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

Author's Notes: Okay I made a brief error on AO3 that I didn't realize until now – this story is supposed to have 8chapters, not 6. I will be correcting that after I post this chapter.

Also, I know what I said about content warnings and shit in the first chapter, but I'm going to do a brief CW here because: there is a scene depicting very young children using guns in this chapter. It's the first flashback scene, so if you understandably do not want to read it, you know where it is now.

Chapter title comes from the song Hard to Explain by The Strokes.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~break the rules~

~chapter 3: hard to explain~

Barbara's mouth fell open. "Jason, that's – !"

"I know," he snapped. That was the third time he'd done it at her; he felt guilty about it.

The action got him a result he could deal with, though, as after Barbara flinched back, she bit her lip. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Yes, Jason was sure. There was no other possibility in his mid, no other explanation that he could come up with.

But he knew why this was difficult for her to wrap her head around. The statistical probabilities of it, as he'd already gotten into. The fact that she'd already had to adjust to her ideas about what she thought she would be not being reality. Then, to top it all off –

– Maybe she wouldn't even want him. He'd never heard of a person denying their scent-match before, but just because it wasn't recorded as happening didn't mean it never had.

Maybe, to echo his earlier thoughts, she was gay. It would make sense, given everything.

At the very thought, his instincts rebelled again. She's your mate! She wouldn't – !

With much more bravado than he actually had, he raised an eyebrow as more slick gushed out of him. "Can't you smell me, Babs?"

He was referring to the scents that identified them as scent matches, of course, but also not. Barbara knew that, too: her face flushed all over again, becoming almost cherry red. It wasn't like the smell of slick was exactly subtle, not for omegas.

"I can smell you," she agreed hesitantly. Softly. "You smell like books...and leather."

...Huh. That was an interesting combination. He knew that a scent match had their own distinctive scent, and that if they were the primis, all their mates recognized them by that same scent for reasons which couldn't be explained. But it had never occurred to him before that he would be so intrinsically identified in this way before.

Books, books made sense to him, being the bibliophile that he was. Leather, though...?

If you considered his being a vigilante, it kind of made sense, in a way. There was leather incorporated into his suit, although most of it was comprised of kevlar and other such materials to be as bulletproof (and yet lightweight) as possible.

Anyways.

"You smell like honeysuckle and fresh linen," Jason offered.

Barbara smiled shyly. It was a smile, he thought, that could light up the world several times over.

This wasn't a new thought of him to have. As he'd said, the female alpha was his best and only friend in the entire world outside of his family. Yet it felt different this time, causing a heat in his gut that wasn't related to his mating cycle or arousal, one that was simply...there.

He didn't want it to go away.

There were things, however, that they needed to discuss. Even before they had a talk about what them being scent matches meant.

Jason had not forgotten that she was Batgirl, and nor was he willing to let it go.

He crossed his arms, wincing slightly at the cold air and the feeling of how wet the sanitary pad in his underwear already was. They weren't going to be able to stay here, under the protection of the tree, for as long as he wanted to, one way or the other. He would take what they could get.

"Why were you trying to be a vigilante last night?" he asked.

Barbara's expression rippled. "I wasn't just 'trying,'" she snarked. "I did a pretty good job, too!"

"You got a black eye."

"So? You've had to get over thirty stitches before!"

"That's different!"

"How?"

"Because I'm trained for it, you dumb ass!"

The most actual, real physical training Barbara had ever had in her entire life was soccer and karate, and she'd only been doing the latter since the whole incident with the Joker and Rachel Dawes. And even then, she was only a green belt.

She wasn't like Dick, who had been training with Bucky for three years before he'd become Robin and had taken gymnastics. She wasn't like him, when he'd held a gun for the first time when he'd been four years old.

("Aim for the target," ordered their trainer, a female alpha named Vostonina. She stood behind him with earmuffs with built-in comm pieces, so that he and Cass would be able to hear her speak through theirs. Without looking at her, he knew that her hands were clasped behind her back. They always were when she was in a basic standing position.

