Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The case Dick had been grinding on for the past few days was vile—in that special way anything involving puppy trafficking always is. He couldn't stand it when pups got hurt. The sight of hurt pups was a blow to the heart. Minors, not yet presented and with undefined dynamics. Their very vulnerability was a trigger, yanking hard on that primal wire in his brain: protect the pack.

This place reeked of fear, tears, and beneath the cheap chemical mask of air freshener, the clinging, sweet-milky scent of omega-nursed pups, soured by the bitter tang of stress-scent. His inner alpha was snarling, a constant pressure behind his ribs, demanding he tear this den apart and carry every kid to safety, now.

The warehouse on Gotham's edge was swarming with GCPD. Most pups had been evacuated—terrified, swaddled in thermal blankets, eyes glazed with trauma. Nightwing helped to coordinate the efforts, operating with full concentration and dedication, propelled by his inner anger towards the traffickers.

His part done, he was about to move out when his nose—sharp as any alpha's—caught something weird.

Not an emptiness. Not the absence of scent you get from concrete or glass. An unsettling neutrality. Like someone had cut out a chunk of air and replaced it with a sterile copy. It grated against his senses, making him falter mid-step for a second and scan the room with a wary, sweeping glance.

The source was in a far corner, behind crates of smuggled formula. A boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, skinny, in a worn-out sweater and jeans too big for him. He was squatting, knees hugged to his chest, examining a broken communicator—probably dropped by one of the traffickers—with focused, almost scientific curiosity.

He looked like any other unpresented teen, aside from the huge dark bruises under his eyes. But from him… nothing. No fear-scent, no telltale omega-milk sweetness, no alpha-aggression, no living beta hum, not even the soft, young scent of a pre-dynamic pup. The unnatural void.

Dick froze, everything inside him twisting at the wrongness of it. That wasn't possible. Everyone had a scent-profile. From birth. Even an unpresented pup gave off a soft promise of a future dynamic. This kid was like a ghost in the olfactory spectrum. A glitch.

"Hey," he called with an alpha's firmness, one that rose from his agitation. He moved closer, not looming, but making his presence known. "You okay? You should be with the medics by now."

The boy startled, looking up. Brown eyes, oddly clear for a post-raid scene, met his. No panic. But there was caution and a flicker of confusion in the depths of his eyes.

"I… I'm fine." The teen's voice was steady. "Just waiting for everyone to clear out. They've got their hands full, and I'm not hurt."

Dick deliberately softened his stance, avoiding any sudden move that could startle. He regulated his breath, careful not to draw attention to the fact he was trying to catch a scent.

His instincts were blaring. This was wrong. A result of some experiment? High-grade blockers? A sickness? The thought that this pup had been altered to be scentless made Dick's blood run cold. His inner alpha let out a low, internal growl.

"What's your name?" Dick kept his tone measured, non-threatening, not wanting to accidentally frighten someone who had already endured so much.

"Peter. Peter Parker."

"Peter, how long were you in here? Did they give you anything? Injections? Pills?"

Peter frowned, shaking his head. "No. Wrong place, wrong time. Just this morning, I tried to help a girl they were dragging off. Got bagged too. They didn't do anything to me."

He was telling the truth—Dick could read the micro-expressions. But the lack of any scent-cues, any emotional pheromones, was deeply unsettling. It left him blind in a way he hated.

"You have no scent," Dick said bluntly, his face losing its composure to show pure alpha bafflement. "That's… not how biology works. You understand that, right?"

Peter flinched back, eyes widening. Real wariness now. "What do you mean? I shower. And that's a… weirdly personal thing to say, mister…"

"Nightwing. And I'm not talking about hygiene," Dick said meaningfully, then dragged a hand down his face. Logic said to hand him to Batman, let the Cave's labs figure it out. However, something older, more possessive, stirred beneath his skin against the idea. An anomaly. Found by him. A pup with no dynamic scent was defenseless, a walking target. His find.

"Alright," Dick said, his voice dropping into those low, commanding alpha tones that brooked no argument, which he usually used to calm panicking packs. "Decision's made. You're coming with me."

"What? Where? I need to get home. To New York, I have—"

"Home is step two," Dick cut in, voice leaving no room. "You were in a trafficking den. You might be dosed with something experimental, or sick. Until we know why your pheromone signature is completely offline, you're staying in protective custody. Got it?"

He saw Peter tense all over, like a creature about to bolt. The gesture, so helpless and instinctive made Dick's inner alpha whimper in sympathy. He sighed, and the tension left his shoulders. Dick lowered himself deliberately, settling back on his haunches so their eyes could meet on the same level.

"Got it?" he repeated, his voice softening into that calming, pack-alpha rumble.

He wasn't really asking. It was already decided.

No answer came. The teen silently bored into him with his stare, making Dick feel a persistent urge to rub the back of his neck.

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Listen, Peter," Dick began, choosing his words with care. "I know this looks like a kidnapping. Sounds insane, too. Trust me, it grates on my ears as well. But I can't let you go. Not now."

He reached out a hand, palm up, as if offering something. His entire demeanor was one of patient, tender caution.

"Think of it like this," Dick continued, holding Peter's wide, distrustful gaze. "You're a doctor. And you find a patient with… no pulse. At all. But he's walking, talking, thinking. You're not gonna say, 'Oh, sorry mate, you're a unique case, off you go, good luck out there,' are you? No. You'd grab him, put him through every test, and dig until you figured it out. Because what doesn't hurt now might kill tomorrow."

He let that sink in. Peter tilted his head, seeming to shift from seeking an exit to turning the words over in his mind, analyzing them.

"The world… isn't as safe as it seems, puppy," Dick said, and the word 'puppy' held no condescension. His tone was weary, almost paternal in its certainty: you're young, you're vulnerable, you don't know the rules. "And there are people out there looking for ones like you. The strange ones. The different ones. To… study. To use. I can't let you fall into their hands. Because I found you first."

He wrapped his possessive words in layers of protection. This urge was born of a vigilante's duty; the thought of dominance never even crossed his mind, and he didn't want the kid to see it that way.

"You'll be safe with me," Dick vowed, his hand still open. "I've got a safehouse. Food. A real nest if you need it. And you can call your… your pack? In New York?" He caught the slight flinch at the mention. "Call them. Tell them you're safe, a material witness, that you're okay. But you're staying with me until we solve this."

Silence. Dick waited patiently. He would have preferred not to drag the teenager along by force, but if he refused, Dick would have to use every connection he had and do just that. He couldn’t leave him alone.

Peter's eyes darted from Dick's face to his offered hand. Emotions warred in them: fear, indignation, confusion… and finally, a deep, exhausted resignation. The adrenaline crash was hitting.

"You promise? The call?" came the quiet question.

"First thing when we're secure," Dick nodded, and the corners of his eyes crinkled—a hint of easy smile. It was disarming. As he had hoped, reassuring

Peter hesitated for another second, then, as if defeated by his own depletion and this strange mix of command and care, carefully placed his palm in Dick's offered hand. The hand was warm, strong, with rough calluses on the fingers. And still, from that contact, not the faintest scent reached Dick. 

He closed his fingers around Peter's and stood, helping Peter up.

“There we go,” he said, his satisfied, calm rumble vibrating deep from him but held in check this time. “Let’s go, puppy.”

Well, hell, Dick mused, a wry sense of irony piercing him. Look at that. Not Bruce for once—I'm the one bringing home a lost pup. Alfred will never let me hear the end of it.

Chapter Text

When Doctor Strange was forced to send him to another universe, Peter accepted it. Not with joy—with a heavy weight on his soul, tears pricking his eyes, the tightest hug of his life, a bitter farewell on his lips, and a deep, gnawing void from the loss, but he did it.

Peter left his home. For good. Permanently.

He knew there was no other choice. That his very existence was tearing a universe apart. He'd made a mess on such a scale that he was lucky—the alternative to exile was only death.

But he didn't feel particularly grateful to Gotham.

The universe welcomed him with the stale, oily air of industrial outskirts. He landed in an alleyway cluttered with dumpsters, to the piercing wail of a distant siren, hitting his back hard against the asphalt and, it seemed, landing in someone's vomit. Not the best start. Peter already wanted to go home.

But there was no place for him there anymore. In fact, there was no place for him anywhere.

