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: Whew, okay, so once again, a little bit longer than I was expecting it to be. But it's also shorter than 12k, which was my cutoff for the fic, so hurrah!
Sorry it's taken me a while with this one. I've rewritten it many, many, many times trying to get it to come out exactly right. I think I've got it where I want it now, though.
Some CW: there is quite a bit of gender dysphoria/internalized sexism in this fic. I don't think it's anything too triggering, just wanted to warn y'all in case it is before you read. :)
As always, I hope you enjoy,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~the black and gold 'verse~
~my favorite things~
Barbara had always known that she was going to present as a beta – or an omega, once James had presented as one. The gene that controlled the designations, or secondary genders, of humans ever since that virus had changed their biology over seventy thousand years ago had only consisted two alleles a person: thus, in order for beta parents to have an omega child, when the Ω allele was recessive to the Β allele, at least one of them had to have the ΒΩ genotype.
The other could have the ΒΘ genotype, that was true, since the Θ allele was the most recessive of them all. But nobody in either of her parents' families had been thetas in recent memory, so they'd thought it was likelier that both of her parents had the genotype of ΒΩ.
...Of course, it wasn't until eighth grade science class that she'd been taught the science behind all this. Still, Barbara had known that she could only be a beta or an omega after James had presented. It was what her parents had told her; it was what everyone had told her.
Shed never minded this. It wasn't like being a female beta or an omega was the worst thing in the world, far from it. Her own mother, James, and Dr. Tony Stark all proved that.
If anything, she'd been looking forward to it. Presenting was one of those milestones in life, something that (almost) everyone shared. Nobody would want to miss out on it, even besides the fact that deltas faced so much stigmatization and discrimination because they didn't/couldn't present, right?
...Right?
Hence why, when Barbara said that she had waited patiently for her time to come and she would present when she'd turned twelve, perhaps she was...exaggerating the truth a bit. But in her defense, her own mom had presented at the age of twelve, and so had James. The time between the ages of twelve and fourteen were when most omegas and female betas presented.
Yes, that wasn't always the case. There were exceptions, like with Tony – and his adoptive son, Jason, as it would turn out, her best (and only) friend.
. . .
. . .
And her.
Because, by the time that she'd turned fourteen, Barbara hadn't yet presented.
She'd been nervous about it, even then. Something in the back of hr mind had told her, shortly after her fourteenth birthday, that something wasn't right.
Her parents had dismissed her claims. "You'll present when it's time for you, Barbara," her mom had said. "It's no rush. There's no race or competition."
Barbara hadn't quite felt like believing her, though, when Jason had presented. It'd happened during a whole whirlwind of events: his and Dick's adoptive omither had been kidnapped in Afghanistan just days before, and Dick had been pregnant – though nobody had known that at the time.
There was also the fact that nobody had been expecting him to present as an omega, even himself. All his life, he'd thought that he would be an alpha.
But she'd pushed her feelings of jealousy – from how she and Jason had always thought that it would've been the other way around, that she would've presented before him, since she was supposed to be either a beta or an omega – aside. Barbara had been happy for Jason, and she still was.
Once Jason had gotten over the shock of it all, he'd seemed to come to enjoy being an omega. That was all that mattered, really: his happiness with himself. If he was happy, then she was happy.
Besides, it wasn't like her jealousy had remained rampant for long.
"Maybe you're just like me, Barbara," her father had told her once, too. "I presented at the age of fourteen."
(He'd conveniently left out how alphas and male betas often presented between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Although, there were some exceptions, like one of the female alphas in Barbara and Jason's grade, Riko Sheridan. She'd presented at the age of twelve, and that had been a shock for everyone, to say the least.)
To be fair, this did seem to be the case. Around the same time that Jason had presented, Barbara's body had started to undergo its own...change, of sorts.
It still hadn't been doing the most crucial piece of what it'd needed to do, but she'd started to get taller, as Tony had commented on at the party for his birthday/wedding anniversary with Bruce after coming home. She'd started developing her curves, too, at least in the hips area. Her breasts had seemingly refused to grow out of the B-cup bra that she wore.
Barbara's mother and namesake had said that that wasn't really too unusual, however. Before she'd had her kids, her mom had said, she'd been rather flat-chested, too.
...Sometimes, Barbara had wondered if her parents were just trying to humor her.
But it'd been fine. If her body had been developing, enough so that people outside of her family had noticed, then that had had to mean, in her eyes, that her first heat, whether it was a beta one or an omega one, had to be right around the corner.
Maybe it would even happen that summer.
Indeed, she'd spent a lot of time staring at herself in the mirror that entire break. Her body had brimmed with excitement as she'd waited for the morning that she would finally wake up in heat. Even the brain fog that her brother and Jason complained about had seemed like a treat to her at the time, a promise finally fulfilled.
. . .
. . .
But then, by the end of the summer, and after her fifteenth birthday had come and gone, Barbara still hadn't presented.
It was almost funny, how quickly the nonchalance her parents had given her had collapsed, turning into concern. Fifteen was not just "late-blooming" for an omega or a female beta. It wasn't highly suspicious, yet, but it was getting there.
So her parents, abruptly not willing to wait another year until the cutoff date when she would be labeled as a delta until she presented, the sterile designation, if she presented, had arranged an appointment for her. They'd wanted answers.
Barbara had wanted to say how much longer she'd been wanting those very same answers, but she'd kept silent. It wasn't like it would've done any good.
Thus, two weeks after her birthday on September 23rd, her mom had taken her to the doctor's office. Barbara had had her first physical examination down there done, and it had been rather – and by that, she meant extremely – humiliating.
Her mom had been in the room as a legal requirement for a patient who was unpresented and under the age of sixteen. The doctor's form had prevented her from seeing anything if she would've looked, Barbara had been assured by both of them of that.
That hadn't prevented Barbara from feeling absolutely mortified that she would've anyways.
It hadn't taken long for the doctor to have figured out what was wrong with her, whatever it was. He'd refused to say.
Instead, he'd said that he'd wanted to do some bloodwork on her and her parents.
Judging by the look on her mother's face, even she'd thought that this had been unusual.
Still, she'd agreed, and so had Barbara's father when they'd told him the news. They'd all gotten their bloodwork done at the same time, making a weird family event out of it.
They'd also agreed to attend Barbara's next appointment as a family, or at least as much of one as they were without James.
Which led them to the here and now, as the big, ugly truth was finally revealed.
"You're joking," were the first words out of her mother's mouth.
