though he should’ve known that if their bond hadn’t faded after months of estrangement, it was unlikely that a little scenting would have much of an effect, in the grand scheme of things.
Sometimes, Dick is certain their bond is Bruce’s biggest regret.
“You always wondered how bad it’d be if we forced a break,” Dick says. “Now you know.”
Bruce grunts unhappily. Dick cranks up the pheromones until he settles again.
“Stop that,” Bruce says.
“It’s hardly going to make us more bonded.”
“Where are the others?”
“Damian’s downstairs,” Dick says. “Tim went to get Sudabond from Leslie, which she may or may not have actually given him, depending on her supply level. He should be back soon.”
Bruce is an unmoving block of tension beneath him. Dick hasn’t even told him yet that Damian probably figured it out already, too.
“Would it be so bad if they knew?” Dick says. “Not everything. But that we’re—”
“You know why they can’t.”
Because then they would have questions when Bruce and Dick inevitably broke the bond—because for Bruce, that future was unquestionably inevitable.
Dick looks distantly at the wall. “Do you really hate being bonded to me that much?”
Bruce is quiet. “I hate,” he says finally, “that you are bonded to me.”
“Well, I don’t,” Dick says, just as quiet.
“You should.”
“I don’t do a lot of things I should.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
It sounds like they’re having an argument. They kind of are. But it doesn’t feel like it, with Bruce’s chest beneath Dick’s cheek and his arm around Dick’s shoulders and Dick’s soothing sweet scent enveloping them both.
Dick closes his eyes. “Tell them whatever you want. You usually do, anyway.”
Bruce is silent for long enough Dick actually almost falls asleep.
“Dick,” Bruce says quietly.
Dick hums an acknowledgment.
Bruce’s arm tightens around Dick for a brief half-second. “I,” he says, haltingly. “I don’t hate you.”
I don’t hate this, Dick understands Bruce is saying. I don’t hate us.
It’s just everything else. The fear of what would happen once people learned what Bruce did, what Bruce still wants to do. The accusations, the disgust, the blame. Though certainly no one could hate Bruce more than he hated himself for it—for not fully comprehending the influence he had over Dick, and not fully understanding how being bonded so young might have molded Dick differently than if they were not so. Bruce was young, too—young and impulsive in a way that he could cover up with stubborn rationality—but it was no excuse. Dick may sincerely want him as a mate, but Bruce also may have changed him so irrevocably that Dick couldn’t even imagine there being another choice. And there was no way of ever knowing the truth of what was or could have been.
The thoughts—the hatred, the sorrow, the shame—slam into Dick so suddenly that for a few seconds he’s bewildered as to where it’s all coming from. Then he feels it—the tentative warmth leaking out from a crack on Bruce’s end of the bond.
He opens his mouth—to ask, to say Bruce’s name, to say something—and then closes it. Something about this moment feels too fragile for words.
While keeping the rest of his body as still as he can, he seeks Bruce’s hand with his own. He presses the tips of their fingers together as he reaches out through the bond.
Finally, finally, Bruce reaches back.