Chapter Text
The logistics of actually getting Dick back into the field as Nightwing aren’t something Dick had given much thought to until the day had finally come. His new suit had taken some time to design and construct—the previous ones may have fit his form to perfection, but Dick’s body had changed shape considerably in his time with Slade and the pack.
When they’d made their deal at the very start, he’d been thin, ribcage showing beneath his skin and struggling to keep muscle on despite how much time he spent on the streets, fighting to keep Bludhaven safe. In the many months since, he’s grown in quite a few areas. Muscle could finally sustain itself on his body with the proper nutrients, he filled out, and Slade finally stopped poking at his rib cage after it was covered by more than just thin skin. He’s also gone up a few cup sizes on the chest breastfeeding his puppy, and very quickly, after fighting and failing to put on his old suit, Dick came to the realization that it wasn’t going to work.
So he stands in front of the final product, waiting for him to finally put it on, and put it to use. Slade isn’t in their armoury yet, still with Wintergreen discussing the plans for their first patrol tonight. Technically, it’s only going to be Nightwing making his debut, but Slade plans to keep a low profile, following him at a distance as Dick gets used to his home turf once again.
No time like the present, right?
Pushing through the nerves that don’t really make sense, Dick puts on his suit in the same sequence he always does. His body remembers the familiar rhythm of this process even after so long, and it isn’t until he’s pulling up the zipper along his spine that his rhythm falters and he hisses as the suit tightens around his chest. They’d designed it to accommodate the larger size without making the suit overly feminine, so his chest piece was still on the flatter side, compressing his upper chest but not to the point of restriction or pain.
Except Dick is definitely in mild pain. Discomfort for sure.
He tugs the zipper back down and takes his arms out of the sleeves of his suit so the upper half slumps forward and pools at his waist. In just his under armour, he prods at his chest and realizes his mistake with another hiss. When they’d been designing his suit, they’d never factored in that his chest was more and less sensitive at certain times of the day. Particularly, more sensitive when they were heavy with milk, and less so after he’d fed Damian.
“Fuuuuuck,” He groans, just as Slade steps onto the landing at the bottom of the stairs. His brows are raised, his one eye running up and down Dick in a quick scan to ascertain what exactly is wrong. When nothing is immediately evident, he turns an expectant look on Dick, waiting to be filled in.
After all, problems to be dealt with are delegated to the alpha of the pack, especially ones of safety. This technically would fall under a problem of safety. Dick scrubs a hand over his face, embarrassment warring with frustration. It’s been a struggle to get even this far, to run into another roadblock so soon when this is exactly the reason they moved back here, back to Bludhaven so Dick could be Nightwing again—it feels like a sign.
A bad one.
Slade’s arm falls around his waist, pulling Dick against his side. His scent can’t be pleasant for Slade right now, probably burnt and miserable, smoky and sour. It’s not exactly a taste you want with honeydew or the sweet, milky undertone of his scent. “Omega,” Slade rumbles. It feels chiding even if Dick hasn’t voiced any of his negativity aloud. This bond they have between them lets Slade get an even easier read of Dick than he had priorly, and he’d never been a particularly closed book to Slade to begin with.
It’s a natural side effect of letting an alpha into your bed, your nest, your body, with enough regularity that he brings comfort, warmth, and safety to your inner omega.
“It’s stupid,” Dick starts. Slade pinches his hip and Dick elbows him in return. They’re not very mature because the next thing Dick knows, he’s rolling around with Slade on the floor as they fight it out for dominance. It ends with him getting pinned, both wrists above his head, and a knee pressing down on his sternum. Not enough pressure to hurt, just enough to reassert that Slade is the one in control, and Dick isn’t getting out of this.
He hisses up at Slade through his teeth, feeling uncomfortably angry and childish and out of control of his own emotions. This isn’t a normal reaction for him. He shouldn’t be so upset about what probably has a half dozen solutions, but right now anger burbles inside him and spills over, and his alpha, his mate, is taking the brunt of it for no good reason.
Slade snaps back at him, but his hold on Dick stays firm without even the suggestion of pain. “Omega.” It’s a clear reprimand now.
Dick’s omega hisses again, fighting through the turmoil and struggling against Slade’s pin until he’s huffing more than he’s hissing. There’s no fighting against his alpha, which means there’s no avoiding this conversation.