Peter closed his eyes for a second, gathering strength and shoving the rising hysteria deep into his mind, before crawling out of the dead end. The city crashed down on him in all its glory. Unlike the skyscrapers of New York, these did not inspire awe with their height, but with their grim, gothic appearance—adorned with gargoyles and centuries of grime, which only made them more imposing. People moved through the streets with a peculiar, jittery purposefulness. Any semblance of a relaxed gait or a wandering eye was gone. They weren't walking—they were plotting a course, calculating risks: assessing figures on the opposite sidewalk, sudden stops from people ahead. Their gazes weren't curious; they were quick, scanning, instantly analyzing for threat or opportunity. This was a city that had learned to live on edge, where everyone expected the worst from each other.

Peter caught snatches of strange conversations with growing bewilderment. He couldn't help but notice the same mysterious terms everywhere he went. The world around him seemed obsessed with discussing "Alphas," "Omegas," and "Betas." These words were woven into an even broader, more surreal context: someone said with a serious face something about clowns on the loose, another whispered rumors about bats, and kids on a playground excitedly reported that the big lizard finally got sent back to Arkham.

Peter felt like he'd woken up in the middle of a complex movie whose plot was unknown to him. He frantically searched his memory for possible meanings: Very specific slang? Sci-fi? A new youth subculture? A massive, city-wide LARP?!

Yet, the connection between Alphas, escaped clowns, and a reptile returning to some Arkham defied all logic. It was a puzzle missing key pieces, a jumble of symbols, references, and hints only the initiated understood. And he, apparently, was not initiated. With every new phrase that reached his enhanced hearing, this wall of incomprehension, this atmosphere of a shared secret he was excluded from, became more palpable.

He needed intel. And fast. Because what he was hearing was pure insanity. His brain, trying to find logic, only offered frightening assumptions—each more absurd than the last. He should clarify everything. With facts.

Peter was determined to figure out what was going on. And the most logical and quickest source seemed to be the locals. The "ask the first person you see" plan seemed simple and foolproof.

Until he stumbled upon a scene that alone shattered all his intentions.

A man, large, with a weary and hardened face, roughly yanked a small boy by the arm.

"Stop whining, pup! Move it!" the man barked at the child.

Peter froze as if he'd hit an invisible wall. Pup? That was beyond the pale. Even for the roughest, most desperate person. That word, spat out through clenched teeth, sounded like a statement of fact. As if the child wasn't a person, but an animal, a being of a lower order whose feelings had no weight. He saw in the boy's eyes a confused obedience, as if what was happening was normal and expected.

Everything inside him tightened. He couldn't just walk by. Even in a strange world, even being a nobody, Peter Parker couldn't do that.

"Hey!" His voice sounded steadier, clearer than he felt inside. He stepped out of the shadows, and the dull light of a lone streetlamp fell on his face. "Is he okay? You don't need to yell at him like that. Or pull him."

The effect was instantaneous and frightening. The man turned toward him with his whole body, with a slow, grating reluctance. His shoulders tensed, his cheekbones stood out under his skin. His eyes, small and deep-set, ignited with pure, instinctual aggression, as if Peter hadn't just spoken to him, but had stepped on his territory, violated some sacred law.

"What's it to you, asshole?" He snorted, and his nose twitched strangely, almost animal-like, his wide nostrils flaring, taking in the air. Peter barely registered the movement—he was frantically trying to figure out how to get the child away from the aggressive adult. "Piss off. It's none of your damn business how I talk to my pup. Walk away while you're still in one piece."

The boy, hearing the raised, growling voices, looked up in fright. His gaze, with welling tears, slid over Peter—not with hope, as Peter expected, but with a wave of panic—and then he hid behind the leg of the very man who had just compared him to an animal again, clutching the rough fabric of the man's worn work pants tightly with both hands. He wasn't reaching for the stranger, not seeking rescue. He was seeking protection from the source of his pain. This irrational, from Peter's point of view, act—clinging to the aggressor—sent a wave of eerie, nauseating confusion through him.

"I just... he's a kid," Peter tried to say, feeling a deep sense of outrage.

The child didn't seem obviously beaten, but the very address, repeated, carried an cruelty. It was toxic, degrading. Even without physical violence, stripping a person of their dignity, reducing them to the level of a pup that should just obey—that was a special, disgusting kind of immorality.

The man's expression gradually changed. The anger began to melt, giving way to something deeper and more unpleasant—wary, deafening distrust. He stared at Peter intently, almost hypnotically. His gaze swept over him from head to toe, and then he sniffed the air again. Deeply, with obvious effort.

What the hell was wrong with him?

"You..." The man said the word slowly, and his voice held uncertainty bordering on nervous fear. "What are you?"

Peter blinked. "What?"

Shouldn't I be the one asking you that, man?! Between the two of us, you're the one yelling at a kid, calling him a pup, and sniffing strangers like some kind of freak.

"You're... void," the man whispered, and his eyes went wide. He took half a step back, involuntarily shielding the boy with his own body, as if Peter wasn't a young guy, but a leper. "There's... nothing from you. At all."

It was said with such panic that Peter felt goosebumps. It felt like this wasn't a metaphor. The man was talking about something concrete, tangible to him. About something Peter couldn't see, hear, or feel.

"I don't understand..." Peter began, desperately wanting to know what was going on, to make sense of this absurd situation and somehow still help the frightened child.

But the man was already turning away, his initial aggression completely replaced by a desire to get out of there as fast as possible. He grabbed the boy's hand, not as roughly now, but firmly. "Come on, come on, quick..." he muttered, throwing Peter one last, swift glance full of primal unease and rejection, before almost breaking into a run, dragging the stumbling but obediently following boy deeper into the alley.

Peter didn't pursue them. He could have, but he didn't, not when his hearing caught the man asking the boy solicitously if he was okay, soothing him until he stopped... whimpering. Whimpering like a pup that had been accidentally kicked.

They were gone, dissolving into the dirty twilight of the alley, leaving Peter in utter confusion.

Peter blinked. Once. Twice. He looked up at the sky and sighed heavily.

There was something very wrong with this universe.

Peter shelved his plan to ask anyone anything. First, he'd try to figure things out on his own.

He wandered the streets. Watched. Studied. Listened. People's gazes, sliding over him, would pause for a split second, that same incomprehensible emotion in their eyes—not curiosity, but more like a lack of understanding. They sniffed the air. Literally. Short, almost imperceptible flares of nostrils, a slight shift in expression—and then the gaze would slide away, sometimes with unease, sometimes with mild distaste, as if he were an empty space, a smudge of dirt on the sidewalk.

He began to notice the tiniest details he'd missed before. How two people, coming together to talk, would tilt their heads slightly, almost touching temples for a second—not for a kiss, but as if comparing invisible markers. How on the street, people instinctively parted for certain passersby—not because of their size or appearance, but because of something else, unseen, that made others step back, lower their eyes. Alphas, designations—these words were now gaining a sinister, tangible meaning, even if he didn't fully understand them.

He learned to avoid direct eye contact. Learned to move smoothly, without sudden gestures that might draw unwanted attention. He realized his "void" was especially noticeable in enclosed spaces—on the subway, in small stores. There, people looked longer; there, the strangers' anxiety grew into open discomfort. Once, in a half-empty subway car, a woman with a child abruptly stood up and moved to the other end, hissing something in her son's ear and throwing wary glances at Peter.

Peter got off at the very next stop, feeling scalding shame and helplessness rising in his throat. He hadn't done anything. Absolutely nothing. But the mere fact of his existence here, in this reality, was a provocation.

His shelter in the attic of an old, abandoned building had become more than just a place to sleep. It had turned into the primary spot for researching this alien world. On a scrap of peeling wallpaper, he started making notes, trying to systematize the madness:

• Alpha? — Strong, confident, others back off. Often loud voice, broad shoulders. (But not always).
•  Omega? — Quiet, try to be unnoticeable, often downcast gaze. Wear clothes that hide the neck. "Pup" — omega child???
• Beta? — The majority. Neither here nor there. But stable.
• Scent / Signal — SOMETHING I can't sense. They can. It defines EVERYTHING.
• Me — "Void." An anomaly. Dangerous? Frightening?

He looked at these scribbles in the light of a kerosene lamp (he was afraid to tap into the electricity, not wanting to give himself away) and understood how futile it all was. It was like studying color theory while being blind from birth. He could write down the words, but he would never grasp the essence—the hue behind them.

Every line in his improvised diary was paid for with bitter experience. The humiliating recoil on the subway. The vicious hiss of "Get lost, void!" from a street vendor when Peter got too close to his stall. The closed-off, suspicious silence in a cheap diner, where all the other patrons were quietly conversing, and he sat at his table like a mute, eavesdropping on their talks.

