Chapter Text
Tim didn’t think that omega mothers doing it on their own got anywhere near enough credit.
Pups were hard to raise on your own, made exponentially more difficult if you didn’t have a pack to fall back on. Tim had had it all planned out, he’d been careful and methodical. His dad hadn’t been happy to learn that his only pup had been pregnant so young, Dana had been worried when she’d learned. Stressed alpha hormones hadn’t done much to put Tim at ease but he knew she’d tried lightening up. Her carefully scented blankets and pillows had eased Tim through the hard patches of the pregnancy. Soothing the aching and yearning inside of him for a bond. If anything, despite it all, the fact that there was no brand on his neck was more of a mercy than anything else.
Even if Tim would spend hours sobbing into his pillow, omega keens and whines for an alpha that wouldn’t come (that Tim didn’t want to come) getting muffled into the fabric. He would admit it was difficult at times, it took months before his body resettled, before the ingrained instincts inside of him reluctantly accepted that there was no sire to help.
That Tim was on his own.
The tentative support of an alpha stepmother had soothed him. It made the sickness and nausea not as…intolerable. But Tim still couldn’t deny how uncomfortable he’d felt at the dinner table. Dana’s soft probing about his day and gentle urging to eat more and to remember to take his supplements still hadn’t disguised the heavy quiet from his dad.
Dad wasn’t a traditionalist, despite his age and more conservative beliefs. Tim knew that his dad didn’t quite understand the ‘youth’ or people Tim’s age, there was a generation of difference between the two of them that made their interactions awkward and clumsy even on the best days.
But Dad hadn’t been angry. He’d known that when his initial response to Tim coming home with prenatal vitamins and folic acid supplements hadn’t been to kick him to the curb.
(Still, Tim couldn’t help the spiked tension and fearful heartbeat when he’d walked through the door. He couldn’t help but imagine the small cots of the omega-only shelters he’d seen with Batman multiple times as Robin as his dad had stared at him.)
Tim hadn’t known what was worse, the fact that his dad hadn’t said anything in response to Tim telling him he was pregnant and keeping it or that he could feel the disappointment so thickly that words hadn’t been needed.
His dad hadn’t asked about the father. Dana had made a hesitant attempt about asking whether Stephanie had been the one who- but Tim had shut that down quickly.
Perhaps too quickly. Dana had caught on to Tim’s unsettled nature and lightly trembling hands as he’d helped her dry the dishes from dinner.
She hadn’t asked again.
It wasn’t shame that stopped Tim from telling her as she’d carefully rinsed out a casserole dish. It wasn’t humiliation that prevented him from knocking on his dad’s office door and quietly whispering what had happened. It wasn’t fear or sorrow that prevented him from going into the Batcomputer and leaving the unedited and uncensored version of what had really occurred when Red Hood had attacked Titans Tower.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t.
Victims of sexual assault had nothing to be ashamed of. They held none of the blame for the actions of a low, disgusting coward.
But Jason Todd wasn’t a coward. Robin, his Robin , was no coward. Rough hands and a rougher mouth that would spit out insults to crooks and sweet reassurances to victims in equal measure. Tim had watched him, seen him. The way he’d kept pace with Batman and delivered equally as brutal beatdowns for the pursuit of justice.
Jason Todd was no coward and Tim would spit and fight to the death anyone who would say otherwise.
That sweet pup that had grown into a sweet alpha who’d only wanted to help-
He would never. He would never.
Those desperate thoughts had flooded Tim for days afterward. They’d repeated like a broken record in the back of his mind as he’d cleaned himself up in the medbay before help had arrived. The steady ‘Robin would never, he’d never’ had been a mindless chant in his ears as he’d felt his broken bones grinding together, dragging himself away from the site where Red Hood had-
The metallic smell of iron blood thickened in the air as Tim had done his best to sanitize and bandage his cuts, ignoring the tearing ache from his cunt. His ribs and arms purple and black from broken blood vessels and ripped muscle under his skin.
Robin would never. Robin would never.
It was a trick, a lie, a ploy to deceive him. But Tim had thrown that dirtied towel, rich with blood and…release, down the laundry chute before anyone arrived.
When the intimidating form of Batman, cape wide and threatening stormed in to find him slumped over a gurney, Tim hadn’t said anything.
As rough alpha hands roamed his body and checked his wounds, Tim had bitten back the cry that wanted to rip out of his throat. He hadn’t done a good job, his instinctive tensing had sent shocks of pain down his pain paralyzed limbs and the following yelp had earned him a frozen Batman and then one of the many syringes he had in his belt.
Whatever it was, it knocked Tim out quickly with nothing but the ghost of an aching body and broken limbs.
Tim awoke in the Batcave nearly two weeks later. Surgery had been needed to repair the extreme instability in his left clavicle. His heat had arrived early, and to prevent heat-induced distress that would be worsened with his numerous injuries- he’d been kept under.
No mention was made about Red Hood.
Batman and Nightwing hadn’t been around when he woke up, only Alfred. Tim understood.
He knew that Batman had other responsibilities that didn’t include nursing his recently victimized Robin back to full health. Dad was away doing Anthropology lectures at colleges across the country and Dana was accompanying him.
