Chapter Text
Jor-El said: “Unlike humans, there was no naturally birthed Beta on Krypton. We come into the world as Alphas or Omegas. When our bond mates die, our glands deteriorate and we become what you would call ‘Betas’. Betas are sterile and incapable of marking or being marked by others.”
Bruce couldn’t remember whether it had been him or the AI who had brought up the subject of Kryptonian biology. He appreciated the impromptu lecture, regardless. Humans were social animals, Bruce was not an exception to the rule. Sometimes he asked Jor-El to teach him about Krypton. Other times he just wanted to hear a voice that wasn’t Joker’s, so they talked about everything under the sun (and beyond).
“There is a 15% chance of widowed mates not surviving transformation. The phenomenon was commonly observed in highly compatible pairs. There is no treatment, or any way to reverse the process, and not even our best scientists were able to explain what caused it. We call it ‘broken heart syndrome’.”
“Ooh, romantic,” Joker sighed dreamily. “To die with your lover, or live long enough to be an alien eunuch.”
“I reckon there weren’t many mated Kryptonians?” Bruce asked.
“Quite the contrary. Couples just tied the knot later, after months, years, even decades of courting and cohabitation. Certainly, there were people who never went all the way. Pheromone fusion allows partners to form temporary bonds. It’s enough to deal with heats and ruts, and also spice up, ah, intimate activities.”
“What’s pheromone fusion?”
“A fancy way of saying: ‘scent marking each other on a regular basis over a long period of time’.” Jor-El chuckled warmly at Bruce’s blank face, having guessed what the human was thinking. “Don’t worry, Bruce. You and Kal can’t form a temporary bond, you’re a human. Your mating gland is nowhere near powerful enough for it. Pheromone fusion is a two-way street.”
There was a not- small part of him that was depressed by the news. For a few seconds there before the AI had laughed, it had cheered, thinking that Clark belonged to it. The insecurity (at not being good enough for the Alpha he loved) pulled a self-deprecating sniff out of him.
“A physical bond… a true bond is plausible, however,” Jor-El added, eyes twinkling.
“Maybe I’m not getting this right... If temporary bonds function like real ones and don’t have any disadvantages, why did Kryptonians go through with mating? For traditions?”
The AI beamed brighter, like a fisherman who had handcrafted the most intricate lure, bought the most expensive bait, and scouted out the most well-stocked river. He casted, and waited for a big fat trout to come along. Bruce was it. “Tradition, and other reasons. True bonds have a physique enhancement property that isn’t fully explained or explored yet. What we do know is that mated pairs generally lived longer and healthier. There are rare instances of terminally ill patients making full recovery after mating.”
“You heard that, Bats?” Joker knocked his elbow with Bruce’s. “This thing could cure you.”
Or not, because he was (just) a human, a very sick one. If he mated with Clark, there might be a small chance that he would get better, but a certainty that he would be preparing him for heartbreaks. Their union would be a pair of concrete shoes, dragging the Man of Steel to the watery grave of sorrow. So no matter how much his inner Omega sighed and moaned, and how many crude remarks his hallucinations made, Bruce wasn’t going to give in.
His body and mind were contaminated by Joker’s blood, and he was afraid of tainting Clark with it too.
Balancing himself on a wooden beam, Nightwing stalked his targets. His presence was only detectable by the gleams of the escrima sticks that he was spinning mindlessly. He had sent the love birds on their merry ways, promising them that Gotham would be intact when they return from their much-delayed, much-needed honeymoon. Right now, he wanted to call Tim back early and let him deal with this shite.
“I was at the Asylum, Arkham City, then here when the Arkham Knight had his tanks out. Could you believe it? Never once ran into the Bat.”
“Lucky.”
“Lucky? The thing I would give to have those legs around my neck. That’s Bruce Wayne , man.”
“Yeah, Bruce Wayne, and he’d have broken your legs in three places. Take it from someone who knows. Bats is no regular ‘Meg .”
“Only ‘cause he hasn’t met me yet.”
When an escrima stick bounced up and broke one thug’s nose, Nightwing didn’t feel too bad. He jumped from the beam and landed in time to catch the stick as it completed its arc. He smiled handsomely (if he did say so himself). Eight adult men, all unarmed. This would be a walk in the park. “Well gentlemen, I’m a few hours late but happy Halloween! What’s it gonna be, trick, or treat?”
“You’re going down, Nightwing!”
“Trick, it is.”
The thugs weren’t afraid of him. They never were, never showed him or Robin the same kind of fear they had shown Batman. It always took some hard hitting for them to change their tunes. Evidently, more bruising was in order.
One thug, scrawnier and uglier and standing further back than the rest, sneered: “Oi pretty boy! Did Wayne ever let you have a go at that sweet ass?”
“Yeah!” Someone else screamed. “Did you fuck Wayne?”
The electrified escrima sticks crackled and spewed blue sparks, masking a low snarl. He was rising to their baits, but he didn’t care. It was simply too easy to give in to the temptation to be cruel, just a smidge. These lowlives wouldn’t miss a tooth or two.
Dick Grayson had been eleven when homesickness made him crawl into Bruce’s bed and wail into his arms. He had been nineteen when he left the manor, and Bruce had sent him off with the doubt of a parent who expected their kid to come running back upon a taste of self-responsibility. For better or for worse, Bruce loved his children. Unconditionally.
His children knew it. So it was all the more insulting that their father was being scrutinized by loose-lipped scums, because Batman was an Omega, and Bruce Wayne went out at night in skin tight suits to fight criminals. Why was a rich Omega risking his neck for this shithole? Surely it couldn’t be selflessness and devotion. Surely it must be childhood trauma manifested in the form of sexual deviance. That’s right, Batman was a freaky bitch in need of a good fucking all along!
Is this your legacy, Bruce ?
Nightwing grappled to the roof of the warehouse after tying up the unconscious thugs and giving the GCPD an anonymous tip. An old face waited for him up there, Superman, with his red cape swaying serenely in the briny winds. The lurid glow of the lighthouse made his shadow stretch across the weathered tiles and swallow Blüdhaven’s vigilante whole.