Jason stared at his target, his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration. It'd been six months since the first time that he'd held a gun, so he was five now. He'd grown during that time, too.

Yet guns were never made with child hands in mind, and so the weapon felt clunky in his hands. Perhaps he would've been worried about it accidentally going off, if he didn't know better.

There would be no room for such error.

He fired the gun. Bang! it went, making his eyes blink, the blast deafening even with the earmuffs.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that the bullet hole was two rings away from the bullseye. He grinned.

"Хороший," Voronina said as he turned around. Her expression was as blank as ever, yet not as blank or cold as that of the Солдат. She glanced down to Jason's right. "Cassandra?"

Jason passed his sister the gun as they switched positions. She stood where he had been directed to, and her posture was much straighter than his own, impossibly straight. Sometimes, it felt like she had been more born to do this than he had. Like there was something in her blood that made her better at it than him.

Like she was the one, even though they both knew it couldn't be the case, who was supposed to be the –

Bang!

Bullseye. Without even trying.

Cass looked back at him as Voronina repeated her remarks. She held out the weapon to him, and he grasped its warming metal from the heat of their hands, of their sweat. "We're doing good," her eyes told him.

He would have to agree.

Bang!)

"I know you are!" Barbara shot back. She wilted. "I know you are. I just...after you had to get all those stitches, I felt like I had to protect you..."

A small part of Jason's brain wondered if that was because some part of her had already realized that they were scent matches, as impossible as it sounded.

Because otherwise, as the larger part of his brain was focusing on –

"I don't need to be protected," he hissed. His throat tightened. "Barbie, I've killed people. That's not something that even Bruce has done." Not directly, anyways.

She looked away from him, her jaw locking. "I know, but I'm not going to apologize. Because while it started out that way...even before last night, that's not been my only reason. I want to be Batgirl, Jason. Why is it only your family that gets to help save Gotham?"

"Selina and Dinah help us, too. Have since before even Dickie started."

"You know what I mean."

Jason scowled. "Again, we're trained to do it! We have the experience for it!"

Barbara's spine straightened. He recognized the way that she was holding herself immediately: it was the classical, obstinate alpha pose, where they were determined to get their way no matter what. "Then I guess you'll just have to teach me, since I'm not going to stop."

"That's a stupid idea."

"You got a better one?"

"I could tell your parents and Bruce," he threatened. "They'll stop you."

The smirk that she gave him practically stole his breath away, as did what she said next: "You're not going to do that, Omega."

He felt more slick slide out of him at the name.

Fuck.

"Not fair," he whined.

Let it never be said that Barbara couldn't be downright manipulative when she wanted to be.

They ended up going to the nearest Batburger for brunch just as the restaurant switched over from breakfast food to lunch. Jason was able to get a fried chicken patty on their pancake buns out of it, which he was grateful for. He hated their vegetarian patty options – too greasy.

He was more than happy with this, as he was also able to get two of the sandwiches. Barbara got two burgers and they got more than enough fries to share, the sticks of potassium fresh out of the fryer and absolutely delicious with a few extra packets of salt poured on top. They each got a chocolate milkshake.

Jason paid of it, happy that he had more than enough cash on him. Otherwise, that would've given him away for skipping today too easily, provided that the school didn't call his parents.

Barbara sipped at her milkshake. Now that they were a few hours past the insanity of it all, she was much calmer. More composed. "So...how much about all of this do you know?"

"Not as much as I'd like to," he said. "Given that it's now happening to us."

"Do you know why we're, um..." She trailed off, looking down at her lap purposefully.

That, he did. "It's supposed to encourage us to get on with the program faster."

Her face went white. "Does that mean we'll always be like this until we – ?"

Jason resisted the urge to shudder. God, that would be absolutely awful. Imagine everybody being able to smell that you were aroused when you actually weren't. And the only wake to make it stop was to bond yourself with another person, despite you both being fifteen and it technically not even being legal without parental permission.