No one to question his sudden injuries and quiet leave from school. What luck.
Bruce had been hesitant about letting Tim stay in that empty apartment but his insistence on the peace of a quiet home doing more to help had eventually been accepted.
It would be weeks before Tim could even return to light-duty anyway, him being at the manor wouldn’t be conducive to anything.
Several more weeks and time spent lazing at home while bruises faded enough for him to go outside and Tim was able to tentatively say that he was doing better.
No one was around to say anything about him skipping meals or not leaving bed for anything aside for an occasional bathroom break. No one was around to urge him to bathe or take his first shower since-
In all honesty, it hadn’t slipped Tim’s mind. Despite his dad and Bruce’s impression of him, Tim was well aware of how omegas swelled up with pups. Tim had been attending omega-only academies for as long as he could remember and omegas got curious about their biology as much as any alpha or beta.
If people at the schools hadn’t wanted Tim or other omegas to know they should’ve blocked certain words from being searchable on the school computers.
But Tim had been sure, he’d been certain.
Omegas weren’t able to be pupped outside of heats.
Tim’s heat had arrived three days early.
Ejaculate wasn’t able to survive inside the body for longer than five days.
Tim had been unconscious, asleep, in a coma. He’d cleaned the outside, but the inside had been so sore he hadn’t touched it.
It came down to a matter of odds. To technicalities and little details and circumstances.
Maybe it wouldn't have happened if Tim had just said something before that darkness had flooded his vision.
The request for Tim’s report about the events at the Tower sat unopened on Tim’s laptop for hours before he clicked on it. Photos of the scene were available but Tim had stopped at the first one provided.
Cowl footage showed the rubble and knocked-over furniture from his and Red Hood’s struggle. Tim’s broken bo-staff was visible in the corner.
Bloody letters painted the scene followed by a trail of blood from a body that dragged itself out of frame.
‘Jason Todd was Here’
Tim had dropped the computer and ignored the clatter of a heavy piece of technology falling to the floor as stomach acid burned a trail out of his throat and into his toilet with a sick wet sound.
Tim recalled how agonizing it’d been to turn on his stomach. His ribs and their pain were unforgiving as Tim had crawled with one hand and pushed with his legs. Warmth had streaked against his chin and throat as he swam through the puddle of his own blood. The same puddle that Tim had hazily watched Red Hood dip his fingers in and proudly proclaim on the wall behind them.
‘Jason Todd was Here’
It was an image that had been seared on the inside of Tim’s eyelids, visible each time he closed his eyes.
So it wasn’t an odd thought to come to the forefront of Tim’s mind with startling clarity as he sat in the bathroom of a chain diner right next to the family-owned pharmacy Tim had picked up his most recent purchase.
Tim hadn’t had a word to describe the emotion that filled him upon seeing those two little pink lines darken further on the white stick in his hands. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t really felt anything, numbed and blank for anything aside from the dubiously amusing thought that bubbled in him.
Jason Todd was here indeed.
Tim surprised himself when a confirmation blood test from one of the rare free clinics in Bristol led to burning questions about what pregnancy carried rather than inquiries about termination options.
The nurse had been a short and lightly chubby omega with a sweet face that patiently answered Tim’s questions.
Tim ended up walking out with a prescription and a pile of references and materials he could use to make an informed decision.
The entire bus ride home he cursed himself for even attempting to consider it. Batman would suspect something when his Robin began to put on weight and he’d definitely notice when he popped out a pup.
Stephanie had given up her pup because she’d had no other options. Her mom barely made enough to support them both. Stephanie hadn’t finished school. The sire wasn’t in the picture and she hadn’t wanted him to be. Having a pup would’ve been an undeniable connection between the two of them that would allow him to saunter into her and her pup’s life. Even if she was an alpha, and much better off in that sense than Tim would’ve been in her shoes.
For a moment, Tim tried to imagine it. Red Hood walking unhindered into his pup’s nursery and holding that small defenseless little thing in his arms.
Something in Tim twisted at the thought, something acidic and bitter in him clenching tight like a rope held taut with tension.
Tim could feel a hiss simmering in his gut, omega fangs sharpening and slicing into the soft meat of his cheeks.
No , absolutely not. Not his pup, if Hood so much as looked at his puppy he’d kill him.
The surge of viciousness settled into his brain, fogging everything away for a brief second before Batman’s training kicked in.
Tim spent the rest of the bus ride tensed and grateful that his scent patches hadn’t given away the sharp vinegar scent of a furious omega.
Tim’s tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth as he walked home. Every cell in his body was protesting the idea of giving birth to Red Hood’s pup
No. it was his pup, not Red Hood’s, only his.
Batman would never let Tim get away with carrying one of his pack member's pups.
He’d seen the look on his face when Red Hood had unmasked himself. That tensed mouth, those clenched teeth, all done with an effort to not give away that mournful scent that Tim had been hit with upon returning to the cave.
Jason was still Bruce’s son. He was still…Robin.
In a court of law, alphas held more of a say in the outcome for separated families. Alphas had more say than betas and betas had more say than omegas.
If Bruce wanted to forcibly take custody of Tim’s pup…he could.
