Chapter Text
Jason agrees to meet with the head of the Galante crime family for parley at a private club they run - a place well known in the underworld to be a front for human trafficking. He really doesn’t understand how it hasn’t yet become clear that traffickers don’t get to meet with Red Hood and walk away alive.
Apparently it hasn’t, though, because there’s only the standard amount of armed heavies keeping watch at the entrances and exits; if Galante Sr. realized that Jason was bringing most of his gang to clear this place out at the end of the night, he would have ordered in a small army.
Jason strolls right in the front door. They don’t even take his weapons. Gotham crime lords these days seem to operate by American gun control standards: if everyone has a weapon, it’s as safe as if no one had a weapon.
They clearly don’t realize that the U.S. has more gun deaths than any peer nation in the world. Or that Jason is much, much faster than they are.
“The infamous Hood,” says Galante Sr., ushering Jason into a private lounge with a flourish. “How kind of you to join us. You’ve been terribly busy, haven’t you? Why, when you first came to town - ”
“Skip the theatrics,” Jason interrupts. “Get to the point.”
Galante’s mouth curls sourly. Jason wouldn’t be surprised if the old man was tempted to point out the hypocrisy of Red Hood telling him not to be dramatic. In the end, though, he wisely gets to the point.
“Of course. We’d like to propose a truce with you and your gang, Red Hood. And we have something very valuable to offer in return.”
…Well that obviously sets off alarm bells.
“And what would that be?” The modulator in his helmet turns his voice into a low, metallic growl.
“And spoil the surprise?” Galante responds, apparently too attached to his script for this meeting to move past the drama altogether. He waves a hand toward the lone door in the back wall, no doubt a further VIP room beyond even the exclusive lounge they now occupy.
Jason stares at him for a moment. Then - already knowing he’ll regret it - he moves past Galante’s men and opens the door to the back room, braced for a trap.
Even through his mask’s air filter, he’s immediately assailed by the stink of stress and sex and fever. On a bed shoved against the back wall, a small form is curled up, arms twisted behind it and tied with rope, chest rising and falling too fast with shallow little breaths.
The figure lifts its head as the door opens, and Jason would’ve recognized Robin even without the domino mask that was probably only left to him to make him identifiable. The rest of his uniform is gone; his little chest is bare and bruised, and his white cotton boxers are soaked through, slick streaking down his thighs to his bound ankles.
“Hood?” rasps Robin - a single, pleading syllable.
Jason shuts the door on him.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Jason turns to Galante and leans back against the door, faux-casual and dangerous as a jungle cat. “How’d you get him heated? He can’t be older than fourteen.”
(Tim Drake is thirteen and a half. Jason knows this very well, just like he knows all the biographical data on Bruce’s new kid sidekick. What he needs to know is exactly what these stupid bastards did to Robin, and how it can be undone.)
Galante leers. “Medical intervention, and a little bit of manual encouragement.” Apparently misinterpreting Jason’s cocked head, he clarifies, “He’s taken a few fingers and the neck of a beer bottle or two, but no cocks. Saved that for you.”
“Aren’t you a gentleman,” says Jason. “So, what? You grabbed Robin, figured out he was an omega, shot him up with artificial hormones to kick off an early heat, and now you want to make him my problem?”
Galante laughs unkindly. “We all know your stance on hurting kids, Hood. I don’t figure that Robin counts, but we thought we’d go ahead and usher him over the line into adulthood before handing him off, just in case.”
“What makes you think the Bat isn’t on his way here right now?”
Galante waves a dismissive hand. “Strip-searched the bird. If there are any trackers left on him, they’re not anywhere our fingers can reach.”
“Right,” says Jason, “okay,” and puts a bullet in the man’s head.
He’s faster by far than any of Galante’s thugs. As the last body hits the floor, he holsters his pistols and presses a finger against the side of his helmet to activate the comms mic. “We’re done here. Hold the perimeter until my signal to move in.”
That done, he turns around and opens the door to the back room again. Robin has struggled up to kneeling on the mattress, and he looks up as Jason enters, reeking of chemically-induced heat. Jason’s cock twitches in his cup.
“Christ,” he says, and crosses the room, pulling out a field knife. “Hold still.”
Robin holds his breath as Jason cuts him free. When Jason sheathes the knife and turns to leave, he croaks, “Wait.”
