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Jason Todd tiredly lifted the window to his apartment, before slipping inside and shutting it behind him. He had almost stayed at a safehouse several miles away for the night. It seemed like everyone in Gotham was looking for trouble. Jason had stopped seven muggings, a burglary, three assaults, beat down a couple dealers who were peddling to kids — and that was all within the first two and a half hours of his patrol.
All he wanted to do was crawl into his nest and sleep.
Well, after a shower. He couldn’t stand the thought of getting the scent of strangers’ blood and aggression in his nest. Otherwise, he would be in it already.
His arms felt heavy as he reached up to remove his infamous red helmet. The moment he did, Jason stilled. Because now that he wasn’t breathing through the clogged filters, the scent of blood was even stronger. It was also fresher than what had sprayed on his helmet when he punched a drug dealer in the face and broke his nose a few hours back.
Someone was in his apartment.
The realization was absolutely infuriating. As an Omega, his den was sacrosanct. For someone to intrude upon his private den like this … whoever was involved would receive a violent welcome to be sure.
As gently as he could, Jason set the helmet on the nearest bookcase and pulled a gun from his thigh holster. He strained his Omega senses, but the overwhelming scent of blood covered any other olfactory clues.
Had one of the Rogues figured out his identity? Was there a dead body in his apartment, a warning taunt that he was next?
Jason was the Red Hood. He didn’t cave to threats.
Gun ready and primed to shoot, Jason hooked the bedroom door with the toe of his boot and swung it open. He tucked and rolled, coming up with his gun pointed in the direction where the blood-scent was strongest. Even if it was a decoy to draw his attention away from the real threat, how could he do otherwise? The iron-blood scent was heady.
Blood and violence of this magnitude and nature didn’t belong within the confines of an Omega’s den — not unless the Omega was protecting pups.
Jason sighted down the barrel of the gun and then froze as he processed what he was seeing: Damian Wayne.
His fingers twitched as he realized what he had almost done; Jason had almost emptied his gun into Damian’s chest. What in the hell was the brat thinking sneaking into Jason’s den covered in blood-scent that wasn’t his own? Damian was smarter than to be so careless with his own safety; Jason knew he was!
And yet, Damian had apparently done it anyway.
Jason reengaged the safety and then holstered his gun with shaking hands. He had almost shot Damian. Forget Dick Grayson’s reaction if Jason had fired — Jason’s own reaction would have been so much worse.
No more dead Robins.
“I could’ve killed you!”
Because screw what B said. Sometimes, live ammo was the only option. Jason might be peripherally back as part of the Bat Pack, but he wasn’t going to heel like a dog at Batman’s side.
“Tt. I’m more than capable of dodging a bullet,” Damian said. “You are aware of my training in—”
That pissed Jason right off. He hated being worried about people in the first place, because it was a weakness that could be used against him. No matter what he said, what he spat at them in anger, there wasn’t a single member of the Bat Pack he wouldn’t back up if they needed him. Having that worry he didn’t even want to feel being casually batted away as if it were irrelevant? Intolerable.
Yes, Jason knew exactly what Damian was capable of, what a childhood in the League of Assassins had resulted in. However, that didn’t mean the pup was invulnerable. Even the best of the best screwed up.
Confidence and arrogance were two entirely different beasts. Damian was usually intelligent enough to fall on the right side of that scale.
“I wouldn’t miss from three feet away, Pup!” Jason said, shoving an agitated hand in his hair.
He could picture it all-too-easily, had seen Robin get injured too many times. He had nightmares of being too late to save Robin, but this time it would have been his fault.
Jason might not be a hero, but he wasn’t a villain. Only villains killed Robin.
He couldn’t allow himself to think about why he was disassociating Damian from the costume he wore, why he always had to disassociate the Bat Pack from the Wayne Pack. Because while it would hurt if Batman or Robin or one of the others died … it would absolutely destroy Jason if he lost Dick or Tim or the others.