That foggy brutality that had been humming in the back of Tim’s head immediately did a 180. Spikes of fear shot through Tim, a nervous ball forming in his gut at the thought.
Bruce…Bruce wouldn’t. He’d never.
Tim had thought the same about another alpha and what had that gotten him?
Robin wouldn’t. Robin would never.
It wasn’t a rational decision.
Perhaps.
There would be severe consequences if it was ever discovered that he withheld a pup from the Wayne pack.
Perhaps.
Tim would regret it.
…
Perhaps.
Tim had thought his dad was disappointed in him.
In his darkest thoughts, he even thought he was disgusted with him.
But in the car, as they drove away from Wayne Manor, Tim’s civilian clothes feeling itchy on his body, he felt that maybe there was a possibility that wasn’t the case.
Tim had been so sure his dad was going to accuse Bruce of being the pup’s father. That righteous anger, the furious scent wafting off him. The way he looked like he’d wanted to murder Bruce until he met Tim’s eyes.
When he’d pulled his dad to the side to talk, Bruce had sworn he wouldn’t listen in.
Batman was a damnably curious man and in any other circumstance, Tim was sure he would’ve listened in despite any verbal assurances. But this was between a sire and his wayward pup and Bruce always had a thing about those since Jason.
“You haven't actually been going to those Lamaze classes have you?” His dad asked, brown eyes softened from their earlier anger.
He hadn’t. Tim had a perfect recall and could remember the various strategies the instructors had given to Stephanie and felt confident enough in his own research to not need them.
Still, Tim had felt liquid pools of guilt that flooded him whenever he remembered how he was deceiving his dad. He had already let him down so much, but Robin was the final one.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back and the tentative peace that had been in his pack was now broken and it was all Tim’s fault-
“The nerve of Wayne to put my pup in danger,” His dad lowly hissed.
Tim froze.
“It’s not enough he wants to drag you down but he needs to bring my grandpup into this as well?”
His dad had started pacing and Tim’s eyes darted to where Nightwing, Bruce, and Alfred had gathered nearly twenty-five feet away.
No reaction. To the mention of Tim’s Lamaze classes or the bit about his pup.
A bit of the unease in Tim had soothed and allowed him to pull his Dad close and try desperately to convince him to not expose Bruce and the rest of them.
It worked.
So long as Tim gave up Robin.
In many ways, despite Tim’s great reluctance, it had been a good outcome.
The best possible outcome.
Tim would’ve needed to figure out some way to get out of duty sooner or later. Lingering pains from Titans tower or his feelings about the case with Johnny Warlock wouldn’t work forever.
Plus Tim had seen how Bruce had started getting snappish and angry with him over his inability to give Robin his all.
(Stress from Red Hood and the fact that he hadn’t been heard of since Titan’s Tower? Maybe. Tim never asked.)
Tim and his dad, surprisingly, end up stopping for ice cream on the way home.
It didn’t quite feel like a reward, not like when Tim would get all As on his report card and his dad would take him out. Or when he wouldn’t pussy out of T-ball and actually swing the bat this time.
The car heater blew in Tim’s face, rustling his bangs as he let a spoon of mint chocolate chip melt on his tongue. Nausea came and went and Tim found that sucking on a mint leaf from Dana’s window herb garden sometimes helped.
His dad carefully got them back on the road as Tim held the paper bag with Dana’s coconut sorbet and his dad’s butter pecan.
The car was silent. His dad’s hands were clenched tightly on the wheel but for the first time in a while, Tim didn’t feel…rejected.
His dad was awkward about the thought of a new Drake pup.
Dana, at his dad’s slow defrosting, was putting forth more of an effort than before. Small talk about the nursery and how Tim would like it decorated and if he would prefer to do online school until the end of the year.
His dad had worried. The world wasn’t kind to young parents and Tim as an unbonded omega would’ve gotten a bigger brunt of the malice.
Thankfully Tim was small. It wasn’t a thought he liked to linger on, being surrounded by much bigger and more muscular vigilantes. Of course, most of them were alphas and betas but even the occasional omega had at least fifty pounds and five inches on Tim.
In this case, Tim’s smaller frame was working in his favor.
Nothing, not even a bump, gave away the fact that he was pupped. Even though he knew that most omegas would’ve shown some sign, some indication, even a change in their scent.
But Tim religiously applied patches and wore blockers both to the cave and when he went out.
No one, aside from a small clinic in Bristol and his pack had any idea that he was carrying a pup.
And no one aside from him knew who the father was.
Tim wanted to tell Stephanie. Wanted to confide in her the way she had him, ask for her help, her assistance the same way she had him.
His calls went unanswered. His texts, emails, and messages were ignored.
He’d been hurt. Confused. Partly, the reaction and sensitivity had to have been from the surge of hormones he was experiencing.
But Tim felt that the bitter anger he felt at finding out from a newspaper that she was the new Robin wasn’t in any way unreasonable.
He ignored the hurt cry and break of his heart at the swirling thought that of course she only wanted him because he was Robin.
(Jason had only gone after him because he was Robin.)
Fucking alphas.
Fucking alphas.