“Talk.” Slade orders. The curt, one word commands aren’t helpful in settling Dick’s omega. If anything, they make him angrier, to an unreasonable degree that doesn’t make sense—but his emotions are in the driver’s seat and Dick is most definitely not. Still, he has no choice but to obey the order from his alpha.
“It’s this fucking suit. Again. But it’s not this fucking suit, it’s you, and It’s my body. It’s what you’ve done to my body, you fucking asshole.” He seethes. He tries to pry his wrists free from Slade’s grip again, working himself up all over with his own answer, and Slade watches with a dispassionate expression that feeds into Dick’s growing fury.
“You gave me a pup. You’re the reason my fucking chest grew tits, and I leak fucking milk. You’re why my old suits don’t fit, and why this one isn’t right either.” Dick growls, his voice low and dangerous. It felt like a joke when he said it just over a month ago, but Dick’s mind flashes back to the promise he made Slade at the dinner table with his foot on the alpha’s cock, and he sincerely contemplates doing some very nasty, ultimately emasculating things to the alpha pinning him down.
Slade is very aware of the murderous intent in his omega’s eyes. It’s been turned on him a few times in the past, well before they were ever so comfortable with each other to banter, let alone flirt, or any of the many other things that would come later. He isn’t a threat to Slade’s life, the mate bond would stop Dick from taking lethal action, but he isn’t someone to be trifled with on any day of the week, let alone when he's pumping out a pungent, dangerous scent that raises every single one of Slade’s hackles.
“What happened to doing anything for Damian?” Slade returns, keeping his tone even instead of snarling back.
Dick doesn’t get the question. Obviously he’d do anything and everything for Damian—but that’s neither here nor there when the thought of hurting Slade has become startlingly appealing. Dick doesn’t take joy in other people’s pain. Usually. But he isn’t a saint, despite the common belief. He has a capacity for causing pain, and an ability to revel in it, that’s he’s always been very careful not to indulge in. When you’re a vigilante, causing pain isn’t the goal, neither is leveling the score, it’s the victims. It’s aiding others. It’s keeping them safe.
But one or two extra cheap shots, a kick to the kidney that leaves a particularly nasty predator pissing blood, a broken jaw—well, it’s dangerous work, fast work, not every hit can be clean, every time.
That buried hunger inside of him rears its ugly head and Dick recalls the taste of Slade’s blood in his mouth as he bit down and mated him. Saliva pools in his mouth and his eyes flick upwards, he strains his neck to see quite how far Slade’s arms are from his head—from his mouth.
“I’m not the reason you started lactating, omega. Sure, I gave you the pup, but you loved that pup so much, with so much emotion that it became tangible. Your omega self physically expressed your devotion by changing the shape and function of your body—and you adore providing for your pup omega. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you, Richard?” Slade talks at him as Dick’s thoughts churn and his stomach tightens with hunger.
They’re not really processing, set to the back burner of his mind. Slade keeps talking, though. “So what? Your suit doesn’t fit, big deal. I’ve got the money, and we’ve got time. We’ll fix your suit. We’ll get you a breast pump so you can express before patrol. Maybe we change Damian’s feeding schedule.” They’re entirely reasonable suggestions that Dick has less than no interest in.
“Unless you’re not interested in feeding your pup anymore?” The question has Dick’s gaze snapping back to Slade at the audacity to question his devotion to his pup. “That’s fine.” Slade continues, blithely. “It’s your body. I’m sure Wintergreen can figure out a way to ease your hormones. We’ll ween Damian off quick, and you’ll stop producing in no time. Fit into your Nightwing suits no problem.”
Anger rages, burning brighter—and then the earth cracks, the words pour through him, into the fissures, shifting plates—and the resulting wave of emotion is a tsunami of shame, nausea and horror at his own actions, his own thoughts. It hits the anger and douses it, instantly, and Dick has to turn his head so he can gag as bile rises in his throat. Slade moves off of him in a moment, turning Dick onto his side, and then helping him onto his hands and knees as bile forces its way up, chest flexing and contracting painfully as he vomits his lighter, pre-patrol dinner.
One of Slade’s hands curls on his hair, the other rubs circles into his back until Dick has nothing left in his system to expel. “Easy, easy, omega. I’m here, Dick. I’ve got you.” Slade reassures. Gone is the cold, reserved distance, now he’s all warm and gentle, soft as Dick comes back to himself.