A lot of people — as proven by the various superhero teams — could put on a cape or costume and fight criminals.
But—
There was only one Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and Damian al Ghul Wayne.
A fierce growl rumbled through the air. It was accompanied, much to Jason’s shock, by a waft of intense Alpha pheromones. He stared at the scent-blocking patch that was now in Damian’s hand. Absolute-determination filled the room.
“I’m.” Damian threw the patch on the floor. “Not.” He took a step forward. “A.” Damian bared all his teeth viciously. “Pup.”
When had Damian presented?
Yes, things were still rough with the pack and Bruce and Jason would never see eye-to-eye on some very key issues. Still, Jason couldn’t believe that Dick hadn’t texted to brag that he was right and Damian had finally presented as an Alpha, as expected.
There was a betting pool going. Though, did it really count as a pool if they all bet on the same outcome?
How new was this development?
With the scent-blocking patches they wore in uniform, there was no telling. Jason scrambled to remember the last time he was around Damian and not Robin. It … must have been months ago. Possibly not since Dick dragged them all out for pizza one afternoon.
“Not a pup,” Jason agreed.
That seemed to mollify Damian, because he huffed and then fluidly knelt on the floor. It was only then that Jason even noticed what Damian was wearing: a League uniform. To be specific, the League uniform that bore Damian’s Crest, marking him as the Demon Head’s Heir.
Jason hadn’t seen Damian in that outfit since he was with the League himself, before his return to Gotham. He hadn’t even realized Damian was still in possession of such a uniform. Jason was surprised Bruce would allow it in his home: the mark of death and assassins. It was a visual reminder that, despite Bruce’s beliefs, some of his children had stepped over the line.
The person before him wasn’t Damian Wayne. This was Damian al Ghul, the Prince of a Shadow Empire.
Smug-satisfaction radiated off Damian. “An Alpha.”
“An Alpha,” Jason acknowledged.
Damian had two empty sheathes on his back; his swords were on the nearby coffee table. A blood-soaked cleaning cloth was dripping slowly onto the carpet. Well, that explained the iron-blood scent. It was going to be such a hassle to clean later.
Jason eyed the rag and tried to calculate how much blood was there. It might be—
“Tt.”
He snapped his attention back to Damian as a whiff of nervousness fluttered into the air, only to be brutally suppressed by unshakable-confidence.
It was then that Jason realized he might be partially wrong about the source of the metallic-pennies-odor.
On the floor before Damian was a red box. It was roughly a foot in diameter. Jason couldn’t help but wonder if it used to be white and had been dyed by the contents; the stench of blood was overpowering. The box was sealed with red ribbon and a medallion with Damian’s crest: two sabres piercing through the inside of a crown, bearing the words: Veni Vidi Vici.
“What is that?”
Jason knew what it smelled like, but that couldn’t be possible. Damian didn’t kill anymore. Not since he had taken up Batman’s crusade and moral ideals to please his father.
Damian placed his hands with the thumbs touching, side-by-side, palms flat, and pushed the box across the floor to Jason. With his arms fully extended, it couldn’t be called anything but a bow. He even showed Jason the back of his neck by lowering his head, before resuming an upright position, hands flat against his thighs.
Jason was stunned. He had never seen Damian bare his neck to anyone like that, not even his own parents. Not even Ra’s al Ghul. League Princes didn’t abase themselves.
What in the world was going on?
Damian’s fingers twitched, as if he desperately wished to fist them, before stilling and ordering, “Open it.”
Jason almost joked about how he was supposed to get Damian a gift for presenting and not the other way around. Yet, he didn’t say a word. Damian was sitting rigidly straight, his face wiped of all emotion, his scent tightly-muffled. But his eyes were full of pride — intense, satisfied pride.
So Jason didn’t say anything. He merely unraveled the bow, set it and the attached medallion aside, and then lifted the lid off the box.
