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His dad had told him that, whenever he was away, Jason had to be the man of the house; this meant taking care of the food and paying the bills, and most importantly, taking care of his mommy. Because his mommy was sick, and she needed lots of help.
He felt great pride at being the man of the house.
He loved his mommy very much, after all, so he never minded helping her eat or bathe, but lately, things had been getting increasingly harder. Some bills had to be late or ignored entirely, and getting food and medicine was very difficult, not to mention surviving the upcoming winter without heat. But Jason had to move forward either way, because he was the man of the house.
Even though the money his daddy had left before was rapidly dwindling.
His mommy was too sick to work and barely conscious most of the time, and his daddy had left for work one day and had yet to return. Jason feared he was either in jail again or dead somewhere. The neighbors whisper about how Willis had probably abandoned his family; they say he probably got tired of his sick wife and had abandoned them. But Jason knows his daddy, and he knows that is not true. But in the end, whether it’s true or not, does not matter. Jason is eight years old when he first starts learning to separate the different types of metal to sell and the best places to scavenge for food; sometimes the homeless people got angry if he looked near their hunting grounds, but most of the times they were nice and taught him what to look out for, once he told them that he was the man of the house.
It was a very respected position.
He wanted to spend more time scavenging; he had even been told of a very good spot, though it was a little further away, but his mommy told him not to go. He told her about it once, when she was sober and awake, and she immediately shot the idea down. She told him to focus on school. She was very adamant. And Jason liked school, so he kept going. Despite the bullying and disdainful looks for his old and dirty clothes, and despite the pity from the teachers and some parents.
It was a hard life. But Jason had everything under control. He was already an eight-year-old, and he was more than ready for it.
His daddy had trusted him with it.
Yes, it was all going well… until one day he came back from school to find his mommy had taken a bath without him. No matter how much he shook her, how much he begged her to wake up, or how much he cried… no matter how many times he promised to be better. To do better. She would never wake up again.
He was eight years old when his mother passed away. He hadn’t even made it past one year of being the man of the house.
His mommy was dead, and his daddy never came home, and the bills kept coming, and the collectors kept pounding at the door. Soon, they would break in to take everything that could be sold. And Jason knew he was one of those things.
He had been raised with love and care, but he was not naïve nor stupid. He knew how the Alley worked. He had been born and raised in the dirty streets of Crime Alley, surrounded by criminals, prostitutes, and addicts. He often saw kids disappearing around these streets. Omegas especially.
Unfortunate ones, used as bargaining chips for their parents’ gambling debts or exchanged for a few grams of cocaine. Raped and abused in broad daylight or sold for a few bucks an hour. That would be his fate if Jason got caught by them. If he called the police and reported his mommy’s passing, then he would be sent to CPS. That would be worse than a death sentence. The kids who went to CPS often disappeared. In Gotham, most orphanages were fronts for human trafficking hubs.
Jason is an Omega pup. And a virgin. He was considered… a commodity.
He had grown up poor, yes. But not unloved. Willis Todd had never written his son as insurance for payment and had never treated Jason as a piece of meat or property he could exchange for goods and valuables. And Catherine Todd had once nearly gone feral in rage when a dealer had offered her a discount in exchange for a few rounds with her baby. Jason had been loved. He was his daddy’s little prince and his mommy’s treasure; he had been loved and protected, to the best of their abilities.
But not anymore. Now, Jason must look out for himself, and things weren’t looking good.
No matter who got their hands on him, they would destroy him for profit. At this point, even his neighbors and teachers could be suspected. He couldn’t stay home because the collectors would eventually break in, or the smell would give him away. He couldn’t call the police, because then he could be sent to an orphanage and trafficked. And he couldn’t trust his neighbors, because everyone was hungry.
So, he made a choice.
He kissed his mommy’s forehead one last time and said goodbye. Took as much as he could carry in his schoolbag and left the apartment through the fire escape to avoid being seen by nosy neighbors.
From now on, he would spend his childhood sleeping in old, abandoned buildings, hiding away in HVAC ducts, and pickpocketing stupid tourists and drunkards.
Jason Todd is twelve years old, and he undoubtedly believes that he is the luckiest, most unlucky son of a bitch alive.
He still believes this, even as he’s caught off guard by a drunk Alpha while he is scavenging for food in a dumpster.
It all happens in a second.
His face gets pushed into the dirty, grimy street.
His arms are folded painfully behind his back.
His pants and underwear get dragged down below his knees.
He cries and screams and rages, tries to fight back with all his might, even as he is hit and slapped and called a whore and a slut and a bitch.
He is only twelve. He is neither of those things. He is only twelve.
He kicks his legs, tries to bite the arm that chokes him, growls and snarls, and fills the alley with the stench of a distressed pup.