The doctor gave her mom a pitying look, although it wasn't as successful as he probably thought it was – his own excitement, as seen by the gleam in his eyes, was tampering it. "I assure you, Mrs. Gordon, that I'm not."
Her dad rubbed at his jaw as he stared off into space, the fingers of his other hand twitching like he was already in need for a cigar.
As for Barbara, well –
She was also silent.
But how could one speak when their entire life and perceptions of their identity were crashing down around them as they knew it?
The doctor cleared his throat. "I asked the lab technicians to run the tests multiple times, just to make sure," he said. "Barbara is the biological daughter of you both, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. But sometimes, for reasons that we aren't exactly sure of, the Θ gene can...flip. This was the case with yours, Mrs. Gordon. The result is that Barbara's genotype is ΑΩ, and she will therefore be...an alpha."
"An alpha."
But she wasn't just that.
She was a freak, too.
Barbara didn't need anybody to tell her as much. Nor did she need her parents – as they'd been trying to ever since they'd left that doctor's appointment – or anybody else, as she knew they'd try as well, to tell her otherwise.
It was something that she simply knew to be true.
She'd barricaded herself in her room for the past few days, only coming out to go to the bathroom or eat her meals, as her parents had insisted. Not even Jason's texts about why she hadn't come back to school since her doctor's appointment or what the doctor had said could get her to come out for anything else.
Laying in her bed, she kept herself preoccupied by watching all of the movies she had on VCR tapes. The Princess Bride(Jason's favorite ever since he'd been introduced to movies, hers less so, but it was a good movie), The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Hook, Labyrinth – you name it, if she had it, she was watching it.
The movies, though, did little to detract from what was going on inside her mind.
Her body didn't feel like her own anymore. It felt like it had conveniently let her believe this huge, fat lie for all this time, and now it had decided to reveal the truth and relish in her misery that came as part of the aftermath.
Not a beta. Not an omega.
She was an alpha.
What were people going to say, when they found out what she was? She didn't need to be a genius like Jason or his parents to know. They were going to say that it couldn't be possible that she was the biological daughter of both of her parents, that surely her mom had to have cheated on her dad, that surely her mom was a whore. Then, once they were told the truth –
– She would be told what she already knew as the truth.
Barbara was something that happened only a few times a century, if that. Rarer than even scent matches, the doctor had said.
She was an anomaly, an abomination.
The Sound of Music was the movie playing for the umpteenth time when there was a knock at her door. Specifically, it was at the part where the kids were going to Maria's room for comfort during the thunderstorm. Maria was just beginning to sing the song:
"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings: these are a few of my favorite – "
Barbara thought about not opening the door, thinking that the person on the other side was one of her parents. She didn't want to deal with them right now.
Not after she'd heard them talk in the hallway about maybe forcing her out of the house for a therapy session sometime during the next week, if they could find somebody that would take her before they sent her back to school.
Yet then, her older brother, James, said, "Barbie, can I come in?"
Now, she knew James. She still remembered the night all those years ago when he'd woken them all up screaming bloody murder, because instead of his testicles dropping for his presentation, because he didn't have testicles, because he wasn't a beta, he'd formed a median.
She additionally remembered how he'd struggled for months afterwards in coming to grips with his own designation. Things had gotten better for him eventually, but it'd taken a while.
Thus, she knew that, unlike their parents, James wasn't going to take a "no" from her for an answer. If she didn't open the door, he was going to unlock the door and open it for her, as he was extremely good at lock-picking. Too good for somebody who was the son of the Deputy Police Commissioner of Gotham.
With a sigh, she paused The Sound of Music with the remote before she got out of bed. Going over to the door, she unlocked it and retreated back to whence she had come.
James waited a few moments before he opened the door. "Thank you for doing that. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do it myself," he said baldly. He was holding a plate of peanut butter toast – her favorite snack – in his right hand. A water bottle was wedged between his left arm and torso.
The omega glanced around her room through his glasses, taking everything in. Out of the two of them, he was the one who had inherited their fathers poor eyesight and brown hair.
"'Sorry that I didn't come sooner," he continued. "I wanted to, but I was busy, and Mom told me that if I didn't focus on the work that I had to do before coming over here she would ground me, even though she can't really do that anymore."
A snort escaped Barbara's lips. That did sound like something their mother would do when she was stressed out – which she was.
"You didn't have to come," she said.
James frowned. "Um, no, I think I did," he replied. He set the plate and water bottle on her nightstand before he unceremoniously climbed into bed with her, making her squawk. The bed was only a full-size. She instinctively tried to force him off, but he wouldn't budge, giving her a grin. "You need me."
Then, before she could protest the idea of ever needing her brother (not because she didn't, just to give him shit), he glanced over at her TV. "The Sound of Music, huh?"
Her cheeks flushed. Just like how The Princess Bride was Jason's favorite movie, The Sound of Music had always been hers. "Yeah."
James said nothing to this, simply letting out a hum. She couldn't help but notice how that one gland was poking out of the neck of his t-shirt. It made her scowl.
Hers was always going to be on the wrong side, because she wasn't going to be a beta or an omega. Even if she came to realize that she was transdesignation, as the movement for awareness of the identity had been gaining more and more traction these days, not even hormone therapy or surgery could ever change that.
No doctor would be willing to remove her mating gland, either. Such a fate was seen as one worse than death.
Barbara proceeded to look away, blinking back tears.
"It sucks, doesn't it?" James abruptly asked, a bitter humor lacing his voice.
At first, she couldn't find her voice to speak. It took her a few attempts, and when she did, she nodded. "Y – yeah."
"Probably sucks more than it did for me. Mine was unexpected, but it wasn't so unbelievable. Our grandma Eileen was an omega, after all."
"Mmhmm."
They sat in silence for a while. Barbara brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. In the background, from downstairs, she could hear the steady tick-tick-tick of Grandma Eileen's clock. Their mom had insisted on taking it after their grandma had died from cancer when Barbara was seven, a year before the fiasco with the Joker and Rachel Dawes.
Barbara would never admit it to anybody, but Grandma Eileen had always been her favorite of the two grandmothers. She'd gotten her a treasure box for her sixth birthday, one with fancy latches and everything, as well as the American Girl Kirsten Larson doll, who was stored in the treasure box now that Barbara was too old to play with her. Grandma Eileen had taught her how to sew, the appropriate manners for tea time, and so much more.
