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“Leave my omega alone!” the little one shrieked for what had to be the fifth time as the boy hauled Talon across the cave to the medical bed. “I can take care of him myself!”
For his part, Talon hissed at Bruce and curled an arm around his pup, half protectively and half to keep himself from toppling over. The other arm was wrapped around his own stomach.
“I’m not going to hurt you or your omega,” Bruce said, exasperated. “I’m just trying to help him. He’s in heat, and he needs—”
“HE DOESN’T NEED ANYONE, WE DON’T NEED ANYTHING, GO AWAY!” the pup screamed.
“Listen—”
“NO!”
The pup helped Talon up onto the bed, then scrambled up after Talon and draped himself over the omega’s body. Talon whined in distress and quickly pulled the pup down so he could curl around his puppy. He glared at Bruce from over Jason’s head, but there wasn’t much anger behind it, only weary wariness.
Bruce restrained another sigh and fought the urge to snap at a pup, even if the pup had been fighting Bruce every. step. of. the. way. Bruce had been searching for Talon for over a year since the fall of the Court of Owls, and he’d only found him due to the fact that Talon was apparently still human enough to have heats. Not only heats, but maternal instincts as well; he’d claimed himself a street pup who had claimed Talon back just as much.
Bruce met Talon’s eyes and tipped his chin back in deference despite every alpha instinct telling him not to make himself vulnerable.
“Talon. Your pup is hungry and cold,” Bruce said, ignoring the pup’s protests that were muffled by Talon’s hug. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me? I’ll get you and your pup some food.”
Talon hesitated, then curled tighter around the pup with a growl.
Bruce ran his hand down his face. Why did things have to be so complicated? He knew nothing about teenagers or children, and his only experience with omegas was romantic, which was not helpful in his current situations.
Theoretically, he could manhandle Talon up the stairs the same way he’d hauled Talon out of his nest and into the backseat of the Batmobile. The pup had followed before, and he would follow again. If possible, he’d like to avoid that, though. Talon was heavier than he looked, and even with his muscles and awareness weakened by his heat, Talon was a mother as far as he and the pup were concerned, and he had fought his hardest to protect his pup from the perceived danger. The pup had fought too, and the bruises from the combined onslaught already had him aching everywhere. He wasn’t sure he wanted to try that again.
Besides, Talon seemed content to stay curled up in the med bay, and there was no telling what he would do if Bruce dragged him up into the main house and tossed him and his pup in a guest bedroom. Bruce didn’t want to take the risk of Talon running off, either alone or with the pup. Tracking Talon down had been a year-long ordeal, and he’d only managed it by coincidence. He was willing to bet that if they got away, the two of them would take more precautions for Talon’s next heat. He wouldn’t find them again. Talon might survive—he hadn’t done anything too horrible after escaping the Court, but the pup was clearly malnourished and filthy.
With a sigh, Bruce sat down at the Batcomputer and typed how to care for an omega in heat into the search bar. It felt strange, searching for such a mundane thing on one of the world’s most advanced computers, but he needed to know now.
The first two pages were all talking about how to take care of a romantic partner in heat. Bruce adjusted his search to how to care for an omega child in heat.
There were still a worrying number of articles that suggested untoward attention to the young omega, but he found several more helpful articles with fairly simple instructions: give the omega lots of blankets and a quiet place to nest, cuddle them in their nest if they wanted you to, give them a wide berth if they did not want you, provide plenty of food and water, give heating pads or ice packs if necessary, and make sure the omega knew that they were protected.
That was simple enough.
Bruce didn’t think that a heating pad would be wise given Talon’s…mental state. Maybe it was a consequence of his heightened healing, but Talon didn’t seem to be entirely cognizant of things that were dangerous to normal people, such as keeping a starving pup in a bug-infested nest on the rotted out floor of a fifth story apartment in a building set to be demolished if it didn’t collapse onto itself before the crews got around to tearing it down. He didn't trust Talon to be cognizant of the burns that could be caused to either him or his pup if Talon wasn't careful with the heating pad.
An ice pack, blankets, and some packaged food and water would be easy enough to arrange. Talon and the puppy had both been very clear that they didn’t want him too close, so he would observe them from a distance as much as possible.