He had developed a tactic. When he heard an unfamiliar term, he played the complete ignoramus. He’d put on a confused face, shrug, mutter something like: "I'm new here, not up on your local stuff."

It caused irritation, sometimes contempt, but less often—the panicked fear that his otherness had provoked. Occasionally, very rarely, someone would condescendingly toss him a scrap of information: "Relax, he's a stable Beta, he's fine," or "You don't let a pup out on days like this, what's wrong with you?" Peter would greedily soak up these crumbs like a man dying of thirst, not even fully understanding what they meant.

But the information coming in was catastrophically little. People didn't like explaining the obvious. For them, it was the world's alphabet, something you don't explain—you feel it from birth. His questions were akin to asking "why is the sky blue?" or "how do you describe the sensation of pain?" They baffled people. And the more he tried to understand, the more alien he felt.

Sometimes, in the quietest, pre-dawn hours of the night, when Gotham grew still, turning into a semblance of a slumbering beast, his thoughts returned to the other Peters. He pictured Peter-Two, walking through the rain-slicked streets of his own New York. Or Peter-Three, swinging on webs between buildings.

They had met at a point of crisis, when the very laws of reality were crumbling. Every second counted. They exchanged quick truths about themselves—"I lost my mentor," "I lost the one I loved." They shared tactics, laughter through tears, a shoulder to lean on in battle. They had no time for comparative sociology or interdimensional biology. "So, how's the scent thing work in your world?"—that question would have been absurd against the backdrop of a Statue of Liberty and a universal threat of oblivion.

Hypothetically, their universes could run on pack systems, hierarchies, alphas and omegas—so what? That knowledge changed nothing. It wouldn't throw a lifeline between worlds. It wouldn't bring him back.

They were home.

And he was in Gotham.

Peter looked at his palms, capable of sticking to walls and holding up multi-ton structures. That was real. That was his. His strength, his responsibility—they transcended universal boundaries. Something no one could take from him.

Alongside his investigations, Peter learned something else. Bats. It wasn't just one man. It was a system. An entire system of justice trying to help Gotham become a better place than it was.

Batman was its core. He was spoken of as an elusive specter of the night, a scent impossible to forget and impossible to describe consistently. One moment he could smell of tomb-cold and wet earth, the next—of smoke, gasoline, and something coppery, like blood. His scent was a part of the terror, one of the reasons many feared him, even knowing that he was only a threat to criminals. More importantly, he was the leader.

Yet there were others. Those spoken of less often, more disjointedly. Robin, Batgirl, Oracle, Nightwing, Red Hood...

Lately, he'd been thinking about them a lot. Thinking about what they did, and what he did. And more and more, his thoughts turned not to how they could help him, but to how he could be useful to them.

His "void" was not just a curse. In a world where everyone wore an invisible tag, he was the only one who could become truly undetectable. And that opened unique possibilities.

He could operate unseen in a world that relied on scent, becoming an unseen ally where their own methods reached a limit. A quiet solution where they were a visible force. But to offer this help, he needed to establish contact.

Not by reaching out with pleas. No. He would observe one of them—perhaps Nightwing, whose methods seemed more flexible—during a mission. And intervene at a crucial moment, quietly and efficiently. He would infiltrate. He would prove he was capable. That he was useful.

With a sharp movement, Peter extinguished the lamp. In the complete darkness, to the steady rhythm of rain on the roof, he felt, for the first time in a long while, like more than a mistake. He had made a decision.

He couldn't change his nature in this world. He couldn't start scenting—he'd tried, but apparently pheromones operated on a level beyond the physical; no matter how much he sprayed himself, no matter how he reeked of city grime, to others he was still an void—but he could act. He could observe, deduce, intervene. He could become something that simply didn't exist in this world of scents and hierarchies: a completely free agent. Not an Alpha, not an Omega, not a Beta. Just the Spider.

He was going to become a hero in a world that refused to even recognize him as a person. He had to build an identity, a reputation, a purpose—not based on what he was (because "void" was not an identity), but based on what he did. His webs, his strength, his choices—that's what would have to speak for him, in place of the missing scent. 

Soon, Gotham would meet Spider-Man. Soon. Just a little longer now.

Chapter Text

The car peeled off from Gotham’s noisy main arteries into a labyrinth of tranquil, but no less grim, neighborhoods. Dick drove on pure habit, the route etched into muscle memory from all the years he had been coming here. This safehouse was one of the most secure—armored, camouflaged, belonging to Jason Todd.

The thought of the Cave, of course, flickered through his mind—the resources, the isolation, the means to help and vet Peter properly. But he shoved it away instantly. It was impossible. He wouldn’t bring an outsider into the heart of their operations.

The Batcave wasn't a place where anyone could get into; it was the command center, the archive, the sanctum, and their single greatest point of vulnerability. Dragging a stranger there, one with murky motives and history, even if that stranger was a lost, wrong-feeling pup—that would be the height of recklessness and a betrayal of Bruce’s trust. No, even as Nightwing, he wouldn’t cross that line.

He hadn’t lost all his damn sense.

There was only one place left to go, equally risky but for different reasons: one of Jason's safehouses.

The thought of leading the pup to the den of his most volatile brother churned inside Dick. But this close to the nest, in Gotham, there was no other choice. Jason's potential displeasure took a back seat to security. The Jaybird, his instincts honed in the Laser Pit, always prioritized the integrity of the safehouse above all else. If not for himself, then for the stray street pups he occasionally brought in, trying to find them something better.

Besides, Jason had a razor-sharp nose for danger and deceit. He might catch what Dick’s own worried instincts had missed.

Peter had been silent the whole ride. He wasn’t sleeping; instead, he was observing—eyes darting, noting turns, landmarks. Plotting his way back, Dick realized. Smart. Cautious. More cause for concern.

They stopped at a nondescript building. Dick punched in a code swiftly, and a heavy steel door slid aside silently, admitting them into a spacious garage housing a tricked-out motorcycle. The air smelled of oil, metal, the faint but distinct scent of gunpowder, the almost-faded traces of pups and Jason himself. A rough, spicy alpha scent, mixed with smoke and old leather.

“Welcome to our temporary safehouse,” Dick said, killing the engine. His own scent, which he usually carefully restrained, asserted itself more insistently in the enclosed space—alpha, pack, safety, territory. An unconscious attempt to fill the unnerving void radiating from the passenger. “It has everything you need.”

He led Peter through another key-coded door into a living area. It was a spacious loft: kitchen-diner, a couch, shelves of books, a door that, as he remembered, led to a bedroom and a bath. The style was utilitarian, not quite homey, slightly derelict but comfortable. A worn blanket was tossed over one arm of the couch; a battered piece of fiction was wedged between more serious volumes on a shelf. Signs of habitation. Signs of Jason.

"Phone's there," Dick nodded toward a flip-phone placed conspicuously on the kitchen counter. Brand new, shiny, with a little antenna—standard, traceable, old-school—part of Jason’s standard kit for situations that required a controlled trace. It was a decoy, left in plain sight for precisely this reason: if anyone came looking for information, their eyes would be drawn straight to it. A neat, shiny solution to occupy curious eyes and buy time.

If Peter called, the signal could be caught.

The corner of Dick’s mouth twitched in a near-smile. No matter how much Jason denied it, he had still inherited Bruce's paranoia, albeit not in such a comprehensive form. It wasn't a flaw; it even played into his hands. He couldn't afford to let his guard down. After all, he was—and remained—a crime lord.

"Make your calls. I'll rustle up some food."

Dick pretended to study the fridge’s contents, but his entire being was laser-focused on Peter. The teen picked up the phone, flicked it open. His fingers hovered over the keys for a second. Then he dialed, fast.

Dick listened. Not to the words—he’d hear those—but to the pauses. To the breath.

Ring… ring… ring… 

Long, drawn-out tones, sounding like a dirge. Peter’s grip on the phone turned his knuckles white.

“Aunt May?” His voice hitched, going higher, younger. “Hey, it’s me, Peter. I’m… I’m okay. Got into a bit of a… situation. In Gotham. I’m safe, I’m secure. Please, call me back as soon as…”

He trailed off, listening to something on the other end. Dick stopped pretending to rummage. He turned, leaning against the counter.

Peter’s arm snapped down, the flip-phone clenched in his fist. The call hadn’t been ended by him. Either it wasn’t picked up, or… The line was dead.