Nor would she ever admit to how terrified she'd been that night that Rachel Dawes had abducted their family. Not terrified for herself, no. It'd been clear from the start that the widow of Harvey Dent, while she'd said that she wanted to murder their entire family as payback to their father, wouldn't have been able to go through with it for one reason or another.
She'd been terrified for her brother. Barbara hadn't known if Rachel Dawes would have snapped out of it or somebody else – Bruce – would have forced her before she would've shot James in the head, ending his life then and there, making his blood spill out on the broken floor of the building. She'd never felt so helpless in her entire life until that moment.
Or since. She was feeling helpless now, but it was of a different kind. One that didn't involve life and death.
"I'm not sure how much this is going to help," James finally spoke. "But, y'know, designation disappointment isn't so uncommon."
Barbara tried not to have a reaction to this, but she failed. She tilted her head towards him, her lips thinning further than they already had. "'Designation disappointment?'"
He flashed her a show of teeth. "Term that I learned in my GDSS class last semester – Gender, Designation, and Sexuality Studies," he clarified at her confused look. "I told you, Mom, and Dad about it, remember?"
She didn't, but she was willing to act like she did. "Uh, huh."
James rolled his eyes. "You don't, but that's okay. Anyways, even though we have the designations, our society operates in the belief that the designations which line up with how the primary genders would've been for humans are better. So, men are supposed to be alphas and betas, and women are supposed to be betas and omegas. Thetas are kind of their own thing; no surprise there." He sniffed. "'Course, that's not how real life works. There are plenty of male omegas out there, like me and Jason, and there are plenty of female alphas, too.
"But because we don't exist inside the norm, when we present or find out how we're going to present...especially when there isn't a male omega or a female alpha in our families...we're often 'disappointed.'" He made air quotations around the word and everything. "We feel like we should've presented as one of the designations that society approves of for our primary genders. Now, for some people, it's a bit more complicated than that – "
"You mean trans people," she interjected.
He took it in stride, nodding and saying softly, "Yeah. There's...other things involved there, and I will be more than happy to explain them to you if you feel like you're experiencing them – but after you present."
She knew why he was saying that since, as you've probably already guessed, she'd done some of her own research into the subject. But it'd actually been before this whole mess, not after it.
Anyways.
Deltas couldn't get hormone therapy unless it was for the designation that they should've been, and even then only if a doctor believed it could have a chance of kickstarting their presentation. Transdesignation people could only get hormone therapy after they'd already presented, after their bodies had already changed.
Barbara had wondered before why that was. She still did.
Yet it wasn't like it mattered.
She couldn't change the laws as a fifteen-year-old, as much as maybe she would've wished to.
"But for now, you're not the first person to go through designation disappointment – and you won't be the last," James said. "I can't say that I completely understand what you're going through with everything else, but I understand that.
"They say that designation disappointment usually gets better within six months to a year after presenting, and hopefully it will for you. It did for me. But until then, if you want...I could tell you about the ways that I coped with it."
That...that sounded more interesting than she would've cared to admit.
She didn't want to cope. All she wanted was to not be an alpha, just a beta or an omega.
But the world – her own body – didn't work like that.
Barbara let go of her knees and stretched out her legs. "...What did you do?" she asked tentatively, her voice small.
The omega smirked. "I'll tell you. But first," here, he picked up the plate from the nightstand and held it out to her, "you are going to eat some of this delicious peanut butter toast that I made for you all on my own. I put my heart and soul into it, you know."
She accepted the plate from him, even as she muttered out, "Jerk."
"That's what older brothers are for," he returned smugly.
As much as James had wanted it to be, his own way of coping wasn't that helpful for her. Not at first.
"I used to think about all of the things that were good, or at least not that bad, about being an omega," he'd said. "'Couldn't think of a lot at first, which is understandable. Omegas have always kind of gotten the short end of the stick.
"But there were things that I liked. Like, the other restrooms at St. Philomena's were so much nicer than what I was used to, and they usually are elsewhere. I liked knowing that I could paint my nails and nobody would bat an eye because I'm an omega and not a beta. Granted, it doesn't matter what other people think, only you, but – "
What were the upsides to being an alpha? Barbara didn't really know. Not being doubted because of her designation? Not being catcalled at school or as she walked down the streets? Gotham being mildly safer for her? Her choice to have shorter hair – although not that short, as she'd always kept it at a bob to shoulder-length – being viewed as more acceptable? Not having to worry about heats or the mating cycle in general except once per year?
James had painted her a very intimate picture with the last one, giving descriptions of slick, brain fog, cramps, and etcetera that had made her clamp her hands over her ears at one point. Yeesh. She was almost glad for how she would never have to go through any of that.
Really, it was not until she went back to school that things changed.
"You're an alpha?" Jason yelped that morning.
Barbara clamped a hand over his mouth with a strong glare. "Not so loud," she hissed, looking around them to see if anybody had heard what he'd said.
They were standing under the same old tree outside of their school, which meant that there were a lot of people walking into the building around them; the bell was going to ring before too long.
But since they were standing under the tree instead of right next to it and there weren't any other groups doing the same as them, they were offered a semblance of privacy they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. It didn't appear that anybody had heard the omega.
Appeased, she lowered her hand from his mouth before he could get any bright ideas, like licking it. He had done that before. "But...yeah. I'm going to be an alpha."
Jason ogled her. She knew that he didn't mean anything by it, he was just surprised. Still, it made her feel like a freak all over again.
...And maybe something else.
But she wasn't given too long to ponder on what that "else" was.
"How's that even possible?"
"Mutation," she said. "Apparently, my mom has the Θ gene, and I inherited it from her. But for whatever reason, it...flipped. 'Turned into the Α allele."
"That can happen?"
She let out a puff of air, watching a piece of her red hair fly out in front of her face. "It seems so."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "And that's why you've been gone for these past two weeks?"
"Yes," she said. "I've needed some time to...adjust."
She made no mention of how her parents had indeed tried to force her into a therapy session, twice. How she had refused to come out of her room the first time, and in the lead up to the second she had begged and pleaded with them to not make her go until they'd finally relented. She didn't want to be forced to talk about something with a professional that she was still trying to process, even though she knew that it probably would've been for her eventual betterment if she'd gone. So James had said, at any rate.
But she didn't need to mention it. Not to him.
Jason's expression softened. "Yeah, I get that," he said.
The five-minute bell rang before he could say anything more, which caused him to grimace. "We can talk more about this later?"
"...Sure," Barbara agreed reluctantly. "Let's go to class."
