Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Warner Bros. Entertainment, DC Comics, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Okay...I got finished with this a lot faster than I was expecting lol. What can I say? I just loved the idea of this too much!

Story title comes from the song Freeze Your Brain from the Heathers Musical. Don't ask me how that song prompted this entire one-shot; I have no idea how my brain works, I'm just along for the ride.

Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis


~in those eyes of his~

~freeze your brain~


The first few weeks of his staying at the Wayne Manor were...tedious, at best.

Dick was released from the room that had initially served as his prison and housed in another one, albeit he was now free to roam the manor as however he pleased, including out to the gardens. With his newfound freedom, he made it his mission to avoid the other occupants of the house as much as possible. There was Bruce, and Robin – Jason, he had come to know his name as, of course, but there was also Alfred Pennyworth, the family's butler and a beta man. Dick did not mind Alfred as much as he did the other two; Alfred seemed to understand his need for space, and quickly came to accommodate Dick's dietary needs. He did not need to eat as much or as often as a human did – because really, although he had originally been one himself, after having been killed and brought back to life through the electrum serum, how could anyone say that he was human anymore?

(They couldn't, or at least he couldn't. And because it was true for him, he assumed it would be true for everyone else sans his soulmate, who he was doing his best not to think about anyways.)

Dick's two favorite places in the manor thus far were the gym and the library. He enjoyed the gym because it came with gymnastics equipment, and although he did not remember much of his life before becoming a Talon, his body seemingly did. It always had. The Court of Owls had even remarked on his unusual skill even for a Talon when it came to that department. Because of his body's enhancements, he could work on his gymnastic abilities for hours, never once breaking a sweat nor needing to take a break. And here, the other occupants of the house were apparently loathe to disturb him. Yes, Bruce had come into the gym once as Dick had been getting ready to leave, and their eyes had locked, the alpha's brown meeting his gold.

"I'm sorry," he'd said, while his eyes had flicked back to the doors he had come through. "I can – "

In that brief span of time he hadn't been looking at him, the omega had made his move. Dick had started to walk, refusing to send another glance his way, refusing to let that tingling in his nose from his mate's scent spread further downwards and to his groin. "I was already leaving," he'd replied. And then he had done just that.

He and Bruce had not said more than twenty words to each other since that day after their fight. This was how Dick preferred things. Their constant proximity to each other in the manor meant that neither of their instincts perceived rejection, and when he didn't see Bruce, he was not reminded of the desire of those same instincts of his to trust him, despite all of the reasons why he knew that he shouldn't.

The library was a bit of a different matter. While it was left empty for most o the day during the business week, allowing for Dick to peruse the many, many titles at his leisure and get more of an understanding of what it meant to live in this world that the Court of Owls had denied him, from around three o'clock onwards and during the entirety of the weekends, he could expect to be interrupted by the presence of Jason. The twelve-year-old boy, as it turned out, was a bookworm: he loved literature, and not just because he was trying to catch up on what he had lost like Dick. He had read more than half of the contents of the library since he had been adopted by Bruce two years ago and he even had a favorite armchair that Dick should do his best not to sit in, as Alfred had revealed both of these things to him.

Jason was not as bad as Bruce in some respects. When he came into the library when Dick was there, sometimes with his school bag slung over his shoulder, sometimes not, he barely spared a glance Dick's way. But Dick was always quick to leave regardless. He could tell when he was not wanted, because Jason obviously did not like him: from their fight or the fact that Dick was soulmates with his adoptive father, he couldn't say. Either way, he wasn't keen to find out. And since he was stuck here for the foreseeable future, it was not like he was in any danger of leaving a book permanently unfinished.

But...things changed the second Saturday since he had agreed to stay at the Manor. Bruce was gone – he had some sort of business affair, or so Dick had overheard, and it was going to take him the entire day. Alfred was also gone, out shopping for groceries, leaving only Dick and Jason in the house.

And inconveniently, they both wanted to read in the library. Dick could hear the boy's heartbeat coming from the room when he approached it. For a moment, he paused in the hallway, uncertain. Of course, since the boy was in there, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for him to read in the library himself. He could go down to the gym and do his gymnastic exercises instead, or even wander aimlessly in the gardens, or simply go back to his room.

However...he didn't want to do either of those other three things. He wanted to finish the book that he'd been reading last night. Well, perhaps "book" was a bit of a misnomer. It was a collection of comics that was about a woman who had grown up in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution, and it was...interesting. He knew the histories that the Court of Owls had taught him, and that event was one of them, but it was something else entirely to read a person's intimate experience during it – especially when it was an experience that he could kind of relate to. Moreover, the pictures made it less boring to read than the other books he'd gone through, even though their style was much more simplistic than what he was used to.

Granted, neither Bruce nor Alfred had told him that he couldn't take books from the library. Maybe he could finish the book still, just not in there. Maybe he could take it back to his bedroom and then return it later, when Jason was no longer there.