Peter’s face went stony. He dialed another number, faster, almost desperate. Another. And another. Each time—the same story. Voicemail, disconnected, endless ringing. Nothing. With each failure, his posture stiffened further, his eyes growing emptier.

Finally, he tried a short, clearly professional number.

“Nick…,” he whispered, turning his face to the wall. “It’s Peter. I need a… consult. Please… call me back.” His mouth opened as if to add something, but the words died unspoken. With a silent sigh, he hung up and remained there, motionless, forehead pressed to the cool wall.

Dick couldn’t ignore it anymore. He moved closer, quiet.

“Peter,” he called softly.

The boy flinched and straightened, scrubbing the emotion from his face instantly. But too late. Dick had seen the cracks.

“No answer?” Dick asked, though the answer was obvious.

“They’re… busy. Everyone,” Peter muttered, hollow. He wasn’t looking at Dick. “It happens.”

“It happens,” Dick repeated slowly. He shifted into interrogation mode. Gentle, but inexorable. “Peter. I need to understand. For your own safety. Do you have family? In New York?”

“An aunt,” Peter bit out. “May Parker.”

“Other relatives? Friends who’d definitely be worried? This… Nick?”

“A friend. Work friend,” even shorter. “He travels. A lot.”

“Work?” Dick arched a brow. “You’re what, sixteen? What work?”

Peter finally looked at him. Defiance flashed across his eyes.

“Freelance. Photography. Tech support. Stuff like that.”

Vague. Too damn vague. ‘Freelance’ for a teen who was just snatched by puppy traders? His intuition told him there was more to this than Peter was letting on. Something wasn't right. Dick wasn’t buying it.

“And this work… does it explain why you were targeted? Or why you don’t have a scent?”

Peter looked away. “No. That was random. Wrong place, wrong time. The scent… I don’t know. I’ve always been like this.”

Lie, Dick felt it almost physically. Incomplete, evasive truth. His inner alpha growled low and quiet. The pup is lying. The pup is in danger and lying to the one trying to help.

“Peter,” Dick’s voice dropped, saturated with alpha authority but without aggression. It was the voice he used to lead the team, expecting compliance and banking on trust. “Listen to me. You’re in Gotham. You just survived a kidnapping. You can’t reach a single soul you know. And you’re… a biological anomaly. I want to help you. But to do that, I need the truth. The whole truth. What happened in New York? Why are you really here?”

Silence hung. Peter pressed his lips together. His gaze darted, seeking an exit, a solution. Dick could see options flashing behind his eyes, being discarded one by one.

“I… can’t,” Peter finally exhaled. The voice was fractured, but filled with impossible stubbornness. “Explain. It’s… complicated. And more dangerous if you know.”

That answer was chilling. More dangerous if you know.

A chill ran down Dick's spine. This wasn't just a lost pup. This was a pup running from something so vast he'd sooner trust a strange alpha in the world's most dangerous city than risk revealing the truth.

He stepped closer, closing the distance. His scent, thick and commanding, should have drawn a reaction—submission, protest, something. But from Peter, still, there was nothing. The stubborn, silent wall.

"Okay," Dick said quietly, stepping back. He understood: force or pressure would get him nowhere here. "Okay. If you can't talk, don't talk. But know this: while you're under my protection, whatever danger you're running from—it's my problem now, too. And I handle problems."

He turned back to the kitchen. "Right now, you're going to eat and rest. Room's over there. Door doesn't lock. And if you try to run tonight—" he turned, a flash of steel in his eyes, "—I'll find you. That I can promise you."

He saw something flicker in Peter's eyes—Confusion? Vulnerability? Wariness?—and vanish just as fast.

Dick pulled a packet of fresh pasta from the fridge. His hands moved on autopilot, but his mind was racing. Peter Parker. New York. Danger you can't speak of. No scent. Can't reach family.

The pieces didn't fit. They painted a picture that made his blood run cold. A picture where his strange, new pup wasn't just a victim, but a threat. Someone who'd brought his own storm with him.

And Dick, the alpha who'd given his word to protect, watched the hunched silhouette, a cold resolve washing over him—the kind born from a dawning certainty about his next move. 

He would crack this secret.

After dinner, when Peter finally yielded to the silent pressure of exhaustion and retreated to the assigned room (Dick left the door cracked just enough to catch the slightest sound), Dick waited thirty long, mute minutes. Then he moved to the far corner of the living room, where a heavy bookshelf hid a wall-embedded, encrypted communicator.

He patched in not to the general Bat-channels, but to a private, secured line he shared with Tim. A line for matters requiring discretion and an absence of extra eyes—especially Bruce's.

Tim's voice answered on the second ring, clear and alert despite the late hour. "Hood? Miss my sparkling company already? Or is it another hacking problem that requires my genius touch?"

"Not quite him, little bird, but both," Dick chuckled softly, his gaze flicking toward the cracked door. "I need a background check. Deep, quiet, and urgent."

All the playfulness instantly bled from Tim's tone. "I'm all ears."

"Got a teenager. Peter Parker, claims he's from New York. Rescued from an exposed puppy trafficking network. Looks seventeen, max. But there are… anomalies."

"Such as?" Tim was probably already pulling up a dozen screens.

"One, he has no scent. At all. Zilch. A void. Biologically impossible."

A short silence on the other end. "Implants? Mutation?"

"Don't know. Two, he can't reach his pack. Anyone. All numbers are voicemail or dead ends. Says his aunt is May Parker, New York. A friend named Nick. Freelance photographer. It all sounds… too clean and wrong at the same time. He's evasive, says the truth is dangerous."

"Sounds paranoid. And highly suspicious," Tim muttered. Dick could hear the rapid-fire typing.

"Three," Dick lowered his voice, "I have samples. Hair from his sweater, a fingerprint off the phone, saliva from the glass he drank from."

"Good. I can run it as soon as I get it. What am I looking for?"

"Everything. Cross-reference DNA with open databases—missing persons, criminal, medical. Focus on New York. And…" Dick hesitated. "Check the databases for… unusual activity. Meta-human. Possibly even… S.H.I.E.L.D. Incidentals."

Tim let out a low whistle. "You think he might be… theirs? Or running from them?"

"I think a pup with no scent, who's so afraid of his own shadow he won't call the cops, isn't just a victim. He could be a witness. Or an asset. Or something worse. I need certainty, Red. Who he really is. And who we're hiding him from."

"Copy that. Send the samples. Already running preliminary name and description scans. A photo would be clutch, if you can get one. But…" Tim's voice turned cautious. "If he's tied to something that big, there might already be a trail. Not just ours. By taking him in, you're adopting his… baggage. Taking on his target."

"I know," Dick sighed. "That's why I'm calling you, and not raising the alarm on all channels. He's my problem for now. My foundling."

He heard the stubborn possessiveness in his own voice—and Tim, of course, caught it too.

"Your inner alpha already claimed him, huh?" Tim asked, without judgment, a thread of weary teasing in his tone.

"He's scentless, Tim. You know scent is everything—emotion, intent, warning… But he's deaf-blind-mute to it all. He's utterly defenseless in that way. He doesn't get the signals, doesn't react to pheromones, and hasn't shown a single genuine instinct—not even a whimper during the raid on those damn puppy traffickers, you get it? It's so profoundly wrong it's driving me up the wall. And he's here. So he's my responsibility."

"Alright, Big Bird. Message received, your alpha-protect-o-meter is pegged on this weird pup. Kinda reminds me of when the baby Bat first showed up, doesn't it?" came a long-suffering sigh. "I'm on it. Give me a few hours. And be careful, Nightwing. If he's hiding something… he might be as dangerous as whatever's chasing him."

"I know. Eyes wide open."

Dick hastily ended the call. Tim's comment about the "baby Bat" stuck in his brain like a splinter.

He shouldn't draw parallels. Every case is unique. Every story its own.

But it was pointless to deny the obvious. The same hunted, animal fear deep in the eyes. The same closed-off posture, as if the person had curled into a ball inside themselves. The same shadow at their back, impossible to shake. Abandonment. Abandoned by those who should have protected them.

Dick ran a hand over his face, wiping away the fatigue. His gaze fell on a box of tea on the kitchen shelf. A gift for Jason. From Damian. The memory surfaced clearly: "So that you may learn to occasionally relax, Todd," the kid had grunted, shoving the box at Jason and immediately turning away as if he'd done something shameful. The look on Jason's face had been priceless; Dick still regretted not snapping a photo when he had the chance.

Need to visit soon, the thought surfaced. Haven't seen Dami in a while.

