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Dick has this dream more often than he will ever admit out loud. It comes quietly, without warning, slipping into him like a memory he never lived but somehow recognizes anyway. There is always a weight first, before sight, before sound, before thought, there is weight. A weight in his arms. Solid, but small. Warm in a way that seeps through skin and bone and settles somewhere deep in his chest. Omega warm.
It is the kind of warmth that feels alive (even though its owner is not, will never be).
Soft, too. Softer than anything Dick has ever held in waking life. There is a scent, there is always a scent. Baby powder and caramel, sweet in a way that almost aches, layered with something sharper underneath. Medicinal. Bitter. The kind of smell that clings to the back of the throat. It takes him a long time, in the waking world, to understand what it is, that his dreaming mind conjures. And when he does, it feels like betrayal.
Because it smells like Jason’s mother.
It smells like the things that killed her.
Why would Dick imagine that his pup brother would smell like drugs?
And still—still—Dick burrows closer into it.
In the dream, he never hesitates.
He tightens his arms, instinctive, protective, like this is something he has done a thousand times before, like this is something he was meant to do. He presses his face into soft hair and breathes in deep, deeper, like he is afraid the air might run out. Like he needs to memorize it. Like he is already grieving when he does not know quite yet what this dream is.
And then he opens his eyes.
Jason is there.
Small. Whole. Alive.
His baby brother, his perfect omega brother, curled against him like he belongs there, like that space in Dick’s arms was carved out just for him. Jason makes a soft sound, something between a sigh and a hum, and then he presses closer, nuzzling in, seeking, trusting. There is a smile on his face. Not sharp. Not guarded. Not the brittle thing Dick remembers from too-late days when Jason had tried, tried to hard to get Dick to talk to him, to acknowledge him and all Dick did was snarl.
Soft.
Safe.
Jason purrs.
It’s quiet at first, barely there. But Dick feels it, vibrating through his chest where Jason is pressed against him, steady and warm and real in a way that hurts even inside the dream. It fills the silence, fills Dick, wraps around his ribs, and squeezes his heart.
And that’s when he knows.
He is dreaming.
Because in real life, Dick never held him like this.
In real life, Dick kept his distance. He kept himself away from the boy who wore his colors. He told himself it was better that way. Easier. Safer. He told himself a lot of things.
In real life, Dick didn’t come home until it was too late. He had seen the phone ringing and walked away, said that he would call Jason back later and talk to him then, figure this out. He had thought that he had time, that they had time.
Until the voicemail and Jason's voice saying call me, please.
Until the silence after it. Why would he need me? He has Bruce. He can take care of himself the way I did.
Until the cave felt wrong in a way he couldn’t name, like something vital had been ripped out and the world hadn’t noticed yet.
Until he saw him.
Jason laid out on a cot like something broken and discarded. Too still. Too quiet. His face—God—his face—
Dick never lets himself think about it too clearly when he’s awake. But the dream knows. The dream remembers. The dream holds every detail like a blade pressed gently against his throat.
And Bruce—
Bruce was making a sound Dick had never heard before and has never forgotten since. Not human. Not entirely. A keening, shattered thing dragged out of somewhere deep and ancient, something instinctual and raw and ruined. The sound of an alpha who has lost his child. The sound of grief, of family bonds shattering except they had never really formed in the first place. Jason had tried so hard and Dick had never, Dick had never even scented him, Dick would never be able to scent his baby brother and God, Dick could see brain matter.
Dick had fallen to his knees.
He hadn’t even realized he was moving until the ground hit him.
He had stared.
He had stared and stared and stared, like if he looked long enough, hard enough, something might undo itself. Like time might rewind out of mercy. Like Jason might breathe.
He didn’t.
He never did.
But in the dream—
In the dream, Jason is alive.
In the dream, Dick gets to hold him.
Sometimes, that’s all it is. Just that. Quiet. Warmth. The steady rhythm of Jason’s breathing, the soft rumble of his purr, the way he scents Dick without thinking, gentle, instinctive, claiming in the softest possible way. Dick never let Jason scent him when he was alive. It is peace. It is everything Dick didn’t know he had already lost.
And those are the worst dreams.
Because Dick wants to stay.
God, he wants to stay.
He wants to sink into it, disappear into it, let it swallow him whole until there is nothing left of the waking world. No blood. No voicemail. No regret carved into his bones so deep he thinks it might be what’s holding him together.
He wants this to be real.
He wants Jason to be real.
But the dream never lets him keep it.
It always turns.
It always turns.
Jason shifts in his arms, just slightly. The purring doesn’t stop. The warmth doesn’t fade. The scent stays the same, sweet, calm, safe.
But his voice—
“Why didn’t you save me?”
It’s quiet.
Dick freezes.
He can’t move. He never can, not when it changes. Not when Jason tilts his head just enough to look at him, eyes too knowing, too old, too aware.
“Do you know how badly it hurt?”
The purr continues.
That’s what makes it unbearable.
Because Jason still smells like peace. Like trust. Like love that was never given the chance to grow into something bigger. His scent says everything is okay.
His words do not.
“Why couldn’t you save me?”