“Clark, hey.” Nightwing gave an awkward wave.
Superman was slow to react to the greeting. “Hey,” he said, staring at the younger male like he wasn’t . It was that dazed look, the one he had reserved for Bruce’s empty grave. It was an appropriate reaction given the tongue lashing Nightwing had dissed out the last time they met.
“Did we - did Bruce mean nothing to you? Where were you? Why weren’t you there?”
Why weren’t you at the funeral?
Why weren’t you in Gotham when Scarecrow hurt him, unmasked him, ruined his life?
Nightwing could have answered those questions himself, but reasons hadn’t been enough to make up for grief-fueled rage. Even now, facing the Man of Steel, he felt the onset of that anger. Maybe Bruce was right, he hadn't grown up yet. He lashed out at Superman when the hero couldn’t save everyone, called him heartless when Bruce’s death affected him as much as it did all of them.
He was a child who wanted his mommy, but mommy was dead, mommy wasn’t going to kiss the boo boo better.
And every motherfuckers in town thought they could talk shit about mommy.
Pushing the irritation down, Nightwing crinkled his eyes in a smile. “What brings you to town tonight? Not our fantastic beaches, is it?” The locals regarded Gotham’s sea with the same skepticism they regarded a group of men behind a seedy bar.
“No, I… I have something to tell you, Dick. It’s about Bruce. I need your help.”
what humor Nightwing had mustered up immediately evaporated.
“Brucceee… Bruceeee…” Joker whispered
A wet weight fell off his forehead and onto his (bare) stomach as he propped himself up on elbows. His vision came back in blotchy patches. First to become discernible was the unnatural healthy flush of his skin (so he was topless), then the white towel, and finally the band aid on the inside of his right elbow. He swung his legs over the side of the stretcher, and noted that he was also missing shoes.
Jason was in front of the Batcomputer, going back and forth between the monitor and the tablet in his hands. As soon as he noticed Bruce, he put the tablet down. “ Oh no you fucking don’t .” He walked over briskly. “Lay down. Before you trip and crack your skull open on a rock.”
Too sore to put up a meaningless fight, Bruce let himself be pushed flat. The cooperation from the most stubborn patient in Gotham, if not the world, warranted fair suspicion. Jason quickly checked his temperature. It was the same heat, no lesser, no more. He put the wet towel back in place and asked slowly, pronouncing each word clearly: “What’s your name?”
“Bruce Wayne.”
“Where are we?”
“The Batcave. Arkham asylum.”
“Good.” Jason’s face relaxed just enough so that his brows were no longer mushed together.
Bruce had quickly learned that frowns, like the offensive pheromone, were integral to the younger male’s being. Jason would never stop frowning. His scent would never not have that bitter undertone. He would always be angry, swinging between mild annoyance and destructive fury. This was what Joker (and Bruce) had done to him.
“Can you recall what happened?” His pup asked, sitting down on the chair at the head of the stretcher.
“I took my suppressants then went to sleep.”
“That’s about right. You slept, and didn’t wake up after twelve hours. Around the fifteenth hour mark, you started tossing and turning, and your fever returned,” Jason recounted. “You sleep-talked. Called the name ‘Clark’ a lot.”
Bruce pointedly refused to acknowledge the last statement. Instead, he addressed the Bandaid. “You took my blood.”
Jason grunted, irritated by the not-question. “Ran some tests on it. I have to give Lucius credit, the machines are still in mint condition.”
This Batcave saw few uses after Arkham asylum was abandoned. Eventually, it too was left to rust and decay like the madhouse above it. Despite the humidity, it was holding up. Lucius deserved a raise.
“Man’s his own boss now, so he’ll have to give himself one,” Joker yawned.
“How did you gain access to the Batcomputer?” Bruce let slip from his lips.
Jason scrutinized him, seemingly peeling away his flesh and bones with eyes alone, until his beating heart was exposed to him. “You never disabled my authorization,” he gave this delayed reply.
Bruce was speechless. His skin prickled as if Superman was staring at him.
Jason cleared his throat, easing the tense atmosphere. “Your CBC isn’t concerning. Slight anemia, no indication of infection, normal platelet count. Biochemical tests, meanwhile…” He briefly fell silent. He was… worried. “Sex hormones are elevated, which is in line with heat, but your physical symptoms aren’t. You’re conscious, you’re talking to me, and your… your… Your body is not producing slick ,” he spoke quickly. “I didn’t look. I don’t want to look . I can smell. ”
The blush and the stutters were oddly endearing. They were reminders that somewhere in that hulky, scarred body was still a boy who was grossed out by talking about the birds and the bees with his parents.
“It’s okay, Jason. What else?” Bruce spared him the secondhand embarrassment. Joker, meantime, was a flailing, laughing purple mass on the floor. He was howling so hard that there were tears in his eyes.
The youth reined in his features, but his cheeks remained red. “There are unidentifiable substances in your blood that are molecularly comparable to Alpha hormones. As far as lab values are concerned, you are mated.”
Jason watched horror take over, souring the Omega’s scent and making his face pale. For years, he had dreamed of the Bat broken at his feet. Now that he was experiencing it, it left him with no satisfaction. Bruce was a stoic man (a quality his allies appreciated and his beloved detested), what could’ve reduced him to… this ?
Jason expressed his emotion in the only way he still knew how to. He got angry. “Bruce, what fucked up suppressants have you been taking?”
Bruce controlled his breathing, using a technique from the League of Shadow that was as useful for stealth as it was for calming down. “Kryptonian,” he said.
There were a variety of suppressants on the markets, none of which came without some side effects. The rule of thumb was to have heats at least once a year, to extend drugs’ effectiveness and to give the body a break. Bruce’s problem didn’t give him the option of going off suppressants. He was terrified that heats might leave him too mentally and physically compromised to fight off “Joker”.
“My suppressants started failing half a year ago, so Clark looked into the Fortress’ database for a less taxing alternative. It’s a plant-based drug.” He wetted his lips. “It’s non-toxic.”