He shakes his head, failing to fight off his tears, not that any battle would have mattered when the force of his vomiting had forced them from his eyes anyway.
“Sh-shit.” He stutters. Half sobs, really.
He pushes himself back onto his knees, upright and sitting on his heels with a tremor that wracked his whole frame.
“It’s okay not to be okay right now.” Slade tells him. It’s something Dick is fairly sure he might have said verbatim to the kids. Both Rose and Joey had their nightmares, Jason now, too. He’s had more than one talk with them where he promised it was okay to feel the way they did even when the danger and the trauma lay in the past. Just because the pack was settled and safe now, doesn’t mean any of their previous experiences were invalid.
Rationally, he knows this. But his rationality is sitting firmly at a distance, and he couldn’t reach for it right now, even if he wanted to. He shakes his head, breathing in faltering counts of four that aren’t settling him as much as they’re making him light headed.
“Fine. If you’re going to be stubborn about it—” Slade takes Dick into his arms, and in the span of one irregular four count, is on his feet with Dick cradled against his chest. “We’re going to go upstairs, get you some water and out of this suit, and then we’re going to talk to Wintergreen.”
“Dami,” Dick pleads instead.
Slade huffs. “Yeah, you’re getting back to normal, alright. I’ll get you our puppy. Then Billy.”
He’s carried up the stairs and through the house—mercifully, everyone is in their rooms or otherwise occupied, and no one bears witness to the distressed state Dick is in before they reach their own room, and Dick is deposited onto the closed lid of the toilet in the washroom. Dick’s glass on the tray with all their dental products is filled with water, and Dick is ordered to swish it around his mouth before spitting it in the sink. He rotely follows the commands. Rinsing and spitting twice more, and then finally drinking the next glass of water under Slade’s careful eye to ensure he doesn’t drink too fast and trigger another vomiting session.
Next comes mouthwash. Then more water. And after the glass is taken from when Dick refuses to drink any more water, Slade strips him out of the suit that started the entire mess, and then the rest of the layers he’d sweat through in his struggle and the resulting anxiety-induced bout of nausea. He’s given a damp washcloth to dab at himself while Slade disappears to grab a change of clothes. The pajamas he wasn’t supposed to don again until after patrol—abandoned now, for sure—pilfered from the laundry hamper judging by the heavier than usual scents of Dick and Slade layering the material.
He breathes it in deeply, and when he stands on his own, Slade doesn’t make any move to stop him.
“We will be talking about this.” Slade says. Dick nods after a moment, taking slow, careful steps back into the bedroom. Exhaustion weighs him down with every one. “…In the morning.” He adds, mouth twisting as he watches Dick sink onto their bed when he finally reaches it.
“That’s fine.” Dick agrees. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t even want to think about it. Any delay in having to is perfectly fine by him. “Can I have Damian now, please?”
Please. Like he might be denied access to his own pup. In theory…in theory Slade could say no. It would be in his right. It Dick isn’t safe to be around right now, well, the panic freezes him until Slade nods, although his gaze on Dick tells him more than his mouth says.
This isn’t right. Dick isn’t right. And until they figure out what exactly is wrong, Rees no way, suit or no suit, Dick will be hitting the streets as Nightwing.
Not if he can’t even be trusted around his own pack, in his own home.
Not if he could fantasize about hurting his own mate.
He swallows down the bile rising in his throat, and plasters on a smile as Slade carries Damian into the room. The sleepy pup has no idea why he’s being pulled out of bed so late in the night when there’s no obvious threat, but he settles into Dick’s embrace easily, holding no fear that his Umm’ will keep him safe.
Anything, Dick reminds himself. He’d do anything for his pup, and he’d keep him safe from every danger.
Even if that danger might be Dick himself.
With his pup tucked against him, Dick’s scent finally returns to something familiar and stable. Getting him out of the suit and into his worn pajamas had helped, but not as much as his pup in his arms. Within minutes both of them are fast asleep, and as reassuring as that is, Slade can’t bring himself to pull back the covers and get into bed with his mate and puppy.
The easy rise and fall of their chests, breathing in sync and then falling out of it with Damian’s tiny chest taking shorter breaths, soothes his inner alpha, but there’s too much energy inside him that needs to be expelled now. He takes slow steps out of the room, reluctant to leave Dick, and careful not to wake either of them by being too loud.
