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: Sorry for the long wait for this installment! I know it's been a hot minute. I'm hoping the fact that it's a multi-chapter and will be longer will help...
This is kind of a 5+1 things, but not exactly. You'll see what I mean. Story title comes from the song Like Real People Doby Hozier.
Don't really have too much to say other than that, besides:
As always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~in those eyes of his~
~like real people do~
~chapter 1~
The gardens of Wayne Manor had a greenhouse.
Dick had known this before, he'd known it ever since he'd started walking around the gardens to pass the time, but he hadn't gone into the greenhouse before.
He'd thought about it. The greenhouse looked nice – it wasn't too grand of a structure, small really, but large enough to be able to have a small patio of sorts inside it as well as room for the plants. They were mostly flowers, rosebushes and the like. They looked to be well-cared for, and once he had seen Alfred in the greenhouse, so that had answered his question.
His other question had been answered as he had been walking past the greenhouse at the same time the beta had departed it. "Ah, Master Grayson," the man had said. "Enjoying the weather?"
Dick did not know if one could "enjoy the weather" of Gotham. It was the rainiest city in the entire continental United States, despite how its sister city, New York, did not get nearly the same amount. It was due to some sort of strange geography reason; the Court had forced him to know why, but he hadn't cared to recall the knowledge right in that moment.
Although it hadn't been raining then, the clouds had formed a firm barrier between the sun and the earth.
If nothing else, he'd supposed, it hadn't been terribly cold from his perspective, so he'd said, "It's fine enough."
Alfred's lips had twitched at that. He'd craned his neck, looking back at the entrance to the greenhouse. "Master Wayne's father had this built for his mother back in the day. It was one of his many gifts to her. He gave her necklaces, earrings, various other trinkets, books, even a small island off the coast of Brazil – but there was nothing that she liked more than this greenhouse and the house over there. The lake house." He'd pointed across the lake.
Dick had known that the lake house was on the Wayne manor property, but he'd wondered what it was for.
Now, he knew.
"I'm sure Mistress Wayne would not mind you visiting her greenhouse, should you care to," Alfred had continued.
Little did he know it, but that was exactly the reason why Dick had decided not to go into the small building.
He did not assuredly believe in the afterlife like Alfred seemed to, even though his surrogate son had no religious propensities, though he was ethnically Jewish through his mother, and Jason took "the Lord's name in vain" on a regular basis. True, he didn't remember it, but he thought that being killed and then resurrected had something to do with that for reasons beyond that he no longer remembered his parents' religion, if they'd had one. He had no ties there. Do not think that that was the reason why.
Rather, it was because he didn't want to set a precedent. Precedents were dangerous.
Yet, every single time he walked past the greenhouse, there was an urge within him to stop and go inside. It was one that was becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
It had been a month since his excursion out of the manor with Jason, a month and a half since he had come to stay here. He hadn't been out since then. The twelve-year-old, he knew, wasn't too enthused about that. But –
– He wasn't ready.
And he had his upcoming heat to worry about, too.
The Court of Owls had given him heat suppressants while he'd been with them, the only kind that he'd been told would work on him. They'd carefully planned out when he could come off the suppressants, making sure that his heats wouldn't have interfered with whatever they had wanted him to do. They'd also allowed them to only last four days, since Dick's could go on for as long as five or six. It had made them predictable, routine.
He didn't have that predictability here.
It had been approximately three months since his last heat, as the Court had wanted him to get one out before they'd sent him after the Bat. He knew it would be coming soon. He would need to talk with Bruce about it, see what the other man – his soulmate – would want to do.
Dick doubted that he would want to help him through it, and he would decline if Bruce asked. Still, there were things to discuss, plans to be made.
For now, however...
As he walked past the greenhouse for the umpteenth time, that urge to go in it bloomed inside him once again. This time, Dick paused in his step, even as he tried to ignore it. He closed his gold eyes, inhaling the wind as it flew past him, carrying the smell of rain and dirt that was wet but wasn't quite mud.
I won't, he said to himself. I won't.
. . .
. . .
Ah, fuck it, he thought a few moments later, though he wanted to make it clear that he heard it in Jason's voice and not his own, because it was something that Jason would say, not him.