“Is it now?” Joker was kneeling at the side of the makeshift bed and resting his head on his crossed arms. The creation of his poisoned mind.
“Kryptonian… Superman? That four-eyes was Superman ? What the fuck.” Jason sprang up from his seat. He cursed, then pointed a finger at Bruce, bewilderment clearly written on his face. “Superman kept you in his “fortress” for half a year…”
“Actually it’s one year,” Joker corrected.
“... and makes you take unknown drugs.”
“ Whoo ! He isn’t the first one who does, I’m telling you that. Batsy here is a roofie magnet. Let’s see, Copperhead, Scarecrow, Ivy, me, me again, Mad Hatter…” Joker raised his fingers one by one.
Jason was suffocating everyone in the room with his anger. His hands shook with the effort to not punch something. Jason Todd had been borned to Willis and Cathy Todd, a pair of methamphetamine addicts who would have sold him at birth to pay off debts if they could. Willis had reminded him of that whenever he assaulted him. “You’re so fucking worthless, I can’t even give you away!”
Bruce reached out to his pup with his pheromone, forgetting that it was contaminated with an Alpha’s scent. “It’s not what you think it is. Clark doesn’t do anything to me that I don’t want him to.”
“Bats, puh-lease … when you put it like that, it sounds like you have Stockholm's’.”
Jason’s silence was off-putting when he had been boiling over just moments ago. Even his breathing had slowed, air no longer passing through nostrils as audible hisses. It was the same technique that Bruce was using. “Then you’re a weaker man than I thought,” he declared, speaking with wrath and not a clear head.
Bruce put the Batsuit on because it made him feel safe (it was his lifeline). Jason had gone to blow off steam, leaving him with the bats and Joker for company as he mulled over the blood tests. Almost constantly, beads of sweat condensed above his brows and needed to be wiped away before they got into his eyes. He glanced longingly at the suppressants on a petri dish. He was tempted to take one for the fever alone despite knowing he shouldn’t.
Earlier, he had run an analysis on the pills, hoping to shed some light on his dilemma. The result had come up inconclusive. Disappointing, but not unexpected, the computer couldn’t process materials that it had no previous data on.
Bruce had a hypothesis, but no means to prove it. He knew “a man” who could help him, he even had the means to contact “him”. The thing was, he didn’t know if he could trust “him” to not hack the locator on his Batsuit and give away his position to Clark.
“Don’t you think ‘he’ would’ve done it already if ‘he’ had wanted to?” Joker rolled his eyes. “‘He’, quote-unquote, is a high-tech Kryptonian AI, who wants to make you ‘his’ human daughter-in-law! The fact that you’re not having pillow talks with your space hubby right now means that ‘he’ respects you enough to not spy on you. Think, Bruce, Think!” He grabbed Bruce’s shoulders and tried to shake him. It didn’t work because he was an immaterial phantom, and Bruce was as movable as a boulder.
I can’t trust Jor-El. He made the suppressant. He’s got an incentive to not tell me what is in the pills.
Does Clark have anything to do with it?
Bruce rubbed his brows. He wanted to believe that Clark hadn’t drugged him, hadn’t changed him in any way. This was all a big misunderstanding.
After a while, Joker got bored. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the desk, his trademarked smile replaced by a (just as creepy) pout. “Honestly, it breaks my heart to say this, but you haven’t been at the top of your game lately, Bats,” he sniffled. “You’re emotional, forgetful, making all kinds of rookie mistakes… I’m afraid, my dear, you’ve got ‘baby fever’.” He held up a hand right next to his mouth. “And do you know what the cure for baby fever is?”
While the Clown Prince was babbling nonsense, the bats fell into a frenzy of chitters, with some even dropping from their spots and flapping away on unsteady wings. A premonition. Something was off.
“It’s to put a baby batter in the bat-oven, and bake a bat-bun with it,” Joker finished, lips twisting in a new grin.
Bruce reflexively shielded his stomach as he stood up and turned to face the entrance of the Batcave. He reached under the desk, hovering his fingers over an array of buttons.
<<IDENTIFICATION SUCCEEDED. ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, NIGHTWING.>> A hollow feminine voice rang.
[“There are drawbacks to temporary bonds too. Pheromone fusion isn't perfect. It needs commitment, regularity and intensity. Before a strong bond is established, partners experience separation anxiety when they’re away from each other. It’s their bodies’ way of telling them that the bond needs to be renewed,” Jor-El explained, “And like with mated pairs and broken heart syndrome, SAD can be dangerous, resulting in stress heats or ruts.”]
It was a disaster. The moment Bruce caught a whiff of that aromantic sunshine, his body remembered it was in heat. A fire was sparked in his belly. As it traveled down, it gathered moisture, condensing into the slick that oozed out of his cunt. He was distracted, then he was half laying on the desk, and Superman was bearing down on him.
Joker was laughing. (What’s new?) Dick’s voice, coming from a place he couldn’t see, was a mix of alarm and confusion. His son was yelling, calling either him or Clark, but the sound was muffled and indiscernible. Compared to that, the noise of air passing through nostrils, as Clark took unsubtle sniffs along the side of his jaw, was deafening.
Bruce felt lightheaded. Clark was impregnating every pores in his body with Alpha musk. This wasn’t his usual “summer morning on a wheat field” scent. This was the sun (so hot that it burned), and like Icarus, Bruce was too close. Clark was in rut.
“Bruce,” the Kryptonian spoke his name loud enough to cut through the thunderous heartbeats in his ears. His voice was rich in timbre and very much loin-stirring.
Bruce was fucked.
“Not yet, Bats!” Cackled a madman.
Bruce tried, and oh how much he tried, to reach under the desk again, moving the limbs that were as heavy as lead. A growl stilled him just as he had the buttons at his fingertips. Clark had finished the inspection and didn’t like that his Omega smelled of another Alpha. He squeezed into Bruce, slotting their bodies together in such a tight fit as if to become conjoined twins with the man under him.
“Bruce… Bruce…” Clark’s cheek against his cheek, Clark’s hands on his hips.