(That’s twice now that he’s been betrayed. Tim hoped his puppy wasn’t an alpha. He would love them either way but how he hoped they wouldn’t be an alpha)
Darla was not an alpha. She was an omega like Tim and if she sometimes tried to posture to him the way other alphas in school did to her, he didn’t mention it.
She was soft and smelled like spring water and his pup stopped fussing so much in Calculus when he sat next to her.
In the winter Tim had to start wearing large sweaters. He gets his doctor to write a note about some bullshit to get him out of Physical Education.
There was a small little swell the size of his hand developing on his lower abdomen. It was nowhere near as big as other omegas at similar points in their pregnancy normally were. Dana had assured him that all were different and Tim was such a small omega, it only made sense if his puppy would be too.
His dad had been making tentative talks about opening up the old storage locker and setting up the crib that housed him when he was a pup. Tim recalled seeing pictures of him in it in one of his childhood photo albums. It was a dark cherry wood, lacquered to be shiny.
One picture had Tim, rosy-cheeked and teething on it. He imagined putting his puppy to bed in that crib every night and that ache from seeing Batman and his new Robin on the nightly news seemed to fade away for a bit.
Tim would’ve never been able to balance his duties. What would he have done if he was out on patrol when his puppy woke up in the middle of the night, distressed and hungry?
What would he have done if Gotham had needed him but his puppy was crying out for him?
It was for the best. In the end, it was for the best.
Stephanie fell in a gang war.
That she caused.
Darla fell to a gun.
That her father caused.
Tim’s dad fell to a targeted attack on their pack.
That Tim caused.
Dana was not taking the loss of her mate well. Tim was not taking the passing of his sire well.
Bruce, out of some rare show of respect for Tim’s wishes, actually left him alone when he asked him to.
Tim had been enduring the strain of one of his pack bonds fizzling away, the agony and loneliness that the ache carried. He’d been so focused, so locked in his own grief, he hadn’t noticed when a new, little strand began stitching its way into him.
His pup was born bloody and pink on his bathroom floor.
Tim was small, Tim had been born small. Dana had been right about his puppy being the same.
But Tim was also young. Young omegas don’t give birth easily. Lamaze cannot overcome shortcomings in biology. Tim’s pelvis was nowhere near wide enough to deliver a puppy, no matter how small they were.
With age, with time, it would’ve been.
If Tim weren’t so young. If his puppy hadn’t been premature.
His pup was born the same week as his dad’s funeral.
No one looks at him twice for being as white as a ghost, for being shaky and unsteady on his feet. He ignores that he’s standing up and moving too soon against medical advice. He’s on a massive amount of painkillers to take away the burn of stitches that run all the way inside him.
But he was not going to miss them putting his sire in the ground.
As Bruce stood beside him, eyes dark and low and staring as dirt slowly covered that gray coffin- Tim had been tempted.
His mouth had parted and he’d almost said-
The next moment he stopped.
Tim closed his mouth. He stood silently alongside Bruce until the service was finished and accepted the ride back to the hospital where Dana was suffering a break from reality (where his pup was being monitored in the NICU).
Bruce had known that an ambulance had arrived at their apartment at some point in the week, he hadn’t known that it hadn’t been for her.
He was a boy. His puppy was a boy.
He was small with skin so delicate and thin it was almost translucent. He had small features and a head of dark hair that Tim was certain came from him given his baby pictures.
He did not ask about the dynamic. He didn’t care.
Alpha. Omega. Beta.
Tim didn’t care
He didn’t want to know, Tim loved his pup he did - he wanted him. But the sting of an alpha, of a boy alpha , was too much.
He would love him regardless. He wouldn’t love him in spite of it, but regardless of it, Tim….wasn’t ready.
He would be. But not yet.
He hoped his pup would understand. He hadn’t endured those months of pregnancy just to see someone else over his features.
Tim would love his pup even if he was an alpha. He would. He would.
Tim visited Dana and his pup as often as he could.
Bruce failed to mention anything about Tim’s slow movements. He estimated that it would be a few weeks before he became suspicious. But by that point, Tim would have healed enough to start pushing himself more.
Whenever Tim departed for the hospital he made sure to mention it to Alfred or Bruce. In a text or a quick call as he passed through the front door.
“I’m going to see Dana!”
It tied the two together, equal parts dread to see the state of his dad’s mate and bubbling excitement to see his pup. Dana was keeping quiet vigilance over his pup, situated permanently beside the pediatric stretcher in the NICU. Tim was half sure that most of the nursing staff were under the impression the pup was hers.
He hadn’t exactly been clear when he’d left the general ward and wheeled her into the room to see his pup upon hearing he’d been admitted into the same hospital she’d checked into.
Maybe there was something to be said about the state of Gotham’s affairs that no one noticed the slip-up. But lingering effects of the recent gang war were still being felt by all hospitals and healthcare facilities so the mix-up was understandable.
If the nursing staff discovered that Tim was the pup’s dam they may have taken his early departure as him surrendering his pup.
So Tim said nothing.
He bit his tongue when nurses strolled in and handled his pup out for check-ups. When they wheeled Dana in close when they were done and let her watch him.
His pup was premature but healthy. Some tubes present were for additional oxygen and monitoring but he could still be viewed.