The greenhouse was much warmer than the outside when he went in, and humid. The moisture practically blasted him in the face. He didn't take his jacket off, because it wasn't warm enough for him to still not feel rather cold, but his extremities appreciated the change in temperature. Closing the door gently behind him, he then rubbed his hands together, desperate to get more feeling into them than what was already there.
Dick sat down on one of the outdoor couches, dark wood with cushions that looked like they had seen better days. They were strangely...antipodal to what he would have expected from Bruce.
But the cushions were comfortable. He wasn't going to complain about that.
The windows of the greenhouse were thick enough that they offered a slight muffling effect. He could hear the sounds from the outside, but they weren't as clear as the sound of the bugs creeping in the dirt in the greenhouse, even though the latter required much more of his focus to listen to.
Yet Dick focused on those latter sounds, closing his eyes again. They, too, were comforting. So much of his world had been loud ever since the Court of Owls had made him into what he was. A lot of it had been quiet as well: his coffin, his existence at Wayne Manor when he wasn't in the company of one of its other three occupants, and etcetera. He was able to tune out the background noise or focus on one noise to drown out the rest to his heart's content here.
He wasn't sure how long he remained like this. He didn't experience the tiring or twitching of muscles like regular humans did: it could have easily been hours until he would have needed to move.
It was not that long, however, before he heard the crunching of dirt underneath approaching footsteps.
His head tilted minutely, but he did not open his eyes.
Not until he heard the door to the greenhouse opening. "I wasn't expecting to find you here," Bruce said, his voice gruff as his rain and oakmoss scent washed over him.
They'd past the point of the scent making Dick produce slick every time he inhaled it, and for that he was thankful. It would have been getting past tiresome and entering into the territory of unbearable otherwise.
"I wasn't aware that you were looking for me," Dick returned.
The alpha's expression was sheepish. They had still hardly spoken to one another. "Alfred was wondering if you would like to eat dinner with us tonight," he explained. "He said he didn't know when the last time that you had eaten was."
His implication was clear. Alfred would have asked Dick himself, but he was already making dinner. Jason was not around to ask him, either, as he was at school. His scent match had drawn the short end of the stick.
"I ate this morning," Dick defended himself. Which probably would've sounded like a strange excuse to some, but as he'd said before, his dietary needs were different. Really, he only needed to eat once a day, or once every other day if it was cold and/or he had not been doing a great amount of physical activity.
And he hadn't, in the latter case.
Bruce's lips twitched. "Alfred might be used to your metabolism, but he's not used to people sneaking into the kitchen, his domain, without his knowing." So he had deduced how Dick had gotten his breakfast. Of course he had. "I think you can forgive him for his worrying."
The omega's head tilted further. "Why would I need to forgive him of anything?"
"Sorry," Bruce apologized, coughing. "Turn of phrase."
There were so many things that Dick had lost out on or did not remember.
An awkward silence fell between them.
Bruce turned around slightly, his hand wrapping around the doorknob. "I'll tell Alfred that you're not interested," he spoke.
He'd barely opened the door before Dick said softly, "Wait."
The other man glanced back at him.
"What is he making for dinner?"
"Beef Wellington," Bruce answered. "It's one of his favorite recipes."
Dick had already learned that. He wasn't sure of how; perhaps he'd overheard Jason talking about it, or maybe the adolescent had told him it directly.
Either way, he additionally knew how much work went into such a recipe.
He didn't sigh, although the urge cropped up. "You may tell him I'll eat dinner."
It wasn't like he couldn't eat in spite of not being hungry. He wouldn't suffer from it like a regular person.
And Jason would be happy for it, if nothing else.
Bruce hid his smile. "I will, then."
He started to pull the door further open.
"One more thing," Dick spoke. Since Bruce was here, they might as well get it out of the way: "My heat will be coming in the next two weeks."
Bruce paused.
"Are you sure?" he asked after a moment.
If Dick had been more human than he was, perhaps one of his eyes would've twitched at that. It was his body, his mating cycle. Wouldn't he know better than anybody else?