He knows nobody will save him, nobody will care— a dull THUD breaks him out of his despair; there’s a tremor running through the arms holding him down; a brief, startled spasm, then a sudden contraction, and then— they let him go. The Alpha makes a sound, like a cough or a gasp, only it’s not normal. It’s a low, wet gurgle; each breath catching halfway, as if something was stuck inside his throat; and then— it starts raining. Warm droplets falling on Jason’s naked back and butt.
The rain is warm, sticky, and red.
For a moment, all he can see is the asphalt beneath his head and the brick wall across him. Then, suddenly, the Alpha’s face is right in front of him. His eyes are open wide in terror, and his mouth is slightly open and bloody, but he is silent. Still. Unmoving. He looks nothing like his mommy did.
This is a man whose sins have caught up to him.
There is no rain in Gotham tonight.
And certainly, none that is red.
The coppery smell permeates the air, and the memory of the warm, sticky rain covering his body is enough to make him scream. But he can’t. He wants to scream, to crawl away, to hide— but he can’t. His eyes are stuck staring at the graying face in front of him. At his dead eyes, bloody mouth, and the deep gash on his throat. The whole world is silent, but Jason knows he is not alone. He can’t see or hear it, but he knows it is there. Watching him.
From behind him, a clawed hand reaches out for the Alpha’s head. It grabs it by the hair and hauls its entire body up with one hand. As if it weighed nothing. As if Jason hadn’t just been crushed under its insurmountable weight, unable to move even an inch beneath it. He hears it being dragged away, and then he hears it falling to the ground again.
And Jason knows he should run, but he can’t feel his legs.
He is twelve years old, and he is terrified.
The clawed hands come back. They grab him by his middle, and they pick him up.
And Jason is now face-to-face with a killer. He probably should close his eyes, refuse to look at him, and pretend he doesn’t know anything.
But he can’t.
He stares directly at the cold and golden eyes of the killer.
Somewhere, deep inside his head, he hears her mommy’s soft voice, singing him a lullaby—
Beware of the Court of Owls
that watches all the time,
ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch
behind granite and lime.
They watch you at your hearth.
They watch you in your bed.
Speak not a whispered word of them,
or they’ll send the Talon for your head.
This is a Talon.
Talons don’t leave witnesses. He knows he will be next, but Jason was not raised a coward. He continues looking at the creature’s eyes. Defiant and resolute, even while terrified; awaiting his inevitable death with graceful resignation.
Only, it never comes.
The creature, the Talon, places him on the ground gently. It checks him here and there for injuries, wipes him down with its ragged yellow scarf, and helps him get dressed again. Then, as if there wasn’t a corpse behind it and a pool of blood where Jason was just standing, it pushed him gently towards the street. Jason stumbles, confused and disoriented, and takes a good look at the Talon. It looks like a young man. Black, messy hair, and extremely pale skin. It waves Jason away, like one would do a pet, and turns around once more to pick up the corpse. It throws it onto its shoulder and walks away with it.
Jason stays only a few seconds more before he gets his wits about him and starts running.
He runs and runs and keeps on running.
He prays the Talon is not following him.
He prays it doesn't tell the Court about him.
He prays he never sees it again.
Jason is undoubtedly lucky to be alive right now, and soon enough, he will find out that he is also unlucky enough to be stalked by a boogeyman.
Later, Jason would describe this entire ordeal as: The Incident. After running around in circles, trying desperately to lose a tail he wasn’t even sure if he had, he decides that it is in his best interest to go to ground and hide. He chooses his best hidey-hole, an old and dilapidated office building that no one gets near to because it is condemned, and decides to play dead.
Despite knowing that this will not be in any way, shape, or form, good enough to stop a Talon, Jason still goes out of his way to cover all the windows with old newspapers and cardboard, and even barricades the office’s door with an old desk. Once he feels safe enough, he goes to his ‘nest’ and waits with bated breath, for God knows what. Death, probably.
Only, once more, it never comes.
His food supplies last him less than a week, and by the fifth day, he is starving. It hadn’t even been a few hours since The Incident before Jason started getting the uncomfortable sensation of being watched, and that sensation had only stopped for a few hours a day, every other day. But he has no more food and very little water. If he plans to survive, he at least needs food and water, and to get them, he needs to work.
There is nothing more to it.
He walks to the barricade and painstakingly removes it with his weak and shaky hands. He takes a deep breath and takes a brave first step outside the room— there is a paper bag outside the door. There is a paper bag full of pretty golden apples outside the door of his office. The office inside the condemned and abandoned building that Jason specifically chose because there were no other humans stupid enough to try and live inside it.
He wants to cry.
It doesn't smell like anything, but he has a feeling he knows exactly who, or what, left it there.
He has no way of knowing how long the bag has been out there.
He looks left and right and finds everything the same as he left it. Except for the paper bag. He calls out with a trembling voice to the hall, "H-hello?" but nobody answers. If the Talon is still out there, it doesn’t show itself. Jason straightens his shoulders and, full of fake bravado, goes outside. He has work to do.