The Joker’s decapitated head stared back at him.
Its eyes were wide with terrified surprise, but murky with death. Best of all, the carmine grin was missing; the Joker hadn’t died with a smile on his face. Somehow, that felt like the best revenge of all.
With shaking hands — he was safe, he was safe, he was safe, he was safe — Jason put the lid back on the box.
“Why?” Jason asked.
He didn’t want to ask the question, but he had to ask. Because it had been years since Damian last killed someone. And when the Bat Pack found out — and they would; they always did — Damian would have to deal with the censure of Bruce and Dick at the same time.
That did nothing to stop Jason’s heart from racing as he stroked the lid of the box. He wanted to open it again, to ensure this wasn’t all a hallucination.
Was this real? Jason blinked back tears. He would give almost anything for this to be real.
“I submit this offering in exchange for the right to request something from you,” Damian stated matter-of-factly.
“Anything you want is yours.”
The words fell from Jason’s tongue rashly, but he wasn’t going to take them back. He would never recant them. Damian had accomplished what Bruce had failed at. For the first time in years, Jason would go to sleep assured he wouldn’t wake up in the Joker’s hands.
It was a priceless gift Jason never thought he would have unless he gifted it to himself. He never did. Because if he had, it would have destroyed any chance to reconcile with his estranged Pack.
There was something almost tentative to Damian’s confident-scent as he said, “I am sufficiently aware of your value, Jason. I am particularly aware that unworthy fools reach for you, as if they have any right to touch the heavens.”
And suddenly, Jason knew exactly where Damian was going with this. He knew why Damian, a newly presented Alpha, killed the Joker and brought Jason his head. It was shocking, to be sure, given Damian was a League Prince and a blood Wayne. To an Alpha of Damian’s lineage, the opportunities were endless. So it was particularly flattering that Jason had somehow caught his eye.
Unexpected as it was.
“My request is this: do not accept a mate for the next five years. Allow me the opportunity to prove that I am the ideal Alpha, once I come of age.”
“Five years?”
Jason would wait three times that for what Damian had gifted him. No other courting gift by any other Alpha could ever surpass the Joker’s head and the safety that came with it.
It was the end of a nightmare era.
Damian sneered and fisted his hands against his thighs, before instantly flattening them again. Irritation fluctuated in his scent as he said, “If we were still with the League, I would only need to request your benevolence for three years.”
Jason petted the red box that held the Joker’s head and didn’t even need to think about it. It was the easiest decision he had ever made in his life. He picked up the medallion that bore Damian’s crest, strung on ribbon, and tied it around his throat.
It was a blatant declaration of intent.
Damian lost control of his scent; it exploded into the apartment with such a fierce tangle of emotions that it made Jason light-headed. Damian’s hands fisted again, but he didn’t flatten them against his legs this time. Jason didn’t think he could. Because with how Damian smelled, it was probably taking all his self-control not to reach for Jason.
Jason couldn’t allow that.
“Unless it’s a matter of life and death or grave physical harm, you do not touch me for the next five years,” Jason stated adamantly in League Dialect, so Damian would understand exactly how serious he was.
“As you say, Beloved,” Damian vowed, eyes bright and fierce.
Jason stood then, his courting present in his arms, and stared down at the proud Alpha before him: the only one who loved him enough to kill his greatest enemy.
Fives years couldn’t pass quickly enough.
“The minute you’re legal, I want your teeth in my neck. Do you understand, My Prince?”
Damian’s careful posture cracked as he lurched forward, only to stop himself before he touched Jason, eyes wild. “I swear to you, Beloved.”
“I accept your vow, Alpha.”
Damian stood and tilted his head back to look up at Jason. Everything about him, from his body language to his scent, screamed his determination-honesty. Then Damian said, in a tone of voice that was utterly convincing, “I will fulfill it.”
And Jason, who hadn’t trusted an Alpha of Wayne blood since his death, believed him.