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Dick flew between buildings and frantically searched for any flash of red. Gotham city was dark even as dawn was beginning to lighten on the horizon.
Dick was really beginning to understand why Bruce painted all their wings bright colours when they first started going out as Robin.
“Nightwing,” Bruce’s voice came in through the comms. He fluttered his wings and landed on a nearby fire escape. He pulled his wings in tight and ignored the slightly scratchy feeling of his Nightwing paint in his feathers.
“Yeah, B. I’m here,” he said, putting a finger up to the comm. “And before you ask, no, I haven’t seen any sign of him.”
Bruce growled and Dick knew him well enough to hear the anxiety in his voice. Dick heard the heavy whoosh of his wings and knew he had to be taking off from whatever had become his perch. Bruce wasn’t the most silent flyer and when he became anxious he got even louder.
“Keep searching,” he commanded, which would usually annoy Dick but he couldn’t blame his father right now. “I want him home tonight.”
Dick did too. He desperately did.
Poison Ivy was usually one of his favourite Rogues. She was more like a taciturn aunt than an actual villain to them and most of the time she would rather invite them over for gardening sessions than fight them. Tonight, though, she had been angry. More pissed off than Dick thinks he’d ever seen her, and she was in the mood to test new pollens.
Most pollens were pretty harmless. They tended to be different variants of cuddle pollens, ones that made him desperate to snuggle into a flockmate and spend hours preening through feathers.
Normally, he actually enjoyed the pollen’s effects and savoured the long nesting sessions that occurred because of them.
But this variant had a rather different effect, one that sent omegas into a sudden heat and left them vulnerable without their flock.
Dick landed on another roof, surveying the area and coming up with nothing.
He knew that Tim couldn’t be far.
The chick had gotten hit with pollen and then flown off before they realised the true effects of it.
Now he was vulnerable, probably disoriented, and alone in one of the worst parts of the city while being in heat.
Dick knew what happened to omegas when they went into heat alone.
Jason would tear him a new one if he found out and honestly Dick couldn’t blame him. He wanted to punish himself for not getting Tim to safety fast enough.
Dick growled to himself and landed on the ground, hoping that the new lower position would give him some more clues. Flying around wasn’t helping, but maybe searching the ground would.
He sniffed and tried to track down Tim while also leaving protective alpha scent to let anyone know that there was a furious flockmate in the area that would fight if needed. Hopefully, it could act as both a warning to strangers and a sign for Tim in case he stumbled across it.
Dick methodically went through the alleys where he thought Tim was most likely to be until suddenly he found his clue.
It was just a whisper of Tim’s heat scent. Sour fear was mixed into the normally relaxing vanilla, coffee, and slight honeysuckle.
Dick instantly hated it but followed the faint trail. Tim had obviously either tried to cover it up or to suppress the scent, but Dick could still pick it up. He knew an alpha would definitely be able to pick it up too.
He went faster, trying desperately to find where— no.
Dick stopped when the scent trail stopped, coming to an abrupt halt. He stood and looked around in confusion, pacing the width of the alleyway.
Had Tim flown? But if he was going into heat it would be hard for him to fly? He wouldn’t make it far, so he probably wouldn’t take the risk of being forced to make a crash landing.
Dick returned back to where Tim’s scent was and looked around trying to find where he could have gone.
It took him about ten minutes to find what Tim must have disappeared into.
A window, boarded up except for a hole that someone could fit through if they pressed their wings flat against their back.
Tim would have a hard time flying, but he probably could make a jump up to a third-story window.
Dick smiled to himself.
His brother was quite the clever bird.
Dick opened his wings and jumped into the air.
He pumped his wings hard to position himself near the window but was eventually forced to go to the adjacent roof. He had the nimble wings of a kingfisher, but even with their increased flexibility, he couldn’t quite hover.
He could swoop like nobody’s business.
He braced himself on the edge of the roof, balancing and judging the distance. The hole would be tight, but Dick has done tighter. He braced, pulled his wings forward, and then fell into the air.
The timing was critical. He glided with his wings partially open until he was almost an arm's length from the hole. Then, he pulled his wings in as tight as they could go and let gravity do the work.
He brushed through the hole, feathers scraping against wood, and once his wings were through he immediately whipped them out to soften the landing.
His wings strained to paddle backward and bring him up, but it was a familiar move and one Dick had done since his circus days. It only took him a second to find his footing and nimbly rise into a stand.