"My heats have always been fairly predictable before, even without the suppressants I was given."
The alpha winced. "That's not what I meant," he offered up. He let go of the doorknob, letting the door swing shut again behind him as he pivoted on his foot. "I meant, what do you want me to do?"
Dick both appreciated and hated how open-ended the question was.
He cleared his throat. "I don't want...intercourse."
It was a serious statement, and yet it seemed to grant Bruce even more of a glimmer of humor than he had shown before. "I was assuming that was a given, unless..." He trailed off at the confused look that must've been on Dick's face. "Never mind."
Perhaps he had been trying to compare him to other metahumans, who often experienced somnic hypersexuality during their heats?
Maybe it would not have been an unfair comparison, if the Court of Owls had not made him to be their assassin first and an omega second. Having those kind of heats would have gotten in the way of what they'd wanted.
Dick didn't mention it. There was no point.
"I don't know how you've spent your heats in the past," Bruce continued. "I don't know what you would want or like. But I am willing to give you whatever you want or need."
"Warmth," was the first word that came out of Dick's mouth, even before he was fully aware of what he was doing. He felt his eyes nictate in surprise.
Despite what the term implied, his heats had never been warm in the past. They'd always been in a room separate of where his coffin was, and they'd always been cold. He'd shivered from fever (relative to his body temperature) and cold alike under the blankets he'd created a nest with. Humans didn't naturally nest during their heats, but it was a trait he had learned for his own comfort.
"I can do that," Bruce agreed easily.
Dick could only imagine what would be in store for him.
He chose his next words very carefully. "If I want you or need you in any other way, then I will call for you."
Bruce gave no external reaction to this. And for once, it was truly impossible to tell what he was thinking. "Of course. Anything else?"
The omega considered it. "Nothing that I can think of right now."
His scent match nodded. "Well, if you do, just let me know. I'm sure it can be arranged."
With that, he practically hurried out of the door.
That night at dinner, Jason gazed between him and Bruce speculatively the entire time. Dick supposed that he couldn't blame him. It wasn't like he ate dinner with them often, and the twelve-year-old seemed determined to analyze every moment that they spent even in proximity to each other.
The food was good, as always. Also as always, after the meal was over, the omega retreated to his room. Just because he had been spending more time outside of it as of late did not mean that he did not long for the solitude it offered, just like how he coveted the silence of the manor.
The next few days passed by without much fanfare. He did go back to the greenhouse now that he had entered it and found out how nice it was from the inside, although the next time that he did he brought the latest book he'd taken from the library with him. Nobody bothered him this time around, not even Alfred.
On the fourth day, when he went back to his room after another walk through the manor gardens, it was to discover some unopened boxes on his bed. Judging by the scent attached to them, Bruce had brought them in himself rather than letting his surrogate father do it.
After some hesitation, Dick opened up the largest of the boxes first. He didn't need scissors or a knife to tear into the tape; just one of his fingernails did the trick, as piercing as those other two when combined with his strength.
The box had two blankets in it that were big enough to fit his king-sized – whatever that meant, he only knew the term because Jason had told it to him – bed. One of them, from the explanation given on the packaging, was heated and meant specifically for heats. He was supposed to spread it out on the bed and lay on top of it rather than underneath it. The packaging promised that the blanket was machine washable, as long as you followed the directions on it.
He wasn't sure how that worked, given that it had to be plugged in to work.
Alfred would probably say that it wasn't his problem to worry about, though, so he didn't. The packaging promised it was slick-stain resistant, and that was good enough for him.
The other blanket was weighted. He wasn't sure why this was significant, because he didn't think it was powered like the other was. Maybe it was because the extra weight would help him conserve his body heat, the little that there was? He didn't know.
Dick would have to find out and see.
He opened his second of the three boxes. This one contained the heat supplies that he knew from previous experience were typical, or typical-adjacent: pads, a pack of bottled water, protein bars.
Well, he didn't know so much the latter two, but he had been given equivalents by the Court of Owls during his heats.
The last box...if Dick had still had the ability to flush, he would've done so then. It was full of sex toys: plastic dildos in various colors, all except one with inflatable knots, most of them with vibrating capabilities, a few that had some sort of chemical safe fake semen packets sold with them, and one that was heated. He regarded them all for several seconds, dumbstruck.