Dick tries to speak. He tries to move. He tries to do anything, anything, but his body betrays him. He is trapped in it, locked into place, forced to feel every second of it.
Jason’s voice softens.
And then it sharpens.
And then it breaks.
“He beat me with a crowbar, Dick.”
The words are vivid. Too vivid. They paint pictures Dick doesn’t want but cannot escape. He saw the autopsy, saw the aftermath and somehow Jason had survived that, had gotten to his feet and almost escaped and gotten blown apart and how scared the omega must have been, how alone and cold.
“And then he sank that knife into my cheek—”
Jason’s fingers curl slightly into Dick’s shirt, like he’s holding on.
“—and carved a smile and laughed and laughed and laughed.”
The purring never stops.The purring never stops.
“Do you know how badly that hurt?”
Dick is crying now. Helplessly. Soundlessly at first, and then not.
“Do you? You could have saved me if you picked up your phone. You watched it ring and walked away. How could you do that?”
There is no answer he can give.
There never will be.
So he lies there, trapped in a dream that won’t let him wake and won’t let him stay, holding a brother he never held in life while being forced to listen to the death he never stopped.
And eventually—
Eventually—
He wakes up.
The warmth is gone.
The weight is gone.
But the ache,
The ache stays.
It settles into his limbs like wet concrete, heavy and suffocating, dragging him down until even breathing feels like effort. Getting out of bed is a fight. Every step is a fight. Existing is a fight.
Downstairs, life goes on.
They do not know yet that Dick has dreamed.
Tim is in the kitchen, already halfway through his first cup of coffee, probably of the hour cause there is no way that that is his first cup of the day. Damian is scowling at him, sharp and indignant, complaining about how much he drinks back at the League we don't rely on caffeine, Timothy. You should be ashamed of yourself, you addicted disgrace. Cass is quiet but present, watching everything with those knowing eyes. Duke laughs at something Steph says, and Steph is already reaching for another pancake before she’s finished the one on her plate.
Alfred moves between them all with practiced ease, making more as quickly as they can disappear.
And Bruce—
Bruce sits at the table, watching them.
There is a softness in his expression that only exists here, in these moments. Something gentle. Something fragile. Something hard-won.
This is their family.
This is what they built out of loss.
They lost Jason and they chose to put family first, even above Gotham.
Dick stands in the doorway for a moment too long.
Because all he can think is—
Jason should be here.
Jason should be sitting at that table, stealing food off someone else’s plate, grinning as he got away with something, because no one would be able to be mad at the pack omega. Jason should be arguing with Damian, should be teasing Tim, should be leaning into Cass, should be known.
They should know him.
They should carry his scent.
They don’t.
They never will.
None of them carry his scent. Not really. Not the way Dick does. Not the way Bruce does. Tim has the tiniest edge that is mainly hero worship, mainly Tim, not Jason, not really. Just the faintest trace, lingering ghosts of something that once was and will never be again.
They will never know how sweet Jason was beneath the sharp edges.
They will never know how he might have laughed if he’d been given the chance.
They will never help him through a heat, never steady him, never be steadied by him.
They will never get to love him, him, not the pictures and stories that Bruce and Dick sometimes share.
And Jason—
Jason will never grow up.
He will never go to college. Never find something that belongs only to him. Never sit at this table surrounded by people who would have loved him so fiercely it might have scared him at first but he had wanted to badly, Jason had wanted to be loved.
Dick will never make it right.
There is no fixing this.
There is no going back.
There is only the empty space where Jason should be, stretching out endlessly, shaping everything around it, shaping Dick forever.
When Dick finally steps into the room, it happens all at once.
They go quiet.
Every head turns.
They scent him.
And they know.
Something is wrong.
Dick doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t trust his voice if he tries. He just moves, straight to Bruce, like gravity is pulling him there, like there is nowhere else he could possibly go because Bruce is the only one who knew Jason, who knows even the slightest bit of what Dick is feeling right now.
And then he collapses.
Bruce catches him immediately. Of course he does. He always does.
Dick presses his face into Bruce’s neck, breathing in deep, desperate, searching—
And there it is.
Faint.
So faint.
But there.
Jason.
Just the smallest trace, buried under everything else, but enough. Enough to hurt. Enough to matter. Enough to fill Dick's nose with the scent of baby powder if he concentrates on it enough.
Dick clings to it, taking deep pulls of Bruce’s scent and focusing only on the small thread of Jason.
Bruce’s arms tighten around him, pulling him closer, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, the other rubbing slow, steady circles into his shoulder like he’s trying to ground him, like he’s trying to hold him together. They had spent so many nights like this after the funeral, so many hours screaming at each other then collapsing and holding each other.
Bruce scents him back.
It’s instinctive. Protective. Gentle.
It breaks something open in Dick’s chest.
Tears spill over before he can stop them.
“God,” he chokes, voice wrecked, barely holding together, “I miss him so much.”
Bruce doesn’t ask who.
He knows.
“I do too,” Bruce says quietly, his voice rough. “I always will.”
And that is the truth of it.
Not something that fades.
Not something that heals clean.
Just something they carry.
Forever.
The ache of what could have been.
What never was.
What never will be again.