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Batman feels himself starting to wake up. The familiar, crushing weight of reality and the phantom of the criminal slipping through his fingers begin to ruthlessly invade his mind with the first sharp breath he draws into his lungs.
He blinks. As his midbrain tries to regain control of his eye muscles to pry those heavy lids open, an unexpected, entirely foreign scent hits Bruce’s nose.
Heavy, dense sandalwood and the sharp, throat-burning scent of black pepper.
His mind immediately shifts into tactical analysis mode: Maybe he was dumped in a swamp, left to rot, and the methane gas and carbon dioxide are playing hallucinatory tricks on his exhausted brain. But no... Bruce knows damn well that anaerobic decomposition doesn't smell like this.
The scent isn't coming from the outside; it feels as if it’s seeping out directly from him, from right under his own skin. Bruce Wayne is used to smelling of mud, gunpowder, soot-stained Gotham soil, and blood. But this... this is something entirely new. This intense, almost suffocating wave of pheromones radiating straight from the pulse points on his wrists and the back of his neck startles him.
Very little in this world can surprise Bruce. And nothing can surprise Batman.
He figures out he's in a hospital bed from the stiffness of the mattress beneath him and the faint antiseptic texture in the air. Most likely in the Cave's medical wing. Alfred must have already called Leslie Thompkins.
He hopes he hasn't been in a coma for too long. These newly mutated rogues on the streets of Gotham aren't just ordinary metahumans equipped with transgenic cells; they are practically cosmic monsters, reconstructed at the genetic level with those dysfunctional, heavy-carrier adenoviruses. As if they were all trying to emulate Superman, they possess physics-defying powers straight out of ridiculous comic books.
And Bruce guesses that if Jason were still talking to him, the very first thing Jason would do the moment he opened his eyes would be to march right up to Clark and tell him to take his damn kryptonite and go straight to hell.
There is a physical anomaly. Bruce wakes up to a strange, unfamiliar sensation across his skin. Like he's hairier... no, more like fur than hair. But too sparse to be called a full animal pelt. His analytical mind instantly fabricates a rational excuse: Leslie must have tried some experimental, new kind of dermatological fur treatment to accelerate cellular regeneration.
There are others breathing in the room.
Bruce can hear the breathing around him with crystal clarity. For Batman, who has spent years in the shadows, his life hinging on a single breath heard in pitch darkness, this is nothing new. But his ears… His ears physically feel different. The breathing sounds in the room are far louder than they should be.
Why is it so crowded? Did the Justice League convene?
And dear God... The smell.
There are too many scents. He is experiencing an almost suffocating sensory overload.
On one side, there is a dizzying, sweet scent: Honey buns. Bruce scolds Alfred in his mind. Why would he bake honey buns for a sick man? Bruce doesn't need to be pampered right now; he needs to recover and get back on patrol as soon as possible.
There are other notes, too. Cucumber. Fainter and quieter among the other scents. And another clean, sharp scent made up of white soap notes. These two just linger in the air without mixing into the heavy atmosphere of the room, gently making their presence known in ripples.
Another scent, just as sweet as the honey buns, hits his nose: Rose. But not some fragile, hybrid strain grown in a greenhouse; a wild, fierce, thorny mountain rose.
However, what truly catches his attention are the blazing, dominant presences, much like his own sandalwood and black pepper scent... The smell of burnt wood blended with rosemary. And right next to it, a constantly stormy, furious ocean that makes the air tremble.
Bruce must have taken a really heavy blow to the head this time. The delicate olfactory area or receptors in his nasal cavity must be completely wrecked; his neurological pathways must have suffered absolutely irreversible damage.
And his coccyx... Bruce knows there is definitely something wrong with his coccyx.
No, this isn't an ordinary pelvic fracture, trauma, or hairline crack. There is something physically attached to that area, and Bruce can feel that weight clearly, right down to his own nerve endings.
It feels nothing like the foreign, uncomfortable sensation of a medical tube, a suppository, or a post-operative therapeutic device inserted into his body. This feels like carrying an extra limb that belongs directly to him, one where he can physically feel the blood flow. If he had to push his logic to its absolute limits and definitively identify this new mass anatomically... what would Bruce call it? A tail?
He isn't entirely sure. But his proprioception—that flawless autonomic system that perceives his body's position and movements in space—is constantly, persistently sending signals to his brain from there, too. There really is something behind him that he can move.
As his mind tries to digest this anatomical betrayal, he finally opens his eyes completely (an action that takes longer than he's willing to admit even to himself, filled with a hesitation he has never felt against any criminal in the world, and for which he has zero tactical excuses).
