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Dick drifted into half consciousness as his vision swayed and his arms jerked by his side, swinging wildly. Throat hoarse, he gasped, a low, stuttering noise. Heat prickled his skin, burning. His body was warm- dangerously warm. A low voice ordered, “ Relax .” Dick faded back into unconsciousness.
He woke up for a second time. Something poked his bottom lip.
“Drink.”
He sucked lightly at the straw, sweet, room temperature liquid overwhelming his tastebuds as pain shot through him. He whined in discomfort, raising a hand to defend himself.
“Just have to bandage these,” says the voice. Dick drags his gaze up, feeling as though he was swimming through molasses. White hair, eyepatch.
Deathstroke, Dick tries to say. No sound comes out. A hand rests on his forehead, soft and careful - featherlight. Dick falls back into the darkness and the warmth, stilling at the gentle touch.
Dick wakes like he always does: instantly, and without any indication. Keeping his breathing even and eyes closed, he listens. On a bed: sore, aching. Pillows and blankets: a nest, not his own. By his bedside: a presence, sitting still. Silence: a minute, another one. No use avoiding it. He opens his eyes.
Slade Wilson stares back at him.
“I didn’t know the Bat taught scent suppression.”
Dick huffs at him.
“He didn’t need to.”
Bruce hadn’t wanted to teach him at all. Why would he, when the damages to the body were so extensive? Dick had learnt it regardless.
Slade’s expression doesn’t change despite the easy smile Dick has on. No surprise there. If anything, the lines around his mouth became deeper, eye narrowing further. “You were in heat,” he says. “I didn’t smell anything.”
“I had scent patches on.”
“3 days. Not a single smell. I thought you were feverish when I extracted you, not in heat. ”
“Maybe you got temporary anosmia.”
Impossibly, Slade’s expression becomes more severe. “Can you even scent people anymore?”
Something like ice forms in Dick’s chest. His smile turns brittle, but he keeps it plastered on all the same. “Can you even talk to your kids anymore?”
Silence. Time for self-extraction, Dick supposes. “Thanks for the assist,” he says, removing the blankets off him in one, sharp movement. Something deep inside of him resists desperately, don’t leave the nest, don’t leave safety, stay, rest, recover.
His legs swing over the edge of the bed; he’s wearing an oversized pair of pants and shirt. Keep going, he tells himself in direct contradiction to easily ignored long buried instincts.
Deathstroke doesn’t call him back.
Here’s the thing: Scent patches work for 24 hours before they need to be changed. Medically, it’s not encouraged to wear them for the full 24 hours due to potential swelling and irritation of the glands. It was even more so in cycles, where overproduction of hormones rebelled more fiercely against the restriction.
Here’s the thing: At 13 years old, Robin had been kidnapped by goons. 3 days and 2 hours. He knew the statistics. His best chance of surviving unscathed was to get out as soon as possible and not reveal his secondary gender under any circumstances.
Here’s the thing: Bruce Wayne, Batman, the pinnacle of self control and discipline. Of course he learnt scent suppression, a phenomenon only observed in victims of human trafficking and abuse. It was necessary. Robin had learnt through mimicry.
Nightwing slips through his window and into his apartment. His nest took up half the room to overcompensate for his lack of scent. A note on the door: Replaced my shirt <3 from Donna. She didn’t mention the lack Dick’s of scent - she couldn’t tell with a different biology.
He slipped into the shower, cranking the temperature up as high as possible. It would be a drain on his bills, but the reprieve it allowed him almost made it worth it. Reaching for his scentless shampoo, a whine unwittingly ripped free of his chest. His movements stuttered. He considered. Stepped out gingerly. Picked the lock.
Sandalwood scented shampoo, the bottle was hidden deep in the locked cabinet. He faltered, hand frozen in the air. He’d bought this up on himself, Dick reminds himself. Too late to regret anything.
He closes the cabinet, turns around, pauses. It’ll go away with one use of scent removing wash, he tries to justify. The guilt overwhelms him anyway as he takes the shampoo.
He takes the body wash too.
Slipping into his nest, he dragged Tim’s jumper nearby. He could almost, almost fool himself into believing the sandalwood was his. Something hard lodged itself in his throat, a whine building, a call for familiarity.
Dick went to sleep.
Tim had been rescued after 2 hours of waterboarding. He had stayed in bed for a while after that, all of them fretting to ensure he recovered with no medical complications. In his mentally discombobulated haze, he had reached out for pack.
“Dick ,” he had gasped. “ Dick, please .” His plea had been bitten off in a pained whine, curling into himself, miserable. Dick had tried. Had lathered on the body wash and crawled into bed next to Tim. The beta had went ballistic, thrashing. He couldn’t handle the perceived rejection.
Sandalwood and vanilla. Citrus notes from his parents. He didn’t remember what he smelt like. Afterwards, Dick had found Tim in his old room, face buried in Dick’s old bedsheets.