Hadn't he told Bruce that he didn't need help with sex? Why had he gotten him these things? They were unnecessary!
He thought about closing up the box and taking it to wherever Bruce was in the manor, provided that he was still in the manor, and telling him that.
...But something prevented him from following through. Perhaps it was his instincts: maybe his baser urges were identifying all these gifts as a way that his alpha was taking care of him, and they didn't want to offend Bruce or make him feel like he was being rejected by giving the sex toys back. Maybe they were...tentatively excited at the prospect of being able to use something other than his hands for stimulation during his heat, on the off times that he had wanted to orgasm.
(Maybe it didn't have to do with his instincts at all.)
Dick went about putting the toys away as quickly as possible. He put the heated one and a few others in the drawer to his left nightstand, but all the others he crammed into the cabinets in his bathroom.
It was a good thing that he did, too.
When Jason came home at three-thirty, Dick was going about getting his nest ready. Yes, it was likely his heat wouldn't start for another week still, but he would prefer for this one time to be prepared rather than not.
(Rather than shoved into that room as soon as his pre-heat started, and he'd quickly become so hazy and tired many of those times that his nest had never been quite to his satisfaction.)
He had the heated blanket splayed out on his bed and the remaining blankets and his pillows (including the ones from the linen closet, which brought the total pillow count to ten, albeit only four of them were the standard bed pillows) arranged accordingly. Surveying his work, he tried to see if any further adjustments needed to be made.
From behind him, he heard Jason's footsteps as he walked past his room in the quest for his own.
The footsteps stopped, before circling back.
"Wow," he said.
Dick turned around. The younger boy was looking at his bed and at him with wide eyes, his mouth partially open.
"Did you do all of this yourself?" he asked.
Dick hesitated to answer him. It was impossible to determine what he was thinking from his tone and body language alone. "Bruce got the supplies for me," he decided to say.
"Yeah, no, I know that," Jason spoke. He waved his arms around exuberantly. "This is just so cool! I've never even heard of omegas doing this for their heats before!" He blinked, becoming chagrined. "I mean..."
The muscles in Dick's cheeks longed to contract. "I know," he acknowledged. "It is strange."
Jason shook his head. "Nah, it's cool," he insisted. His eyes turned hopeful. "Can I – ?"
He didn't finish the sentence, not that he'd needed to.
Allowing a sigh to come from his lips this time, a fond one, he directed his head towards the bed.
Jason launched himself towards the bed with a "whoop!" Concern twinged within Dick, but somehow – probably thanks to his experience as Robin – barely any of the bed was disturbed. One pillow did fall off the other side of the bed, which he went to go pick up and put it back in its place.
"Sorry," Jason apologized. Then, he let out a happy noise. "Man, this is so comfy."
Dick knew that he was twelve, and that theoretically meant he could present at any time, depending on his designation. He didn't think that Jason knew what his designation would be, however, nor did Bruce from the way the topic had never been brought up, in spite of the genetic testing for it being available to them because of Bruce's wealth. Perhaps they were in no hurry to know? Perhaps it didn't matter to them like it would for most other people? American society, after all, was much more sexist and misogynistic than it pretended to be.
A thought for another time.
Dick sat down on the bed. Jason made another noise from his throat, and he accurately deduced what it meant. He went down the rest of the way, and the boy gave him a grin.
They didn't speak for the remaining time. After about twenty or so minutes, just when his eyes were starting to get droopy, Jason blinked the sleep from them and announced that he had to do homework before his and Bruce's patrol tonight. He left quickly, leaving Dick and his scent all over the sheets and pillows in his wake.
Inhaling softly through his nose, he took in Jason's scent, noticing how it complemented Bruce's rain and oakmoss and his own, even though his and Jason's were really only pheromones.
Well, they were all really only pheromones, but you knew what he meant.
Only Bruce's had the additional weight, informing him of what he was to him as well as his alpha designation and what his mood had been (content) as he'd left the boxes in Dick's room.
Word Count: 3,577