("Technically" because kids their age went ahead and did it anyways. Their bonds simply weren't recognized until they were of age, if they weren't broken off before then. It shouldn't need to be said that the latter option wasn't a fun process for either party.)

"I think it'll balance out," he said optimistically.

"'You think?'"

"It has to," he replied. "I mean, do you want our parents to find out about this so soon?"

She shook her head. "No. Definitely not."

He didn't know how the Gordons would react, but his own parents would go absolutely ballistic, that was for sure. Tony especially.

They'd need to figure out a way to tell them gently, even if that meant waiting until they were both eighteen to do so.

Jason shoved some fries into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, staring out the window at the people walking past. People who had no idea they were in the vicinity of two kids who were defying so many odds simply by existing. People who had no idea that they were vigilantes, and that one of them was the second Robin. People who, for the most part, lived relatively chaos-free lives.

He wondered what that was like, sometimes. He loved his family and he wouldn't trade them for anything in the world, yet he knew that they were practically as chaotic as one could get. He wondered what it would have been like to have had a normal childhood, one without being raised to be a weapon and the expectation that he would present as an alpha.

Oh, well. It wasn't like he'd ever know.

"We're going to have to come up with some rules," he said.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "'Rules?'"

"Yes. So nobody realizes what's going on with us about this. And...just in general. It's good to have communication and boundaries, if needed. That's what B and T say all the time, anyways.

"First thing's first." He pointed a fry at her: "Not calling each other those names in public."

"That's not going to be easy," she muttered. "Practically everything in me wants to call you that name."

"Then you'll just have to make a conscious effort not to," he answered smoothly. Like he wasn't reminding himself of the same thing. "Second thing's second: whether we're romantic or not, I'm...not ready for sex yet. Not by any means."

It wasn't only that he was unsure if they would be able to control themselves from mate-biting each other that he said that. It was also that he wasn't ready for it yet, plain and simple: even a year after his presentation, even with him actually kind of liking being an omega now, his biology was sometimes hard for him to wrap his head around.

It wasn't because he had dysphoria, more of a problem with "seeing is believing." Like how Tony had been uncomfortable with his body even a few years into his and Bruce's marriage.

(Plus, he didn't want to get pregnant. He wasn't even on birth control yet!)

Barbara frowned. "Do you...do you not want to get together?"

"I said 'whether or not.'"

"That doesn't answer my question."

Her eyes were sad, like puppy dog eyes.

Scent matches they might have been (read: were), but he'd never have been able to resist those eyes regardless. He never had before.

"I never thought that you...would want that," he mumbled, glancing down at his second sandwich, only half-eaten.

Barbara scoffed. "You're joking, right?"

He looked back up. "Huh?"

"Jason, I think I've always had a crush on you," she said. "I didn't really realize it until this past October, but I think it's always been there. You – you decided to become my friend pretty much as soon as you met me, even though you didn't have to. Nobody else our age has ever wanted to be friends with me."

"That's only because they don't know how awesome you are," he returned without much thought. He felt the tension in the muscles of his face fade. "You...like me like that?"

"Of course I do! Are you kidding? Not only did you become my friend, but you're, like, the smartest kid at school and objectively the most terrifying with how many fist-fights you've gotten into." Jason's lips quirked at this. She wasn't wrong, but it was kind of funny to hear. "And then you've been doing you-know-what for the past year and it's absolutely badass, and you're always down for watching Doctor Who with me. Why wouldn't I like you like that?"

She said all of it in one breath, so by the time that she was finished, her chest was heaving.

Hence why her follow-up came so much softer:

"I just never thought that you would like me that way, either..."

"Wow. We make quite the pair, don't we?" Jason said. He didn't let her ask what he meant by that as he scratched the back of his neck nervously. "'Cause jeez, Barbie, I've liked you like that all this time, too.

"Well," he corrected himself, "maybe not that long. But then I presented as an omega, and I thought..."

Her visage became fierce. "I would've liked you regardless of whatever you presented as, Jason."