He goes on about his day and doesn’t see the Talon even once. But he can feel him. His years of living in the streets have left him hypervigilant, always on the move, and always alert to his surroundings. He knows when he is being watched, and it has served him well while pickpocketing or doing small and dubious errands for petty criminals. Nowadays, though, he feels watched all the time. It’s making work difficult.
He decides that maybe he should change sleeping spots.
Once away, he goes around a convoluted path until he reaches his next spot. He chose this one because it still has water. Granted, it's cold water, but water is water either way, and Jason has not had a shower since The Incident. He makes a beeline for the bathroom and takes his time cleaning himself up. When he comes out of the bathroom, he finds a plastic bag full of fragrant oranges hanging from the doorknob.
He wants to cry. That seems to be his default lately. He quickly locks himself in the bathroom and does just that.
He begs it for forgiveness— asks it what it wants from him, how to make it stop, but he never gets an answer.
The light beneath the bathroom door remains unobstructed, and everything is quiet.
Eventually, he opens the bathroom door again and brings the bag of oranges inside, then locks the door again. The fruit is sweet and tangy. Ripe and perfect.
He sleeps in there that night.
The bags of fruit continue appearing over the following weeks, and on a particular occasion, when he gets sick due to the rain, a bag with medicine supplies shows up too. One of the boxes inside still has the lock thing from the supermarket, which makes him doubt any sort of legal acquisition. He never does see the Talon leave it. Doesn’t catch a whiff of a scent or anything else, either.
Eventually, he stops getting afraid of them and starts expecting them. He even starts becoming able to differentiate between Talon’s stare and a stranger, which makes his work easy once more. Isn’t Talon a stranger, too? It takes two months before Jason gets fed up with the following and the hiding, though.
After two months of getting bags of food but not getting sick, and of knowing he is being followed but never getting hurt, Jason is over it and instead becomes annoyed that he can’t see, much less talk, to his benefactor.
The next time, he decides to confront it. He leaves a note on his front door, the usual haunting of the grocery bags, that says in no uncertain terms: ‘I want to talk to you’.
It doesn’t work.
He tries again.
It also doesn’t work.
He continues leaving notes with a different assortment of messages on them, and all of them continue being ignored, until Jason decides that enough is enough and leaves an ultimatum: ‘Either you meet me, or I stop taking your shit.’ The next morning, Jason finds the bags outside the door, just like always. He ignores them, doesn’t even bring them inside, and goes on about his day.
He comes back that same night to find the bag inside the kitchen counter, along with a new one.
The fight is ON.
Out of pure spite and pettiness, Jason takes both bags and leaves them out in the hallway, then goes to sleep.
When he opens the bedroom door the next morning, he finds an assortment of food cans placed like an obstacle course in the hallway, all the way from his bedroom to the kitchen. Enraged at the audacity and pettiness of the Talon, and decisively ignoring his own hypocrisy, Jason leaves the cans exactly where they are (he does kick a few of them, okay? Sue him) and decides that maybe it’s time to move to a different spot.
The Talon, of course, follows him.
Jason refuses to take, much less eat, anything it brings him. Eventually, hunger catches up with him, and after being so used to eating fresh fruits and vegetables consistently for the past few months, Jason ends up having to scavenge for food once more. He honestly didn’t think it would take so much for Talon to show its face. The scavenging does not go well, and he ends up having to spend a few hard-earned dollars on a chili dog, but at least he goes to bed that night with a full belly. He makes plans to go to the library the next day to hide from the heat and catch up on some reading, and goes to sleep.
Something wakes him up in the middle of the night.
He doesn’t know what it was.
Everything is quiet, nothing is out of place.
He feels watched.
He sits up on his floor mattress and takes a quick, cursory look around the room and finds nothing amiss. On his second go at it, he notices it. There’s a spot in the corner of his room that is darker than the rest. Right beside the dresser and away from the windows and the door.
It doesn’t move or make a sound, but Jason knows it’s there. That’s where the sensation of being watched comes from. "Hello? Is that you?" Belatedly, he realizes how stupid it was of him to even make a sound. That’s how you get killed, Jay. A rustling sound snaps him out of it, and when he looks down, there’s a plastic bag at the end of the mattress. He quickly looks up, and finally, he notices it. After having moved, his body is now partially in the light, and Jason can finally get a good look at him.
Its clothes are skintight and all black, it has some sort of chest-mounted knife sheath where it has an assortment of knives and blades, and a set of golden googles that hide half its face. "Can you come closer?" The Talon doesn’t move an inch, so Jason decides to go himself. He starts crawling towards him, but notices it is tense, so he stops just when he is on the edge of the mattress. He slowly reaches for the bag and peers inside it. There’s a hamburger, a wrap, and some pizza slices, as well as some candy bars. He doesn’t want to think about the poor, sorry fuckers, the Talon definitely lifted this from.