Minus the outline of a very prominent something against his groin, it wasn’t all that different from their daily ritual. Bruce had an illusion that Clark was just hugging him. That was right. Clark needed to hold him, to feel his weight and warmth and be reminded that he was alive. Bruce needed it too. Look, his legs were shy of wrapping around Clark. What was he so conflicted about?
This was what he owed him.
“GET OFF OF HIM!” Jason roared. Only that boy, with his indignation, was crazy enough to jump on Superman’s back. He shot at point blank, the bullet bouncing off the base of Clark’s skull. The sound broke Bruce out of his trance. One thought shone through the heat haze inside his head: to get himself as far away from Clark as possible. As the feral Alpha whirled around to snarl at the younger male, Bruce smashed the buttons under the desk.
Red solar lights brightened the Batcave, but only for seconds. They began to flicker, on, off, and on. Too much moisture and too many years of disuse had damaged them. They wouldn’t last long.
“Forget what I say about a raise! Old Fox needs a boot to the hinnies!” Joker yelled.
Fortunately, the lights still did something. When Jason struck Clark with the butt of his gun, the older man staggered. Bruce ran, taking stumbling steps toward the edge of the platform. Jason and Clark were too busy tearing each other’s throat off to stop him. Dick was too busy keeping them alive to stop him. He nosedived into the water and let it take him away.
“BRUCE!” His oldest son screamed.
“That guy’s nuts! He’s really really nuts!” Perching on the railing, the ghost of the Clown Prince hooted with laughter.
Bruce dragged himself onto the bank and plopped down among debris and trash. By his calculation, the water had taken him to another part of the asylum’s underside. There were mossy bricks under his back, and just as weathered pillars around him, somehow still standing despite their ages. He wiggled his fingers and toes to get circulation going. He rolled, and the pain nearly put him under. He stayed prone, waiting for it to pass, not making a sound because Clark might hear him. These ancient walls hid him from Superman’s eyes, but not his ears.
Joker sat on a slab of rock. “I would say I’m surprised we didn’t drown,” he mused, cocking his head. “Then I remember bats are pretty much rats with wings. Those things can swim up your toilets. Nasty little buggers.”
Bruce breathed deeply and slowly. Clark’s pheromone had opened Pandora's box. His heat was in full swing, a mantra of mate, mate, mate that gradually increased in volume. Reaching into a compartment on his belt, he took out a suppressant pill. If these things really had a hidden effect he didn’t know about, he didn’t care, desperation left him with no room to care. He needed to be able to think.
“You need to get laid,” Joker deadpanned. “Look at you, all wet and miserable in a not sexy way! Like, c’mon! You had three Alphas fighting over you, Bruce!”
He had left his children with a feral Kryptonian in rut. The late realization moved Bruce to a point just beyond crying out.
Alpha would never hurt our pups. He loves us, the Omega part of him said.
Clark’s instincts will tell him to secure his mate, not keep fighting. As long as Jason stands down, no one will be hurt... It all depends on Dick, the Batman part of him said.
“The little birdies are dead and it’s all your fault,” Joker said.
Going back was out of the question if he wanted to avoid Clark. Jason and Dick could have their say later if they weren’t… if they weren’t... (He refused to think about it.) It was minutes (five, six, ten?) before Bruce found enough motivation to move. He crawled, then hopped, and felt mildly triumphant when he made it to the crumbly brick wall. Keeping one hand against it for support, he made a detour for the most hidden place on the island, Jason’s cell.
“You really are a masochist, Bats.” Joker ambled behind him, out of sight, but not out of mind.
The cell was on the first floor of the original Arkham mansion. A shoddy tunnel connected it to Arkham’s underside. Bruce found the entrance and entered a passage so dark that he couldn’t see his own feet. Something changed though, the tunnel was unreasonably longer. No matter how many steps he took, he didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the surface.
A nightmare came to life in that tunnel, built upon the sound and the stench of the sewage from earlier. Without any warning, Bruce was attacked by the gurgles of clogged drains and the thrums of rain on concrete jungle.
“I can’t believe that you insisted on sitting through that movie again, Bruce. C’mon, we’ll be late for Alfred,” a man said.
Bruce felt around for the ladder. His hands were shaking, he distantly realized, when he wrapped them around the side rails. He began to climb. His feet, too, were shaking.
“I’m sorry, daddy,” a little boy said.
Bruce missed a rung. His body slammed into the ladder, his bones rattling from the impact. The pain was nothing. He had to keep going. Batman was the night, but Bruce Wayne was terrified of the night at that moment, thinking that the hands of the deceased would grab his cape and pull him down.
Finally, a woman said: “Go easy on him, Tom. He loves it so. Alfred will wait. Keep up, Bruce!”
Bruce unlatched the trapdoor and pushed. The wider it was opened, the more precious light poured on him. He was so relieved that he didn’t question why there was light. Joker had sealed off the door and all the windows years ago.
A large hand encircled itself around his wrist and pulled him out of the darkness.
There was an opening in the ceiling that wasn’t there yesterday when Jason showed him the cell. The moon shone through it, a grinning crescent that matched the one Joker was wearing, as he sat on a rusty wheelchair and watched the show. Bruce recalled that the moon had been like this too on the night Clark had found him. But if the Alpha had been his savior then, he was the last person Bruce wanted to see now.
Clark dropped him and he cried out, a whine of surprise muted behind clenched teeth. He propelled himself backward, his eyes shrinking to pinpricks at the trapdoor being kicked shut in front of him. He whipped out the Batclaw and aimed at the open ceiling. In the miniscule fragment of a second before he pulled the trigger, Clark had crowded close, grabbing the grappling hook. His fierce eyes held the Omega’s own in a staring contest. Bruce’s mouth went dry. Under such a gaze, he had to surrender.
“Finally! I’m starting to get blue balled and I’m dead as they come!” Joker cheered.
“Bruce.” Flinging the Batclaw away, Clark called his name with that damning voice again.
Bruce shook his head, hyperventilating. He could neither fight nor outrun Clark. “Let me go, Clark.”
“Bruce.”