The "Todd" went implied; nobody had recognized him because of the celebrity prosopagnosia that came when they were in public places that they shouldn't have been and all that jazz.

Neither he nor Barbara, however, were naïve enough to believe that it would stay that way if she used his full name.

He grinned back at her. In spite of how things had turned out today thus far, that made him happy beyond belief. It was everything that he could've ever wanted her to say.

"The same goes for me, Barbie."

Perhaps this was when they would've kissed for the first time. Jason, as full of emotion as he was, was not so unobservant as to not notice that they were slowly leaning in towards one another across the table. They probably would've had to readjust how they were sitting in order to accomplish it, yet they could've easily done it.

But then, from the other side of the aisle of booths, an older man alpha man, who had been reading a newspaper for all of this time and they'd thought they'd talking quietly enough so as not to disturb, set his newspaper down right next to his coffee. His face was kind, even as he said, "Not that this hasn't been the most interesting conversation kids, but shouldn't you two be in school?"

Across the table, Jason watched Barbara's eyes flash. There was no other way to describe it. In typical alpha fashion, he knew that she was suppressing the urge to growl.

He squashed one of her feet underneath his, causing her to let out an undignified yelp. Then he turned to look at the alpha man with a sunny smile. "You know, you're probably right about that."

Rule three, he thought to himself, as he would tell her later. No possessive behavior in public. Or at all, really, if it can be managed.

...Probably not.

God, I'm a dead man walking.

After they left the Batburger, they still had an excess of time to kill. Hours and hours of it.

(That was the thing about waiting in their room at the base, whether for instructions, training, health exams, punishment, or whatever else Haywood could think of: there was nothing ever for them to do. Besides sleep, of course.

But there came a time when even sleep was too boring, if that could be believed.

There was one window to the room, but it was located so high up and on the wall opposite of where their shared cot was bolted, so they were never able to look out it, even when they were stacked one on top of the other.

They spent a lot of time simply staring up at the ceiling, tracing the patterns there in the light and in the night. Sometimes, they would make a game out of it.

"Что ты видишь?" Cass would sign when she was the one asking the question.

"Mmm...a monkey," was something that he would answer, something that was impossible.

It made her shoulders shake with silent laughter.

"Ты не!"

"Did too!"

"Ты не!"

Sometimes, he would just give the basic shapes that they saw, or occasionally the obscure faces, which were the honest answers yet didn't get her to laugh. Other times, he would answer something like, "I see Captain America, the number one enemy of HYDRA! He's coming to get us out of here! Can't you see?"

"Да," Cass would answer, knowing that it was a lie.

Knowing that nobody was ever going to come save them, just as he did.)

It didn't take too long of a distance from the fast food restaurant for Barbara to forcibly lead him by the hand over to an alleyway.

"Babs," he whined.

Even during the daytime, alleyways in Gotham weren't exactly safe. Sure, he would be more than able to protect them if it came down to it – as he knew that she would be able, given her karate skills.

That didn't mean that he had to like it.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. she didn't sound sorry at all. "I know we shouldn't do this in public, either. But I don't think I can wait until we're either at your house or mine. You just smell so good."

With that being said, once they were deep enough in the alleyway that they wouldn't be easily seen, she pressed her nose up against his mating gland and inhaled deeply.

And oh.

That was enough to make his knees go weak.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Something about it was so wonderful, so awe-encapsulating in way that was beyond words –

He was vaguely aware of more of his pheromones being released and another gush of slick coming out of him. He'd already changed the pad while they were at the Batburger, but he suspected it was too little too late for his poor pair of underwear. They were definitely ruined.

(It was suddenly understandable to him why this action was so important to Bruce and Tony, and why it was so important to mated couples in general, regardless of if they felt it at the same intensity that he currently was or not. Maybe the greatness of it was simply another way that scent matches were set apart.)

"Don't...don't bite," he said weakly.