They didn’t mention it. Dick could tell Tim wanted to, wanted to apologise. But in that moment when Dick had witnessed Tim sobbing and hurting himself for pack, DIck had wanted, more than anything, for his scent to come back.
7PM. Slade silently slid open the window. Instantly, Nightwing was up, escrima sticks sparking. Slade noted the distinct lack of any identifiable scent he could associate with Grayson in his nest.
“Deathstroke,” Grayson said levelly. Slade ignored him and bent down to observe the nearest part of the nest. The nest took up nearly half the room, with an abundance of blankets and articles of clothing. It wasn’t anything he’d have expected from Grayson, who was so repressed he seemed like he didn't know how to nest.
Something uncomfortably like concern crept onto Slade.
“Troia, was it?” He held up a jumper. Grayson huffed. No omega would like an uninvited alpha so close to their nest, nevermind casually picking it apart without permission. Concerningly, Grayson seemed more annoyed than panicked.
“What do you want? Another contract?”
Slade hummed. He took note of the way Grayson barely reacted to the edges of the growl he let creep into his voice. Heavily disconnected from his body, then.
Slade stood up and made his way across the room, taking care not to step on stray articles of clothing. It was a shabby apartment. He opened the door and could see the kitchen. Grayson followed him, movements silent and sat down on a stool a good distance from Slade, where he could observe him.
Slade’s movements were slow and unhurried, and he navigated Dick’s kitchen perfectly. Dick pursed his lips in displeasure and eyed him with a vague feeling of incredulity. Deathstroke was making food in his kitchen. The smell of eggs - the only thing Dick had in his kitchen - quickly overwhelmed the kitchen, and a plate was soon placed in front of Dick. His stomach rumbled.
“I didn’t know Deathstroke liked breaking into people’s houses to cook them eggs.” He didn’t move.
“I didn’t know the great Nightwing was scentless” Straight for the throat, then. Dick’s eyes narrowed. “Would have thought daddy Bats didn’t-” Only one action available. He lunged.
Electricity sparking, he tried to beat Deathstroke into a pulp. In such a narrow space, he couldn’t perform his usual acrobatics. It was a foolish endeavour, he knew as soon as he did so. But he was fresh off his heat, and feeling off kilter.
Humiliatingly, Deathstroke had him pinned in less than a minute. Dick snarled, showing his teeth as he furiously kicked at Slade’s ribs. Slade grunted. He shifted to kneel on Dick’s legs and restrained his arms.
“ Heel,” Slade snarled. Dick shook off the command with ease and started biting him.
Thud. Dick’s head hit against the floor. Disorientated, he kept thrashing. Deathstroke turned him around, scruffed him. Dick froze for a split second, but that was all Slade needed to arrange him into a proper pin. Dick tried struggling to get out. No use.
“Done?”
“Fuck. You,” Dick snapped out, huffing. He was in better condition than he usually was after his heats, but the turmoil it took on him was still significant.
Slade sighed above him. He leaned down. Dick panicked. His mouth was so close to his unprotected glands.
“Get off get off get off,” he couldn’t - if Slade bit him, Dick would -
“ Relax,” Slade said, and lifted his face away, moving to the other side of Dick’s neck. Dick stilled. Took note of himself.
Deathstroke was scenting him. Gunpowder and spice and something artificial. The serum’s influence, probably.
The gentle scenting left him unmoored. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let someone scent him. Perhaps he was dreaming. At Dick’s perceived pliancy, Deathstroke got off him gingerly and carried him back to his nest. The eggs materialised next to them, and Slade had a fork in hand.
Dick ate. The eggs were cold, but it tasted heavenly to Dick, whose body was screaming at him for any kind of sustenance. Somehow, Slade had taken off his shirt while Dick ate his eggs. Slade radiated warmth like a heater, super soldier serum leaving him in a permanent state of the best possible physical state he could be.
“What?” Dick’s voice came out small and unsure. He winced and swallowed. “What are you doing?” He asked more steadily. Slade arranged Dick to his liking, and Dick lay against Slade’s chest, bare skin touching.
It was too warm, too comfortable. The security made him antsy. Where was the catch?
“Just go to sleep, kid.” Slade moved Dick’s face to where his scent glands were, where his scent was the strongest. The sheer concentration of the scent unspooled something deep inside Dick, cracking his chest open and revealing his defective insides.
That’s Deathstroke, he hisses to himself, chest hurting.
That’s safety , his instincts purr back at him, you’re safe.
It felt too good to be true.
“Fuck you,” he says, gathering last vestiges of pride to make his reluctance known. A low laugh sounds out, rumbling in Slade’s chest.
Just as he was about to lift his head and - fight, or something, A hand covers the top of his head, clever fingers scratching his scalp lightly. Dick went limp.
Just for tonight, he thinks.