In front of him, right in the middle of the white hospital room, lined up around his bed and staring at him while holding their breath like unpinned grenades, are exactly six people. Five familiar faces. Five distinct, intense pheromones.
And Bruce Wayne, rejecting the sight before him, slowly closes his eyes again with flawless composure.
The first step taken toward the bed belonged to Jason. Bruce had been absolutely certain that he would only ever visit Jason at his cold tombstone from now on; so even just hearing those familiar footsteps coming toward him was surreal.
But the real surreal part was something else. Wait... Does Jason smell like roses?
Dear God. Maybe Bruce had finally lost his mind. His chronic cortisol levels hadn't just sent his CRP values through the roof, they had probably finally breached the blood-brain barrier and attacked his neurons.
As the harsh footsteps of Jason's usual heavy, military combat boots filled the room, a familiar voice cut through the silence like a knife.
"B, you can't just close your eyes back up and hide like a baby. You're too old to play peek-a-boo, you bastard."
The tone of his voice, that mocking arrogance... It definitely sounds like Jason. But Bruce notices that the moment Jason's fierce rose scent reaches the bedside, it sours slightly with anxiety and spreads over Bruce like a heavy, protective shield. People sweat, yes. They have stress-induced reactions. But this... this is a completely different, entirely biological, and new reaction.
From the other corner of the room, a cheerful little laugh, almost like a giggle, escapes Dick's throat. "Don't act like the tough guy now, Jay. You were the one whining in fear just a minute ago. The old man just fell down the stairs, he's not dying."
Jason hissed in annoyance.
Wait a minute... Did he hiss?
Jason is an angry person. Especially after the Lazarus Pit, "angry" falls short as an adjective for him. But this is the first time Bruce is hearing that animalistic hiss coming from Jason's throat. Then again, it wasn't exactly like they had talked face-to-face much in recent years, right? Maybe Jason had been hissing all along and Bruce just didn't know.
"Shut your mouth, Grayson. Or I'll shut it for good," Jason growls.
Dick's forest-fresh scent instantly solidifies. It transforms into a scent that harbors the dominant, intense, yet inwardly joyful affection of an older brother teasing his sibling.
If Bruce opens his eyelids, he will have to face reality instead of just doing scent analysis. However, his brain is currently determined to reject reality. The oculomotor nerve, which is supposed to lift his eyelids, absolutely refuses to cooperate right now. If he just ignores it, maybe this absurd dream would end.
A cheerful, chirpy voice rises from the other end of the room. Stephanie claps her hands. "Hey, hey! Calm down, boys, no fighting in the hospital, okay? Wait until we get home, I'll open the betting pool there!"
And at that moment, Bruce is practically paralyzed by the weight of the word he just heard.
Home?
Dick and Jason haven't lived under the same roof as him for years.
Bruce hadn't fallen down the stairs or anything.
Batman would never fall down the stairs. He had taken a cosmic blow that shattered his armor and his ribs while fighting a reality-bending mutated psychopath. However, his rational mind immediately found an explanation: They had probably been forced to bring him to a public, ordinary Gotham hospital, and Dick was making up these kinds of simple, 'coded' excuses in front of civilians so their identities wouldn't be exposed.
But wait a second... Why would they be in an ordinary hospital? The Batcave's massive, high-tech medical bay was fully capable of meeting all of the Wayne family's medical needs. It had even better equipment than Gotham General Hospital.
There were so many things wrong in this universe, in this very room, that Batman had officially stopped counting the logical fallacies.
As Bruce's never-ending, chronic headache returned to his temples like a brazen morning cheerfulness, this time the owner of that fresh cucumber scent approached the bed.
"His vitals are doing really well," Tim said, stringing his words together and barely taking a breath, as usual. "We can talk to the doctors tonight and handle the discharge paperwork. It makes much more sense to continue the rest of the treatment at the manor. Let's just wait for the Complete Blood Count (CBC), then I'll speak with the chief physician. Steph and Jason have been here for almost a week, and for their inner omegas to be away from the nest for this long..."
The storm inside the ocean scent erupted from the other end of the room with pure exasperation.
"Try to breathe occasionally while you speak, Drake," Damian hissed. "And there is no need for you to parrot the obvious facts that everyone already knows."
At that exact moment, Bruce's mind crashed into a wall like a truck with blown-out brakes.
He assumed he had just misunderstood what he heard. His brain was probably making up new words on its own during those moments it was deprived of oxygen.
Nest?
Inner omega?
No. Absolutely not. Great, Batman was not doing this. This conversation never happened, he never came into this room, and in a moment, when he opened his eyes, he would be waking up from Scarecrow's fear toxin in a cold cell in Arkham.
Yes, that was the rationalization. Bruce Wayne completely refused to play along with this absurd scenario.
End of Chapter 1