He smiles at him and realizes, at that exact moment, that he has never expressed his thanks to the Talon. "Thank you for the food and for... before". The Talon remains stubbornly quiet and still, and Jason huffs and decides to bite the bullet and ask, "Are you really a Talon, though?" Because while it looks like the myth, moves like the myth, and kills like the myth, he doesn't really think that a Talon would go out of his— the clawed hand that reaches towards him is so fast that Jason doesn't even have a chance to scream. It's also so big that it covers almost all of his face with it, and it's cold. It's dead cold. He tries so hard not to think about his mom in the bathtub.
He knows he fucked up.
He doesn’t know how, but it’s obvious he did something wrong and pissed the Talon off, and now something bad is going to happen to him. He has the irrational, insane thought that maybe the Talon was just fattening him up with food so that it could eat him later. "Shh." The Talon shushes him up. Jason is going to die right now, and all he can think of is how close the Talon’s face is to his, and how plump his lips look as he shushes him. And how he doesn’t want to be eaten. "Don't say that name. They'll hear." From this close, Jason can finally see that the Talon is no creature, but a young man. He doesn't need to ask to know he means the Court of Owls either, and a shiver runs coldly down his spine.
It's the first time he has ever heard him speak, and his voice is a little rough from probable disuse. It breaks here and there like a teenager, but it's deep and clear. The Talon slowly and softly lets go of his face and crouches down in front of him. Jason can barely catch his breath, despite being released; meanwhile, the Talon is taking his sweet time looking at him from a few inches away. It's surreal. He takes off his gloves; they weren't claws, they were gloves, and takes one of Jason small hands on his own; his hand dwarfs Jason's, and maybe he should jerk his hand away and try to run, but he finds, once again, that he can't; he can't take his eyes away from the young man that curiously moves his hand this way and that and pokes at his flesh as if he were the most interesting thing in the world. Surreal.
The longer he looks at him, and the closer he pays attention, the more he realizes that this is not a thing or creature or killing machine, but a young man, perhaps even a teenager still. "Then, what do I call you? Do you have a name?" It feels wrong to refer to him as an it any longer, but if he can't call him Talon, then what should he call him? The Talon shakes his head no and goes to take Jason's other hand as well, even going so far as to scoot over closer so he can continue playing with his hands. "Well, that doesn't help me much, you know." Even to himself, he sounds whiny and spoiled, but he can't help it. He has a renowned serial killer stalking him, leaving bags of food for him to find, and playing with his hands. He thinks he deserves to be a little entitled to at least a name, if not a purpose. "How old are you?" He doesn't expect an answer this time either, so he is surprised when the Talon stops playing with his hands and looks directly at him.
"I don't know. Older than you." Despite being obviously not used to speaking, he seems educated enough to know how to speak, meaning he just may not have been accustomed to a conversational partner. He supposes that being a serial killer myth might make it difficult for oneself. "You can't call me that, though." He goes back to playing with his hands, and for a moment, Jason feels jealous of his own hands stealing away the attention of the boy, man, Talon, young man.
So he stupidly asks, "What? Talon?" The young man hisses at him and covers his mouth again, and Jason, unlucky/lucky bastard that he is, gets the great idea of licking his hands in retaliation. And while Talon doesn't let go of him, the look of disgust on his face makes Jason bark a laugh loud enough to startle the man into letting him go, just staring dumbly at his face. "Alright. What about Tal? Is it too close?" Talon tilts his head to one side, reminding him of the little birds outside his window, but says nothing about it. So, Jason settles the matter. "Tal, it is then." He offers his hands back to the Talon in apology and wonders briefly about the ease with which he offers this stalking stranger access to his body.
"So... why the food?"
Jason never quite gets an answer.
Over the following months, he slowly coaxes Tal out of the shadows and sort of into his everyday life.
He makes him go from stealthy deliveries in the middle of the night to asking Jason what he wants or needs next, and despite never actually telling him why, he continues to give him food and other things. Jason feels content enough to let him do as he pleases, his Omega feeling safe around Tal, after all. Also, he is still way too poor to get some of the expensive things Tal gets him, like meat and fish.
It takes many months before Tal feels comfortable enough to take out his goggles, revealing milky white pupils and reaffirming what Jason already knew: whatever Tal is, he is probably not alive.
When Jason manages to get Tal comfortable enough with close contact, he realizes that his entire body is cold and that he doesn't feel a heartbeat. He decides then and there that whatever Tal might be, it doesn't change anything. Tal saved him from the Alpha in the Alley, spared his life, and then continued to care for him despite not having any obligation. Tal is his friend, whatever he might be.
They don't actually get to spend much time together, perhaps only a couple of hours a day, twice a month. Tal says he can't stay away from the court for too long, as he doesn't want them to become suspicious of him and have them investigate where he goes, which could lead them to Jason.
And so, the years pass by, and soon enough, it's been four years since he first met Tal in that dirty alley.
They develop a routine. Whenever they have time together, Jason cooks them a meal, and afterwards they sit together on the couch. Jason tells him about his day, and Tal listens as he plays with his hand, his cold fingers wrapped tight around his wrist, on top of his pulse point.
