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Things are getting better. Bruce is getting better. Tim was right—Batman does need a Robin, and now that he has one, he’s pulling himself back together. Batman’s not the out of control terror he was. Bruce Wayne has come out of his isolation and resumed his appearances at business meetings and galas.
He’s not the same as before, but he isn’t self-destructing anymore. Which is why it’s okay that he sometimes glances over at Tim and seems disappointed, like he’d still been expecting to see Jason there at his side. Tim understands. They look kind of similar. Bruce is still adjusting, and he’s only accidentally called Tim Jason once. He’s warming up to Tim.
It’s still unusual that when they’ve showered after patrol and Tim is dressed to walk home, Bruce’s brow furrows lightly in concern.
“Tim. Are you feeling alright?”
He’s a little warm, but it hadn’t affected his performance on patrol. How does Bruce even know?
“I’m fine.” He watches Bruce’s nose twitch minutely like he’s picking up something in Tim’s scent now that they’ve taken their blockers off. Weird. He brings his wrist to his nose on the walk home, once he’s out of sight of the manor, just to check, but he doesn’t smell anything unusual. Maybe Bruce is the problem. Maybe he has a cold that’s throwing off his sense of smell.
He turns the fan in his room on when he gets home, enjoying the cool air as he changes into pajamas and gets ready for bed. It could just be the lighting, but his cheeks look a little pink in the mirror when he brushes his teeth. Maybe he’ll take his temperature tomorrow if he still feels warm, he thinks as he turns out the lights
~~~
When his alarm wakes him for school, he can already tell he’s feverish, no thermometer needed. He rolls over to turn the alarm off and promptly decides he’s not going to school today. The idea of leaving the house feels wrong somehow. He sends a quick email from “Janet Drake” to inform the school that “poor Timothy” won’t be attending today, as he’s unwell. The school replies with an automated reminder that if a student misses three days in a row they need to bring in a doctor’s note to excuse the absences.
He pulls the blankets tighter around him even though he’s warm, trying to get rid of the little nagging feeling of something about his bed being uncomfortable. It doesn’t really work, but neither does pulling the blankets off and kicking his legs free from them. If he can’t get comfortable, he may as well get out of bed.
He goes downstairs to the kitchen to microwave a frozen breakfast sandwich. The house feels emptier than usual. He eats his breakfast and goes back upstairs to search his bathroom for a fever reducer. He’ll take some medicine, drink some water, and be ready to patrol tonight without holding Bruce back.
His bed is still wrong when he returns to his room. He tries making it neatly, but that’s even worse. It’s itching at him in a way he doesn’t understand. He lets out a frustrated huff as he snatches his pillow up and tries to fluff it into a better shape before tossing it back onto the bed. He needs… something.
He wanders through the halls to his parents’ room, eyeing their perfectly-made, un-slept-in bed. No, that won’t do. He opens their closet, running a hand over a row of his mom’s gala dresses. He leans in, sniffing at them. They smell like detergent and a stale hint of perfume, nothing of her scent still on them. His dad’s office wear is the same. A whine slips out of Tim, as if he’s a child upset that he isn’t getting what he wants.
What’s wrong with him? Why does it even matter if he can’t find so much as a rag with his parents’ scents on it?
He retreats to his room, where he sits down at his desk and starts up a video game to take his mind off of the empty house and the itch beneath his skin.
~~~
Tim puts his scent blockers on before he leaves his house for patrol. Usually he’d apply the patches in the Cave when he suits up, but he doesn’t want Bruce to pick up on him being sick and make him stay home. It’s just a little fever, he can still patrol.
Leaving the house is… weird. For some reason it makes him a little anxious, but maybe he’s more worried about Bruce benching him for the night than he thought. He walks next door anyway, the anxiety easing when Wayne Manor is in sight. Something in him feels settled when he’s inside, surrounded by the familiar scents of Bruce and Alfred.