As they walked into the building and down the halls, not for the first time since Jason had presented, but in a way that she was acutely more aware of than she had ever been before, she noticed all of the stares that he received from many of their already-presented classmates:
It made her jaw clench, at how obvious it was that they saw him as an object more than they did his own person. A rich toy that they could only ever imagine in their dreams to play with, because Jason would never be interested in any of them.
...You know, maybe that was a little too disturbing of a thought for her to be having at fifteen.
Whatever.
She knew that Jason could take care of himself, let it never be said that she didn't or that she doubted him. He'd gotten into plenty of fights before, earning himself a reputation at their school of someone not to be messed with.
Not to mention, he was the second Robin at night, the second sidekick of Batman's who was a male omega and proved even as a kid that omegas could be just as good at things like crime-fighting and the physical activities which went alongside it as anybody else.
But nobody knew that second part at their school besides her and his siblings, and only them.
And his reputation, alas, was not enough to stop the wandering gazes and what was said about him behind his back. Some of the things that she'd heard about him since he'd presented...they made her want to fight those other kids for him.
Jason had always told her not to, though. "Only one of us can't get expelled because of their family's wealth and reputation," he'd said. "And that's not you, Barbie."
Still, she didn't like it.
In fact, if anything, over the past couple of months, she'd steadily been liking it less.
But that couldn't be related to her being an alpha, because she hadn't presented yet, right? It was true that the reason why the doctor had come to her diagnosis so quickly rather than other potential ones – "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras" was what he had said – was because the pre-presenting processes for female alphas had already started for her.
The nerves in her clitoris had already begun to "burn" away, as the saying went, as her penis developed internally. It wasn't exactly a pleasant process, actually far from it. The only reason why she hadn't noticed it yet, the doctor had said, was again because of how early in the stages it was.
But she would soon. Well before she would go into rut probably sometime in March.
Alpha instincts were something entirely different than the pre-presenting processes, though. They wouldn't show up until during her first rut.
Maybe...maybe that was another good thing about being an alpha. Not that, but.
When she was an alpha, maybe the other students wouldn't try to ogle and/or directly hit on Jason so much.
He could hold his own, as she'd said, but sometimes some help could also be nice. so was her opinion in the matter, at least.
Maybe he would disagree. He probably would, most of all when it was possible that the only reason why their classmates would hold off was because they'd think they were –
When they got to their first class of the day, she and Jason sat down in their seats, which were right next to each other. The bell that signified the start of the day rang, and their teacher went through attendance. When she got to Barbara's name and Barbara confirmed that she was present, her eyes lifted from her computer screen. "Welcome back, Barbara," she said.
Barbara felt herself sink into her seat as all of her classmates' eyes were suddenly on her. Undoubtedly, they were curious about why she had been gone for two weeks.
Two weeks.
She could only imagine how much worse it was going to become when they found out or were otherwise told what she was. The doctor had recommended telling her classmates in advance, to make the transition better.
It was pretty much the only good thing that he'd said.
She and Jason didn't get a chance to talk about everything until at lunch on that first day back at school, nor continue their conversation about it on the days which followed besides that period. The table that they sat at was only theirs; no one else sat with them, so he was free to pester her to his heart's content.
That wasn't so say that she minded the questions he asked. Not when they came from him.
"So, let me get this all straight," he said, "that doctor seriously implied that he wanted to write a journal article or something about you?"
Barbara recalled the doctor's excitement, how he had mentioned that not much was in the medical journals about cases like hers, especially when the patient was the child of two non-thetas and there hadn't been any thetas in their family for generations.
"Well, my parents said that probably wasn't what he meant, but – "
"Bullshit," Jason deadpanned. He pointed his fork at her. "I could beat him up for you, if you want."
"J – Jason!" she spluttered.
"What? It's not like he doesn't deserve it, or that I don't have the time. All I would need to do is get away from B during patrol, which would be easy, and – "
"Thanks, but no," she interjected. "That's not why you guys...do all that."
"Sure," he said. "But I'd still do it for you."
Strangely, she felt a flush rise to her cheeks. "Thanks, Jason."
He grinned back. "Anytime."
One thing that she was thankful for, out of everything that they spoke about, was that he never asked her about how she felt about being an alpha. Not once.
Well, that and the offer that he made on Friday. "We haven't hung out outside of school in a while," he noted. "Not since before my last heat." It had been the week before her birthday.
"No," she agreed.
"Can I come over to your house tomorrow?" he asked. "I mean, if it's okay with your parents. If not, you could come over to mine, but – "
"I'm sure they'll be fine with it," Barbara interrupted him a second time.
She liked all the members of the Stark-Wayne family, don't get her wrong. But Jason's younger siblings could be loud and very boisterous, and Dick had just given birth to his daughter, Mari. Her mother had told her before the importance in taking precautionary measures for newborn babies, so they wouldn't get sick.
When she went home, she asked her mom if Jason could come over the next day. "That does sound like a good idea," her mother hummed. "If Dr. Stark and Mr. Wayne are fine with it, then so am I."
Barbara didn't really know why she always insisted on calling them like that when they weren't around. Tony and Bruce had always insisted with those in their circle to just call them by their first names.
But that wasn't the point.
. . .
. . .
When Barbara woke up on Saturday morning, it was to her mom knocking at her door and opening it. "Barbara? Barbara, are you up?"
"Mmph," she groaned, barely having the energy to lift her head as she blearily opened her eyes. "'M now. What is it?"
Her mother's visage was somber. "Dr. Stark just called," she said. "He was wondering if you would be alright with going over to their house today instead. If so, Mr. Hogan will pick you up in about an hour or so."
Barbara was in a sitting-up position at once. "What? Why?"
"Jason...got hurt last night. He'll be fine," her mom assured her. "But they don't want him leaving the house today."
Barbara couldn't remember another time in her life when she had been so anxious, except maybe the Rachel Dawes incident. Even then, it felt like she was comparing apples to oranges there.
She told her mom that she wanted to go over to the Stark-Waynes', of course she did. Then she hurried through her morning routine at what felt like the speed of light. By the time that Happy came to collect her, she'd already had her morning shower, brushed her teeth and hair, and had eaten two bowls of cereal and downed a giant glass of orange juice for breakfast. The food felt like it was ricocheting off of the knots in her stomach.
("Knot." Get it?)
The driver/bodyguard of the Stark-Waynes was disgruntled when he arrived, as he always was. But he did show her some sympathy upon seeing her wrecked expression, saying, "Relax, kid. He's not hurt that bad."