Barbara huffed as she pulled away. "I wasn't going to do that. Not there, anyways." She looked at him with those leafy green eyes of hers. Leafy green when her pupils weren't blown so wide you could hardly see her irises, anyways, as they were now with nothing but a thin edge threatening to be consumed. He knew that his couldn't be much better. "Can I kiss you?"

Shyly for an inexplicable reason since it wasn't like him at all, wordlessly, he nodded.

Barbara leaned forwards and slowly brushed her lips up against his. They tasted like that cherry chapstick that she always used. He moaned into the kiss, opening up his mouth like a blooming flower.

The female alpha didn't take too much of an advantage. She did nibble at his bottom lip, which was incredibly hot, as were the chest rumbles coming from her – a sound that she hadn't bee able to make even two weeks ago.

But she didn't do anything more than that. Her hands were kept firmly in the PG-setting, only on his waist, not going any higher or lower.

It was magical. As far as first kisses went, it felt like something out of a movie.

When they had to come up for air, they were both panting messes. "I think," Jason gasped, "I think this is going to be harder than either of us gave it credit for earlier."

Barbara nodded jerkily. "Yeah."

Her eyes darted back to his lips.

"You can kiss me again," he said.

She didn't waste any time in doing that.

They kept the kissing in the alleyway limited to just that; it wouldn't be a good idea for them to have a full-blown make-out session there. Jason's lips felt swollen and red afterwards, and he knew that they had to be, given how Barbara's looked.

Her entire demeanor was absolutely wild.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go to the nearest mall."

So they did, taking the subway to get there. They earned more than a few weird looks on the train, which made Barbara bristle, but he kept her mollified by holding her hand and whispering once, "Down, girl."

The dog-like command had her ears tinging pink.

When they got to the mall, the first thing that he did was lead them to the JCPenney store inside. He still had plenty of cash after their trip to Batburger.

They went over to the section for male omegas. Quickly, he found what he was looking for: a pack of underwear in his size.

"Is that really necessary?" Barbara asked.

"Absolutely," he said. "You try dealing with damp underwear for hours on end."

She winced. "Point taken."

They went into the middle of the store to get checked out, then they sought out the nearest restrooms. Barbara waited outside as he went into the one for omegas, beta women, and thetas.

As quickly as possible, he used a quarter to get another sanitary napkin from the machine inside before he went to one of the stalls, closed the door behind him, pulled down his pants and underwear, and sat down. His nose wrinkled as he caught sight of the state that his current pair was in.

Yeah, they were definitely beyond salvation when it would be hours until he could throw them into the washer by himself – he wasn't going to subject Alfred to them, of course not.

Nor did he want to think about how bad they were going to make his bag smell if he put them in there now.

Without an iota of regret, he shoved them into the small trash dispenser that was in the stall. He hadn't realized what a mercy typically having one in all of the stalls for these restrooms, compared to the ones for alphas, beta men, and thetas if they so chose was until now.

When he was done getting himself as cleaned up as he could, with a brand new pair of underwear and pad on, he left the restroom.

Barbara eyed him appraisingly. "Better?"

"Much," he agreed.

They spent the rest of their time in the mall, doing fairly stereotypical teenager shit, he guessed. Walking around the building, using the last of his money to either buy snacks or play at one of the arcades, and etcetera. It was...nice.

He could practically feel the way that things were shifting between them. They were still best friends, but they weren't just that anymore.

They were something more, something better.

But as was typical of the inevitable passage of time, soon, the school day at St. Philomena's was about to end.

And Jason knew that he had to come up with a plan to deal with that, and fast.

"Well, well, well," Dick said after he'd pulled up in his car, a grin on his face as he looked at them over his sunglasses. "If it isn't the little rule-breakers."

"Shut up, Dick," Jason said.

Dick jerked his head towards the back. "Hop in."

He must've put Mari's seat in the trunk, because it was nowhere in sight. Jason sat in the back with Barbara. For now. "Do Bruce and Tony know that we skipped today?" he asked.

"They didn't get a call about it, as far as I am aware."

Jason nodded. Good.

Although, that didn't mean the school hadn't called Barbara's parents.