Bruce looks him over before they get into the Batmobile, but he doesn’t say anything, just nods. Tim slides into the passenger seat before he can change his mind. Leaving the Cave sets the anxiety off again, watching Bristol vanish behind them as they cross the bridge into Gotham proper putting him on edge for some reason.
He’s distracted all night, instincts that have never been so… present before urging him to stick close to Bruce, wishing he wasn’t wearing scent blockers, wishing he was at home—or at Wayne Manor. Bruce obviously notices, because he does keep him close, in a way that would usually feel overbearing but somehow feels right tonight.
Thankfully it’s a quiet night, because Tim only gets increasingly on edge. They stop a jewelry store robbery and a bar fight that spills out onto the sidewalk outside, but he’s not sure he’d be any use in a more serious fight. He hates it—not knowing what’s wrong with him, feeling like he isn’t fully in control, like he’s a liability. It’s a relief to get back in the Batmobile at the end of the night, even with Bruce watching him like he’s trying to visually dissect the problem. At least if it turns out he’s been exposed to some new drug or toxin somehow, Batman is already on the case.
He feels way better once they pull into the Cave, something in him un-tensing in the familiar, safe environment—just like earlier. Bruce stops him when they get out of the car, looking him over again.
“Are you sick?” He unfastens a glove to press a hand to Tim’s forehead, and Tim finds himself leaning into the contact.
“I don’t know.” He answers honestly, because something is wrong. Bruce frowns and pulls the cowl back to look at him directly.
“Mask and blockers off, now.” He orders, ushering Tim to the medbay and picking up a bottle of solvent. He applies it for Tim, removing his mask quickly and efficiently. He looks into his eyes, checking his pupils while Tim applies the solvent to his scent blocker patches (secured by the same adhesive as the mask for maximum protection). As soon as he starts to peel a corner of one of the blockers on his neck up, Bruce’s eyebrows furrow slightly. Tim can smell himself as he removes the patch, his scent unusually sweet. There’s something else different about it beneath that top note, but he can’t quite discern what it is.
Bruce grunts in the way that means he’s solved something and pulls back, and Tim nearly whines like a fussy pup at the separation.
“Easy.” Bruce says gently, as if he can tell.
“What’s wrong with me?” Tim demands, frustrated by how off kilter he feels and in no mood to put up with Bruce keeping whatever he’s figured out to himself.
“You’re going into heat.”
“What?” That’s not at all what he’d been expecting to hear. It should be a relief that he’s not reacting to some kind of new locally grown bioweapon, but he’s mostly just surprised.
“You’re already in pre-heat. A presentation heat typically begins more suddenly than regular heats, so this phase will have progressed quickly and won’t last long.” Bruce explains.
Presentation heat. Tim’s presenting. He’s in pre-heat. He’s an omega.
“Oh.” He says dumbly. “What do I do?”
“Do you think you can get changed?”
Of course he can, he’s not totally useless. Even if it feels wrong to separate from Bruce, even just by the length of the locker room as they change. He skips his usual post-patrol shower, too antsy to do anything more than throw on his softest clothes and go back to Bruce’s side.
He’s taken his own scent blockers off along with the Batsuit, and it settles something in Tim to catch his scent. This is good, his instincts say. He wants to curl up in it somehow. Maybe he can steal Bruce’s cape and wrap it around himself like a blanket—
“Upstairs.” Bruce prompts, shaking him out of that thought. Right, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?
Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder as they turn towards the stairs, and Tim can’t help but lean into his side, new instincts demanding more physical contact.
“Okay.” He says, in a tone that might mean he’s laughing at Tim, which would be rude. But then he scoops Tim up into his arms, and Tim forgives him immediately. He curls into Bruce’s chest as he’s carried into the elevator up to the manor.
It’s better upstairs, as the stale scent of the Cave fades away in favor of the scents of the house. Tim’s house is empty, so it’s just his own scent that lingers in the few rooms he uses, but Wayne Manor smells like Bruce and Alfred and sometimes Dick, like people actually live here.
