Chapter Text
It wasn't common knowledge that Batman’s newest Robin was an omega. Batman knew, obviously, as well as Nightwing and the elusive Agent A. A handful of heroes in the wider community had found out, mostly through circumstance and the danger of the mission, rather than any particular level of earned trust. Tim had done his best to keep it quiet, always wearing chemical blockers underneath the standard stick-on patch, and training himself out of the more egregious omegan instincts.
He no longer dropped his gaze when an alpha spoke, no longer waited for permission to speak or be excused, didn't let alphas have the first pick of everything – things his parents insisted were an essential part of omegan manners. Forgetting to switch these habits back on on the rare occasions they were home had earned him more than one bruise, but the incidents were so scattered that Tim hardly cared.
He retrained himself on subtler things too. His posture, his vocal inflection, his habit of drifting to stand close to the person who felt safest in the room. It would be stereotypical to say that any of those things gave his second gender away, but Tim wasn't taking the chance either way.
And crucially, he no longer followed an alpha’s Command without thinking. That had been the hardest to train, as Bruce refused to use his Voice on Tim, even for training. The one and only time Tim had even heard it had been on patrol early in his vigilante career. Robin had been speaking to the victim of a mugging in the pool of light a streetlight provided. Batman was halfway down the street, escorting the mugger back to them with his wrists ziptied. One moment, everything had been calm, the adrenaline of the chase fading, and the next–
“Robin, move!”
The Command washed over Tim and he dodged sideways before he’d even finished comprehending the words. A crowbar slashed through the air where he had just been standing, followed a split second later by a bolo thrown by Batman. The mugger had had an accomplice, who tried to take advantage of the distracted Robin. Batman had played off the moment well, but Tim could tell he’d been shaken by the event, enough to forgo the rest of the evening’s patrol in favour of situational awareness training.
Tim had been shaken as well, but not by the mugger. It was the first Command he’d experienced that had not come from his father, and he hadn't even had a chance at resisting it. Of course, he trusted his mentor, trusted that any Command given on the field was for Robin’s safety, but if anyone else had tried that trick… He could have been in serious trouble. With Bruce’s point blank refusal to Command his Robin, Tim had turned to the internet and reluctantly, Kon.
Superboy had been nearly as hesitant as Bruce to use his Voice, but Tim had a much higher success rate at cajoling reluctant teammates than his stubborn mentor. Over the course of a month and a half, Tim went from reflexive obedience, to brief hesitation, to complete stillness. If a Command was accidental, or otherwise weak, all he had to do was resist long enough for the alpha’s attention to falter and he would be free. More intentional Commands were harder. The internet had told him it was impossible for an omega to completely ignore an alpha’s Command, but Tim had been unable to find any peer-reviewed studies on the topic. Therefore, he decided, it just hadn't been recorded yet. Unfortunately, this didn't equate to instant success. The most Tim had managed was stalling, freezing stock still in the face of a Command, unable to actively disobey, but unwilling to follow along. If the Command was repeated, he had little to no chance of keeping himself free of its influence.
It was enough, though, for his purposes. Hardly anyone knew Robin was an omega, so almost every Command he encountered was incidental. Freezing worked long enough for the Command’s influence to fade, and so far no one had questioned his moments of stillness.
So his cover was almost, but not quite, air tight. Public opinion was that he was a quiet beta, or even unpresented (though that faction grew smaller as time passed). The same public had thought both previous Robins were alphas, so they were zero for three on that front. Dick was actually a beta, but his childhood temper and unusually-sharp-for-a-beta ginger scent had led most to believe he was an alpha, whilst Jason had been unpresented for almost his entire Robin career. It was only a few weeks before his death that he finally presented, due no doubt to his malnourishment in the early years of his childhood. He had presented as an alpha, but Tim didn't count that as the public guessing correctly; after all, no one had noticed the change from unpresented pup to newly presented alpha.
In Tim’s opinion, Robin was better as a beta. Robin had always been a spotlight against the Gotham night, the Dark Knight’s shadow in reverse. But the bird had started out so very young and small and had immediately been considered nothing more than a weak spot for Batman. He was kidnapped, sidelined, threatened, but always looked at like a bared throat or turned back. It took years of Dick very thoroughly disabusing the Rogues’ Gallery of that notion, and his presentation as an ‘alpha’ to change that, and he shot straight from puphood to dangerous opponent in the eyes of his enemies. Jason had been older when he started, but even so, the number of Robin-napping incidents drastically declined as soon as he was being perceived as an alpha. Coincidentally, the number of would-be lethal shots aimed his way tripled.
A beta Robin was neither a helpless pup, nor a dangerous alpha, neither target nor warrior. He was smart-mouthed, and cocky, and still a spotlight, but he was also taken for granted. No two-bit thug was paying attention to his quips when Batman was beside him, so consequently, no two-bit thug noticed him palming evidence or laying traps. Tim also spent far less time getting caught up in pig-headed alpha pissing contests, and he was definitely safer than being an omega who could be Commanded. It was the best option, or so he thought.
What he hadn't accounted for, was the Red Hood.