Barbara, however, vehemently refused to believe him, her mom, or anyone else.
Not until she saw Jason herself.
When she appeared in the doorway of his room, she saw that he was laying on his bed, watching the news on whatever had happened last night on TV. His face was paler than usual, and there was a thin glean of sweat on his forehead. He looked up at her as soon as she arrived and smiled, albeit the smile soon withered, presumably as he saw the look on her face.
"It's not that bad," he said.
Barbara gawked at him. "Jason, your omi said you had to get over thirty stitches!"
"'Tis just a flesh wound," he defended himself immediately. "And it'll heal. They just don't want me walking around too much today or tomorrow to make sure that I don't tear any of my stitches."
She could've very easily pressed him further on that, but she decided not to. He'd definitely already been enough. She climbed into bed with him, which was far easier to share with his queen-sized than it had been for her and her brother with her own, biting her lip. "Can I see it?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure." Jason rolled over a little and lifted his shirt, revealing the bandaged wound that was on his lower hip and back. He didn't try to remove the bandage or anything.
She didn't need him to.
Barbara swallowed thickly. "Does it hurt?"
"A little." He grinned. "The Naproxen helps. But don't worry, Barbie. I'm fine."
"I don't like you getting hurt," she mumbled.
"Well, I'm Robin. That's how it works: Bruce, Selina, and Dinah and I can all try to not get hurt as much as we can, but it's still going to happen sometimes," he reasoned. "But, enough about that: can we do something for fun? Please? I'm freaking bored out of my mind here!"
They spent most of their time together rewatching Dr. Who – they'd decided to start watching the show together before the Stark-Waynes had gone on their vacation to Malibu over the past summer, and they'd both quickly become obsessed – and playing card games with the pack that Jason had on his left nightstand. The games were mostly Go Fish.
None of his siblings or the other members of their family came to bother them despite the door being open, besides his soon-to-no-longer-be-littlest sister, Gemma. She came toddling in at one point, a teething binky in her mouth.
She crawled up onto Jason's bed, even as Jason said, fighting back laughter, "Gemma, get out of here!"
Tony came to collect her. "Gemina Louise Wayne, what did I say?" he called out from the doorway, his hands on his hips.
Gemma giggled, up until Tony plucked her off of the bed. Then she was all whines: "Omi! Omi, no!"
"I told you, you're not allowed in here right now," her and Jason's omither spoke. "Jason's hanging out with Barbara!"
"No!"
"Don't mind us," Tony told them with a wink, before he took Gemma out of the room.
After around three hours or so, Jason fell asleep, too exhausted from the night before. Barbara didn't blame him. She got up from his bed, rubbing at her nose. It almost felt like it was tingling and she could've sworn that she smelled –
– Never mind.
Downstairs, she found Tony, Dick, who was nursing baby Mari underneath a blanket designed for such purposes, and Rebecca in the kitchen. As it turned out, Happy had already left – apparently, he'd had somewhere else to go.
"I'll take you home," Rebecca offered up.
...Even after all these years, the (other) female alpha continued to be slightly intimidating to Barbara. She was kind of ashamed to admit it. It wasn't because of the woman's past, or her metal arm, or anything like that.
Rather, it was because of her height. Rebecca was six-foot-two, and that was a height that Barbara knew she would never reach, thanks to her parents' genetics. Her designation might have been a result of a mutation, but that was the only thing about her that was. She was probably always going to be five-foot-seven, the same height as Jason, or maybe five-foot-nine. Sure, it was an average height for a female alpha.
But that didn't make Rebecca's any less terrifying.
"...Sure," Barbara agreed tentatively nonetheless.
The ride, at first, was spent in silence. Rebecca's metal fingers rapped against the steering wheel as Barbara stared out the window, watching first the grounds that the Stark-Wayne residence was built on, and then the grounds that the other houses in the neighborhood were built on, pass by.
"You know," the older female alpha spoke after a while. Barbara turned her head to look at her, but Rebecca was only staring straight ahead. "I didn't exactly have an easy time after I presented, either."
Barbara blinked in surprise. "Really?"
That didn't exactly match up with the stories she'd been told about Rebecca Barnes and Steve Rogers. Always, it was that they'd presented, then they'd gotten married when he was sixteen, and then she'd gone off to fight in the War while he'd stayed behind (not of his own decision) until he'd gotten picked up by Dr. Erskine for the super soldier program. The history books never got into the minutiae, and nor had Rebecca ever been that forthcoming about them, according to Jason.
Rebecca nodded. "'Course, I always had a suspicion that I was going to be an alpha, so did most people," she said. "My little brother, James, he was a beta, like our mom. But our dad knew. He sometimes joked that I was the son that James should've been."
Barbara winced.
"Yeah, I know," Rebecca replied, her lips twitching. "Anyways, still, when I presented, it was rough. I was one of the only female alphas our age in the neighborhood. And Stevie – he was so sick. He'd already presented as an omega, but after I presented, people didn't think we should've been as close as we were. 'Said it was improper and all that bullshit, but none of them wanted to help Sarah out with him because they were afraid of catching tuberculosis from her. Even as she was dying." The older female alpha's jaw locked.
"So...what did you do?" Barbara asked.
Now, Rebecca glanced at her, giving her a smirk. "Well, I didn't listen to any of those shit-talkers, for starters," she said. Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. "I did what I always did: I took care of Stevie. He was the only person 'sides my family and his mom that I cared about, the person that mattered most to me in the world. I wanted to protect him, and I was willing to do whatever I had to ensure that."
Barbara said nothing in response to that, even when Rebecca dropped her off at her house. All she said was a thanks and a farewell, which Rebecca waved off with her flesh hand. She drove away, and Barbara went up the steps to her house and walked inside.
Her mom was in the kitchen, working at what appeared was going to be their dinner later, a pot roast. "Hi, dear," she said. "How was your time with Jason?"
"Good," Barbara said.
But inside, her mind was spinning.
She went upstairs, gently closing and shutting her bedroom's door behind her. Letting out a hot puff of air, she grabbed the remote to her TV and turned it on. The Sound of Music was still in the VCR from the last time she'd played it, but she didn't mind.
The soon-to-be alpha let the movie play at an acceptable volume as she went over to her desk. Her backpack was sitting right next to it.
Taking out one of her notebooks and a pencil from her backpack, she turned towards the end of the former – she knew from previous experience that she wouldn't get that far in its pages by the end of the year – and began to draw there with the latter.