Tears welled up in his green eyes (they used to be blue). “Please, let me go. I can’t… we can’t… you’re not…” He exhaled in a ragged huff. “I’m sick, Clark. I w-will hurt you...”
“BRUCE!” His rambling was stopped by a sharp bark. Clark seized his hand and guided it to a lead-lined compartment on the utility belt.
Bruce tensed up. He used to keep one specific item there. It was a gift from Clark to him, a sign of camaraderie and trust. Later, he had given it back to Clark when the other man took him into the Fortress. There shouldn’t be anything in the compartment - but there was. He opened it, just a crack. Green light winked at him through the gap, the color of Kryptonite.
Although pain contorted Clark’s face, he didn’t remove his hand. He said, voice steady: “Dick gave me an emergency suppressant, but I don’t know how long it will last with my metabolism. You’re allowed to knock me out with the ring if I uh… do anything you don’t want me to.”
( “It’s not what you think it is. Clark doesn’t do anything to me that I don’t want him to.”)
Bruce closed the compartment. “You lied to me.”
“I did,” Clark admitted, then cut Bruce off just as his mouth opened to form the word “ why ”. “I didn’t take the Kryptonite back because I know you’ll never hurt me unless you absolutely have to.”
“I could’ve, Clark!” Bruce hissed, “There is a sick fuck in my head who would love to torture you, kill you !”
“Hey! Who are you… wait, no, actually you have a point, Bats. Carry on”
God, how could he accuse Clark of modifying his body, when this fool would gladly give Bruce the only thing that could harm him? How could Bruce think so poorly of him? “ I could’ve killed you, Clark! Have you ever thought about that? Do you ever think about your safety?” He rasped.
Clark sighed. His fearless Dark Knight, always putting blames on himself, never knowing how to be vulnerable. “But you didn’t kill me, and you’re not hurting me now.”
They were running out of time. Bruce might haven’t noticed yet, wallowing in self hatred and guilt as he was, but Clark could smell the slick. Bruce was dripping. If he wanted to confess to this infuriating human, he had to do it soon.
A hand on either side of the Omega’s jaw, he said: “I love you.”
Bruce paled, forgetting how to speak, forgetting how to stand . He let himself be sat down, his back against a wall, and Clark kneeled in front of him. More condemning words (more confessions) fell from the Alpha’s lips: “Don’t tell me you don’t know it. Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same. I can hear your heartbeats, Bruce.”
“Clark, I can’t. I-I’m sick , I’m...”
“I don’t want to hear any excuse,” Clark snapped, rut aggression wearing his patience thin. “It’s ‘Yes’ or ‘no’. Or if you can’t say ‘no’, hit me. Take out your Kryptonite. I’ll leave you alone.”
Bruce barely defeated the knee-jerk reaction to do that. His hand was right over the lead lined compartment on his belt when he stopped himself. He stared at Clark, Clark stared at him, and Joker stared at both of them. The hallucination winked when he caught Bruce looking back.
Bruce was back at Arkham City and the world was burning down around him. He had to choose between stopping Strange and saving Talia. He didn’t want to choose, didn’t want to pick one over the other, so Alfred made a choice for him. Batman must save Gotham. If he hadn’t listened to his dear butler and gone after Joker, would the madman have still killed Talia?
What a stupid question, of course he would, and thousands would have died to protocol 10.
“Thinking about Talia at this time, really Bruce?” Joker scratched his head. “Well… fair, I guess. How could you forget a girl like that! All it took was one piece of lead to end your hopes of a happily ever after.” He made a finger gun and aimed at the pair on the floor. “You blamed me of course, but you were wrong. You know deep down it’s your fault.”
That’s right, and it wasn’t just Talia. The acid attack that ruined Harvey’s career as a DA was because of his partnership with Batman, so was the bomb collar that was rigged to blow Selina’s head off. And Talia? She died because she gave herself to Joker, to buy Batman time to save Gotham.
All of his loved ones suffered because of his alter ego, but there wasn’t a Batman anymore. Batman was dead, Batman couldn’t hurt Clark.
Clark deserved better, but Clark only wanted him. Clark took him in, fixed him (not that he could be fixed), and put up with all of his Joker-tantrums. Clark loved him, and he loved Clark, too. If he was damned, if he was shackled with a mini-madman inside his head for life anyway, and would one day lose himself completely, then shouldn’t he be selfish and give himself to Clark before it was too late?
“I love you,” Clark repeated. “Will you be my mate?”
Bruce shut his eyes and parted his legs, one foot coyly teasing his Alpha’s calf.
“That’s right, Bats. Just close your eyes and relax, ohh it's gonna be fun!!!”
Clark didn’t go for the prize right away. He peeled off the Omega’s armors and tights, leaving only the gauntlets and the boots on, then he left a trail of kisses from his chest down to his navel. He paid extra attention to the scars, tracing their outlines with the tip of his tongue before licking large swipes over them.
Bruce clutched at silky black strands, tempted to either pull Clark up and kiss him, or shove him down to his nether regions and get it over with. Clark was worshiping him. The grips on his knees were hard enough to be felt, but not hard enough to bruise, the kisses were butterfly soft, and the prodding tongue was like a hungry whelp begging its mother for milk.
Air, he needed air. Bruce tipped his head back against the floor and sucked in a deep breath. “Clark, don’t… don’t lick. I’m filthy.” He had just come out of literal sewers, why was Clark treating him like a delicacy?
Clark sealed his mouth over the Omega’s hole and shoved his tongue in as far as it could go, using it to scrape out more slick. Bruce shouted in surprise. His muscular thighs clamped together, holding the skull between them hostage while he drove his hips against the Alpha’s face.
Holy nectar burst across Clark’s tongue and trickled down his chin and neck. He snuck in a finger, then two, three, alternating between his digits and his tongue to loosen Bruce up. His mouth never left the weeping cunt. His nose poked at the cute clit. Above him, Bruce was singing the sweetest melody, squirming and writing, hands clawing at broken tiles.
Suddenly, the moans stopped, the legs that had been trapping him in a death grip went slack, falling open. Swallowing a mouthful of slick, Clark looked up at his lover. Bruce was covering his eyes. His bottom lip was bitten, bloody droplets shining black under the moonlight. Barely discernible, in the arousal-dominated air, was the tart note of shame.