He pushed himself up sharply, shoving the sentimentality aside. Not the time. Right now, in his living room lay another kid who didn't have the League of Shadows in his past (at least, Dick hoped not).

Just him, Dick Grayson, against an unknown threat.

Dick stood for another moment, listening to the apartment's silence. From the room, he could hear steady, almost soundless breathing. Even too steady for someone sleeping after that much stress. Maybe Peter was just lying there in the dark with his eyes open, thinking his secret thoughts.

He paused in the doorway, looking at the sliver of light from Peter's room. His inner alpha, agitated and alert, issued a low, continuous rumble. Mine. Danger. Protect.

The simple desire to help a lost teenager had sharpened into the urgent need to piece together the full story of Parker. Not for the sake of knowledge itself. To understand every jagged piece of his past was to know where the next attack might come from.

Dick was determined to stand in its path. For Peter, who he wanted to believe was more like a scared kid than a threat. For the fragile trust beginning to root in this damaged, quiet pup. And for the safety of all those in his care.

After all, secrets in Gotham had a habit of exploding, drenching everyone nearby in blood. Dick needed to know what kind of bomb he'd just brought into his brother's house.

Moving stealthily to the garage, he knew the samples had to reach Tim urgently.

The Case of Peter Parker was officially open.

Chapter Text

Peter freezes, listening to the sounds of the house. The door closed behind Nightwing a few minutes ago with the distinctive click of the lock, leaving him alone with himself and his thoughts.

He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, and every word from the conversation between the hero in the black-and-blue suit and Red Robin, Tim, plays in his head like a scratched record.

No scent. An anomaly. Background check. DNA. S.H.I.E.L.D.

He heard it. Heard the cold, professional tone that shifted into alpha-possessive notes. "My foundling." Those words sent shivers of embarrassment and furious, helpless protest down his skin. He’s not a pup. He’s not anyone’s property. He’s Peter Parker. And his universe—the universe that holds Aunt May's body, MJ, Ned, Tony’s grave, Uncle Ben's grave, school, memories, home—rejected him, dumped him here, in this grim city, under the watch of some alpha in spandex.

His actions were driven by a desire to get closer to Nightwing. However, Nightwing himself was never the true destination. He was just a means to an end—the safest and most practical option on the way to achieving his real goal. Peter didn’t have a detailed plan, but from what he’d heard, this city’s vigilantes would probably accept a weird civilian without a scent better than a new player in their territory with the same defect.

From the moment he heard Batman’s scent was described differently, that it changes, he realized this might be his chance to fill his own void. Maybe the man in the bat suit has the solution to his problem.

Peter Parker needed Batman’s resources. Not Nightwing’s. Peter hadn’t heard anything weird about Nightwing’s scent, though people in Gotham talk about him a lot. Even too much, considering this isn't his main patrol city.

They whisper that he vanishes from sight, even if you don't take your eyes off him, only to appear behind you a moment later with a smug smile and his signature escrima sticks raised. That he calculates every brawl ten moves ahead, like a chess game. He disrupts the plans of gang syndicates, always being in the right place at the right time, and takes down his enemies without even breaking a sweat. They say he fights as if he's performing a routine, his fluid movements mesmerizing even the villains during the battle.

But there are other kinds of comments too—about the guy’s ass, about what a perfect alpha he is and how lucky his omega must be—that make his ears burn and never let his eyes drop below Nightwing’s belt under any circumstances.

God, if he started blushing in front of Nightwing, how would he even explain that? He’s not the creep here; it’s all those people talking so openly about their fantasies! Loudly and often.

But nothing strange about his scent.

So yeah, from the rumors, it’s just Batman. Probably.

Peter doesn’t want to actually smell like anything, not like alphas, omegas, or even betas, but to have the element of surprise, to fully blend into the environment, he needs to dampen his glaring void. If there’s a way to mask a scent, there must be a way to mask the lack of one, right?

He needed to get his hands on Batman’s scent formula—modify it, turn it upside down, and desperately hope it works even with his different biology. He doesn’t understand how this world works, can’t even begin to guess what components he’d need. He had to start with something that already works. And it works for the Bat.

Until he finds that solution, he’ll operate quietly, as two different people. What Spider does has nothing to do with Peter Parker. And what the Man, the scentless civilian, does has no connection to the new nocturnal hero.

That was the plan.

Honestly, Peter was desperately hoping they’d take him to the legendary Cave. Start an examination, get anomalous results, and he’d find the data he needs in the chaos and disappear while they puzzle over the analyses. After all, they’re just people in costumes, and he’s a mutant. He’s a priori stronger. Escaping shouldn’t be a problem.

But bats didn’t take Peter to the Cave. Nightwing stashed him in Red Hood’s safehouse.

His fingers clutch the edge of the blanket convulsively. Common sense screams: Run. Now. Before they find anything in their databases. Before S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up at the door. Your plan failed; they’ll get results faster than you can.

But where to? Back to his half-destroyed hideout in the worst part of Gotham? When it gets colder every day and the risk of hibernation grows higher? Rely again on the kindness and pity of locals who decided to feed a defective street "pup," and on the worst days be forced to steal? The city is alien. He has no one here. He is trapped.

But for some reason, here, next to Nightwing, from the very moment they met in that stinking warehouse, Peter's spider-sense has been acting strange.

It never goes completely silent—it never does—but the sharp, warning needles that usually dig into his skin at any potential threat have dulled. They don't prick his back, warning him of the alpha standing right in front of him. Instead, they vibrate softly, as if recognizing in Nightwing not a source of danger, but protection from it.

It’s confusing, almost deceitful. Almost comforting.

And Peter, giving in to weakness, to that feeling and his own longing, knowing the outcome in advance, calls anyway. Everyone he ever cared for in his life before he ruined it all. Because deep down, beneath all the layers of logic and despair, a tiny, idiotic corner of hope still glows. What if? What if they hear?

The miracle doesn’t happen. He burns the last bridge. And something inside him finally shatters.

When Nightwing's footsteps fade behind the heavy door, when the lock clicks sound like a final verdict on his temporary confinement, the familiar, soul-chilling warning hum returns. Insistent, growing somewhere deep in his skull and resonating through his body.

It warns him: walls are solid, doors are locked, windows have more than just an alarm—something more serious, an active energy defense system. A direct escape now is suicide.

Maybe he should try anyway. Use his wits, plan an exit, or at least examine his new residence—prison—more carefully while he has the chance.

But honestly? Right now, he really doesn’t care. Peter is tired. And he misses home so much.

He clenches his fists and closes his eyes, resigning himself to the inevitable. Waiting for Red Robin to find in his databases what isn't and couldn’t be there. Waiting for their suspicions to turn into certainty.

Peter doesn’t notice sleep creeping up on him—like black, viscous tar swallowing his consciousness. But even in this oblivion, his nerves remain taut. And when in the drowsy haze a spasm of anxiety is born and grows in strength, he surfaces sharply, painfully, forcing his eyes to fly open in the dark; his heart to pound wildly in his chest.

Danger.

Suffocating panic rises in his throat. Suddenly, he’s overwhelmed by the urge to move. Barely thinking right after such a sharp awakening, his gaze slides over the window handle (locked, alarmed), the ventilation grate (too small, even for him in his current state), the door.

Peter forces himself to freeze and listen.

An almost inaudible click of a complex electronic lock disengaging on the entrance to the garage. Then—heavy, confident footsteps on concrete. Not Nightwing. Too authoritative, too massive, not graceful or light, not like someone who’s done acrobatics for years.

Now. Need to move now.

Peter bolts from the spot but hesitates, his heart pounding wildly in his temples. His thoughts leap from one to another, driven by instinct on one side and common sense on the other. Precious seconds, lost in deliberation, have cost him his only chance.

The door from the garage to the loft swings open with a crash, as if kicked in. A stranger stands in the doorway. Tall, powerful, in a worn leather jacket, the red helmet on his head glinting faintly in the dim light.

Red Hood.

He stops in the doorway, his visor motionlessly fixed on Peter, frozen in the bedroom doorway. No words, no movement. Only silent, oppressive scrutiny.

Spider-sense roars, finally gaining clear direction. Danger. Aggression. Hidden threat. Needles dig into the skin of his back and shoulders. Peter straightens almost imperceptibly, but his gaze doesn’t drop. He meets the invisible eyes behind the red visor.

"Nightwing’s gone out," the voice from under the helmet is distorted by a modulator, devoid of all inflection. A statement of fact. A test.

Peter nodded shortly, not to seem frightened, confirming.