James had told her to think about the upsides to being an alpha. She still didn't think there were many. But, when combined with what Rebecca had said –
She could protect Jason.
Jason didn't need her to. He probably wouldn't even want her to if he found out what she was planning to do. He'd likely even talk about how he had the remaining members of the Batfamily for protection and maybe even Dick one day. The omega had mentioned once to her before that his older brother had previously joked about going back to being a vigilante, which their parents had vehemently disagreed with.
But that was neither here nor there.
Because Barbara wanted to protect Jason.
She couldn't quite explain it. There had to be something more going on than just not-yet-existent alpha hormones making her want to protect him. She didn't want him to get hurt again under any possible circumstance, whether physically out in the field or emotionally (and sometimes also physically) at school.
True, even if she did what she was planning to do, she still wouldn't be able to guarantee the former.
Yet nobody would bat an eye at a teenaged, female alpha vigilante appearing on the streets of Gotham as they had both Robins, even though it was known that the Robins were the wards of Batman. They might underestimate her because of her working on her own at first – there was no doubt in her mind that it would have to start out that way – and her skills, because she was going to have to begin with only her experience as a soccer player and a green-belt in karate. But they wouldn't doubt her because of her primary and secondary genders.
Because that was what Barbara was planning to do.
She was going to become a vigilante.
It was how she could protect Jason, and she knew that she could do it. She was confident about that, no matter what. Sure, it was going to take a lot of work, but she was more than willing to put in the effort.
First thing was first, though: she needed a suit, which was what she was currently drawing/designing right now.
And a name.
One quickly came to her mind. It made her lips quirk; a lot of people were probably going to say it was decidedly stupid, Jason included.
She didn't care.
After all, why not Batgirl?
Barbara made it all come together over the course of the next several months.
She got an allowance of twenty dollars a week from her parents. It wasn't much (for their wealth bracket. There were plenty of kids at St. Philomena's who got an even higher allowance than her. Then there were kids like Jason, who got their own credit cards and however much cash they wanted), but she'd been saving the past several months' up for a rainy day. When combined with the money that she'd gotten from her other grandma for her birthday – one hundred dollars! – it was more than enough for her to start enacting out her plans.
Using Google, she found a store in Gotham that sold kevlar fabric, and she got yards of it in dark purple and bright yellow, since those were the colors that she'd decided the Batgirl would wear. As she'd expected, sewing kevlar wasn't nearly as easy as the quilts that she'd helped Grandma Eileen out with as a kid. It required special needles and special thread, meant to withstand the heavy-duty nature of the material.
That was fine. She learned how to sew with it soon enough.
Of course, she couldn't just store her suit anywhere, free for her mother to discover, so that was how Grandma Eileen's treasure box came into play. Barbara took out Kirsten Larson, finding another suitable place to put the doll, and put the suit inside when she wasn't working on it. The rest of the materials were put in the back of her closet due to the treasure box not fitting anything more than the suit, and she prayed beyond belief that her mom wouldn't find them.
Thankfully, she never did.
The suit started to take its proper shape. Most of it was made of that dark purple kevlar, but the inside of the cape, the Bat logo, the gloves, boots (she'd covered a pair of knee-length steel-toe boots in the fabric), and utility belt were all bright yellow. She bought some opaque lenses like the ones that the Batfamily used, though they weren't nearly as good, and boydid they cost a pretty penny. It almost made her feel bad that she had to cut them up in order to get them to fit into the cowl she'd made.
Many of the tools that she found weren't cheap, either. There were no real alternatives for a lot of the tools that the Batfamily used, and the vast majority of the alternatives that existed were expensive. She made a Batarang out of wood with serrated steel edges once just to see if she could, and she was pleased with the results...even as she promised herself that she would never use that false Batarang, only the real things when – when, not if – she got access to them.
But everything would be worth it in the end.
(It had to be.)
As she worked on the suit and gathering her materials, and as she put more effort into her karate lessons than she ever had before (which did not go unnoticed by her teacher and peers), Barbara's mood began to lift. It wasn't by much, not at first.
Really, all she did was stop moping all the time, now that she had a better purpose to put her time and effort into, something to fulfill.
Still, it didn't go unnoticed. "You starting to feel a little better about everything?" James asked her when he came home for the second weekend in November. He'd said it was because he'd been homesick, but she knew better. November was one of the busiest months of the year for college students.
"I guess," Barbara allowed.
James smiled at her softly. "It's not going to change all at once, you know. There's going to be baby steps. Lots of baby steps."
...She supposed maybe that was true.
Jason was the other person to speak to her about the change in her mood. He made some jokes about it over the next several months, all of them at her level of comfort. A few of them nearly caused her to snort milk out of her nose at lunch. "Jason!" she cried out, each and every single time.
The omega was always unrepentant. "I'm just saying," he frequently said, or something like it.
She came to really, really appreciate him. Perhaps that wasn't a surprise, since they were best friends and all. But something about her appreciation now felt –
– Different.
Whatever. She wasn't going to think about it too much.
But as she worked and worked on her suit (which slowly began to include a fair amount of squirming around in discomfort, as the pain from the burnout process became more and more noticeable), on her karate lessons, on everything, sometimes Barbara's thoughts did...wander to some other upsides to being an alpha besides the ones that she'd already mentioned.
Although they didn't matter to her nearly as much as Batgirl did, she could admit that she liked how she knew she'd never be pressured by society to wear makeup or dresses or other things like those after she'd present; she'd never much cared for any of those things.
And she liked the idea of being able to be brave and confident, no strings attached. She liked the prospect of being able to be true to herself, and not having to act like an entirely different person like how some of her and Jason's omega and female beta classmates had after they'd presented, because their parents had told them that omegas and female betas had to act a certain way.
Granted, her parents never would have done that.
But something about knowing that nobody else could tell her she needed to act a certain way because of her designation comforted her too.
Well, alphas had their own standards, like not crying and all that. Other people, however, were unlikely to speak to her directly about those, only behind her back.
Which she could deal with.
You couldn't be liked by or not face scrutiny from everyone in the world.
Her mood was further lifted by thinking about these things, as it was by some of the nightly practice sessions that she did.
She knew that all of the members of the Batfamily chose rooftops as their primary method to get around the city along with the Batmobiles, you see. So, shortly after James' first November visit, she started going out at night here and there to practice jumping from rooftop to rooftop and from jumping off of a building down onto the ground.
It wasn't easy, which was saying a lot. It wasn't like she was jumping from the rooftops of skyscrapers or even low-rises, just houses, and she was doing it unassisted. She earned quite a number of scrapes for her efforts.