“Bruce,” he called, rising, “let me see you.”
Bruce shrank. His mouth opened and closed, a soundless “no”.
“Bruce,” he tried again, and wow, he had never noticed how large his hands were compared to Bruce’s, even though the other was wearing gauntlets. He held Bruce’s wrists, not pulling. “Please? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Then it’s nothing you’ll miss. Bruce would snark if he still had his mental faculties intact. In his current stage, he just lowered his arms. His eyes opened, irises kryptonite green, and scleras fractured by dilated blood vessels.
“You’re beautiful,” Clark breathed.
“Ohhh why thank you, Clarky boy. He got them peepers from me,” the Joker in Bruce’s vision said.
Bruce glared at him.
Clark asked: “Is he there?”
The human hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t like acknowledging his hallucinations. Joker thrived on attention.
A dark look crossed Clark’s face, so different from the gentleness just now that Bruce shuddered. His hands were pulled down to the engorged member between the Alpha’s legs and forced to curl around it. The weight and the girth made his eyes dilate. He knew Clark was large - the man was large everywhere else already. Jor-El also spared no details, whether out of pure scientific integrity or personal interest. But none of the sneaky glances in the Watchtower’s showers and Jor-El’s charts had prepared him for this .
Joker winced. “Yike! That thing is gonna go in one end and outta the other, if you catch my drift.”
Fresh slick trickled from his cunt and down the crease of his ass. Even his virgin pucker was fluttering, itching to get a taste of Clark’s cock. Would Alpha fuck him there too if he asked nicely? A furrow appeared between his brows. He was so wet - what was Clark waiting for?
“Put it in.” Clark commanded.
Bruce was about to sit up when Clark stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the Alpha with glassy eyes, not quite understanding how to proceed. Did Clark really expect him to do it while lying on his back?
“Go on. This’ll be easy. I’ve seen how you fight, what shapes you can contort your body into. ” The Alpha leered. “Honestly, Bruce, criminals wouldn’t throw themselves at you as much if you didn’t smother them with your pussy whenever you knock them out.”
Before Bruce could rebuke, he said: “I don’t want you to talk about your rogues, or Joker. In fact, I don’t want you to think about them, at all. You can only focus on me, right here, right now.” He ground the Omega’s palms against his cock and signed. Whoever designed the Batsuit was a genius- the pads on the gauntlets were squishy like a cat’s paws. “So put it in.”
Hesitantly, Bruce spread his labia with one hand. With the other, he aimed Clark’s cock at his pussy. He canted his hips up, his feet planted firmly on the floor, his legs flexing. Omega’s and Alpha’s moans reverberated through the room as the rock hard length slowly sank into the tight channel.
But even with his flexibility, Bruce could only take less than one third of Clark in this pose. If only he would let Bruce ride him. He fucked himself on the swollen cock, crying whenever it slipped out of his cunt and needed to be re-inserted. His back, glutes and thighs were burning from the tension he put them under.
Finally, Clark, as frustrated as he was, grabbed his hips and ram his cock all the way in. Bruce shrieked, his back arching. One thrust was all it took to bring him to the brink of climax. The pain paled into insignificance compared to how good Clark was spearing him open, how deliciously ruined his hole would be after this. In the future, he wouldn’t be able to pleasure himself with his fingers. Toys couldn’t compare to the texture and the heat of the real deal, either. From now on, only Clark could fuck him to orgasm.
“Clark… Clark… Alpha… only you… only…” Bruce trilled and nuzzled close. Cock-drunk, he forgot about his little clown problem.
Hands gliding upward, Clark squeezed the Omega’s plum breasts, kneading and pulling them to his heart’s content. The thought of how they could get even larger made him salivate. He bowed his head and gnawed at a pelleted tit. His cock thrusted hard and fast, its fat tip bumping up against the mouth of Bruce's cervix. His mate-to-be could take it - he was fucking the strongest Omega on Earth.
“Bruce, give me…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Bruce understood. Give me a baby. Alpha wanted his baby.
Somewhere, in his scrambled head, he heard: “Say yes, Bats! Just imagine all the infected little Batlings running around!”
Would his children get his blood disease too?
The voice continued sinisterly: “ Our children, Bats! They’re gonna have a little bit of me in them, just like you. I can’t wait to be promoted from uncle to daddy! Did you know that Harley miscarried? Probably from one of your kicks. You owe me one .”
Bruce fought against the currents of need and want. “Clark… I… I…” He couldn’t manage more than that. With consciousness came the feeling that something wasn’t right, like pressure was building up inside him. He pressed his hands against his own stomach and felt the obscene bulge that came and went with Clark’s thrusts. There really was something inside him!
Was he pregnant? Was that their sick, sick child? Was it going to burst out of his stomach, green-eyed and pale-skinned and covered in his entrails?
“Clark… something… wrong… something is…”
Clark couldn’t hear him at all, still obeying his instinct to sow. His cock pierced the battered cervix and entered the womb. Bruce squirted and peed himself at the same time.
“CLARK!” He shouted over the manic laughter in his head. He was going to die. “CLARK!”
Clark slowed down to a stop. “What’s wrong?” He asked, concerned.
Bruce was sobbing. He said between gasps: “I think… I’m… bleeding.”
Clark instantly checked his lover with X-rays. “Nothing is bleeding, Bruce.”
Bruce shook his head. “There is. Down there. It… it’s warm. It’s… blood. You broke me, Clark”
Ah.
Clark blinked owlishly. Urine was flowing intermittently out of Bruce in tandem with the spasms of his cunt around Clark’s cock. The stink of urine, coupled with his Omega’s empty and dilated eyes, got a rumbling purr out of him. It was taking all of his self control to not start thrusting again. “You’re not bleeding, Bruce.”
“I’m not?”
“No, you… ah… you just had an orgasm. You…” He paused, deciding to spare the Dark Knight the knowledge that he had peed himself. “You squirted, a little.”