Jason stops, but doesn’t turn around. “Kid, if you knew what you smelled like right now you would not want me here.”
“You’re an alpha, right?” Jason’s scent blockers shouldn’t have left any trace, but little Robin must have clocked his reaction to an omega in heat. “I need your help.”
“Trust me, you don’t want it.”
“I’ll die.”
“You’ll survive until your daddy can get here.”
“No, I won’t.” Tim’s voice breaks. “My chest started hurting three minutes ago.”
Shit. If he’s hypertensive now, he’ll be comatose or worse in the twenty minutes it might take Bruce to cross town on a grapple. His fever and blood pressure will keep rising until something gives, or he strokes out. It’ll be a nasty way to go.
“You’ll barely have to do anything,” Tim pleads. “You can come in my mouth. You won’t even really have to touch me.”
Jason sighs, the voice modulator of his helmet turning the sound into a rush of static. A typical unmedicated heat can be eased by hormones from an alpha’s ejaculate, and that usually includes what can be absorbed through the mucous membranes in the mouth and throat. Of course, a typical heat also isn’t usually severe enough to be deadly - just miserable.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, and turns around. “Is it gonna be enough to hold you over?”
Tim takes a deep breath, then another, visibly steadying himself. “I don’t know.” He starts to slide over the side of the bed, presumably to kneel on the floor, but Jason stops him.
“Lay on your side. Facing me.” Jason unbuttons his pants and frees himself from his cup, willing himself not to groan as the pressure is relieved. He takes off one glove and curls that hand around his stiffening cock. With the other hand, he reaches out to grip Tim’s hair, gentle but firm. “Open your mouth. If I feel your teeth, I will leave you here to die, do you understand?”
Tim nods, his breath coming fast and hard; when Jason’s bare fingers touch his bottom lip, he opens up obediently, his eyelids drooping behind the flipped-up lenses of his domino as Jason’s index and middle finger slip over his tongue to gather some of his spit.
Jason tries to stay clinical, swiping saliva from the inside of Tim’s cheek and smearing it over his shaft before guiding just the head of his cock to rest against Tim’s tongue. The thick smell of omega heat and the soft wetness of Tim’s mouth have his cock filling quickly, his nerves jumping and sparking.
Holding Tim still by the hand in his hair, Jason jerks himself off as best he can. It’s not long until he finds himself panting harshly into his helmet.
Tim squeezes his eyes shut. Almost reflexively, Jason loosens his grip, running the fingers of his gloved hand through Tim’s hair.
“Almost there, baby,” he murmurs, and groans as he comes.
Well… so much for clinical.
Even if he were to send out a distress signal for the Bat, he can't just leave Tim here; his gang is waiting for the order to move in and kill everyone in the building, so this is pretty much the last place he wants Batman to come looking for his kid sidekick. And leaving him out on the street somewhere, looking and smelling like he does, would be dangling bird bait in front of far more dangerous predators than the Galantes.
So that leaves Jason’s nearest crash pad. He gives the order for his men to clear the club, then smuggles Tim - wrapped in Jason’s leather jacket and wobble-legged as a fawn - to where he stashed his bike. By the time they arrive at the safehouse, Tim is barely conscious, doesn’t seem to know what’s going on around him; Jason can feel the heat of his skin through both of their clothes.
“Alright, don’t fucking die,” he mutters, hauling Tim upstairs to the hole-in-the-wall apartment and dropping him on the threadbare couch before going to fetch bottled water and hospital-grade fever reducers.
He comes back and offers Tim the water. Tim stares at it, seemingly without comprehension.
“Take it,” Jason orders, the helmet turning his voice into a metallic growl.
Tim gives a start, and the sour tinge of fear cuts through the sticky scent of heat. He turns his face away.
Jason considers forcing him to drink, but Tim has been drugged against his will once already today. Maybe it’s not fair to expect him, in his fever-delirious state, to take a handout from big bad Red Hood.
Setting the water and the pills on the coffee table, Jason reaches up to click his helmet off, placing it on the table as well.
“Hey,” he says, and when Tim looks at him, he snaps open the water bottle and takes a sip. Then he offers it back. “Look. See? Safe.”
Tim shakes his head again, unsteady and listing slightly to one side.
Cursing under his breath, Jason strips off his gloves and peels the scent blockers from his neck and wrists, releasing a flood of his own semi-aroused scent into the room. His lip curls at the stink of it, but scenting Tim might actually help keep his heat under control, at least for the moment.