He called Alfred and spoke quietly, asking Alfred to bring down as many blankets as he could. While Alfred was on his way down, Bruce collected the rest of the materials. Alfred was always trying to get him to eat food during the long hours, sometimes days Bruce spent down in the cave. To Alfred’s dismay, Bruce still forgot to eat anything most the time, but that meant that there were several boxes nearly-full of protein bars and beef jerky packets lying around the cave. Bruce took those, along with a few water bottles, an ice pack, and a bottle of Tylenol, and walked back over to the nesters.
He slowed, but he didn’t stop when Talon’s low growl of warning became a vicious snarl.
“Food for you and your pup,” Bruce said, baring his throat just slightly. “I’m going to put it at the end of the bed, then I’m going to walk away. Understood?”
Talon’s growl deepened, and Bruce prepared to defend himself against an attack, but none came. Bruce laid his offerings at the foot of the bed, then retreated back to the Batcomputer to wait for Alfred.
He watched as the pup wriggled out of Talon’s arms despite Talon’s attempts to stop him. If Talon had been truly intent on confining the pup, he doubted the pup would have succeeded in his escape, but he eventually let the pup go with a small warning growl.
The pup poked around at the things Bruce had left them for a minute or so. He opened a water bottle and passed it to Talon, then opened another one for himself. He did the same with the protein bars.
Talon sipped at his water and nibbled at the proffered food, but he was clearly not happy with his pup for being so far away. He grabbed the pup’s ankle and tried to reel him in.
It was…strange to watch. Their interaction was so…human. Just a pup grumblingly obeying a nesting omega who wanted nothing more than to smother the pup in hugs and scenting. Talon might not be well equipped to keep the pup safe from environmental dangers, but it was clear that he truly did care for the pup.
The ice pack was not appreciated. Talon hissed and threw it so far it skidded over the edge of one of the cliffs and disappeared into the darkness below.
Alfred came down a short time later with a laundry basket overflowing with blankets of every color and kind. Bruce hadn’t even known they owned that many different blankets.
Bruce stood up, meaning to intercept the basket and take it over to Talon himself, but his beta butler caught his eye and shook his head. Bruce was about to march over anyways—Talons could not be defeated with withering glares and freshly made tea—but he realized that Talon, though watching Alfred suspiciously, was not growling at the beta. Alfred stopped right in front of Talon and started laying blankets over Talon. Bruce watched tensely, but Talon seemed only stunned and not hostile.
Talon remained remarkably tolerant, even as Alfred conferred quietly with the pup for a few minutes before finally making his way to Bruce.
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Did he tell you anything?”
“Young Master Jason is concerned that you have…” Alfred hesitated, setting the empty basket on the floor. “…inhospitable intentions for the both of them.”
“I gathered that.” The screaming had been hard to miss. “The little one thinks I’m a pedophile who wants to rape them both and keep them in a dungeon till the end of time. Talon seems to think I want to eat his baby.”
Alfred nodded. “Master Jason also believes you intend to experiment on his omega or kill him outright.”
Bruce frowned. Did Jason think he was part of the Court? Did Jason even know what the Court was, or did he think that Dick was some kind of escaped experiment of Batman’s?
“I assured him that you intend to do nothing of the sort, but I could not tell him what you do intend to do with them other than ensure their general wellbeing.” Alfred gave him a pointed look and raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question.
Bruce glanced away. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“You haven’t.” Alfred wasn’t pleased.
Bruce felt a twinge of annoyance he tried to keep from showing in his expression or scent. His original plan had been to determine how volatile and violent Talon was and whether Bruce needed to hand him over to the authorities for confinement or a private mental institution. Finding a deadly assassin teenager in heat with a street orphan puppy was not a situation he could have reasonably prepared for. Separating them seemed like a recipe for disaster, but he couldn’t very well send the pup to an asylum or Talon into foster care.
“What do you think we should do?”
An expression settled on Alfred’s face, like he had been waiting to be asked that question and already had an answer. Bruce had the sinking feeling that he was not going to like Alfred’s answer.
“Master Bruce, has it escaped your attention that, on the rare occasions you leave this cavern, that you enter a mansion?”
