Look at Me
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The first time Alathea hears her gender caste, it's her mother saying the words and holding her. They're awash in golden sunlight and the kind of haze that comes from the earliest sorts of memories, the ones that are more taste and sound and touch than remembering.
Mom tells her to hide it. Tells her she'll never be free if the world finds out, tells her about the bloody fights that can ensue, the lack of choice if her father's family ever gets word of anything.
Honestly, Alathea's still trying to wrap her head around the fact that her mother knows which means she didn't just hand her daughter over to a caretaker immediately after giving birth and going off with Dad somewhere. Somehow, the thought of Janet Drake, dominating Alpha of their family of three, actually being anything close to motherly is more mind-boggling than the idea that anyone would ever fight over her.
"Promise me, Thea."
Perfectly manicured and coated nails dig into her skin but she doesn't dare squirm out of the firm grip she so rarely finds herself in. Janet's eyes are sharp, steel blue and Thea nods.
"I promise, Mama."
,
Her parents die.
The adoption papers ask if Alathea Drake has been informed of her caste by her mother – a fact only mothers can know, in those precious few seconds after birth – or if Bruce should brace himself for a surprise.
Thea ticks off the little box next to the 'B'.
,
Ra's finds out.
Ra's.
Not Bruce.
Not Dick.
Not Alfred.
Not Cass or Steph or Kon or Bart.
Fucking Ra's.
But to be completely fair to her adoptive family, Thea had taken her mother's words to heart and made damn sure no one would ever realize her status. Omegas are fewer nowadays than they were then and even if hiding and keeping the family Omegas has – mostly – gone out of style and been made illegal, there are exceptions.
She has a feeling Ra's might be one of those exceptions.
It's not fair. She's been careful. She'd lied to Batman's face about her caste just so he'd let her be Robin. And after, the suits had come with built-in suppressors for the inevitable day the pheromones finally started taking their effect. She's taken her discreetly-bought pills disguised as vitamins to keep the heats away, ensured that her suits' suppressors never ever stop working so the scent will never escape into the air, pulled her best acting skills to come off as a believable Beta and it all falls to shit because of this.
Because of–
She sees Owens' face, behind her eyelids. Z. Pru.
They … weren't friends. But they'd been good company, the handful of days they had together. A good team.
When she finally has the strength to look Ra's in the eye, she can't find the energy to glare like she'd planned. It just … doesn't seem worth it. And it's a little difficult now, to look so antagonistically at a man who holds nothing but pity in his eyes.
"Oh, my dear," he murmurs, bending low over where she lies on the mattress, swaddled in rich cloths. "You'd started to bond with them, didn't you?"
Thea turns away, closes her eyes again.
The sun is too bright.
,
Pru is alive. Thea lost her spleen. But Pru is alive.
Something inside her wants to cry; the rest of her has already run out of tears. Thea settles for a small nod towards the familiar assassin before turning her attention to Ra's new leverage.
Her name is Tam Fox.
,
Thea knows what's happening. All Omegas need a familial connection. They need that sense of belonging, of place, and her life has not been conducive to such a need. The bonds she's made of those nature have been tentative at best, biological at its most passive, and at its worst points, broken.
Kon's resurrection should have done something for her: his faith in her theory certainly had. But when they'd sat together back then, in the sewer, something inside Thea had ached.
Loss.
Not the fresh kind, not the one that came with grief and rage and disbelief, but something is gone from Thea. It had disappeared when Kon died, when … everyone, it seemed like, had gone away. When Dick had suggested, blatantly, if they should get her a therapist.
When no one had believed her. Wanted her. Supported her.
Something had gone, chipped or ripped or simply passed away into the night and it wasn't until she sat with Kon in a rare moment of peace that she felt its loss.
She feels it now, as she tries. She tries to build a relationship with Tam, even though she gets the tingling feeling that Tam doesn't really see her. She stays on amiable terms with Pru. And despite everything, she goes back to the Manor.
Everything feels wrong.
She thought it would change once she got actual proof of Bruce. She thought things would be better when they get him back. And it is, for a while.
But Thea is still Red Robin. She still doesn't have her spleen back. The months of questionable activity and the scars they left behind have left marks in places no one sees, in the places that matter, and to be honest, Thea's not even sure if she can be Robin anymore.
So, she leaves. She can – she's an emancipated minor, two years away from her legal majority, a major shareholder in Wayne Enterprises, and if she wants to live away from her adoptive family, she very well can.
"You don't need to leave," Dick stresses. His face is pinched with concern and she's touched. Really, she is.
It's getting hard to hide her caste from everyone. Aside from Alfred, the Wayne household has a common theme: they're Alphas. Bruce is an Alpha, Dick is an Alpha, Jason is a crazy Alpha, and even if Damian hasn't presented yet, Thea doubts Talia – another Alpha – would have allowed her baby to be anything else.
Thea leans on her crutches, smiles reassuringly at the man who shaped her life so much. Who still holds so much sway over her.
"I've changed, Dick," she says, carefully. "A lot of things happened when I went away. I'm – we're both different now and I need my own space."
A disbelieving snort. "And the Manor doesn't have that?"
"It's full of ghosts. There's too much history in it. I need someplace new. Someplace else. My own."
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back. "You're on crutches and you're moving out," he says with a shake of his head. "You'll call?"