Jason is right outside the door, standing sentinel. He moves to give Slade space to exit, but he doesn’t make to leave his self appointed post despite the look Slade levels at him.
Acclimating Jason to the pack is slow going, but steady. By Dick’s word, he’s already been doing better in the five weeks and change since he’s been living with them, but there’s been a number of times he’s found their second youngest pack mate standing guard at various points in the house in the middle of the night, braced for attacks that weren’t coming. Outside of Damian’s door is most common, but he’s stood outside of Dick and Slade’s and even Rose’s before.
Jason has never successfully taken post outside of Joey’s room. His son has a sense of when Jason might attempt to and manages to instead, rope him into another activity. He’s started with attempting to teach Jason ASL, what the beta defines as ‘going well’ is a metric Slade doesn’t know, but despite the somewhat scrambled mind of Dick’s younger brother, he appears to remember a fair bit, and when he struggles Joey is a patient teacher.
When they’ve found Jason outside of the other rooms, Damian’s particularly, Wintergreen will take over to let the pup inside sleep, and get out of bed to narrate whatever chore he takes up in the room they manage to bring Jason to. Right now that’s cooking, and Jason of his own free will has taken to leaving his self-appointed post to observe, and even on occasion participate.
It’ll be a while yet before they break him out of this habit. Slade contemplates the boy, because he is a boy without all the armour and the weaponry, with heavy scarring over a decent portion of his body, and a white streak in his hair to boot. He’s not leaving Jason here with his omega and pup inside the room. Even if this protection act is genuine, he can’t forget Jason holding a knife to his omega’s neck with the intent to kill him and steal the pup back.
“Down the hall. Go.” Slade orders. Jason’s eyes narrow at him. The dislike goes both ways, but since Slade is his alpha, and he’s by Dick’s own actions, Dick’s pup, Jason follows the command. Technically he could push back, this isn’t the kind of command that would warrant punishment of any kind if he didn’t follow it, but even egg salad here knows how to pick his battles.
Slade trails after him, and then when Jason stops right at the end of the hall because he’s officially ‘down it’, Slade nudges him further forward, pushing him into the living room where Rose is scrolling on her phone while the TV plays a movie with the sound turned so low it’s barely audible. She glances up at them, head to tilting at the unexpected combination of pack members.
“Heard a commotion earlier,” Rose starts, “What happened? Why isn’t Dick going out as Nightwing tonight?”
“Suit didn’t fit right.” Slade returns. An understatement of the problem, but a necessary one. He doesn’t want the pack up in arms about the state of their omega when they don’t even know what’s wrong. “He’s asleep now, but be gentle with him in the morning. The redesigns have him….sensitive about his body.”
She makes a noise of agreement, and then turns her attention to Jason. “Hey there, big guy. Playing sentinel again?” Jason growls, short and pup-like. Rose’s returning growl is much deeper, with a reverberation that says not to test her. The alpha tone she’s developing sounds fierce and commanding, not that Slade expected anything less of the alpha his daughter would someday become in full. It cuts off Jason’s juvenile growl and tells him to submit. His eyes flick between them, finally realizing he has an alpha on either side of him, and as an unpresented member of the pack, he ranks the lowest in the room.
“Come here, Jay.” Rose says. He steps forward with a huff, but instead of taking a seat next to her on the couch, he settles at her feet. Rose huffs back, familiar with this other habit of Jason’s, and moves her legs to make room for his massive frame between them. Much like Damian at the beginning of joining their pack, Jason has an absence of scent. He doesn’t smell like anything on his own, but he enjoys being covered in the pack’s scents, and the best way to achieve that is to be as close to them as possible, touching areas where the densest scents are generated. There are glands at many points of the body for that, behind the knees and between the thighs being a few of them, although less used than wrists and the neck.
Rose runs her fingers through Jason’s hair, and he reluctantly settles under his daughter’s care. Slade watches with a frown. It’s not that his pack being close is a bad thing, but a part of him really doesn’t like the picture he’s seeing. Jason is a little past the age of presenting. Delayed for a myriad of reasons. Whatever he presents as will simply be a matter of biology they have no control over.
His daughter is his only alpha born child. Joey is a beta. Grant was an omega until HIVE forced a transition to alpha that his heart wasn’t strong enough for and killed him. Dynamic transition just isn’t possible the way gender transition is.