But he had a feeling they hadn't.

"Thank you for this," he said.

"Not a problem," Dick replied as he started to drive off. "I'm more than willing to help out two little love-birds."

"Dick," Jason groaned.

Oh, how his brother had no idea how true that statement was, on multiple levels.

Still, he was the best person to have chosen to help save their hides, that was for sure.

Dick drove them to the Gordons' house first. "Thank you, Dick," Barbara said before she got out of the car.

He flashed her a grin. "Anytime."

"See you tomorrow, Jason."

His reply was breathless. "Yeah...see you tomorrow."

Dick let him get to the front passenger seat from within the car before he drove away, which wasn't exactly easy. Jason managed it anyways.

"So," the older omega spoke. "What all did you guys do today?"

Jason glared at him. "Not that you're thinking."

"Jaybird, you don't think I can smell – ?"

"I know," he answered. Softer, "I know. I swear to God, though, we didn't do anything. I'm not that stupid. I'm not even on birth control yet."

"'Yet.'"

Despite what Jason had said about how his and Barbara's parents couldn't find out that they were scent matches yet, and how neither of them were willing to reveal that she was Batgirl either (him begrudgingly, her insistently), he did think about telling Dick the truth. It wasn't like his older brother hadn't been reliable in the past.

Again, he hadn't told anyone else about Cass.

But, he didn't. It was one thing for Dick to keep the existence of Cass from everyone else when Jason knew that he thought it would have little impact on their lives, as much as that hurt to think about (and meant that Dick didn't know the true extent of it all).

It would be another to ask him to keep two things like these from their family for who knew how long with him and Barbara being scent matches, and probably not that long with being Batgirl. It most likely wouldn't even be a month until her vigilante status was found out, if he was being honest with himself.

Still, he wouldn't ask Dick to do it.

It wouldn't be fair to ask the other omega to honor that request, and Jason knew likelier than not that he wouldn't do it, anyways.

"All we did was go to the park, eat at a Batburger, and then went to the mall," Jason recited. "Everything was strictly PG."

"If you say so," Dick singsonged. "Seriously, though, you should go straight for the shower as soon as we get home if you want that to be believable, in case I'm wrong and our parents found out."

Jason did exactly as he was instructed. Taryn, Alfred, and Bucky barely had a second to say "hello'' to him before he was marching up the stairs, heading to his bedroom.

The shower felt good on his skin; it felt good to scrub off all the sweat, pheromones, and slick he'd accumulated over the course of the day.

He went downstairs afterwards with his school bag – the underwear he'd bought put away in his drawer – to do his homework. His younger siblings had already been brought home. Lili eyed him suspiciously as soon as he came into the living room, her grey eyes sharp and calculating. Eleven years old, and she already had the gravitas of their parents.

"Where were you?" she demanded. "Why weren't you there when Happy came to pick us up?"

"I called Dick to come pick me up," he answered honestly. "I had some things that I wanted to talk about with him."

"What things?"

"Things you'll understand when you're older," Dick said from where he was on the couch, nursing Mari.

Lili whirled around at him, glaring. She stomped her foot. "I hate when you guys say that!"

"We only say it because it's true."

Jason was a little nervous when their parents got home, Tony from work (he'd gone back for the meager three-ish weeks he would have as his new role as the Head of R&D between his maternity leave and surgery) and Bruce from some meeting or other with contractors for his company. Yet neither of them seemed to know that he'd skipped today, and Dick wasn't forthcoming about that piece of information.

All too soon, it was time for him and Bruce – tonight was one of Dick's off-nights – to be going out on patrol. They went to the downstairs, and Jason went into the locker room to get changed. He pulled on his suit, which had been made specifically for him and not one of Dick's that he'd stolen. It still felt good to know that he had one that was well and entirely his own.

He and Bruce regrouped right next to the Batmobile. "Ready?" his father asked him, cowl in place.

Jason beamed. "Absolutely ready."

Word Count: 5,134

Next Chapter Title: mighty