“Oh,” Bruce muttered, still near disassociating.
Clark pressed down, his forehead against Bruce’s forehead, his growing knot against Bruce’s hole, and the fat head of his cock against the back of Bruce’s womb. “Did I make you feel good, Omega?”
Bruce groaned, clutching his stomach. So full.
“Answer me,” Clark demanded, rocking his hips back out.
Bruce chased after the retreating cock, impaling himself on it. “Y-yes!”
“Do you want me to make you cum again?”
“Yes, A-alpha! please!”
Fainter, Clark whispered into the crook of the Omega’s neck, his breath hot on the other’s mating gland: “Do you want to be mine?”
A series of laughter, a female voice singing “ Hush little Baby” , all these gave birth to a glimmer of doubt. But when Bruce looked at the rusty (empty) wheelchair, he felt a rush of clarity. His head had never been clearer. He knew what he wanted.
He brought Clark’s face to his, and crashed their lips together. His cunt, too, fluttered and suckled Clark’s dick as if giving it a sloppy kiss.
Clark growled. Untangling Bruce’s legs from his hips, he folded the other man in half and pounded wildly, chasing his own release. His knot began to catch, pulling out a little of Bruce’s pussy each time he pulled back.
He plugged his cock in one last time and cummed, his teeth in Bruce’s neck. Bruce cummed with him, screaming loud enough to wake the death. Cum flooded the Omega’s womb, and would have spilled out of him like an overfilled cup, if not for the fist-sized knot blocking his entrance. His lower abdomen ballooned, and as Bruce touched it, felt it with his hands, he thought he was already pregnant. He purred, content.
He was going to have Clark’s baby.
Clark kept rutting, mindful to not pull his knot out and hurt his Omega. Bruce passed out with his Alpha’s half hard length still rocking into him.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, not aware of much outside of carnal lust. He vaguely remembered strangers that weren't his Alpha. They weren’t bad, not even the one who smelled of gunpowder and leather. Although he liked them, he would rather they left him alone, because when they were around, Alpha wouldn’t fuck him..
“Damn it, Bruce, you have to take this,” someone said, prying his lips open. He struck Bruce as familiar, dark hair, blue eyes, but the Omega couldn’t put a name to the face. Maybe if the young Alpha smiled, Bruce would recognize him.
The stranger tried to give him a pill. Bruce stubbornly turned his head away. No .
“Maybe I can help.”
Alpha! Alpha is back!
“Help? Yeah, help yourself to our dad’s hole ,” someone else, the one with the angry pheromone, snapped. “ I should’ve shot your coc-”
The first one cut him off: “Jason, that’s enough! Clark, comes here.”
Alpha took the pill from him and squatted in front of Bruce. “Bruce, you have to take this.”
“W-what is it?” He rasped.
“Birth control.” Alpha pressed the pill against his lips. A glass of water magically appeared in his other hand. “You have to take it before the 72 hour mark for it to be effective.”
Does Alpha not want to have a baby with him? Is he not good enough? He rolled onto his other side, avoiding everyone, and curled up, hugging himself (they would never take his baby!) “I don’t want it.”
Alpha begged: “Bruce, do it for me?”
Did he agree? He might have, he could never say ‘no’ to Alpha. At the same time, Alpha could never say ‘no’ to him, either. They walked on robin blue eggshells around each other, over and over. As a result, it took them years to get to where they were.
Bruce wouldn’t compromise this time.
Bruce woke up to the crystal dome ceiling of his room in the Fortress. His holes, both of them , were raw and aching beyond belief. His nipples weren’t any better, so erect and swollen that they tented his shirt, and so sensitive that he had to free them, asap. He took off his shirt and tossed it in a corner of the room. He scratched his itchy neck, and was startled when he felt gauzes there. The memory of the last five days came flooding back: visiting Gotham with Clark, running away from Clark, mating with Clark.
Bruce surprised himself with his calmness. He was… fine with everything.
A balding man watched all of these play out and wasn’t impressed. “Sir, I hope that you aren’t making Master Kent pick up your dirty laundry for you. You are, after all, thirty six, and I recall teaching you to put them in a bin.”
“Alfred!”
“Master Bruce.” Alfred inclined his head.
The ex-butler was wearing a green-and-pink Hawaiian shirt, looking so ridiculous in it that he couldn’t be a figment of Bruce’s imagination. He gave no sign whether Bruce’s body bothered him. Not once did his eyes stray on the bruised hips or the bite marks. He didn’t flinch when the half naked, six foot two Omega tripped over his own feet to hug him.
Alfred guided his young master back to bed. Sitting him down, he said: “It’s good to see you again, sir.”
Bruce clung to his arm, urging him to sit down as well. “It’s good to see you too, Alfred. I’m sorry that I… made you think that I was… dead.”
Alfred gave him a reproachful look. “I wouldn’t say that I’m not angry. When Master Kent came to me in Florence, I thought it was a late April fool’s joke.”
“Please don’t get mad at Clark,” Bruce whispered, like a child who was being reprimanded by his parents. “He was only following my wishes. ”
“I figured as much, sir. In any case, the past is in the past, and what matters is the moment.” Alfred smiled, his mustache trembling. “You’re mated. Excuse me when I say this, master Bruce, I never thought that I would live long enough to see this day.”
“You’re not… mad?” Bruce asked, surprised.
“Master Richard and Master Jason have some complaints,” Alfred paused to wait for the Omega to finish sputtering. “But I think everyone agrees that we’re glad that you’re alive and healthy .” He walked to the nightstand and returned with a rectangular mirror. “Take a look, sir.”
A pair of dazzling blue eyes stared at Bruce from the mirror, blue the color of robin egg shells, with no speckles of green. He brought up a hand to touch his own face, and the reflection did the same too. He darted his (blue) eyes around the room, just to make sure that there wasn’t a certain clown. The furniture were where they should be, and the shirt he had thrown earlier was in its correct corner. Joker didn’t materialize out of thin air and scream ‘surprise’.
“He’s gone,” he murmured. The bond cured him. A one in a million chance.
“It’s the miracle of love,” Alfred said seriously.