He crouches by the couch and reaches out to catch Tim by the arm, pulling him forward to press their wrists together. Tim makes a soft noise, but he doesn’t pull away. Jason rubs their wrists together in small, gentle circles, scenting the baby omega carefully; when Tim doesn’t protest, Jason tugs him forward, telegraphing his movements, and tucks Tim’s face into the curve of his neck where his major scent gland is.
After about thirty seconds, Tim starts to ease against him. Jason gives it a minute before drawing back, offering him the water bottle again.
Tim takes it this time, and even accepts the fever reducers, tossing them back with a few swallows of water. Jason doesn’t bother checking to see whether Tim really swallowed the pills or hid them under his tongue; if the kid is that determined to let his heat fever leave him braindead, that’s not Jason’s fucking problem.
“You with me?” Jason asks, reaching out to push Tim’s dark hair up and out of his face. His forehead is hot enough to burn. “Jesus.”
Tim presses into his hand, eyes slipping closed. “It hurts,” he whispers.
Jason’s jaw tightens. “Shit,” he mutters.
Well, he’s sunk this much time and energy into it already. And he’s not really interested in having a dead bird to dispose of - especially not a thirteen-year-old in the throes of an agonizing first heat.
(Shit. Jason’s taking this kid’s first heat. Bruce isn’t going to be happy. Jason can’t even find it in him to feel smug about that. Tim is too young, and this shouldn’t have happened to him.)
He scoops Tim up from the couch and carries him into the bedroom, where he strips them both naked for maximum skin-to-skin contact. Tim seems barely coherent, arching into every touch, eyelids fluttering. Jason lays him back against the pillows, rubbing the scent gland in his wrist over the one where Tim’s neck meets his shoulder; then he lines up his cock at Tim’s wet, open entrance and presses inside.
That little baby cunt squeezes around him. Jason takes a deep breath and starts rocking his hips in a slow, easy pace. Tim is crying out and trying to grind down against him, his pussy tightening in time with his hiccupping sobs, and Jason grits his teeth, clinging to his last strands of self-control.
“Going harder isn’t gonna make you feel better,” he says aloud, half to Tim and half to himself. All Tim needs to start reducing his cortisol levels and regulating his heat is the hormone shot of an alpha coming inside of him. He doesn’t need to be fucked in earnest, no matter what his body is telling him right now. And Jason… would feel wrong enjoying this. It’s purely medical. He just doesn’t want a dead kid on his conscience.
Jason pulls out until just the head of his cock is inside of Tim and jerks himself off until he comes, groaning as he spills inside of the little cuckoo. Tim is still sobbing, tears streaming down his face as his hips twitch, trying to take in more of Jason’s cock.
“Easy. I know.” Jason reaches down to thumb over Tim’s clit, already slippery-wet from the heat-slick Tim has been producing for hours. “Come on, baby. This’ll soak in easier if you can come for me. Think you can do it?”
Tim’s nodding, gasping, squirming under Jason’s touch. His cunt spasms and tightens like a vice around Jason’s cockhead. He keens, back arching, and Jason rubs his clit in fast, hard circles until he collapses with a cry and a gush of slick.
“Good boy.” Jason pulls out. A string of sticky white pulls out with him, and he pushes it back inside with his fingers, Tim twitching at the new intrusion. This’ll be more effective if Tim isn’t leaking out the cum his body needs to absorb, but Jason doesn’t have a plug just lying around. He hasn’t exactly been entertaining. “I’m gonna put a pillow under you to keep your hips up. Just lie still.”
“Hmn.” Tim looks barely conscious again. Jason tucks a pillow under his hips and starts to climb out of the bed, but Tim’s hand shoots out to catch him by the wrist, nails digging in desperately.
“Ouch. Jesus, okay. Keep your claws to yourself.” Jason settles back into the bed, detaching Tim’s hand from his wrist with some effort. He fumbles for the half-empty water bottle sitting on the bedside table. “Drink some more water before you fall asleep, you little idiot.”
He has to hold it to Tim’s lips, but Tim does manage a few swallows of water before lapsing into what Jason hopes is just an exhausted sleep and not the first stage of brain death.
If he fucked this kid to save his life and Tim still dies, Jason is going to be pissed.