With Tal helping him with many other things besides food, Jason manages to save enough money to rent a very small place with electricity and running hot water, and at sixteen, he was finally living a semi-normal life with Tal popping up here and there.
Which is why it was such a big hit for him when Tal suddenly stopped showing up one day.
It wasn't unusual that Tal would need to leave for long extended periods of time, but he always said something beforehand; at least a note with his usual bag of groceries if he couldn’t tell Jason in person that he would be away for a while. But not this time.
Jason had just started working on getting his GED after finally getting a stable job and saving the 160 dollars for the four tests, so he couldn't even spend time trying to look for him on the Gotham rooftops or dark alleys. He prayed, though, with all his might, that Tal wasn't lying in some dirty, grimy alley, dead.
The mere thought threatened to paralyze him, but he forged on.
He continued studying, working, and struggling to pay the bills and buy groceries, but he managed well enough to finish it. Thankfully, he passed all four tests the first time around and didn't have to retake anything.
But the win felt hollow, with no one to celebrate it with.
And so, without a single clue of where Tal had gone, another year came to an end.
Somehow, he makes it to 18 without ever having a heat.
He chalks it up to early malnutrition, stress, and possibly genetics, but it doesn't really matter because it suited him just fine. Not having a heat encumbering him more than he already was with juggling life's usual responsibilities was honestly great. He already spent most of his money on scent patches, to at least not announce to the world that he was an unmated Omega; he really didn’t need the added worry of having to lose out on work for a heat that would also endanger his life if anyone got any funny ideas.
Tal never came back.
A week gave way to a month, then became a year, then two, and still no sight of him.
Despite how much it hurt to think about it, he wished that Tal had just gotten tired of him. That his infatuation or whatever the hell it was had come to an end, and he had realized that he was wasting precious resources on Jason, so he left. The alternative of Tal rotting away in a remote land that Jason could not reach, without even having a proper burial, was too sickening and brought too much despair to even entertain.
Better that Jason was just abandoned.
Even so, life kept moving on. Jason applied for a WE scholarship for college, got accepted into Gotham University, and tried to forget.
He couldn't.
He would often find himself lost in thought, thinking about him. Reminiscing about peaceful times where they would cook and eat together, remembering how they would sit together in the ratty old couch, and Jason would struggle to hold the book he was reading with one hand while Tal played with the other— how Tal would seem so calm and content as long as Jason read to him out loud the fantastical stories in his books.
They didn't even meet often, only once or twice a month, and only for very few and precious hours.
Tal was afraid the Court of Owls would figure out where he disappeared to if he came more often than that, afraid of what they'd do to Jason is they figured it out, so Tal never came more than twice a month and never stayed more than two hours at a time; yet the time they spent together in those four years became the most precious time for Jason.
Even if he couldn't see him often, he always knew that Tal had not forgotten him, because he still left him behind food and other stuff that would be useful to Jason.
He never felt alone or lonely.
But even that stopped when Tal disappeared.
Nowadays, he rarely speaks out loud, not having anyone who might want to listen to him. He hopes he can make some friends in school once the semester starts, but he doesn't have high hopes. He knows friends go out together to the movies, or to eat, or for a coffee, and all of those things cost money that he doesn't have to spare. So, to keep his head straight and out of the water, he buries his nose in his books and takes to studying the material ahead of the semester.
He knows he will need all of the advantages he can possibly gain over all those other kids who have friends and families that support them, and therefore, have enough free time and energy to study during the semester.
He was born Richard John Grayson to John and Mary Grayson, somewhere in the southern countryside of God knows where.
He was called Dick by his friends, Robin by his mom, and Boy Wonder by his dad.
He used to live and travel in a circus named Haly's as part of a high-wire trapeze act called The Flying Graysons.
He was eight years old, and he was happy.
One day, some criminals working for Tony Zucco, a mob enforcer, sabotaged his parents' trapeze ropes, and they fell to their deaths. He was then taken in by Bruce Wayne, a philanthropist and billionaire from Gotham, who turned out to be the vigilante, Batman. Together, they fought crime and protected the city of Gotham as the vigilante duo Batman and Robin.
Years later, Talons started attacking Gotham, and in the midst of all that chaos, agents of the Court of Owls kidnapped him and hid him away.
They did this because his mother was the daughter of William Cobb, their most famous and successful Talon assassin, and they believed that with his lineage, along with the Graysons’ acrobatic heritage, Dick Grayson would make the ideal assassin. The ideal Talon. They subjected him to extreme psychological indoctrination via isolation and identity suppression. When this didn't work as well as they expected, they decided to brainwash him using hypnotism and sensory conditioning, a substance named Electrum, and what basically amounted to torture.
And for the longest time, it worked.
Batman tried to find him, even going as far as to wage war against the Court of Owls, but to no avail.
Dick would not remember him, or anything at all, until much, much later.