She wonders what he'd be saying if he knew about her spleen. Probably nothing. It's not as if it's something debilitating. Best not to dwell on it. If he knew her caste, he'd probably lock her up in her room and board the windows.
…No. He's not Ra's. That had probably been one of the most terrifying moments in her life.
Thea nods. "As soon as I get settled in."
He hugs her. And she doesn't want him to let her go, never wants to lose this faint connection between them, but Janet's words echo through her mind more than a decade after the fact, sees the nauseously possessive gleam in Ra's eyes.
She lets go. Because his grip is too tight, because there isn't enough air in her lungs, because there are a hundred different things she needs but can't be given and she's getting tired of pretending.
Hah. A pretender. Jason would appreciate the joke.
Thea drives back to the newly-renovated, now-livable theater and wonders if she'll ever call it home.
,
Only Omega women can give birth.
…That's inaccurate. Only Omega women can be impregnated by traditional means. Everyone else needs to be artificially inseminated and an incubator for the fetus to grow in.
Personally, Thea prefers the incubator. Giving birth sounds like a pain in the ass. And dangerous.
But only Omega women can form the kind of bonds with her pack that binds them together. Children and spouses have an undeniable attachment that weathers even the worst circumstances. Parents – usually – dote on their Omega child, knowing they'll lose her to another family when she grows up. Siblings are more complicated to speak for, but Omegas often have good relationships with them as well.
Betas can form tentative bonds, and they can calm down a wild Alpha well enough – they don't have heats, the lucky bastards – and all in all, seem to be a better option. Safer. Freer.
That's all the matters in the end, isn't it?
It's easier not to take care of yourself when you're the only to remind yourself about it. Thea sets up alarms to remind her that, yes, regular mealtimes are a thing. So is sleeping a few hours at night. But she's maintaining two lives and all the work that comes with both and eventually, she disables the alarms.
Surprisingly, there are upsides.
Apparently, there's a body weight in which heats take one look at and run screaming away from. The pills also become poisonous at this point and although there's a small risk if she gains weight, Thea forces herself to put down the bottle. The last thing she needs is a trip to the hospital and a news agency reporting that one of the Wayne adoptees has flowered into an Omega caste.
She'd never hear the end of it.
Scent glands also stop working after enough weight loss. It's more significant than losing heat because while the former is reproductive, the latter is a constant state. It's a few weeks before the hormones screaming out starvation and stress and exhaustion disappear and she makes sure to be scarce and keep the suit on at all times to keep anyone from finding out, but afterwards. Afterwards, she's free.
Just like a Beta.
Alathea Drake smiles in the mirror. It's piercing, ice cold. Beautiful, just like her mother was. Manipulative. Playful, like Bruce. Young and bright, like Thea Drake-Wayne.
Alathea Drake is a Beta who might as well be an Alpha, for all that she's aggressive and territorial about her company. Alathea Drake might have been taken in by Bruce Wayne, but she's Janet's daughter and being young and new to the business world doesn't mean a thing. Alathea Drake is responsible and one day, she's going to have a lot of people falling over themselves to propose to her.
(And Thea, she curls up beneath the armor and hides.)
,
Damian cuts her lines.
Damian is angry about the hit list.
Damian has been raised as an assassin, wanted to be an assassin, actually tried to kill Thea. Not even that long ago, when she stops to think about the amount of time that's passed during the insanity that makes up their lives. Not long at all.
He is also hurt that she sees him as a possible threat.
And, as is his habit now, Dick sides with him.
Oh.
Alright.
Never mind that being angry doesn't justify his antics. Being angry is fine. How the brat reacted was not.
If not for the gloves, Thea's nails would be cutting into the palm of her hand. It's a tell, an obvious one, but she leaves it be and wonders if Dick even sees it. Sees her. Does he ever really look at her anymore? Look at her and see?
She wonders.
,
(She wakes up a bed, chained to the frame.
Ra's wants an heir.
Afterwards, when she's safe, when she's alone, Thea screams in the bathtub until her throat bleeds.)
,
Thea stares into the bathroom mirror and someone stares back.
She's afraid it's herself.
The young woman looking back at her, naked as the day she was born, is not confident, is not cutting or quick-witted or even well-rested. She is gaunt. Her cheeks have lost their baby fat too early and too fast, dark bags weigh heavily under bloodshot eyes. There are scars and bandages, bruises that mar her skin. She's small with skin draped over hard-earned muscle and not much else. Her ribs stick out prominently enough that she can count them.
She looks hollowed out.
She feels hollowed out.
Thea puts on a suit and applies makeup that makes her look (alive) reasonably healthy. There is no energy today for Alathea Drake or Thea Drake-Wayne. This is fine.
(Where do you see yourself in ten years?)
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
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Author's Note: So, the A/B/O 'verse has always fascinated me. Unfortunately, because my brain isn't imaginative enough for mpreg, I'm leaving the actual birthing for women (and, barring that, incubators). I don't have a problem with mpreg and have enjoyed stories with it and of it but I guess in terms of actually writing it out, it's just not my style?
Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you'll take some time to leave a comment on your thoughts. I'm not sure if I'll have any particular pairings, I'd like to have this as gen and just see how a family mostly comprised of emotionally screwed-up Alphas deal with suddenly realizing they have an emotionally screwed-up Omega in their midst.