Hood steps inside, letting the door close behind him with a thud. He doesn’t approach but starts slowly circling the apartment’s perimeter, as if inspecting his property or checking a trap’s integrity, never once turning his back. His movement is fluid, predatory.

"You shouldn’t have stayed here alone," he says. There’s no care in it. It’s a straight-up warning, or maybe even a threat.

"I had nowhere else to go," Peter replies. To his own surprise, his voice doesn't tremble. 

"There’s always somewhere," Hood counters, stopping opposite him, on the other side of the doorway. "Especially for ones like you. Ghosts. Ghosts bring trouble."

Peter doesn’t answer. He stands there, gripping the doorframe so hard his knuckles turn white. His gaze is intent studying Red Hood as if trying to see the man under the mask, assess the threat level, find a weak spot. Weighing his next move.

"Not even a protest?"

Hood takes a step forward. Just one. But the space between them suddenly shrinks, filling with unspoken tension. Peter’s spider-sense thrashes in panic, but his mind analyzes: weight on the right foot, left hand slightly pulled back toward the belt, where a weapon probably is.

"I don’t want trouble," Peter says, slowly retreating half a step, maintaining distance.

"Too late. You’re already here," Hood exhales—the taut, threadbare sound of composure at its absolute limit, ready to tear. "And now I want to know who walked into my house. For real."

At that moment, somewhere on the roof, there’s a muffled thud, then a furious, swift sound of something cutting through the air. Something heavy and fast slams into the outer wall near the window. It all happens in a fraction of a second.

The window doesn’t shatter—the armored glass just groans dully, holding the impact. But a moment later, the garage door Red Hood just closed crashes open again.

In the doorway, shrouded in clouds of night chill and fury, stands Nightwing. He flies inside like a hurricane. His gaze, bright and fierce behind the mask, instantly finds Hood advancing on Peter, and Peter, who flinched back toward the far wall at the noise.

"Hood, back off!" Nightwing’s snarl is unlike anything Peter’s heard from him before. Laced with rage and worry, his spider-part helpfully supplies. It gives Peter full-body chills.

Red Hood doesn’t even flinch. He turns his head slowly, exaggeratedly calmly, toward the snarling Nightwing. "Late to the party, buddy. We were just having a chat."

Nightwing isn’t listening. He’s already there, placing himself between Hood and Peter, his shoulders tense, fists clenched. "I tracked your stench halfway across the district. What did you do?"

"I did what any reasonable person would do first," Hood retorts coldly. "Asked questions. Assessed."

Nightwing throws a quick glance at Peter, checking if he’s okay, and his gaze softens for a split second seeing only wariness, not panic. Then he focuses on Hood again.

"And so you decided to interrogate him when I was gone? One on one?"

"Someone has to ask the right questions! While you’re happily losing your mind to pre-rut hormones and trying to copy Batman’s stray-collecting shtick!"

Nightwing, already stretched to the limit, falls into a defensive stance. "It’s not like that! I can explain…"

"Explain?" Hood takes a sharp step forward, ignoring Nightwing’s cautious posture. His gaze, invisible but felt as physical pressure, slides over Peter’s figure. "Explain why you brought a walking target, already being whispered about on the streets, into my safehouse, my home?"

A visible shiver runs down Nightwing's spine, momentarily cutting through his fury. "What are you talking about?"

"About the ‘Void’," Hood hisses. The word doused Peter like a bucket of cold water. Of course they knew. "A scentless pup. An anomaly. Prey for collectors, for freaks like Scarecrow or worse. There’s already a bounty on him, Nightwing. Unofficial. And people are starting to sniff around. And you… you, fuck, bring him right to my den! No warning! No asking!"

He slams a gauntleted fist against the wall, making Peter jump at the unexpectedly loud sound. "I’ve got systems here! Weapons! Intel! Did you think for one second he might not be what he seems? That his ‘lost puppy’ act is just that—an act? That he’s a Trojan horse someone slipped you to get to us?"

Nightwing tries to object, but Hood is relentless. His anger is comprehensible, and therefore even more terrifying.

"I was already tracking him myself before Red contacted me," Hood continues, his voice dropping into a dangerous snarl. "Wanted to find him first, figure out what the hell is going on, and either help or eliminate the threat. And you, unable to stifle your alpha-nanny instincts, made the call before you even had the facts! Herded the wolf cub into the most fortified den without thinking he might be rabid!"

Nightwing answers with a snarl of his own, his teeth bared in a matching threat. The sight registers through the static filling Peter's mind with a strange, academic clarity: elongated canines, both upper and lower. A detached part of him files the observation away.

But despite the snarl, Nightwing’s posture holds more than just anger. There’s guilt. And fear. Fear that Hood is right. That his protection has only drawn more attention.

Peter watches them, pressed against the wall. The hum in his head now comes from both alphas, their conflict charging the air with something unexplainable.

Yet, strangely, Nightwing’s fury directed at protection, again blunts the sharpest needles of his sense, forcibly calming it.

"You had no right to intimidate him, Jason!" Nightwing grinds out, his face twisted with anger. "He’s already scared half to death! He can’t reach his family, something’s wrong with him, and you jump him like…"

"Like a threat? Yes, I do!" Red Hood cuts him off, his modulated voice slicing the air. "Because while you see a scared pup, I see a blind spot! A walking vulnerability that’ll act like a magnet for every piece of filth to this doorstep! You were thinking about his safety, I’m thinking about everyone’s! Including you, oh brilliant one, who can’t even stick to code names, you dumbass!"

"I can handle it! I always handle it!"

"Oh, yeah, sure! Like you handled it when B vanished? By screwing up and giving in to the animal side?!"

Peter listens to this argument, growing increasingly uncomfortable. He needs to stop this. Needs to break this vicious cycle where they’re just escalating.

An idea surfaces in his mind, vague and prompted by observations of the pups in that very warehouse Nightwing took him from. Scared pups… they whimper. They make a thin, plaintive sound that cuts through the growling and stops fights, shifting attention to protecting the weakest. It seems to be the usual thing for everyone here. It would've been only natural for him to act that way, right?

Just need to make a sound, Peter thinks, desperately clinging to this possibility. A quiet, plaintive whimper. It’ll calm them. It’ll interrupt the fight. He could at least try.

Peter closes his eyes, trying to summon that sound—high, trembling, full of submission and plea. He swallows, opens his mouth, and… tries.

But what escapes his throat isn’t a whimper.

It’s a strange, choked sound. A hybrid of a short exhale, a raspy gasp, and the faint, grating creak of an unoiled hinge.

The growling and yelling cut off, as if sliced by a knife.

Hood and Nightwing freeze, turning their heads toward Peter simultaneously. Nightwing’s face is frozen in an expression of shock and deep concern. He seems to be searching for words, frowning worriedly and biting his lower lip.

Red Hood takes a barely perceptible step back. His aggressive posture wavers for a moment, replaced by pure, silent astonishment. His visor fixed on Peter as if he'd just grown a second head.

Absolute silence descends upon the loft. Even the hum of electricity seems muffled.

Peter stands there, feeling the heat of shame and horror flood his cheeks. He doesn’t know their rules on an instinctive level. His attempt to fit in clearly backfired. Maybe he even accidentally insulted them.

At least they’ve stopped fighting.

Nightwing is the first to break the silence. He draws in a sharp breath through his nose, and when he speaks, his voice is hushed, almost soundless, filled with genuine confusion. "Peter… what was that?"

Peter can’t answer. He just curls in on himself, dropping his head, wishing to vanish.

Hood snorts. A sharp, abrupt sound from under the helmet, more like a short hiss of released steam than an expression of emotion.

"See?" His modulated voice sounds completely indifferent after that eerie snort. "He can’t even whimper right."

"Stop it!" Nightwing growls. He looks at Peter, and horror and pity war in his eyes before he turns away, running a hand over his face. "What do you want me to do? Throw him out on the street?"

A sickening sense of emptiness yawns beneath Peter, a chasm only he can feel. There's a special kind of hurt when the one who offered you shelter is also the first to suggest casting you out.

"I want you to use your head, not your instincts!" Red Hood explodes. "Fine, you took him in. Suppose. But now we do this my way. He is a potential threat. Access to intel, weapons, our protocols—locked down. We don’t eat or drink anything he’s had access to. We vet his story not through your rosy ‘poor pup’ filter, but through cold logic. And if Red finds even the slightest hint of a lie, ties to hostiles, or, hell, even a hint of powers we haven’t seen… he goes to the cells of the Cave. Or further. Non-negotiable."