Jason could be anything, but there’s always signs as to what a pack member could be before they present. Jason might have all the lethal skill of an assassin, and the size to back it up—really, a size that deceptively makes him look too large to be as quick and fluid as he is in a fight—but he’s sensitive to the emotions of his pack members. Empathetic and emotive, and incredibly tactile. With the pup, he’s downright maternal. Neither Joey, Rose, or Billy react like that to Damian.
Dick on the other hand, does.
Slade has his suspicions on how Jason will present when his body catches up to his physical age. Having another omega in the pack should be fine. Much more stable than a third alpha, particularly one that Slade isn’t related to, but with an alpha and beta in such close age, he’s wary of possible complications.
“If you glare any harder, you might spontaneously kickstart your healing and regrow your other eye.” Rose comments.
“Only one of us could be so lucky.” Slade says. Although, between the two of them, he was glad Rose’s healing managed to repair her eye—though it took a few years and a near death experience to kick it into overdrive and undo the damage she did to herself.
Besides, Slade has had two eyes before. He’s better with one. “Still,” His daughter says. “Stop glaring and sit the fuck down. Your hovering is bothering me.”
He waves off her attempt at an alpha command. It rolls over him without any effect. “You just keep an eye on him.” Slade tells her, heading back down to the armoury.
“Jay’s not a pet.” She calls back, it’s not loud enough to wake anyone, but Slade is already out of range to retort with a comment about pets being easier to keep. And less dangerous.
Talia can’t be happy he’s gotten two of her sons. How he hasn’t brought the full force of the League of Assassins down on them yet is a mystery that he doesn’t have an answer to.
He’s going to need one, though. And soon, likely.
Stress tightens his shoulders, but with the freak out Dick just had, he doesn’t have time to spare the threat from afar when something isn’t right much closer to home. The smell coming from the room reminds him of that, and he flips on the switch for the vents before breaking out the cleaning supplies.
The stress is forced down as he deals with the mess, and finishes the whole ordeal by showering off the harsh odours clinging to him in the locker room set up adjoined to the armoury. Everything he was wearing gets thrown into the laundry machine, with whatever was waiting to be washed in one of the baskets by it. From the dryer he finds a pair of boxer shorts and a shirt, and deems it sufficient enough.
He heads back up, finding Joey added to the pair he left in front of the TV. His head is in Jason’s lap and he’s holding a book about an inch from his face as he tries to read with just the light of the tv in the dark. Jason for his part, looks relaxed enough to be asleep. Rose is actually watching whatever is on the screen, now. She raises a brow when he checks in on them, finding the wet hair and changed outfit bizarre considering he came from downstairs, and not his own bedroom.
“It’s fine.” He answers the unasked question.
Joey points at him with his index finger, and shapes the letter B with the same hand, moving it horizontally in front of the lowest point of his chin, and flexing his wrist to move it back and forth. Liar.
He doesn’t even let go of his book with his other hand, or look at him. Rose doesn’t bother muffling her laugh. His kids suck.
“I’m going to bed. Maybe you three should as well, if you’d like to eat breakfast in the morning with us.” Slade suggests, pointedly.
“Join ya for lunch, instead.” Rose replies. That’s about the time she usually wakes up.
Same. Joey signs.
Slade shakes his head, finally heading back to his room. He opens the door silently, and this time joins his omega and pup in bed without trepidation. They’re both soundly asleep, exactly how he left them, and within moments his omega is moulding himself to Slade’s side, drawn to him even in his sleep.
That’s reassuring, if nothing else is. He presses a kiss to Dick’s forehead, and runs a hand through Damian’s hair. Even with the current peace, it’s a long time before Slade actually falls asleep.
He wakes up before Slade. Somehow, despite the fact that they didn’t go to bed together, Dick wormed his way into Slade’s embrace, and he’s being spooned entirely by Slade’s much larger form. Damian himself is an even littler spoon, and in his arms, his fat, plush fox is the littlest of spoons in the drawer. Dick huffs a laugh, heavier, darker thoughts want to weigh on him, but in between his pup and his alpha, he coaches himself through the emotions that threaten.
Yesterday was bad. Unprecedented, almost. But he’d figure out why he reacted so violently to something so little, and he’d work to fix it. It’s nothing that he can’t handle. He has to tell himself this, because thinking otherwise—Dick can’t come back from that.