One night, as he went out as Talon, he heard a kid scream below him.
The pup was on the dirty floor, screaming, crying, and fighting with all his might; despite the uselessness of his actions, he refused to give up and continued fighting tooth and nail, even going as far as biting the burly Alpha on top of him to try and free himself. The smell of despair and fear was noxious in the alleyway, but above all, it was filled with a sort of righteous fury beyond what he thought was possible for such a small pup.
And Talon couldn’t tell you why, exactly, the mere thought of leaving the kid alone to the mercy of that Alpha was so disgusting and impossible for him, but it was. So, he did what he did best. He killed that Alpha. And in doing so, he unknowingly went against the indoctrination of the Court.
He killed a useless, unmarked target, without being told to do so.
The realization that he could break the rules was intoxicating and world-changing, but also short-lived.
He found out that it wasn't as easy as he expected. He wondered, then, if the pup had anything to do with it. If he has been the reason why he could do it the first time. So, he set out to look for him in secret. He followed his tracks easily to a decrepit office building, and after seeing him there, alone and hungry in such deplorable conditions, Talon found that he could indeed break the rules for him.
While the kid awoke in him an uncomfortable feeling that he could not name, he also made it possible for Talon to be, well, Tal. He procured some apples for himself and left them as a gift. A thank you of sorts, for showing him even the tiniest glimpse of freedom, and kept watching him in secret.
Jason was, for all intents and purposes, Tal’s daybreak. He was his light in the darkness, his rain after a drought, his rainbow after a storm, his reason to strive to survive and free himself. Every minute he spent with Jason was like balm for his wounds. To hold his small, warm, and tender hand in between his bloodied ones felt like sacrilege and like a drug he could not get enough of. If he could spend the rest of his miserable life next to him, it would all be worth it. To provide for Jason gave his life a purpose and soothed a part of him he still did not understand.
It took two years for Tal's lies to catch up to him.
The Court was asking questions and sniffing around.
They even sent other Talons near where Jason was.
Tal got rid of them all, but their deaths did not go unnoticed. He had to act now; Jason's life depended on it. He set out to dismantle the Court of Owls, but the death and carnage caught the attention of Batman. It took him two months, but Tal had managed to kill all the other Talons and all of the most prominent members of the Court of Owls, including their Grandmaster. But it wasn't enough to ensure Jason's safety.
He was badly wounded and trying hard to get back to him, when he got cornered by Batman and Batgirl.
The fight was brutal and long, and Tal did not come out victorious. He wondered if Batman would kill him or if he would be stupid enough to try to trap him somewhere. If he tried to lock him up, S Batman was known to do, then Tal knew he could reach Jason, no matter what. Hopefully, Batman would not know about freezing Talons to make them sleep.
Instead, Batman called him Dick. He begged him to come home and promised a cure.
Tal lost consciousness before he could even answer. When he awoke, he was trapped in a cold, damp, and dark cave, and was subjected to the will of Batman in making him remember.
It took two years.
Two years in which the only way to make Dick stay put was to give him daily updates on Jason's life. Barbara assured him that Jason had a job in the public library now and that he was safe while working there. Bruce promised him to financially support him so he could go to college, but refused to allow Dick to see him. Possibly fearing that having Jason near would make Dick not want to remember the past.
He felt both deep resentment towards Bruce Wayne and deep gratefulness for the freedom he had helped him regain.
He was Dick Grayson Tal, and he was going home to Jason Todd.
Jason is having a very shitty day today.
First, he woke up with a fever. He popped some Tylenol and went to have breakfast, only to realize that he forgot to do the groceries, and now he only had half a tomato and an egg left. He made the saddest omelet on earth, thankful still to at least have something to eat, and then took a shower. The cold water greeted him as if to mock him, and no matter how much he waited, the hot water did not come. The landlord informed him that the boiler was broken and wouldn't be fixed for at least a week. He took the quickest cold shower possible and left for work. Neither the Tylenol nor the cold water had helped him, and by the time he arrived at Gotham's library, his fever had only worsened, making the apples of his cheeks incredibly red and his sickness incredibly obvious.
Barbara took one look at him and told him to go home.
Despite Jason's protests that he was well enough to work and to please just look away and let him finish his shift since he needed the money, Babs still sent him home. She also informed him that he had something magical called sick days and that he would not lose money on his paycheck.
He went to the bus stop nearby, and as soon as he sat down, it started raining. Jason had neither shoes for the rain nor an umbrella with him, and the bus took twenty minutes to show up. He had to walk up all three floors to his unit, because his building didn’t even have an elevator, and when he reached his apartment door, he still had to fumble with the key for a good two minutes because the stupid thing was weird and only opened if you tried it the right way. He walked inside, feeling weak and feverish and miserable, and dragged himself to the kitchen for a glass of water.
And there, right in the middle of the rickety table, was a plastic bag overflowing with crisp golden apples.
He does a quick 180º turn, his heart almost beating out of his chest, and finds himself right in front of him, blocking the exit.