Yet, as time went on, she got better and better, and not to mention more confident in her abilities. Bending her legs just before she landed started to feel as natural as breathing.
In fact, before Barbara knew it, Thanksgiving had passed and so had the school days serving as an intermediary between it and winter break. She was pulled out of school a few days early so that her and Jason's classmates could be told she was going to be an alpha and why without her being there. They were hoping that, with the passing of winter break, it wouldn't be a big deal by the time they all went back to school.
Jason's youngest (and Bruce and Tony kept on saying last in terms of pregnancy, but her best friend had admitted that he had doubts it would be the case, now that the damage Tony had experienced from three C-sections had been healed) sibling, Kamala, was born shortly after break started for everyone at St. Philomena's.
Around the same time, Barbara's parents asked Rebecca to give her a talk about what first ruts for female alphas were like. It was morbidly embarrassing and awful. Barbara thought many times throughout the conversation that she would spontaneously combust on the spot, and she also didn't want to talk about it too much.
But she would say that it was helpful; it made her feel more prepared for what was soon to be in her future.
After that, February came by in what felt like the blink of an eye. With it came the completion of her suit, as she'd had to make adjustments here and there due to a few growth spurts she'd had, though not necessarily in height. Barbara tried it on late in the middle of the night, the door to her bedroom locked once more, just as it was on the nights that she went out.
Staring at herself in her full-length mirror, the cowl off she, didn't think she looked...bad.
She didn't look like a beta or an omega, and she never would; her hips weren't curvy enough, her breasts not big enough.
But she liked how she looked. In the suit.
She thought that had to count for something, before the urge to no longer look at herself became too strong, like knives pricking at her skin, and she had to take the suit off and put it away.
There wasn't much left to do after that, besides try to find the last tools for her utility belt, other than wait.
So she waited to go into rut, a prospect which still made her insides fill with dread. She spent the days of February and a bit less than the first half of March anxiously counting them down. Nobody was really able to comfort her, not even Jason – though he did try.
"Everything's going to be fine, Barbie," he told her with a smile one morning, when they were standing under that tree at school again. It was one that made her feel like her stomach was going to flip several times over, and she knew why. The weight of it had settled within her by now. "Whether you hate being an alpha afterwards or not – " and this was the first time he had really said it that straight " – it's going to be okay. And if anyone tries to say it's not, I'll beat them up for you, 'kay?"
She laughed. "Okay, Jason."
By the weekend before spring break, she still hadn't presented yet. Which somehow led to James coming home once again, although he didn't stay for long. "You're coming with me," he announced to Barbara after he'd opened her door unprompted, jiggling his keys around in his hand.
Barbara turned in her seat at her desk to glare at him. "Couldn't you knock?"
"Not today," he replied, abundantly chipper. "Come on. Get dressed. We're going shopping."
"Shopping for what?"
"You'll see. And if you're not downstairs in ten minutes, I'll drag you out to the car kicking and screaming."
They wound up going to Macy's to shop for female alpha clothes.
Strangely, it ended up being a fairly good distraction for her anxiety, all things considered.
James spent the entire afternoon taking clothes off of the rack at breakneck speeds and bringing them back to her to try on in the changing room: bras specifically for female alphas, shirts, jackets, jeans, and etcetera. It felt kind of weird that hewas taking her out for this experience rather than their mom or both of their parents, but she figured they'd all previously talked about it and decided this was best. Her older brother was much more well-versed in current fashion trends than either of their parents.
Barbara tried on the clothes and found that she liked the ones which fit for the most part, more so than she had ever liked beta and omega clothes before. They were more to her style and comfort in terms of fabric softness.
And there was this one plaid flannel jacket that she really liked. She could picture Jason wearing it after she had, as much as she was embarrassed to admit it, and how good he would look in it, and how perfect he would smell after –
Get a grip on yourself, Gordon, she thought, cringing. He probably doesn't even like you like that.
Naturally, just as soon as she had, James wanted to see her in that jacket specifically. When she came out, he made a clicking noise and grinned. "That is perfect first date material," he said.
She felt herself flush all the way to the roots of her hair. "James!"
"What? I'm just saying..."
Really, though, what was anxiety-relieving about the entire trip was how nobody spent any time at all ogling them. Because they had been told about her being an alpha over break, none of the other kids at St. Philomena's had really bothered her directly to her face about it. She'd gotten plenty of stares and some people had spoken about it to her face, albeit not many.
But nobody gave them the time of day here. Probably, it was because that they didn't recognize her and her brother as the children of Jim Gordon, the Deputy Police Commissioner of Gotham, and a beta, which was what made her existence so unnatural. The time of year likely had a hand in it, too, since now was typically when other families would be buying clothes for their alpha child(ren), anyways.
And there was always the idea that the vast majority of people simply did not care to investigate a weird situation further. Jason had said before it was because people were stupid.
"They're not stupid, Jason. They've just never needed to be overly observant," Bruce had sighed in response, since they'd been in the Stark-Waynes' living room when Jason had said it. Loudly.
"You say tomato, Old Man," Jason had replied with a cheeky grin.
Barbara had had to stifle a laugh. Even after being called the nickname for years, whether by his husband or his children, it still got to the supposedly emotionless Batman, as evidenced by how his eyebrow had twitched.
At any rate, regardless of what the reason for why people didn't pay attention to her and James at Macy's, the lack of eyes on them made her feel better. Like it was possible that her existence wouldn't be seen as much of the anomaly as she'd made it out to be, whether it actually was or not.
The following Thursday, the 12th, which was also two days before spring break, was when Barbara's pre-rut started, so it was probably good that they got her the new clothes when they did. The pre-rut clearly wasn't the real thing, but it was obvious what was going on.
She felt so heavy when she woke up, and more importantly, she hurt down there.
The pain was unlike any other she'd felt before. Not even the pain of the burnout process could ever compare.
And it was only the beginning.
Barbara's mom called her out of school for that day and the next. It wasn't like she had any other choice, because alpha ruts weren't like beta heats where it would still be possible to attend school. Although, even her mom had said that Grandma Eileen had kept her home from school for the four days of her first heat. But true, Grandma Eileen had been an omega.
Her mother made sure that she had plenty of ibuprofen and water for that first day. She brought her up food as well, albeit Barbara didn't feel willing to eat much of anything.
The female alpha was able to text Jason a few times that day, too, despite the pain. She told him what was going on, and he sent her well-wishes that she did her best to ignore the effects of, as they practically went straight to her head.