Breathing slow and steady, Dick lies there until his heart beat is under control again. Damian in front of him makes a snuffling sound, and Dick shifts to get a better look at his puppy. Somehow, Damian has gone from cuddling his fox to trying to eat him, an entire fluffy fox ear is in his mouth. If his little prince were more awake, he’d find this behavior entirely undignified, but Dick gets the privilege of watching his pup be a pup in all his tiny, silly glory.
After a few moments, Dick carefully reaches forward and tugs the fox out of Damian’s mouth. His pup whines as the fox is freed, its fur is all dark and soggy where Damian had tucked in for a meal. Since plushies aren’t the most edible, all he’d done was make the toy a little wet and gross. “That’s a lil nasty, little D.” Dick comments. He doesn’t get a reply from Damian, but he isn’t really expecting one.
He does get one from Slade. “You can’t blame him for being hungry.” A hand runs up Dick’s side, then down, and on the push back up again, slips under his shirt. He cups one of Dick’s breasts. They’re full and sensitive this morning, but he isn’t dripping yet. Slade massages it, and Dick lets out a soft purr.
It’s night and day from the way he reacted yesterday. Dick had already been working himself up into a panic before Slade found him, and his presence had sent Dick spiraling. Now, it’s like yesterday never even happened. Dick can recognize that it’s weird. That his behaviour doesn’t make sense, but he doesn’t want to pay attention to it when his alpha, his mate, is holding him, and touching him, and all he feels is safe.
“That’s my sweet omega.” Slade whispers. Dick nods. He is. He wants to be. An omega that fights his own pack, his own alpha, and mate, is not a healthy omega. Slade pulls Dick’s shirt all the way off, and Dick turns Damian onto his other side, so his face is against Dick’s chest. It’s not long before the puppy understands what’s being offered to him, and his mouth latches onto a nipple. His little cheeks working as he starts to drink down his breakfast.
“I’m sorry.” Dick finally murmurs. He doesn’t have any other words for what happened last night. “I’m sorry, Alpha.”
Slade kisses Dick’s bare shoulder, then higher, pressing a trail down his neck, over the mating bite they share. “I know you are, omega.” He squeezes Dick’s hip and sighs. “We’re going to figure out what happened together. Everything will be okay.”
Confidence that everything genuinely will be okay doesn’t come to Dick as easily, but he nods his agreement anyway. Between Damian and Slade, it’s hard to be down on himself, but the taint of the negative miasma lingers on the edges of his mind, and he knows they’ll be consulting Wintergreen about this. As the one who’s been patching Slade up for years, he’s become the unofficial pack medic. He’s a bit older than Slade, but looks quite a bit older than him with Slade’s slowed aging.
It’s kind of crazy, actually. If Dick thinks about it too hard it does make him a little anxious and his stomach tight, but it's hard to deny that in the many years he’s known the alpha he’s now mated to, he’s looked practically the exact same. Every now and then his hair style changes, and the costumes have changed over the years—an unfortunate lack of pirate boots to tease him about and a little less colourful—but in all that time Slade hasn’t developed a single wrinkle. The shock white hair and gruff guy demeanour are deceptive, like that. But he doesn’t have crows feet, he doesn’t have laugh lines, he never slows down.
With his healing, it’s not just bullet wounds Slade doesn’t have to concern himself with, but it seems, aging itself.
Dick on the other hand doesn’t quite have that privilege. Completely mortal, no meta abilities, not super soldier serum. Dick is gonna keep aging. So will the kids. If Dick manages to live that long, is there gonna be a day that Dick looks like Wintergreen and Slade is as he is now? Frozen in time, frozen right at the moment the serum took full affect.
How is Dick only just realising this?
“Omega,” Slade starts. Dick’s scent has turned again. Sour, bitter and unpleasant. Honeydew rotting and milk curdling in the sun. Damian pull off his chest with a confused whine as Dick begins to freak in front of him.