He looks clean and well-dressed, healthy and strong; his skin is a pretty olive color instead of the usual deathly pale, his eyes are no longer milky white but sapphire blue, and he is smiling. He has dimples on both sides; his hair looks well cared for and as black as the darkest night. He seems real, but Jason doesn't believe it so readily.
He is afraid to look away.
Afraid to reach out.
He has a scent now. He smells like a thunderstorm, electric and cold, like a raging ocean— Jason feels like drowning in him, like his scent is covering every inch of Jason's, like he couldn’t ever breathe any air that doesn't have him in it anymore.
And he is afraid.
Afraid of how rapidly he is losing himself on Tal, afraid that he is not real, afraid that even if he is, he would soon leave again.
He is paralyzed with a fear he hasn’t felt in front of Tal since he was twelve.
Tal reaches a hand towards his face, slow and steady, not at all like that time in the darkness where he moved so quickly Jason couldn't even think, much less scream. He caresses his cheek, wipes the sweat from his forehead with his hand, and says his name like a prayer. "Jason." He says, "Jason." Again, "Jason," Keep saying it, "Don't cry, Jason." He didn't know that he was. Tal's voice is steady, comforting, and deep, and Jason feels a sudden irrational jealousy. Who did he speak to so often that he no longer struggles? Who did he sweet-talk while Jason was alone, losing his voice from disuse? Who was so important to Tal that he abandoned Jason? He slaps his hand away in anger, then hits him on the chest for good measure.
It is not enough, so he continues hitting his hard chest until Tal stops him by holding his wrist in one hand, the other one wiping away his tears with a soft rumble. "I'm sorry. Please stop. You are hurting yourself. You are right, it's all my fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jay. Please stop." He lets Tal carry him to the sofa, where he is deposited softly, as if he were something precious. Something fragile. And he both resents this and misses it all the same.
He demands answers that Tal struggles to give.
Jason threatens to make him leave if he doesn't explain himself, and Tal, stupid, pretty Tal, jokes that he couldn't make him leave even if he wanted to. Jason threatens to leave himself then, and in a move as fast and strong as he remembers, Tal has Jason pinned on the sofa under his weight. His warmth and proximity feel both like a cool balm and like brimstone on his skin. "Tell me. Lie to me if you have to. Just tell me you won't leave again." He is weak, and he is pathetically begging a man not to leave him, the same way he saw many Omegas do in the Alley before, the same way he promised himself he would never do. And he feels such a big bout of sadness that he can't quite stop the big fat tears that fall from his face.
Tal brings him up, sits him on his lap, and holds him. Tells him he won't lie to him but assures him he won't leave either.
“Wherever I go, I'll bring you with me”, he says. “You and I are one, now and always”, and Jason believes him.
Jason holds onto him tight and listens to the very sad and long tale of Dick Grayson— of a Robin, who had disappeared a long time ago, and of the Court of Owls and their Talons, who took him. Tal says they are all gone now, that he would have come back immediately, had it not been for his health. That his mind was sick, and he wanted to heal it before he came back for him. He wanted to reach out, but Batman wouldn't let him. That he never forgot about him. That he always thought about him. That he missed him every single day. That he did it all for him.
Jason has heard Alphas say those sorts of things to their Omegas all the time, after they cheat. And while the situation is not the same, and they are not even a couple, he wonders if he should believe him. It's a moot point either way, because he knows that even if it were all a lie, Jason would still forgive him and take him back.
It's too late for him.
"Okay."
Tal— no, Dick's nose is buried deep into the curve of his neck. He can feel the warmth of his breath and the quickening of both of their heartbeats. He wraps his arms around Dick’s neck and nuzzles his temple. Dick smells like the ocean during a thunderstorm, and Jason finds him soothing and electrifying.
Suddenly, Dick tenses and tries to push Jason away, but Jason refuses.
"No."
He tells him in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want him to move, that he doesn't want him to go away, but Dick insists that he must go. He says that Jason needs to be alone right now, and the whine and keen that comes out of him is inevitable, Jason thinks, and not at all unfair.
Jason knows what's happening.
He is neither naive nor stupid. He knows full well that this is not the flu and that Dick is not a beta, much less a null.
He knows.
But it should be fine, isn't it? Dick promised forever.
He should make good on his words.
Jason doesn't want to let go.
Does Dick?
"Stay."
He hopes not.
Jason’s tender arms wrap around his neck, keeping him in place. “You are in heat, Jason." But that is not entirely true; Jason still has an hour or two before he loses all train of thought. He is still capable of consent and intellectual conversation. He just chooses not to, which is both endearing and annoying.
Dick starts taking stock of where they are and what they have. At this point, it's useless to even pretend that he will not spend this heat with Jason, or that it won't end with a mating bite. If Dick manages to abstain, he should be heralded as a saint. He knows he won't.
So, he takes a good look at his surroundings.
