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No one had thought Jason would end up being an omega, least of all him.
As a young child, he had been so scrappy and territorial. Willis and Catherine had been certain he’d present as an alpha. Willis used to go around bragging about it, though Catherine would chide him for making such claims before anything had been proven.
They never found out if they were right or not, with both of them ending up dead long before Jason’s presentation.
It had been clear from the start that Bruce wanted Jason to be an alpha. He treated him like he already was one. Like it was only a matter of time until Jason’s first rut hit. He taught him to keep control of his emotions. He taught him to be gentle, even when he was angry. He taught him to control his scent and rein in his instincts.
When Jason presented as an omega, neither he nor Bruce seemed to know how to react. When Bruce came into Jason’s room and realised his scent had changed, he had simply stared. Jason waited for him to do something - to say something - and Bruce didn’t. He simply shut the door and left.
Jason’s safety was never in doubt at the manor but things were never quite the same after that. Bruce had wanted another alpha pup, and Jason wasn’t one. Jason wanted a pack, and Bruce could never really be that for him.
Jason ran away a month later, sure that he’d find the love and acceptance he was looking for in the arms of Sheila Haywood.
Instead, he met a grisly death at the end of a crowbar, dying with laughter in his ears.
At first there was nothing. The simple peace that came with death and a silence that could have continued forever.
Then, death was overwritten. There was wood and dirt and pain.
After that, there was nothing again. For some time.
Then, a burst of green ripped through the quiet.
And Jason was alive again.
The Lazarus Pit changed people. Talia had tried to explain it to him, but Jason had been too delirious to really understand the words she was saying.
The Lazarus Pit healed the sick and injured. It healed his fractured mind and damaged body.
It changed more than that, though.
No one truly knew how the Lazarus Pits were created, but they seemed to abide by very specific guidelines. There was a specific sort of person the Pit was designed for, and if someone didn’t fit those criteria, they would be changed until they did.
Which was how Jason emerged from the Pit almost a foot taller.
Which was how Jason emerged from the Pit dense with muscle.
Which was how Jason emerged from the Pit as an alpha.
Jason never wanted to be an alpha. He didn’t have a choice, though.
He’d never had a choice, once in his life.
Being an alpha made certain things easier, though. It made his time at the League easier for one, with fewer people willing to pick a fight with an alpha like him, especially now that he had Talia’s protection.
Sometimes, he wondered if Talia had her designation changed by the Pit. If she had, she’d remoulded herself around her new designation so perfectly that you could hardly see any hints that she might have been an omega. She was good at pretending.
She taught Jason to pretend too. He learned how to hold himself like an alpha. He learned how to snarl and growl like one. He learned how to shift his scent into something smooth and powerful.
The one thing she could not teach him was control. He had to learn that himself.
It wasn’t easy. Jason didn’t want to reign himself in. He was angry and he didn’t care who he had to hurt to get his revenge.
Talia eventually let him go. Though Jason hated to admit it, he saw the look of disappointment in her eyes. Her own protege, unwilling to let himself learn control.
It must have hurt.
Jason decided he didn’t care.
The Red Hood was the single most destructive newly-emerging criminal Gotham had seen in several years. Though he didn’t cause as much damage as Batman’s costumed rogues were capable of, his body count had already hit dozens, despite him only being active for a few short months.
Bruce leaned back in his chair, contemplating what he did know about Red Hood.
He was young, that much was clear. Though he had the height and weight of a mature adult, his scent was not as developed as it should have been, given his size and supposed age. If Bruce had to guess, Red Hood had most likely not left his teens. The thought was a little worrying. Criminals kept getting younger…
The Red Hood was also an alpha. That was not surprising either. Though there were a few betas involved in organised crime - mostly male betas - the vast majority were male or female alphas. Bruce could have counted the number of omegas involved in such things on one hand, and even then he wouldn’t have needed to use every finger.
What did surprise Bruce, however, was how immature the Red Hood seemed to be. When alphas first presented, there tended to be a period of time where they lacked control of their own instincts. Bruce could remember his own presentation well. He’d locked Alfred in his bedroom and refused to let him leave for an entire twenty-four hours. Most alphas had similar stories of their instinct to protect driving them to act irrationally. Even Dick and Tim went through something similar.
Jason, though…
… it was best to not think about his presentation. Bruce had too many regrets to bear ruminating on them.
In any case, Red Hood’s behaviour seemed to indicate that he had presented as an alpha somewhat recently. The feral, single-minded way that he protected his territory most certainly reminded Bruce of his own behaviour as a freshly presented pup.
That was where the issue emerged, however.
Pups grew out of such behaviour as they matured, with most immature protective behaviours dwindling within a year or so after presentation. Unless the Red Hood was somehow even younger than Bruce expected - extremely unlikely, given that would place him at around fourteen to sixteen years old - it seemed likely that the Red Hood had changed his designation somehow.
It was possible to change an individual’s designation, but it was extremely expensive, hard to do and heavily regulated in most countries, mostly due to the high fatality rate. However, it was certainly possible to circumvent those regulations, and many did.
Talia had once told him the Lazarus Pit could change designations. He hadn’t believed her at the time. Now, he was beginning to think anything could be possible.
Bruce turned back to the Batcomputer. He didn’t have time to waste. He had to find the Red Hood, and fast, before any more carnage was caused.
Jason’s blood burned with a righteous rage.
The city was awash with the blood of innocents. No one seemed to care. No one loved this city but him.
His pack was screaming out for him to save them. How could he refuse?
One more body, and the screaming would stop.
One more body.
One more.
When would it end? When would it be enough? When would he be able to stop?
Kicking down the door to an apartment in central Gotham, Jason shot a man dead using only two bullets. One to the chest and one to the skull. The man was involved in human trafficking. He was scum. Jason was glad to have put him down.
Then, he heard a tiny wail, and the scent in the apartment turned sour.
There was a pup hiding in the bathroom. Too small to reach the sliding lock on the bathroom door. Maybe four or five?
That pup looked up at him with so much abject terror in her eyes, it made Jason freeze.
It made him freeze.
It made him leave the apartment.
For the first time since his revival, the righteous rage gave way to panic.