Tim wanted to hold him. Wanted to swaddle him in his arms, he had for a moment when he’d been born. He’d held his squirming little- so so little - pup to his chest as he bled out on the floor from all the tearing.
Paperwork reached Tim’s hands one day. Dana too out of it, caught in her hazy catatonia to write in his pup's name on the birth certificate.
I’m going to see Dana!
I’ll be back late, I’m going to see Dana!
I can’t join you for breakfast sorry Bruce, I wanted to see Dana as soon as visiting hours were open.
His pup and his dad’s mate. The last remaining pieces in his pack.
Dana had tried asking Tim about names and his thoughts on them at one point. His dad had provided his two cents by offering up Tim’s grandfather’s name.
Charles. His pup didn’t quite yet carry the gall and daring that his alpha grandfather who lied about his age to join WWII did.
His pup was soft and small and made little noises whenever the air blew wrong and disturbed him.
His pup. The last and final part of the Drake pack.
Just as they lost one, they gained another.
I’m going to see Dana!
I’m going to see Dana!
I’m going to see Dana!
A moment passed and slowly, in careful letters Tim wrote-
D-A-N-I-E-L D-R-A-K-E
“Danny,” Tim whispered, finally. “My Danny.”
His pup squirmed and Tim wanted nothing more than to reach into that protective plastic case and stroke all his fears and discomforts away.
In place of that, Tim leaned down and gently scented Dana, stroking his cheek against hers and hoping that it could help combat her loneliness and fears as she mourned her mate.
“Thank you, Dana.” Tim offered softly, cheek soft and warm as he pressed in closer. “Thank you for watching my Danny, my puppy.”
Danny.
Danny.
He had a puppy. His puppy was a boy. His puppy’s name was Danny.
Tim purred, low and full of love, letting the sound wash over Danny and Dana.
It was another moment before he could bring himself to pull away.
Another few lines down and Tim quickly filled in his name under the ‘Dam’ section. It was when he pulled the pen off the paper when finishing the last digit of his social security number that his eyes met the ‘Sire’ section.
Tim stared at it.
There was no sire to sign on that line and acknowledge Danny as his. Even if Jason were present, Tim doubted that the Gotham City clerk’s office would accept a dead man’s social security.
Tim stared at the section for another moment before ignoring it completely and continuing to fill out his information and contact information for himself and Dana.
His dad…his dad would’ve been included as well if-
No.
No. Tim had to focus on Danny. Focus on Danny.
Tim several minutes filling out the stack of papers in his hands, eyes occasionally straying toward the small, pink puppy fussing.
His puppy.
Dana needed to be moved to a facility better for her care.
Bruce mentioned adopting him. Tim thought of the questions, the accusing eyes that would be shot at him for lying, for deceiving.
Bruce wouldn’t leave the fact that Tim had a pup alone, he’d start looking into it. He’d find out, he’d discover who his pup’s sire was.
He’d take Tim’s pup away from him.
Tim started planning. Within the same day, a new uncle had been created and an apartment in Bludhaven secured.
The uncle hadn’t withstood the scrutiny of Batman but it would the state of New Jersey.
Batman’s appreciation for Tim’s ‘independence’ overcame any protests he would've had for Tim operating solo in Bludhaven.
So Tim allowed Alfred, Bruce, and Dick into his Bludhaven safe house. Allowed them to help set up and subtly led them away from a closed, sound-proofed door housing his napping pup.
Tim, in the end, ended up going through with the online classes Dana had recommended for him.
Seven hours a day, five days a week away from his pup was too much. The specialty and thoroughly vetted service he used to watch Danny while he was at school were good at their job but Tim vastly preferred to take care of his pup himself.
When Tim would hold his puppy and scent him so thick that no one could deny he was the pup's dam. His mama.
Danny was a fussy eater, resistant to latching and equally as unwilling for a bottle. Tim pumped bottle after bottle of milk regardless of his pup’s poor appetite. Whoever said that omegas were pure milk machines had been right and Tim was slowly running out of space in his freezer to store the bottled food.
Weeks passed.
Danny grew slightly more willing when Tim tried to feed him. He gained a small bit of chub, a small spread of baby fat but remained small.
Despite Tim’s lamenting, it appeared that his pup was very much following in his infant shoes. Tim wondered if he would also try to potty train himself when he grew indignant at his diapers. Or if he would develop a fondness for the bright explosions and whimsical sounds of a Star Wars battle.
When he went on patrol, Tim had his comm tuned in to the baby monitor and keyed his wrist display to show him the live stream of Danny sleeping whenever he urged it. Tim stopped every few hundred feet to check on Danny.
His pup was perfect. So tiny and beautiful and Tim’s.
That ache, that hollowness inside himself that had been eating away at Tim since-
It was there. It was always still there but it seemed less…painful when he saw Danny.
Tim had at times questioned whether he’d made the right decision becoming Robin.
Those thoughts never entered Tim’s mind when he thought of Danny. There wasn’t a single doubt in Tim’s mind that he’d made the right choice. No matter how it happened, no matter who his sire was- Danny was Tim’s pup.
He was Tim’s pup and he was perfect.
Tim was nowhere near Danny when Bludhaven was destroyed.