His plan decided, he opened the right side of the double-doors to the library and stepped into the room. He purposefully did not look at Jason's armchair as he walked over to the one that he had taken to sitting in, grabbing the book off of the end table next to it. Turning around, he began to walk from whence he had come, before –

"So, you like comic books?"

Dick froze in place.

He turned his head to look over at Jason. The boy was staring back at him with his sea glass eyes, his expression that of someone who was faintly interested. The book that he was currently reading was in his lap.

Dick looked down at his own book in his hand, frowning. He didn't really want to answer Jason, but he had seen how annoying he could get. It was probably just better to entertain him than the alternative. "...I suppose so."

"That's fair. I didn't take you as a Jane Austen sort of guy."

Dick couldn't tell if that was supposed to be an insult or not. He had the feeling that it wasn't, but it could be if Jason decided that he meant it that way in another scenario.

He didn't reply to this, and Jason didn't seem to be more forthcoming with words. He started to walk away agai –

"So, how are you liking the Manor so far?"

Dammit.

Jason knew what he was doing. He had to. His face was the one of perfect innocence, but Dick knew better. He was tempted to sigh through his nose because of it.

He went with just answering the question instead. "It's...fine."

Jason snorted, briefly glancing down and back at the pages of his book. "It better be. I mean, you've spent all your time here the past two weeks. You haven't even tried to go outside."

"I'm not supposed to leave the Manor for the extent of my 'adjustment period.'"

"Is that what B told you, or is that what you extrapolated?"

Dick blinked. He of course couldn't say for sure, but for some reason, he had a feeling that the term "extrapolated" was not in the ordinary twelve-year-old's vernacular.

Jason sighed. "Do you know how to drive a car?"

"...Why?"

"Because I want you to drive me some place," Jason said, like it was the only explanation in the world.

Dick frowned. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"No, you don't think that you're allowed to," the boy corrected him. He rolled his eyes as he reached over to the end table next to his own armchair, grabbing a bookmark off of its surface and putting it into his book before putting the book on the same surface. "My entire point is, you're allowed to. You're not a prisoner here, and it's kind of pathetic that you think you are, especially when the whole point of this is to get you 'adjusted' to the real world. So, come on. Let's go."

Jason got out of the armchair and started walking towards the set of doors that Dick had used to enter the room. When he seemed to realize that Dick was not following him, even though he wouldn't have been able to hear his footsteps if he had been because Talons were just that quiet, he turned around with a glare. "I just said, 'come on!' What are you waiting for?"

"What if I don't know how to drive a car?"

"The Court of Owls definitely taught you how to drive a car, that was just a rhetorical question," Jason scoffed. Dick flinched at this, but it was subtle, not obvious enough that Jason would have noticed. "Let's go." He turned the last word from one syllable into multiple.

Deciding that Jason was already being annoying enough when he wasn't getting his way that it would be worth the hassle to just entertain him, even if he was lying about Dick being allowed out of the house, Dick put down his book on the closest hard surface. He promised to himself to come back for it later, before he followed after the boy. They walked downstairs and to the garage, where a whole host of cars were – far more than any one person could ever want or need. Jason was insistent on them taking the black 2006 Audi A4. It was luxurious, but not luxurious enough that it would be obvious out in public.

Jason hopped into the front passenger's seat. He refused to give Dick the exact address to where they were going, only instructing him on the directions, a few at a time. Dick had to avoid gritting his teeth, although he acknowledged how strange that was. He was used to taking orders, after all, he'd been doing as much with every single move that he made up until only two weeks ago. All Talons did was take orders. So why was taking them from Jason so difficult? Was it just because he was a preteen boy?

Yes, he concluded rather quickly. It was just because of that.

When he finally pulled them up to their destination, Dick's eyebrows raised. They'd arrived at a gas station. A 7-Eleven.

"You can park in one of the parking spaces; we don't need gas," Jason informed him, as if he couldn't see from the gas meter that they didn't.

They were already here. Dick wasn't going to bother to ask why they were here, he just pulled into one of those spaces, put the car in park, and turned off the ignition.

"Oh," Jason added as he opened up his door, "you should probably put on the sunglasses in the compartment between our two seats. Gold eyes aren't exactly typical of ordinary humans."

He closed the door before Dick could even respond.

Thirty seconds later, Dick was out of the car, the sunglasses over his eyes. The set was a little big for his face, because Bruce had a bigger head than he did, but in a way that made them better. He followed after Jason inside the building.

He didn't know what to expect from this entire affair, but it wasn't how Jason walked past all of the aisles full of junk food, heading specifically for a device that was labelled as SLURPEE. He grabbed a cup in the largest size from off to the side of the machine and put it underneath a nozzle that was labelled as Cherry. A liquid came out of the nozzle that Dick had only seen snow become the consistency of before, when it was partially melted. It was not a consistency that he had associated anything pleasant with in the past.