Granted, by seven o'clock the next morning, it wasn't like she could think much about anything at all.
The pain had amplified, reaching a crescendo she hadn't even known was possible.
Rebecca had told her before how it was going to hurt even more than it did for male alphas, that really the pain was comparable to the presenting heats of male omegas because both designations were developing organs that they technically shouldn't have had and never would've if not for that virus seventy thousand years ago.
But even with what she'd told her, nothing could've prepared Barbara for the truth.
Oh God, did it hurt.
Oh God, oh God, oh God –
An indescribable amount of time to her, but in all reality was a few days, she spent in a blur of agony between the pain and the fever. Really, it didn't seem too much unlike the brain fog for omegas from how Jason had described it – minus the fact that it wasn't possible for her to have the brain fog.
She was constantly aware, if only mildly so, of how her body kept on turning and twisting in on itself, of how she kept on whispering and moaning for the pain to stop and all of this to be over.
Awareness of other things was much more complex and sparing. She knew that her mom sat by her bedside quite a bit, either helping her get down food, go to the bathroom, or at one point when the fever must've gotten really bad, sponging her down in bed.
James was also there a lot, seemingly taking over for their mother when she needed a break. Then again, that made sense, since their spring breaks had lined up this year for once. Barbara remembered him kissing her forehead on at least one occasion and telling her how everything was going to be alright.
Their dad, she didn't really remember being there, but that was typical. He was often busy, and more importantly than that, it was unusual for even family members to stay for long during somebody's first heat or rut, particularly if the family member wasn't an omega or a female beta. Even then, omega and female beta family members were only supposed to stay long enough to make sure that the first mating cycle would pass by successfully. The mating cycles were supposed to be private things.
Yeah, the Stark-Waynes did things differently, or at least they had with Dick and Jason. But they were also the Stark-Waynes.
They were different.
The morning of the 16th, her pain and fever decreased enough that Barbara was able to come back to her senses. James was there when it happened, reading one of those trashy romance novels that he liked so much.
"Hey, Barbie," he said as soon as he noticed that she was awake. He put the bookmark in his place and closed the book, setting it aside. "How are you feeling?"
She thought about it.
Surprisingly, her answer was: "Not bad."
The pain was still beyond belief, and she was still feverish, but that wasn't what she was referring to.
None of this felt wrong, or unnatural.
But nor did it feel like it shouldn't have been happening to her.
James' whole visage softened. "Yeah?" he asked rhetorically.
She answered him nonetheless: "Yeah."
"That's good, Barbie," he said. Then, he grinned. "That's great."
He left not long after that, citing the need to get her food and "probably a frozen bag of peas." Barbara felt like she was going to die, hearing him say that. He brought back up the food, and their mom came with him to check up on her.
Once they made sure that she'd eaten her peanut butter toast, the snack having been broken out once again, and that she probably was going to be fine on her own for the most part, they both left, albeit not without telling her to holler if she needed anything.
After they were gone, Barbara took the time to observe the changes that had happened to her body.
From her perspective, they'd seemingly come about over night, thanks to time being relative and all.
...Actually, she was pretty sure that wasn't how the concept worked. Oops.
In any event, to reiterate, the changes were weird, but they weren't...bad.
Peeing was a brand new and awkward experience. As was the feeling of her new...erm...appendage descending for any reason. The anger that it was so easy for her to quickly rise to over the remainder of those two weeks and the urge that she often got to move were annoying, even if they were tolerable.
Yet they weren't as bad as some of the things that James had told her about omega heats, that was for sure.
Besides, there were...more things to appreciate about everything, as she quickly found out.
That didn't mean she wasn't glad when her first rut was over. While the effects of it in terms of her anatomy were permanent, since so far she didn't think she was transdesignation or would ever want to transition, she wouldn't have to deal with such a swing of hormones again until next year. It was a much better trade-off, in her opinion, than having to deal with a mating cycle every three months.
More importantly, the end of her rut meant that she could finally make her first appearance as Batgirl.
Barbara decided to go out on that Sunday night, the night before classes were set to resume. She hadn't texted Jason since the day she'd been in pre-rut. A part of her felt bad about it.
If everything went according to plan tonight, however, she would be seeing him again soon. Even though he wouldn't know it for a while.
When she was sure that her parents had fallen asleep, she locked her door. She got her treasure box out from under her bed and placed it on top of her mattress. Opening it up, she pulled out her suit and started to put it on.
First went on the main part of the suit. It was kind of like a giant onesie, save for how it didn't have gloves or slippers attached. She flipped on the cowl, making sure that it was snug in place and wouldn't be taken off easily. Then went on the utility belt, full of all of the tools she'd acquired, and after that went on the boots. The gloves went on last.
She'd had to make some more last-minute adjustments over the past two weeks because she'd grown again, but still not in terms of height. But that was typical for a first rut.
And everything fit as it should, so she wasn't too worried about it.
Barbara went over to her window. The barest hints of her reflection were staring back at her through the glass as she went to open it. She paused.
A lot had changed ever since October, when she'd found out that she was going to present as an alpha. A lot hadn't.
Again, she was continuing to not feel entirely right, despite the passage of time and how her mood had lifted because of Batgirl. She no longer felt like a freak, sure, yet that wasn't saying much.
Maybe it was simply a sign she still needed to settle into her designation. It had only been a few days since her first rut had ended, after all. James had said it would be typical for her to experience designation disappointment from anywhere between six months to a whole year after presenting.
There would be plenty of time for her to get used to it all – a whole lifetime, really.
But if there was one thing that Barbara knew, it was that this was right. Becoming Batgirl was right.
It wasn't only about protecting Jason anymore. She still wanted to do that, but her reasoning had extended past it.
She wanted to do this for herself.
Barbara knew that she wouldn't have decided to become a vigilante if she hadn't found out that she was an alpha, if she had been a beta or an omega instead like nature should have dictated. She would have continued on with her life as an ordinary girl, it never once occurring to her despite being the best friend of another vigilante that she could do something better.
Well. She guessed that made two things she knew.
Here was a third:
After tonight, things were never going to be the same again.
And she was looking forward to it.
With a steeling of her breath, Barbara opened her window. Then, upon sliding out the window and closing it almost all of the way shut behind her, she snuck out onto the rooftop.
From there, she began to make her way towards the heart of the city as the tune of a familiar song began to play in her head:
"...When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad!"
Word Count: 11,625