Shaking his head, Dick is pulling away from his alpha and his pup, the sudden fear and doubt and panic crashing into him and dragging him down. “Get Damian out of here.” His stomach takes a sudden twist and he’s out of bed in a flash, and curling over himself, braced against the dresser. “Now. I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Slade has Damian in his arms, carrying him out of the bedroom as Dick stumbles his way into the ensuite. He’s curled over the toilet, throwing up what little still sits in his stomach after his vomiting the night before. He’s still there when Slade returns. Dick can’t smell him at all over the bile burning his nostrils and dulling his senses. The roar in his ears is doing a great job at making anything Slade is saying hard to understand, but his presence at Dick’s side is constant, his hand soothing.
Dick wants nothing more than to lean into it, but between the nausea and his own terror, he can’t force his mind to take the offered comfort.
His body has a will of its own, though. When the contractions of his chest finally slows and he stops spitting bile from his lips, it’s a slow but unavoidable collapse back against his alpha. If Slade hadn’t been there it might have been the floor cradling him instead, but his alpha keeps him propped up, letting Dick catch his breath and wiping at the tears on Dick’s face that have squeezed themselves free with gentle swipes of his thumb.
The scene that follows is much the same as the night prior. Close the lid on the toilet, plop Dick onto it. Water, water, mouthwash, water. It’s going to become a routine if this continues, and that’s a dark thought he doesn’t want to entertain. Through practically all of it, Slade's hand stays in Dick’s shoulder. His face tells Dick that he’s about as certain Dick won’t fall forward and brain himself on the lip of the shower as Dick himself is.
Or isn’t, rather.
He’s scooped up again, weightless and equally as boneless as Slade carries him back into their bedroom. How had he ruined such a nice morning so quickly? So effectively?
“What happened, omega?” Slade whispers, unintentionally echoing the questions tearing Dick up inside. There’s no gentle way of saying it. No gentle way of easing him into the horror story their future is turning into. Or maybe always was, and Dick was just too blind to see that, before now.
“Am I going to die before you?” He asks, voice soft.
Slade’s hand spasms on his shoulder, too tight and then loosening when Dick winces. “Omega, what on earth are you talking about?”
Right, context. Dick smiles, feeling a little grim and morbid. “You don’t age, Slade. You’re literally a super soldier. One of a kind at that. You’ve looked like this for…what? A decade, now? Longer?” His body trembles, and he can’t look at his alpha.
“I think I just realized for the very first time I’m going to grow old, and then older, and then one day, if I live that long. I’ll look like the older one, and you’re going to be just like you are now. We’re not going to age together. It’ll just be me while you’re always perfect. Until the day my knee finally gives out and I can’t return to being a vigilante. Until the day my body gives out and you’re left taking care of a withering omega. Until the day that I die, before you.”
Slade slowly drops down to the hardwood floor in front of Dick, his head presses against Dick’s knees. He’s silent for a long time. Dick thinks maybe he never realized it, either.
He pulls back, white hair moving as strands fall away from his face and he looks up at Dick, one piercing blue eye that has always been able to freeze him in place. “We’ll think of something.”
It’s about as optimistic as Everything will be okay.
“You’re not usually so naive.” He laughs, wetly. Without his permission, his eyes have decided to leak some more water to add to the salt tracks already staining his cheeks. “That’s not how things work.”
Slade snarls, his chest lets out a sound that’s bone shaking. His inner omega wants to bare his throat and show his stomach. Dick is stronger than that instinct. Besides, it’s not him Slade is growling at. “You think after I worked this hard to court you I’d lose you like that? We’ll make it work. There is no other option.”
Laughing and crying at the same time is a mystifying feeling. The life Dick wants is falling apart in his hands and bursting into smithereens at his feet, but even still Slade can make him laugh. “Court is an interesting word for whatever you were doing.”
“It worked.”
Dick shakes his head, his shoulders easing for a moment at the remark. “I remember a lot more kidnapping.”
“We’re an untraditional couple.” Slade reasons.
And that is quick to silence Dick’s laughter. Untraditional feels like a pretty weighty word in itself.
One with consequences. Consequences they didn’t foresee, and have no current way of mitigating. In short, they’re fucked.
“Yeah,” Dick agrees. He wipes at his skin and turns his head to the side. “Ain’t that a bitch?”
Slade doesn’t have a reply. Dick isn’t expecting him to have one. He runs his hand through Slade’s white hair, the additional length on the strands has always been his favourite. A guilty pleasure. Tears threaten again and hope feels really far away.
There’s a possibility that before his knee gives out, Dick’s will might kick it, first. And what good is a vigilante with nothing left to give?