This apartment is bigger than the one he had at sixteen, but not for much. It is clean, but it's old and not that safe. It took Dick mere seconds to come in through the big window in the living room, and the only saving grace is that the key cylinder on the front door is broken and doesn't open easily. A few quick questions to Jason about his apartment give him the following: There is no food or water, besides the apples Dick brought mostly to be cute; there is no hot water, the window lock is broken, and apparently, the landlord has a copy of all the units in the apartment complex.
It is absolutely unacceptable.
He has less than two hours to find a safe place for them to spend Jason's heat, and if the fever he is feeling is any indication, his own rut as well.
He absolutely will not take Jason to Wayne Manor. He doesn't trust Bruce Wayne that much.
But also, he doesn't have any places of his own or any safehouses.
He is technically homeless if you take Wayne Manor and Jason's place out of the count. He thinks about Barbara Gordon, and while he thinks it is tacky to ask his apparently ex-girlfriend for a place where he can spend his rut and heat with his lover and potentially mate him, he has little choice left. Also, someone has to run interference with Bruce, so he doesn't try to crash the party.
He doesn't even need to explain himself.
It takes her 3 seconds on the call before she says, "Let me guess. You went to see Jason, and he is in heat. Did I get it right?" She is a good sport about it, and by that he means that she makes fun of him for having a sympathetic rut at his age, not that he has had many ruts, mind you, Court of Owls drugs and all that, and then she gives him an address and a code.
He carries Jason into his bedroom and places him softly on the bed. He then starts throwing the softest clothes Jason owns into a bag, asks him if there is anything else he needs, and when Jason says no, he carries him down the stairs and towards the car he kind of sort of stole from Bruce, then makes his way to the address Barbara gave him. He doesn't trust her that much either, but he trusts her more than he trusts Bruce, so he hopes he won't get raided by Batman and Robin later in the week when they realize that Nightwing is not coming back.
The safehouse she gave them is clean, well-stocked, and easily defensible.
Dick sets him down on the floor, and it takes Jason all of 10 seconds while he takes a cursory glance around the room to find the bedroom and start building a nest. Barbara was thorough and had left them the essentials for a heat and a rut. Nest materials, water bottles, electrolytes, heat-ready meals, and... condoms. He makes his rounds to verify the security, turns on the alarms, locks all the doors and windows, checks for bugs and cameras, you never know with them, and finally he goes to the bedroom where he is immediately assaulted by Jason, who orders him to sacrifice all of his clothes to the nest, which he does.
From there, everything becomes a little blurry.
He remembers Jason inviting him inside his nest, remembers taking Jason's clothes out piece by piece, remembers running his hands on his soft, unmarred skin while he peppered kisses everywhere he could reach— he remembers the sounds Jason made when he reached his first orgasm on his mouth, and the taste of him on his tongue— he remembers a lot, actually.
He remembers prepping him with his tongue and his fingers, and remembers entering him softly, afraid to hurt him on their first time together. He particularly remembers Jason biting him hard on the shoulder and telling him to fuck him hard or get the fuck out.
To say Dick accepted the challenge would be an understatement.
He put Jason's legs on his shoulders and folded him almost in half as he fucked deep and hard into him. He did this over and over, not stopping even as Jason came and cried out from overstimulation. He did it even after his knot grew inside him, making movement difficult; he kept one hand on Jason's hips, bruising him, and the other on playing with his omega clit, keeping him in a constant state of orgasming.
He wanted it to be good for Jason, but he had little patience for much more now, with his own rut clouding his mind with need.
He lasted 3 days without biting him.
On the fourth day, they had abandoned all pretenses. There was no way Dick could finish this without claiming Jason as his, and no way Jason would forgive him if he didn't. They only had enough consciousness to still use condoms, and that was only by a miracle and by Jason's very stern affirmation that he was absolutely not giving up on college for a pregnancy.
The sweet release of hormones as he sank his fangs into Jason's tender neck was otherworldly and amazing.
The bond stabilized little by little, tying Jason and Dick together as a unit forevermore, and it was absolutely incredible. Jason's face as he orgasmed because of it would be forever engraved on his mind— his cheeks red, hair sweaty and plastered on his forehead, pupils wide and dark, chest heaving, legs trembling, and his small, tender hands sinking their pretty nails on Dicks arms as he held on for dear life.
Beautiful. Perfect.
His.
The entire beginning of their story aside, Jason was the luckiest son of a bitch around. Sure, he was extremely unlucky at the beginning, but in the end, he had gotten it all. He was continuing his education, just as his mom had wanted and he had dreamed; he had a new home that was warm and clean and safe, and he had Tal, now Dick, right next to him.
It had taken him almost six years of uncertainty and fear, but he had managed to tie down the strongest, most beautiful, and caring Alpha around as his mate.
He is only eighteen years old and has many more years left to live, but he is absolutely happy with how things have turned out.
Now, if only someone could explain to him why Bruce Wayne was trying to introduce himself to him on campus, that would be great.