When the cup was full, Jason put a lid on top of the cup and took a straw out of its wrapper before sticking it through the center opening of the lid. He took a large...slurp, Dick supposed, which was probably why the drink had been given its name. Then he swallowed and looked up at Dick, grinning. His lips were stained red. "I love Slurpees," he said, like that explained why he had chosen to force Dick to drive him here. Perhaps it did. A twinkling came to his sea glass eyes. "Have you ever had a Slurpee before? You should get one."

Dick stiffened. His eyes darted over to the machine. Was that why Jason had made him bring him here? He had to know that Talons were susceptible to the cold. Was this some sort of childish attempt to incapacitate him? If so, it wasn't going to work. He had to be exposed to a lot of cold in order for him to be subdued. But even if that wasn't the case, why had Jason chosen this particular place to do it when it would have been more convenient – ?

Jason set his own cup on the table where the other cups were. He got out another one that was of the smaller size, but not the smallest. He squinted his eyes up at Dick. "You're probably more of a blue raspberry person," he announced. He turned on the appropriate nozzle and went through all of the motions he had with his own cup, then held out the cup to Dick. "Here you go."

Dick stared at it warily.

The twelve-year-old huffed. "Look, I know you're susceptible to the cold, but you're not this susceptible. I'm not trying to murder you. I just want you to try a drink and flavor that maybe you haven't tried before."

He should not have been surprised at being read this thoroughly. Jason was Robin, Batman's sidekick. Batman – Bruce – had to have been teaching him the skills of their trade for several years now.

Dick took the cup from him and brought the straw up to his lips. He took a sip. The taste startled him; it did not taste like raspberry, or any other fruit he had ever eaten. And it was ridiculously sweet. But it was familiar, too. He had a feeling that this wasn't the first time he had tasted the flavor.

"Do you like it?" Jason prodded him, all expectant and demanding.

Dick took another sip from the drink.

The grin that spread across Jason's face was so wide that it almost threatened to crack his head open. Mm. Maybe Dick shouldn't be making comparisons like that. Whatever. "You do!" he cheered. "I knew that you would."

Dick cocked his head, lowering his drink. "Why?"

He could admit that there was a certain...thrill with the drink. The taste...how it melted on the tongue...

But the joy that Jason was getting from this was a bit too much, even for a kid. He didn't understand.

Jason twirled around his straw, which made a sound that was absolutely awful as plastic collided with plastic. It made Dick's right eye twitch, however he didn't comment on it. "Back when my mom was alive, we used to come to a 7-Eleven whenever she could afford for us to get Slurpees, which wasn't often," he admitted. "We weren't like Bruce. We were poor. Really poor. The best thing that I liked to do with one of these was give myself a brain freeze. It hurts, but it's fun. Now, whenever I get one of these and do it, it makes me think of her." To prove his point, he took a huge gulp from his drink, until his face twisted up. Squeezing his eyes shut, he let the straw go from his mouth and slapped his other hand to his forehead. "Ah!"

...So it was the emotional connection, then. A ritual Jason had had with his biological parent.

Dick wondered if he'd had a ritual with his own parents. If he had, naturally, he didn't remember it. Not anymore.

Experimentally, he drank a huge gulp of his Slurpee. It didn't seem to take nearly as much as it had with Jason for that to pain to ignite in his forehead – which was understandable, considering his susceptible, yet nevertheless embarrassing. Grimacing himself, he put his hand to his forehead like Jason had, to see if that would provide some relief. Funnily enough, it did.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Jason was once again grinning at him. "What?"

"Nothing," the boy said quickly. Too quickly. "You know, we should probably pay for these before that lady at the cash register gets upset."

The beta woman indeed did not look pleased when they walked up to the counter. But she did bat an eye at how it was Jason who paid with a metal credit card, entering in his pin number and everything like he had already done it a million times before.

They walked back out to the car and got in it. Dick did not start it immediately, choosing to savor his Slurpee a little bit (he had never been allowed to savor things with the Court of Owls, after all), which Jason did not appear to mind. When he was ready, he put his drink in one of the cupholders on top of the middle compartment and started the ignition. In no time at all, they were on their way back to the manor.

Alfred was in the kitchen when they got back, which they saw because the hallway that led to the garage also held one of the entrances to the kitchen, since there were multiple. The beta man must've heard them arrive as he went about putting away the groceries, because he called out as they walked past, "Ah, Master Todd, Master Grayson, did you have fun on your little excursion?"

Dick mildly tensed. He wondered if the beta was speaking in a code that he did not understand, that he was going to get in trouble for having appeased Jason after all.

But all Jason did was grin yet again and walk a little into the kitchen. "Yeah," he said. "We went out for Slurpees."

Alfred glanced over at the Slurpee, now mostly melted, in his hand. He chuckled. "I see that you did. And what did you think about the drink, Master – ?"

But Dick was already gone.

He went back upstairs, back to the library, to collect his book. Taking it, he retreated back to his bedroom, and settled in the armchair there. He didn't immediately open up the book, however, just spent a long while staring outside through the windows, the blue raspberry Slurpee still clutched in his hand. Like Jason's, it was mostly melted. He felt like that was a metaphor.

For what, he didn't know.


Word Count: 3,375