He was nowhere near Dana when Bludhaven was destroyed.
Tim should’ve never been Robin.
The ache, the emptiness that Tim had felt when his dad had died. When Stephanie, Darla, Bart and Kon had died.
It was nothing. Nothing compared to the pure emptiness of losing Danny.
He hadn’t felt that snap, that break that was as crushing as losing a limb. Danny had been too young, too small, too new.
His bond was nothing but a barely noticeable thread that occasionally brushed through the strings of Tim’s mind. It was why he was always compulsively checking on his pup, making sure he was still there, was still okay.
Tim could do none of that anymore.
Bludhaven was a hazardous, uninhabitable zone. No report on whether Dana had made it out came though.
Dana, who’d been doing better. Dana, who Tim had brought Danny over to let her marvel and coo over him, to see how he squeaked and the grip he had on your finger when you gave it to him.
Tim never stopped sending out searchers and feelers. Contacting charities and foundations that were in charge of reuniting families.
Even when it became clear that he would never get that call with the good news that his pup was alive and waiting for him.
Danny had been with Dana.
Tim had felt that snap, that break that felt like losing a limb when Bludhaven was destroyed.
He knew.
He knew.
Tim became darker. A shadow of himself. Worse.
Less kind, less patient, less everything.
The occasional smiles and laughs he lets out were always tainted with something.
How does Tim live the way he did when he had Danny?
How.
How.
Tim lost his pup and in the same breath, Bruce gained one.
Tim wanted to cry and scream until he died.
Danny had been a good pup, a sweet and innocent pup.
Damian was none of those things. He was loud and angry, he hated Tim with every fiber of his being. He screeched and attacked and demanded attention from the pack with his pup cries.
Tim gripped his bedsheets and clothing with white knuckles every time those sounds would elicit reactions that Danny used to bring.
The soreness and aching fullness of unsuckled milk in his breast had Tim pressing cries into his muffled mouth until he broke the skin and bled.
Holes were punched in Tim’s insides, breaks and rips down to his very soul. Another omega, a weaker omega would’ve tried to fill the hole inside them with the new pup and the new pack.
Tim refused. He refused.
He would mourn and sob for as long as he fucking pleased.
If the new pup didn’t like that then he could damn well find another omega to care for him.
Red Hood was spotted in Gotham again.
The monster, the vicious animal that still flashed in Tim’s mind when he was dreaming, was nothing like the man in front of him.
Jason was condescending, mean, and cruel. But not in the same vein as what Tim first came to know him as.
The heaving alpha, heavy, and unnervingly warm that had pinned Tim down. The one that had made victorious cries when he’d chased Tim and caught him. Like a fox that had caught a rabbit.
Tim thought back on that moment in the Tower at times.
Wondered if something more had been going on when Red Hood had shoved Tim’s head back so hard it’d simultaneously given him whiplash and a concussion.
Tim had heard his breathing, rough and out of breath. He’d smelt that acrid fume of an alpha.
Part of Tim had blamed himself, as illogical as it was. Chasing a bitch was a natural alpha instinct. Early mock-courting behavior was seen in young children who chased each other on playgrounds, in omegas who shrieked with delight when they were caught by other young alphas.
The chase and the capture. Of course Red Hood had done that next. Natural spoils of a successful chase.
Tim had beaten himself up for it before. He shouldn’t have run. He shouldn’t have run.
If he’d stayed and fought it wouldn't have happened.
Red Hood was a loose cannon with a murderous streak too wide to be acceptable.
He was cruel and callous when met with the accusations of being responsible for Duela Dent’s murder. Tim was steadfast in the belief that he had a hand in it.
Murder and rape weren’t that far off and the overlap of those who committed it was unsurprisingly broad.
Donna’s words quelled the Titans gathered on the roof. Tim knew that he could’ve shattered whatever perception she had about Jason if he’d said something. But his pup’s death was fresh and raw and Tim would sooner die than use his puppy as ammo for why Jason Todd was nothing but a piece of shit.
(He was a Robin. How could he? How could he? )
The night brought back a lot of ugly parts of himself that Tim would rather have left behind. Jason’s smugness at Donna’s words burned at something in Tim so he took his shots where he could get them. Aiming for his cock felt like poetic justice but it wasn’t a feeling that lasted before the bitterness and anger returned.
Their failed “team-up” and the fact that Jason could not accept that Tim wanted nothing to do with him. He was nothing like the Robin that Tim thought he knew, the one that Bruce remembered.
There was something unsteadied in Jason’s words, in his actions and behavior. Too fluctuating to be reliable. Too uncontrolled. Too bloodthirsty.
The decision to get him out of Blackgate was filled with regret before he even did it.
(Tim should’ve left him to rot, what if he went and did what he did to Tim to another omega, one who wouldn’t survive-)
He was proven right when right after, Jason brought massacres down on Gotham.
During the fight for Batman’s mantle. Down underground and so far from help and alone with a murderous Red Hood.
That mocking request to be his Robin. As if Tim would ever be his anything.
Tim had thought-
It hadn’t happened.
Aside from a slit throat and a close call, Tim had survived.
Tim had survived.
It wasn’t as victorious of a feeling as it normally would’ve been.