"And if he doesn’t? If he’s just… a lost guy with a genetic glitch?"

"Then," Hood lets out a heavy breath, "then we figure it out. But for now—he’s a hostile agent until proven otherwise. Under my roof. Got it?"

Nightwing stares at Jason, at his impenetrable red helmet, for a long time with an intense, weighing look.

"Got it," Nightwing finally nods, his voice full of weary resignation. "Your rules. Your territory."

He doesn’t add "for now." Those words hang in the air between them anyway, unspoken but obvious. Until Peter proves otherwise. Until the storm hits. Until Nightwing decides Jason’s rules have stopped working.

A single, sharp nod from Red Hood, and his gaze drops to Peter again. All that could be said—has been said. Actions will decide the rest. And the intel Red is about to send.

"Good," Hood turns back toward the door. "Make sure he doesn’t try to phase through the walls or poison the water supply. I’ve got things to finish. And, Big Bird…"

Nightwing tenses his jaw.

"...If I’m right, and this is all a trap… I’ll have to choose between you and the threat. You know what I’ll choose."

The threat hangs in the air, tangible and real. Nightwing doesn’t reply.

The sense of danger begins to gradually fade.

This isn’t acceptance. But it isn’t rejection either.

It’s a truce. Shaky, fragile, full of distrust and questions, but a truce. And for a start, it’s enough.

Chapter Text

Damian knew something was happening.

Not just suspected—he knew, with that stone-cold, doubt-free certainty the League of Shadows had drilled into him. The air was thick with tension, carefully hidden but unmistakable to anyone trained to read the silence between words.

A sense of secrecy lingered, making even his pets go quiet, padding around the house and glancing about curiously. Something that involved all the other wards of his Father. Even Todd, who usually preferred to work alone, was tangled up in this veil of conspiracy.

A conspiracy he was being deliberately kept from.

Damian could be sure of one thing: this wasn't Batman's order. It had been eleven days since he'd left Gotham on a mission, the details of which wouldn't be shared until it was over—not unusual, but speaking to its urgency and importance—reachable only through official League channels for emergencies.

So whatever this is… it’s a local matter, Damian realized with a touch of relief. Not Father’s punishment.

That made the heavy silence both better and worse.

It started with Drake.

He had barely left the Cave for days, buried so deep in the monitors he seemed physically fused to the keyboard. Damian had witnessed his obsessive investigation fits before, but this one felt different. Not just investigative drive. More personal, almost feverish.

Father had an eighteen-hour screen-time limit for him, after which he had to take a break to rest and sleep—unless the situation was critical, near world-ending, when ignoring the rule was acceptable. Originally, Father had pushed for fewer hours, but Drake had flat-out refused, and they’d eventually compromised.

Right now, with Father gone, that limit was clearly being broken.

Damian hadn't seen this kind of drive since Con-El’s death—the version Drake had been inseparable from, like two parts of one machine, neither able to exist without the other. That loss hadn't broken him, but it had changed him, sharpening him into something wild, relentless. He’d been like a wolf in mourning—flawless in precision, terrifying in his ruthless focus.

It had taken time for Drake to come back from that, for Red Robin to stop being associated with excessive—justified, but brutal—force.

To the whole flock’s relief, he had managed to climb out of that pit.

And now that same fire was burning in his eyes again. That unmistakable glint of obsession, when the universe narrows to one goal, one task, and everything else—sleep, food, even basic hygiene—gets tossed aside as useless ballast.

Damian had good reason to worry that this new fixation of Timothy’s was a prelude to a disaster on the same scale.

He found him right where he expected: in the Cave, at the main console computer. Drake sat with a straight, rigid back, fingers flying across the keyboard so fast they blurred into a pale smear. Screens displayed streams of data and biological simulations Damian couldn’t identify even after a second, careful, assessing look.

The space was bathed in near-darkness, lit only by the blue glow of monitors casting sharp shadows across his gaunt, focused face. A cold cup of coffee and three empty energy drink cans sat on the desk beside him.

The smell—caffeine, stale air, an unwashed body, and quiet, naked obsession—made Damian’s nose wrinkle in distaste.

He stopped a few steps from the chair, his shadow falling across the keyboard.

“What are you working on, Drake?” The question cut through the hum of servers and the quiet buzz of equipment. “You haven’t left the Cave in over three days. Even by your standards, that’s excessive.”

Timothy’s fingers kept dancing across the keys. He didn’t even look away from the screen.

“Running checks,” came the dry reply; his voice was hoarse from hours of silence.

Damian rolled his eyes.

“Tch. Obviously. Checks on what? If it’s a threat to Gotham, I need to be briefed.”

“…A private query,” Timothy answered after a pause. “Don’t worry, threat level to Gotham is minimal. For now.”

“A private query from who?” Damian tilted his head back ever so slightly, checking he'd heard right. Then he narrowed his eyes, suppressing a displeased rumble in his chest. “You’re using Father’s equipment for personal business?”

Drake clicked his tongue but hesitated, as if weighing his next words. Choosing how much to reveal.

“Don’t overthink it. It’s from Dick,” he finally admitted, sounding annoyed. “He… found a pup during a raid. An unusual one.”

“A pup,” Damian repeated flatly. “Shelters and social services still exist. What’s so special about this one?”

Being a vigilante meant constant run-ins with abandoned, lost, injured pups—the most defenseless creatures in the face of Gotham’s cruelty. The Bats pulled them from danger, provided aid, stabilized the situation, and, whenever possible, returned them to their pack or handed them over to official services. They couldn’t keep them all, and they didn’t want to—it would go against their goal of reuniting families and protecting secret identities. If they had to temporarily shelter a pup, it was usually Barbara, with support from Commissioner Gordon to speed up finding a new pack, or Todd, using one of his semi-secure, least weaponized safehouses.

Not Grayson. Not until now.

“I said I’m looking into it,” Timothy’s voice grew firmer. “Dick asked for confidentiality. And I’m giving it to him. All you need to know is—yes, there’s a minor needing assessment. Yes, Dick is responsible for him. No, your involvement isn’t required at this stage.”

“Isn’t required,” Damian crossed his arms. “Is that his assessment? Or yours? Or maybe Todd’s, who decided to visit for the first time in a month but didn’t stay for breakfast?”

The memory from last night flashed before his eyes—seeing Jason from his bedroom window.

The silence in the house had been thick, the thoughts in his head too loud. He’d been leaning against the windowsill, staring into the dark sky as if searching for answers, but really just watching, detached.

Movement below caught his eye—sharp and quiet.

Red Hood.

He wasn’t heading for the front door, which he always ignored, but was moving along the wall, a shadow slipping toward the garage. A direct route to the Cave if you knew the hidden passages. Todd moved with focused, almost prowling speed that never meant anything good. He’d entered the house, Damian was sure, even if his view didn’t show it.

And then—nothing.

Damian tilted his head thoughtfully. He shouldn’t have seen it—but his thoughts kept him awake, and he’d ended up in that accidental observation point.

He’d waited for hours, though he would never admit it even to himself. Waited for footsteps in the hall, a gruff remark, the comforting scent of smoke, even a biting jab. But his door hadn’t opened.

Todd hadn’t come to see him.

Drake finished typing another line and only then reluctantly looked away from the screen, closing his eyes wearily for a second. When he opened them to meet Damian’s gaze, there was stubborn resolve in them.

“This is a decision made for everyone’s safety. Including the kid’s. The fewer people who know, the lower the risk. You understand operational need-to-know.”

“I understand the principle of exclusion,” Damian retorted with resentment. “Especially when it’s justified by pretend concern.”

“Get this, Damian, it’s not your concern. We don’t want unnecessary attention. You’re not assigned to this because it’s not in your current priorities and it doesn’t match your profile,” Timothy turned back to the monitors, unwilling to engage further. “Once there’s data requiring your specific skills, you’ll be briefed. Right now—I have work.”

Damian stood still, his gaze fixed on Drake’s back.

Unnecessary attention. The phrase stung like a slap.

Suddenly, everything clicked—falling into a clear, painful picture so frustrating it stole his breath.

He’d recently presented. As an omega.

Timothy’s stubborn secrecy. The fact that Todd, who never bothered with niceties, was now acting like Damian was a crystal vase not to be disturbed, avoiding him. That Richard—the alpha who’d guarded Damian’s first nest, who’d made Damian purr for the first time in his life, who’d desperately tried to fill in the stolen bits of childhood the League had taken—hadn’t included him, even though back when they were Batman and Robin, there’d been no secrets between them. Even the fact that Grayson had found a new pup to take his place.