The moment he did so, the growling started.
He froze as an absolutely vicious sound echoed through the abandoned apartment. One that promised pain and evisceration if Dick dared to get any closer.
It was enough to make a shiver go up his spine even though he recognised it.
Tim was a very clever bird.
“Jason?” He called, putting a slight warble into his brother’s name. The growling didn’t stop, if anything it increased and got deeper.
“We’re here!” Came another familiar voice.
Even though his instincts screamed not to come closer to the angry omega, Dick padded forward and silently found the door into where his brothers were holed up.
It was open and pungent with heat scent and protective omega. Jason did a good job at layering it on, any other alpha would be wary to approach an angry omega scent this strong. They wouldn’t dare come this close to an omega that seemed more than willing to rip their throats out with his teeth.
Something in Dick relaxed when he finally saw his little brother, safe and sound, and curled up with their flock omega.
He was sitting up, his head poking through Jason’s long flight feathers and blinking owlishly at Dick.
“Hey you found us,” he said with a smile. His cheeks flushed with heat but not as bad as they possibly could be; obviously the presence of his omega was helping him through it.
The fear was completely gone from his scent and replaced with happiness, especially as another flockmate came to help him.
Jason, though, was apparently less enthused with this development.
He snarled, and roughly shifted his wing to hide Tim completely away from view and tuck him into his side.
Tim yelped as he was shoved under Jason’s wide wing and made an angry whine of protest.
“Relax, Jay,” he huffed, and Dick heard Tim’s wings flapping in annoyance. “It’s just Dickie.”
Jason stared at Dick, no recognition in his eyes.
“No it’s not,” he hissed and the feathers on his wings puffed out to make himself look bigger. “It’s an alpha.”
Dick tilted his head. He wasn’t an alpha. He was a beta. Jason knew that.
And yet, here Jason was snarling as if Dick was a stranger.
It took him a minute to realise what was happening.
Jason’s own heat scent was beginning to sneak in and Jason had always been very, very protective of his heat and bit at any sign of an alpha when he was this fresh into it. He had to be from living on the streets where a vulnerable heat could mean rape.
Dick was a beta, but Nightwing was an alpha.
Or at least he smelled like one.
All betas had the ability to manipulate their scents. They could be as sharp as alpha scent or as sweet as an omega. With a good amount of training, they could copy the nuances of individual scents and the various stages those scents could go through.
He could be an omega two weeks away from heat, an alpha content with his flock, a chick lonely from abandonment. He could be Jason’s chick scent, lost to age but preserved in Dick. He could be a prediction of what Damian would smell like in the future.
Right now, he was a furious alpha, which was good for warning any other alphas that might be too curious about Tim’s heat scent, but bad for a wary and protective omega that wanted to protect that chick.
That was fine, though. Dick could fix that and he knew exactly the scent that would make Jason into putty in the palm of his hand.
Dick rolled his wings and closed off all the alpha in his scent, bringing forth all the omega he had.
It was a copy of his mother’s scent - warm jasmine, patchouli, and the slight undercurrent of freshly made popcorn. The same one Dick had fallen asleep to almost every night in his young life and the one he had worn for a year when he first arrived at the Manor.
He had worn it so consistently and so convincingly that Bruce had actually thought he was a newly presented omega when he first took Dick into the flock.
It was Mary Grayson, Dick’s mother and omega, and it was also the scent Dick had used to calm Jason down when he was still a chick.
Dick put on the scent like a well-worn coat and gracefully dipped his wings in a way that was all omega.
“Jason,” he cooed, a purr in the sound. “There’s no alpha here. Only your omega.”
Jason blinked, his nose twitching. Dick could see the confusion crinkling between his eyebrows, but slowly his feathers smoothed out. His wings got softer and less tense and he allowed Tim to poke his head out from under a wing.
“Omega?” He whispered, finally putting away his defenses.
Dick made a hearty purr and padded forward, wings still mantled and soft.
“Yes, Jaybird,” he murmured, coming to the edge of the messy nest Jason had made in a haste. He waited just outside of it, unwilling to come into a nest without permission even if Jason was beginning to register him as his omega.
“Can I come in?”
Jason hesitated and then slowly offered out a wing, which Dick gleefully hooked his own around. Their primary feathers twined together - blue and gold interlacing with red and brown. Dick was drawn into the nest and willingly tucked Jason up against him.