“Oh, my.” Alfred sounds surprised to see them. “I’ll gather up some extra blankets, then.”
Blankets? What for?
Bruce just nods and carries Tim up to the room Alfred always keeps prepared for him so he can stay over at any time. In a very disappointing turn of events, he puts Tim down, setting him on the bed. Tim grabs onto his sweater in protest, but he’s too big for Tim to pull him closer if he doesn’t want to be moved.
“Don’t you want to make your nest?” He asks, and Tim frowns. He doesn’t know how to make a nest. Bruce seems to be able to tell, because he picks up the pillow from the bed and fluffs it, placing it next to Tim as if to show him how this is supposed to work, except that Tim’s very active new instincts are crying that he’s doing it wrong. He snatches up the pillow to fluff it properly, positioning it somewhere better.
Alfred arrives with an armful of neatly folded blankets and clothes, and Bruce takes one to try to “help” again. Tim actually hisses at him when he unfolds it and tries to tuck it next to the pillow.
“I’m so sorry!” He says, embarrassed even though he’s still clutching the blanket after yanking it away from Bruce.
“It’s alright.” Bruce holds his hands up, safely away from Tim’s blankets. Good. He arranges the rest of them around him on the bed, along with a hoodie he recognizes as Dick’s, one of Bruce’s faded emo band shirts, and a pajama shirt he’s never seen Alfred wear but which smells like him. Perfect. His instincts are pleased by the scents of his pack worked into his nest.
Wait, no. His pack is supposed to be his parents, who are… somewhere. He doesn’t really remember what country they’re in right now. If he’d gone into his first heat a little earlier or later, he’d have been home all alone. The thought makes him feel sad in a way it usually doesn’t, and he chirps at Bruce without thinking, a pup’s call for a packmate that he can’t remember having made since he was a toddler. But Bruce doesn’t act like it’s weird, just asks very seriously—
“Do you want me to come into the nest?”
“Yes.” Tim scoots over to make room for him, because for some reason that is a thing he wants. Bruce climbs over the low wall of blankets Tim’s built carefully, without disturbing any of them, and leans back against the headboard. Tim presses himself into his side, pleased with this (and with the arm Bruce puts around him).
Alfred comes back with bottled water and snacks to put on the nightstand, which is also good. Good pack, his instincts insist.
He feels warm and kind of sleepy, and his stomach hurts a little, but mostly he feels safe and content. He has a nice nest, and food nearby, and the strongest alpha in the city watching over him.
He isn’t usually asleep yet by this time, but normally he’d play a game or browse social media while he winds down. Somehow he doesn’t get bored just lying around in the nest doing nothing. Bruce doesn’t make any move to leave even though he must be bored or want to go sleep in his own bed after patrol. That’s good, though, because Tim’s too selfish to let him go right now anyway.
At some point Dick appears in the doorway, and Tim isn’t sure if he’s lost track of time or if Dick broke the laws of both the state of New Jersey and physics to get here very quickly from Blüdhaven.
“Aww.” Dick coos as he pulls his jacket off, apparently having skipped the coat rack by the front door. Tim lifts his head and chirps at him, because he needs to be over here in the nest, right now.
Clearly Dick understands this, because he comes straight over to climb in and hug Tim close. Tim melts into him, an unfamiliar sound thrumming in his chest at being held and surrounded by his sort-of-maybe-pack.
“He’s purring.” Dick murmurs to Bruce over his head. Is that what that is? That’s new. It feels nice. Purring is an omega thing, which makes him wonder about how it works, physically. Purring hadn’t exactly been covered in the “puberty and presentation” video they’d shown at school. But he’s too comfortable and sleepy to bother looking it up any time soon.
“Sleep, puppy, we’ve got you.” Dick says, and Bruce rumbles behind him, an alpha noise that says he’s protected.
Tim purrs himself to sleep.