Losing Bruce had been another score on his mauled soul.
The pain was there and prominent. Tim keened when he was told, a pure omega sound that he hadn’t made since he felt Dana’s bond dissolve.
Bond.
Tim hadn’t been paying as close of attention to his bonds since Dana died.
The fight for Gotham’s soul. Seeing and fighting Jason again, Tim hadn’t fully processed it.
Not until he was alone and in the quiet that he realized-
He hadn’t felt that horrible break again.
He hadn’t felt it.
“Omega beams aren’t exactly normal circumstances, Tim.”
Dick was tired, there was an exhausted air around him. Stepping up as both Batman and the new alpha head of the pack was taking it out of him. Tim could see it in the slumped lines of his form.
Tim’s insistence that Bruce was alive wasn’t being taken as well as he thought it would. Omega beams were extraordinary circumstances and there was no guarantee that a bond-breaking would be felt the same with it as it would under normal circumstances.
“Do you think I don’t know what a bond-breaking feels like?” Tim asked tensely.
It was there. His bond with Bruce was thin and wispy like they’d been stretched across a vast distance but it was still there.
“Omega beams may have a slow burn, the bond may be slowly dissolvin-”
“It’s still there Dick!”
Tim’s arguments and pleads don’t yield the results he hoped they would.
Tim arrived in the cave and was met with the sight of a pup in his uniform.
Dick’s pleas and words for Tim to understand and to listen fell on roaring ears.
Fucking alphas.
Jason had beat Tim down and immediately gone back to the red trail of bodies he’d been dumping since before he was locked up. This time while wearing Batman’s mantle.
Fucking alphas.
Stephanie faked her death and was alive.
Fucking alphas.
Tim would’ve liked to say that the decision to go out and look for Bruce on his own had been a hard one.
It hadn’t.
Gotham carried too many ghosts for him, both alive and dead. The decision to go was just as much a decision for himself as it had been to help Bruce.
He was operating on a percent of himself. Tim knew he was behaving uncharacteristically, unbalanced.
Loss had changed him. It made him someone who fought his pack alpha for the right to leave. It made him into someone who betrayed his best friend's most closely held values in an attempt to not lose another person.
It made him someone who toed the gray area of his mentor’s beliefs and allowed venomous green snakes to sneak in and whisper in his ear.
Tim found proof. Assurance that he was right.
That high, that bit of light being shone on him was cut down at around the same time as he was.
Tim awakens on a slab and one organ short. He tries to reason with himself that it was not the worst circumstance he could’ve ended up in.
A moment later and the hesitant beta daughter of Lucius Fox entered his purview (apparently having been tracking him on request of her father) as a hostage and that thought was immediately scrubbed away.
Tim was a cornered omega. Backed up and prodded at by a megalomaniacal alpha that wanted to see how far he could push him.
Tim was pushed. Had been getting pushed for months.
He snapped.
He bit, he ripped, he tore himself through League bases, back to Gotham, and clawed through the plans there with particular prejudice.
Tim would not be forgetting the conjoined attempts of Promise and the Daughter of Acheron to have him raped and impregnated again.
The thought of another pup after failing Danny so horribly- No. No. No.
It had been part of his plan to have Cass there from the beginning but hours after the fact he hadn’t been able to shake the thought. What if she’d been late, what if she’d stopped to help someone because she was good and even if she promised Tim she’d be there, what if-
Tim tucked it away. Forced it to the back of his mind and focused on his mission.
On bringing Bruce back. Tim hadn’t been able to do anything when he’d lost (Danny, his poor sweet pup had died without his mama to protect him what kind of dam was he-).
But he could do this.
He could fix this. He could. He could.
Victory was a hollow feeling.
It didn’t use to be. The feeling used to swell in Tim, used to stuff him full of elation and triumph.
Maybe Tim had a leak inside him, a crack or a break in him that let anything that swelled in him drip away and disappear.
(Like Danny-)
Tim’s pack was back together. Bruce had returned to them and their pack was together. Everywhere it looked it was as if what Tim had lost was squirming out of the woodwork and returning to him.
Kon, Bart, Darla, Stephanie, Bruce.
It didn’t make him whole.
For a bit, for a little while, Tim was distracted. But always, all too soon that shadow of grief would come surging back at the slightest bit of quiet in his mind.
Tim wondered if this was what Bruce felt at losing a pup.
The emptiness, the inconsolable sadness inside him that was coupled tightly with an inexplicable fury.
Tim was “moody” now. Tim wasn’t “fun anymore”.
There was something wrong with him and everyone could see it.
Dick had tried soothing Tim. A combination of his own apologetic nature for not believing Tim and the fact that he could sense Tim’s brokenness.
Bruce….
Bruce was trying. Trying harder than he had before he’d been lost in time. Tim knew he’d been talking to Jason. Knew that while he’d been gone Jason had become somewhat of a ‘proper’ vigilante.
Whatever that meant.
(How ironic that Jason only began developing into a human being once Tim was gone and out of Gotham).
Dick was soaking up the return of the head alpha of the pack, relieved to be freed from his duties. Damian was resistant to expressing it but Tim had heard and seen as the pup had shivered in Bruce’s hands.