He had been right, he hated Alfred’s answer. “No.”
“No? So you intend to split them up, hm? Do you think that would go well?” Alfred crossed his arms. “You needn’t interact with them often; they may not wish you to at all.”
“I don’t want a Talon around you,” Bruce argued.
Alfred raised an eyebrow and turned to look back at Talon, who was at that moment pressing kisses to the top of the pup’s hair. The pup Talon had apparently found somewhere and decided to keep and care for.
“Jason might have parents,” Bruce protested. “Talon could have kidnapped him from excellent parents who miss him for all we know.”
“His father is in jail and his mother passed a year ago. Master Talon saved him from an alpha who tried to snatch him off the street.”
There went that excuse. Bruce frowned severely. He did not like the idea of an assassin, a potentially volatile one, living in the house. He was gone so often or in the Cave or off world, and what could Alfred do to protect himself? He knew that Alfred had a gun, but he also knew that Alfred wouldn’t shoot a child. Alfred had decent enough skills at hand to hand combat, but he was getting old, and Talon was a young and superhumanly advanced assassin. It would be nearly impossible for Alfred to defend himself non-lethally against Talon.
“I still don’t think it’s safe for you to have—”
Alfred cut him off with a glare. “He’s a child, Master Bruce. An abused child. We are not incapable of reevaluating if need be, but I will be airing out a room for the two young children you brought here against their will. Until and unless one of the children presents a danger to the other, they will be staying here.”
“Or to you.”
Alfred sighed, but a hint of a fond smile touched his lips. “Or to me. I acquiesce.”
Bruce could have cursed himself for falling into the trap. By adding on his term that Alfred’s safety be considered as well, he had tacitly agreed to the demand. Before he could think of any good arguments to convince Alfred of how horrible a plan it was, Alfred had already excused himself to fetch another load of blankets for “our nesting omega pup.”
Bruce sighed and ran a hand down his face. This was still his house. He could kick the pups out, and the worst Alfred could do was quit.
He wasn’t going to risk that.
Besides…a reluctant heaviness to his heart, something between sympathy and guilt, reminded him of what it was like to lose a pack. He knew how it felt to have someone decide that you are no longer allowed to have someone you love. Of course, Bruce wouldn’t be shooting Talon dead in front of Jason, but it would be…it would be horribly cruel to both of them for him to take an orphaned pup away from an omega who’d claimed him and send the pup to a lonely foster home and the omega to an asylum.
Alfred was…right. The plan was still reckless, but he was right in that Talon needed Jason. There would be no recovery otherwise.
Bruce watched Talon sleepily fuss over Jason’s hair. Jason didn’t seem at all frightened by the fact that inhumanly sharp nails that had out the throats of innocent men and women were picking at the mats and knots in his curly hair. If anything, Jason seemed content, leaning in and nuzzling his omega.
In the privacy of his own mind, Bruce could admit that he had been scared of the Talon the first time they met three years ago. He had been a soulless, mindless killing machine with blood up to his elbows and five bodies on the floor around him. If he had to guess, Talon had been maybe twelve at the time.
They’d fought many times, and there had been more than one time that Bruce had come close to losing. When the Court had finally collapsed and its senior members had been arrested, Bruce had immediately tried to find Talon. The more research he had done, the more apparent it had become that Talon wasn’t a pure evil, black-souled monster, but a dangerous shade of victim. He didn’t know who Talon had been before the change, but he had been someone. The only personal information Bruce had been able to uncover was that Talon’s pack was dead.
Talon had disappeared into the night, though, and Bruce had never found him. Once, the police had found a body they thought might have been the Talon’s handiwork, but that line of inquiry had eventually gone nowhere.
Now here Talon was, the picture of a doting omega mother. If Bruce didn’t know Talon the way he did—rather, the way Talon had been—Bruce would never have thought anything of their strange little pack.
Maybe Talon, free of the Court’s threats and influence, truly was the kind, gentle omega he seemed to be. Or perhaps Talon was still a dangerous killer, just waiting for the moment to strike.
Well, apparently, he would have a front row seat and plenty of time to find out.
Lucky him.