Jason doesn’t really sleep, so he’s aware as soon as Tim starts shifting, struggling back toward wakefulness. He lifts his head to watch as Tim opens his eyes, as realization sets in.
Tim turns on his side to look at Jason, gaze raking over every feature of his face before darting back to his eyes. Jason stares back. Does Tim remember what happened? Does he think Jason is responsible for his forced heat, that the Galantes did this to him on Red Hood’s behalf? Did he expect to be back with Batman by the time he woke up?
“You’re… you’re Jason Todd,” Tim says.
Okay. That’s not what he was expecting. “The one and only.”
“You’re alive. Does Bruce know you’re alive?”
Bitterness curdles his stomach. If you want to stop me you’re going to have to kill me, he’d said to Bruce, and Bruce chose to walk away. “He knows.”
Tim looks at him in silence for a few seconds, his brow creased in consternation.
“What?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a cagey bastard. What’s it matter to you?”
“I know you. I knew you,” Tim corrects himself. “When you were Robin.”
Jason wracks his brain, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen this kid before Talia showed him pictures of the new Robin. “I don’t remember you.”
“I know. That’s okay.” Tim curls into his arms, overwarm and hazy with heat. Jason reaches up to push Tim’s hair out of his face, feel his forehead.
“You need it again.”
Tim’s hips twitch. “Yeah. Please.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright. Lay back.”
They fuck and sleep and go through a box of protein bars over the next twelve hours. After that, Jason deems the heat no longer a medical emergency; Tim’s fever is low-grade and intermittent, and he could theoretically make it through the rest of his heat without another shot of alpha hormones, though Jason knows well the discomfort of an unmedicated mating season spent with no partner.
Tim’s sleeping again, still flushed pink with heat but finally smelling more like a sweet omega than a sick pup. Jason noses over his shoulder and licks his scent gland before slipping out of the bed. Tim shifts and resettles, but doesn’t seem to be in immediate distress, so Jason steps out of the room.
He calls Nightwing.
“You missing a bird?” he asks when the line picks up, and he hears Dick’s sharp intake of breath.
“Hood - ”
“You didn’t even tell him who I was.” It’s not what he planned to say, but now that he has - “Were you ever gonna tell him?”
“Do you still have him?” Dick’s voice comes out strangled. “Hood, don’t take this out on him. He’s just a kid.”
“Yeah. Weren’t we all.” Jason glances back toward the partially-open bedroom door, where he can see Tim, fast asleep wearing one of Jason’s t-shirts. “I still have him.”
“Thank god.”
“You can pick him up here. If you bring the Bat, the deal is off. And I’m gonna be sending you pieces of this kid in the mail for the next six months.”
“Jason - ”
He hangs up.
Tim rouses when Jason sits on the bed to start putting on his boots. He sits up and rubs his eyes, then looks around, and his scent spikes with anxiety.
“You’re leaving?”
Jason doesn’t look at him. “Nightwing will be here in six minutes or less. And even if he’s not, you’re over the worst of it. You could make it on your own from here.”
The sour tang of distressed omega doesn’t dissipate. “Right.”
Jason sighs irritably. “I’m not leaving until he gets here. But I’m also not sticking around to make small talk.” He doesn’t have to add that there’s no way he’s ever coming back to this safehouse. The packed duffel bag by the door says it for him.
They lapse into silence for a couple of minutes before Jason asks the wall - not Tim - “So. How did we know each other? Before.”
“Huh?”
“You said we knew each other. But I don’t remember you.”
There’s a rap at the window before Tim can respond. Nightwing lets himself in; Jason appreciates that at least he’s wearing scent blockers, or else - judging from his expression - the scent of distressed omega would have doubled.
Dick takes one whiff of the air and turns to Jason with murder in his eyes. Jason holds his hands up and says, “Whoa, I didn’t cause this,” at the same time that Tim cries out, “He helped me!”
“Robin,” Dick says without taking his eyes off Jason, inching around to slot himself between them, “what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Tim climbs out of the bed. Jason wants to growl at the sight of his little bare feet on the ground, wants to warn his omega back into the nest. “Let’s just go.”
“Okay.” Dick’s expression softens as he looks down at the kid. Jason wants to spit.
Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest. “Whatever exit you’re taking, do it now. This place goes up in two minutes.”
Nightwing knows better than to underestimate him, and they’re all long gone by the time Jason hits the switch and blows his ruined safehouse to rubble.