It was harder now that Jason was physically bigger than him (which should be a crime considering he was named ‘ Little Wing’), but Dick was stubborn.
He wrapped his wings around Jason’s body, pulling him into a wing hug, which he also turned into an arm hug by putting his arms around Jason’s neck.
“There’s my good chick,” he purred, petting a hand through Jason’s hair. “So good, protecting baby bird and making sure nothing bad happens.”
Jason warbled, sound so young that it made Dick’s heart squeeze. God, he had missed this. Why hadn’t he put on an omega scent and cuddled with Jason sooner?
“Woah,” Tim piped up from next to them and squirmed himself under Dick’s wing and into the hug. “How did you do that?”
“It’s my mother’s scent,” Dick murmured, petting through Jason’s bright red coverts and drawing a raspy purr from his throat. “I always relaxed me, and I’ve been using it to relax Jason since he was little too.”
Tim nuzzled into the crook of Dick’s wing, mingling their scent together just like any chick with an omega would do. He had seen Tim do it with Jason before but had never received the action himself.
“Smells good,” Tim commented eloquently before settling between him and Jason and purring quietly.
Dick really cursed past-Dick.
Why hadn’t he done this sooner? This was adorable.
“ Nightwing? ” Bruce’s voice crackled in Dick’s ear and the poor man sounded absolutely frantic.
Shit, he had forgotten to update Bruce on his find.
“Hey B,” Dick said to his flock alpha. “It’s okay. I found him. We’re with Jason. I think it’s one of his safehouses? It’s between Waters St and—”
Before Dick could finish the address the comm was ripped out of his ear and Jason smashed it into the ground. It shattered with a crack and spread little black pieces across the floor. The omega growled at the broken remnants of the tech and gave it a victorious hiss.
“No alpha,” he said, tossing the pieces out of the nest.
“He did that with my comm too,” Tim explained with an annoyed huff. “And my phone. And my emergency beacon.”
“No alpha,” Jason repeated with a growl, spreading out his large lammergeier wings and shielding the two other birds.
“God, you’re such a mother hen when you’re in heat,” Dick quipped, sitting up to relax Jason back down. The vulture resisted some of the manhandling, but eventually let Dick physically pull his wings back in.
Jason was a very protective omega but even the most stubborn of chicks relaxed into mother-omega scent.
“No alpha,” Jason growled out again and Dick rolled his eyes.
“Little Wing, I don’t think you have a choice on that. Smashing all the comms is going to do the exact opposite of calm Bruce down. He’s probably tearing apart Waters Street as we speak.”
Jason, ever so verbose, just grunted in an extremely Bruce-like way.
Dick’s feather puffed in exasperation. “You should give me your phone so we can tell Bruce where we are and possibly save him from a heart attack.”
Jason ignored him. He put his back completely to Dick, hunched his wings up and began preening Tim like Dick hadn’t spoken at all.
Such a drama king.
Dick made an annoyed little warble in the back of his throat that was supposed to get Jason’s attention, but the bird kept ignoring him.
And Tim, the little shit, laughed.
“Jason,” Dick said. “ Jason .”
“Quiet,” he huffed, finding more words. “Being loud is bad for the baby bird.”
“Oh, now you can speak.”
He grunted again and focused on fingering through Tim’s flight feathers like they were the most important things in the world.
“Fine. I guess we’re preening now.” Dick reached forward to pet Jason's wings. His younger brother gave a pleased little shudder and pressed the limb into Dick’s hands.
“But don’t go all growling and snarling at Bruce when he comes in. You’ve brought this on yourself.”
Jason made a wordless happy purr.
Dick sighed and gave in to the urge to preen through Jason’s feathers. The lammergeier’s thick feathers were soft and adequately oiled under Dick’s hands. It showed Jason’s wings were well-loved his feathers were constantly preened in his flock. They were a far cry from the wings Jason had when he first came back from the League.
His wings had been ragged and obviously uncared for, but now they practically shined with all the care his flock had lavished into them. They really didn’t need to be preened, but Dick took the opportunity to card through them anyways.
That was until his cell phone rang and Jason reacted quicker than Dick could, throwing it against a wall and shattering it completely.
Dick stared but eventually wordlessly went back to his task.
There was no way this wasn’t going to end up with Bruce getting bitten.