Bruce put the mirror down, his head reeling. He looked at his dear old friend. “Alfred, are you absolutely sure that I’m…?”
“Absolutely, Master Wayne. Master Clark had run three tests, and Master Jason had insisted that Ms Barbara run two. All five came back negative. You are cured, sir.”
He was free.
His children poured into the room together, even Jason, though he distanced himself. The young Alpha stood behind the rest, pretending to be a watchdog, until Bruce called his name, a chime-like “Jason”. He matched over then, and Bruce was hit with another reminder that his pup was a man. The adolescent boy in one of his (many) nightmares was now the tallest among his siblings. And although the traumas could never be undone (like the letter “J” that was branded on his cheek), Jason had moved past the hurt to be here with them.
“Old man, you could’ve chosen a better place to get down and dirty with the alien,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.
Dick nodded. “It’s not everyday that you see Superman clapping your dead father’s cheeks in a Jigsaw’s chamber, I’m telling you that. A postcard is fine next time, Bruce.”
Alfred reproached him for his language. Barbara stifled a giggle. Tim’s face was conveying a mixed bag of emotions. Was he relieved that Bruce was alive? Absolutely. Did he need to know what Bruce had been up to, and the estimated length and circumference of Superman’s erected penis? Fuck no, Dick! Read the room.
On that same note, could someone tell Bruce to put a shirt on?
“There will be no next time!” Jason declared vehemently. “Superman drugged him without his consent, or has your bird brain forgotten about it already, Grayson?”
Dick countered: “I haven’t. But you have forgotten that it was out of anyone’s control. You were there when we analyzed the suppressants. No one knew that they would have that much effect on humans. Jor-El just thought that they would work as intended and improve Omega glandular function.”
“I don’t trust that AI,” Jason sneered.
“Young masters, please don’t fight,” Alfred said, exasperated. “And it’s Master Bruce’s decision whether he wants to break things off with Master Kent or not, isn’t it?”
“Unbelievable, he called him ‘Master Kent’.”
“Master Jason.”
Tim finally made eye contact with Bruce (and not stared at his boobs). “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve never been better,” Bruce said easily. He was cured, he had his entire family here with him, and his mate… actually, where was Clark?
“I said a lot of stuff to you on that night… you know…” Tim cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean all of that. Some, because you did make questionable decisions, but had I known that you would have…”
He startled to a stop when Barbara looped her arm through his. “What Tim means is, he’s glad that you’re back and he’s sorry for calling you an emotionally stunted jerk.”
“I did NOT call him that!”
Bruce raised a hand, silencing them. “It’s ok, Barbara, I think everyone has heard enough “sorry” for the last couples of days.”
Jason growled: “I disagree.”
A face peeked from behind the ajar door, shy. “Can I come in?” Clark asked.
“I don’t know, can you?”
“Master Jason.”
Dick came to the rescue, throwing one arm over Tim’s shoulder and the other over Jason’s. “I think… It's our clue to scram and give the adults some room.”
Alfred stood up from the bed. “A splendid idea, Master Richard.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Bruce…” Dick’s easy-going expression morphed into seriousness as he turned to the Alpha at the door. “Clark.”
Tim broke away from Dick to help Barbara with her wheelchair. He nodded at Bruce. “Yeah, see you, old partner.”
Jason was the last to leave. He stared down Superman, his arms crossed. Again, he only budged when Bruce said his name. Tearing his eyes away from the larger Alpha, he gave Bruce a look of pain resignation. “Fine, but don’t think you’ve got rid of me that easily. And put a shirt on, old man! Your nipples are poking everyone’s eyes out!” With that, he marched out of the room, remembering to brush shoulders with Clark when he passed him.
Clark softened his body so that Jason wouldn’t fall on his ass. Alone with Bruce, he bit his lips and shuffled his feet, looking anywhere but the human. If the bite on his nape wasn’t throbbing with pain (along with essentially his entire body), Bruce would say that the Alpha looked meek and cute.
“Clark, come here.”
Clark kneeled directly at the side of the bed, staring up at him with sorrowful eyes. Like a beaten dog. “Bruce… I…”
“My family filled me in on what happened.”
“Then you know that I forced a temporary bond with you, and it caused you to go into heat.” Clark lowered his head, ashamed. “I wasn’t aware of the bond, and I also went into rut, but those are no excuses for what I did to you… after. If you want to break things off, I’ll understand.”
“Clark…” Bruce closed his eyes. He just wanted to grab this pig-headed, chivalrous Alpha by his curl and yank. He was putting Bruce over himself. As a Kryptonian, Clark couldn’t break a true bond, but as a human, Bruce could. Breaking it would result in Clark’s Alpha thinking its mate had died. He would regress into a Beta or, worse, die. “The past is in the past, and what matters is the moment,” Bruce repeated what Alfred had said. “And I’d love to be your mate.”
Clark stood up. “Rao, you… you mean it?”
“Uh huh. But you’ll have to plan the wedding. Alfred will not stand for his grandchild to be born out of wedlock.” He leaned back against the pillow with a groan. Curse his aching human body.
Clark looked shy. “Uh, Bruce… that’s another thing... You took birth controls. I also checked, you’re safe, you’re not pregnant.”
Bruce placed a hand over his belly, feeling at a loss, but mostly glad. He had still been sick when they mated. If he had conceived then, the child would be born infected.
Well, he wasn’t sick anymore.
Bruce raised an eyebrow and said: “And? I didn’t know that mated Kryptonian Alphas are impotent. Do you want me to tell the boys that they won’t be on diaper changing duty, ever? Jason might like you a little more then.”
He smirked when Clark boxed him in and a heady sunshine pheromone filled his nostrils.
This is how it ended. This is how the Batman found his mate.
THE END
A/N: And now, some meme and Art that I've created for AKverse, check me out on Twitter for more art (@batsimpH)
What if: Injustice x AK, Kal found Bruce, another person whose life had been ruined by Joker, just like him, and took him to his universe, promising to cure him. What would happen to Clark, who believed that his true love had really died in the explosion? Would he become another dictator like Kal?