Bruce had a lot on his plate having returned from the “dead”. He tried reaching out not just within his pack but to the wider stretches of Gotham.
To Stephanie, to Cass, to Barbara, Kate, and the Birds of Prey.
Tim saw how some of that was manifesting in strengthening lines of cooperation between the vigilantes of the city.
Weeks after his return and it was as if the city was settling into something different. Something better.
Bruce had tried speaking to and contacting Tim, despite his own issues.
Tim knew that. He recognized it but there was a distance between them that hadn’t been there before he’d been lost in time.
Even before he’d been lost the two of them had their issues.
(Issues that were made worse when the two of them had clashed over Boomerang).
Tim normally would’ve reciprocated and reached out in return but months on his own hadn’t been good for his health. He was quieter now. Less likely and willing to reach out.
Tim knew he was depressed.
Knew it with as much surety as he did anything else. But how could he say anything about it?
But it wasn’t entirely because of what life had been like after Bruce had disappeared.
It had everything to do with Tim and how he had failed.
How could he look someone in the eyes and tell them about how much of an incompetent fucking dam he’d been?
Tim’s mom hadn’t been perfect but she at least hadn’t gotten him killed in his first few months of life.
Tim could not forgive himself.
Would never forgive himself.
He would be miserable every day for the rest of his life and he would deserve it for not properly protecting his pup.
His pup.
His puppy.
His sweet little Danny.
Tim hadn’t been present when the call to the manor had been placed.
He’d been at WE, working late and avoiding his family.
(Jason had started coming over at some point, apparently he was being welcomed into the fold. Apparently, he and Bruce were working on reconciliation)
(Stephanie was also coming over. Training down in the cave and interacting with the family as if she hadn’t put Tim’s heart through the shredder when he’d thought she’d died).
He did love them. He did.
Tim just needed….he needed to be by himself sometimes.
(It wasn’t all to do with them. Tim blamed himself just as much if not more for his problems-)
Penance. It was penance. He’d left Dana and Danny alone-
Bruce was the one who called him while he was on the road and halfway back to the manor.
Tim couldn’t recall the conversation. Failed to remember what was said, it was as if his memory had been dunked underwater and every word had become a garbled, incomprehensible mess.
But he understood enough from the voice on the other end of the line.
Bludhaven.
Survived.
Gotham shelter.
Puppy.
…
Puppy.
Puppy.
It was a false hope. He would rip into himself when he came back down and saw reality.
But Tim’s pack had returned to him. He had proven the impossible and brought Bruce back to them.
Why not?
Why not?
Maybe the universe was rewarding Tim, realizing he’d reached the max on the shittiest things that could happen to one person and was returning what belonged to him.
Tim doesn’t recall how he returned to the manor.
He doesn’t remember abandoning his car on the front lawn or how he stumbled up the steps to the front door. It was a hazy mixed bag of memories and half-bitten words.
Bruce was there, his hands trying to ground Tim as he stumbled through. It was like he was seeing everything with tunnel vision, his heartbeat audible in his ear as his pack became agitated and stressed with his behavior.
Tim could hear someone saying something close, hands grasping his shoulders and attempting to steady him.
Tim had felt that break in Bludhaven. He’d felt it.
He had nightmares about it, woke up in a puddle of his sweat and an ache in his chest. Felt the phantom body of his puppy pressed against him, whimpering and distressed.
Tim didn’t even notice when he began pushing out those pained, aching sounds. Calling for a pup that wouldn’t respond.
A small body pressed to his side, small hands tugging at his coat.
There was the distant call of a small pup voice but not his- that wasn’t his.
His pup was still too small to respond to his dam’s cries.
His pup.
Where was his pup?
Tim was delirious with the search, turning away from large alpha hands that wanted to steady him and keep him still. Soothing calls were trying to push into his brain but Tim shoved them away.
His pup.
Where was his pup?
Tim began pushing out searching cries louder, ignoring the pup in front of him who was growing agitated with his responses.
Puppy?
Puppy?
Where is his puppy?
Where was his puppy?
Tim snapped at the hand that came down in front of him, omega fangs flashing out as he attempted to bite on the arm of meat that floated in front of him.
A loud female curse and it was ripped away.
“Did…did he just try to bite me?”
Tim grew anxious with the lack of replying cries from his puppy.
Where was he?
Where was his puppy?
Tim could feel devastation sinking into his bones as he started turning, calling in every direction with a cry that was growing more and more distressed.
Puppy?
Puppy?
“Bruce what did you say to him-?”
Puppy?-
A soft replying chirp hit Tim like a spear to the back of the head.
Tim froze.
There was a beta at his door, tall and nervous with a hand raised to knock on the opened panel of wood.
On his hip was a small, sad-looking little pup. A small head piled high with the most glorious curls Tim had ever seen. A tiny head was turned toward him.
A soft, round face was staring at him, green eyes wide with an indescribable curiosity. Small hands clung to the buttoned dress shirt of the beta he was being held by.
Tiny fingers slowly loosened from their grip as those big eyes continued staring at him.
Another reciprocal chirp from that small puppy and Tim was ripping out of the hands holding him with a snarl and charging for the beta holding his fucking pup-