It all made sense.

His omega status wasn’t a sudden revelation—not to anyone but himself. The hints had been there, but Damian had desperately refused to notice until reality had knocked on his door one early morning with the cloying scent of pre-heat and a damp spot on his bedsheet seeping through his pajamas.

The adjustment had been long, full of agonizing internal war, every battle lost to himself. He felt his body and scent change, gaining soft, frightening contours that went against everything he’d strived for, everything he’d been trained for his whole life.

Damian had expected a outrage. Mockery from Todd, dry disappointment from Father, silent contempt from Drake. He’d braced for rejection—after all, he’d betrayed the alpha legacy of both bloodlines, the Waynes and the al Ghuls, just by existing.

But instead, a thick, smothering fog of condescending concern had settled over him.

They didn’t laugh. Didn’t reject. They tiptoed. Spoke softer. Exchanged looks when they thought he wasn’t watching. Pulled him from missions requiring heightened aggression or immediate neutralization. Father kept saying that in this world, outside Nanda Parbat, in their family, dynamics didn’t define worth. That the old League laws, where an omega was lower than a slave—just a tool for control—were outdated and corrupt.

But words were words. And reality…

Reality was how Timothy, a beta, now looked at him—not as an equal operative, but as a variable to account for due to his instability. Reality was this suffocating cocoon of care that was a thousand times worse than open disdain.

In the League, his status had been set in stone: a weapon. A tool. The perfect soldier. His value was measured only by efficiency. His strength was never in question. But if he ever slipped up—if he, as an Omega, ever wavered—they’d replace him in a heartbeat. No regrets, no hesitation. There was only the goal and the path to it.

Now he was trapped in a cage woven from the best intentions.

They thought he was weak. Fragile. Emotionally vulnerable.

An omega in the League was a thing. But a thing could be used, feared, respected for its sharp edge. An omega here, in this flock he’d started to think of as his own… was a problem. A liability to be handled with care so it didn’t crack.

And that humiliation burned inside him fiercer than any flame. Father could talk all he wanted about new rules. But practice, those looks, that sidelining—they shouted louder than any words. They confirmed his bitterest suspicion: no matter how progressive they claimed to be, deep down they still saw in him what his grandfather had taught—the inferior link. A creature meant for beauty and breeding, to be shown off, paraded, but never truly valued. Just given the illusion of being an equal.

And now, being left out again, kept from Grayson’s secret, he saw it as further proof. To them, he was and would always be an omega. With all the limitations that came with it.

Rage, hot and silent, rose in him, mixing with a sharp, poisonous shame. He let it show.

“I see,” Damian said, letting the acidic anger tinge his scent. “Of course. You wouldn’t want an omega meddling in your work. So I’m cut out of the loop? Because I’m too impulsive, I suppose? Or maybe not stable enough?”

He poured all the bitterness he felt into the last word, but delivered it with deceptive courtesy.

Drake spun around, and this time something like understanding—and frustration—flashed in his eyes. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly.

“Damian, this isn’t about you. It’s about the pup. And about Dick, who’s currently running more on hormones than brains. Dick’s right to limit the circle, and you know it. I’m just trying to make sure this… situation… doesn’t blow up in our faces. That requires quiet and minimal participants. Even if those participants are… competent.”

It wasn’t praise. It was a dry, weary acknowledgment of his skills, immediately wrapped in refusal.

“The circle. Which includes him, Todd, and you,” Damian lifted his chin. “Convenient.”

“That’s how it needs to be,” Timothy shook his head, irritation flickering across his face. “Dick took responsibility for the pup. Jason is handling security. I’m gathering intel. Your turn will come if—and when—we need additional force.”

He waited for Damian to object, and when he didn’t, turned back to the screen, typing something. The conversation was over.

Damian stood there a moment longer, his green eyes narrowed, studying Drake’s back.

Then he turned and left with the same silent step.

He didn’t need their handouts of information. If they chose to work in secret, he’d figure it out himself.

He’d gotten exactly what Drake deemed safe to share: confirmation that Grayson had taken in some unusual minor pup, and that Todd was involved somehow. No name, no address, no details, no acknowledgment that his own assessment or involvement could have value.

Walking through the manor halls, Damian pushed away the humiliating thought that he envied beta status. Envied Drake’s dynamic. It was disgusting and weak. But it was there.

They were discounting his skills, all the nights they’d spent together on rooftops, fighting side by side, trusting each other with their lives—now all of it meant nothing to them.

And no matter what they said, no matter how they denied it, Damian knew the truth.

His nature, his very being, made him unworthy of trust.

But they were wrong. Dangerously wrong.

Damian would prove it to them.

A plan formed quickly, as it always did when driven by rage spiced with hurt. If they thought an omega couldn’t handle this delicate situation, he’d handle it directly—without their approval and, more importantly, without their knowledge. He’d prove his skills and resolve were no less than a beta’s stability or an alpha’s strength.

Step one was locating Grayson. Richard wouldn’t disappear completely, leaving his new pup unattended. He was too good an alpha for that. But he wasn’t at the manor—Damian had already checked. So he was using one of the external safehouses. According to Drake—one tied to Todd. Todd had several safehouses across the city, but not all were suitable for containing a potentially dangerous individual.

Damian didn’t dig through the main databases—Drake would have flagged such queries. Instead, he used a more elegant approach. He pulled up archives of Batmobile and motorcycle movements—particularly Todd’s personal bike, whose tracker the man pretended not to know about, playing along with Father until the next argument—over the last forty-eight hours, focusing not on crime scenes but on illogical stops, idle loops that could be attempts to shake a tail before heading to a hideout.

There was one zone on the fringe of the Botanical District—an area Todd had been patrolling with jealous intensity lately. In that same area, one of Father’s least notable cars, registered to a fake identity Nightwing often used in costume (never as Dick Grayson, to avoid drawing links between the vigilante and Bruce Wayne’s adopted son), had been parked, unmoving, for three days.

Good enough for a working hypothesis.

Step two was preparation. He didn’t suit up as Robin—too noticeable. Instead, he chose a dark, nondescript suit, more like training gear, without bright accents. Weapons—only flashbangs, batarangs, and, just in case, several doses of strong sedatives from the med-kit. If this pup really was dangerous, a meta-human, or something else, brute force might not work. He’d need wits and surprise.

He wasn’t planning to storm in. His goal was different: assess the threat firsthand. See this new ward who’d taken his former place with his own eyes, while Grayson and Todd danced around him guided by their stupid alpha instincts. And, if needed, neutralize it before they could. Just to show they’d underestimated him.

Before leaving, he paused for a moment before the mirror. His reflection—sharp, toned, without a trace of doubt. Nothing gave away the omega except perhaps slightly finer features and the absence of the rough, physically dominant build Todd or Father had. But that was also a strength. He wasn’t perceived as a lethal threat. 

Damian left the manor through the old service tunnels, without triggering the main security systems. He took one of the unmarked “gray” bikes. The ride to Botanical District took less than thirty minutes. The district lived its dirty, tense life, but Damian moved through it unnoticed, using rooftops and fire escapes, leaving the bike two blocks from the suspected location.

The building he’d pinpointed was ordinary, not too large, as if trying not to attract attention, but Damian immediately noted reinforced steel frames on the upper-floor windows and camera lenses too clean for the neighborhood. Todd’s security system. Crude, but functional.

He didn’t break it. Instead, he found an observation point on the opposite roof, behind a concrete parapet, and pulled out a compact monocular with a thermal scope. The scan showed two heat sources inside. One—larger, moving in a typical alpha pattern, checking windows and doors, guarding the den. Grayson. The second—smaller, almost still, sitting in the corner of one room. The target.

Damian watched for several minutes, analyzing. Grayson was alert but not in high-alert mode. So, in his view, the threat was contained. The pup wasn’t showing aggression.

Good.

The next part was the trickiest. He needed to get inside without triggering Grayson into an immediate attack. A direct confrontation with an alpha in his own defended den was something Damian wanted to avoid. That would be stupid. But he knew Richard. Knew his weakness—an exaggerated sense of responsibility, especially toward the younger and newer members. Especially toward pups.

Damian pulled a mini-tablet from his belt, connected to a secured (but easily crackable if you tried and knew how) relay in a neighboring building, and sent an encrypted message to Grayson’s private channel, mimicking an alert from one of Batman’s remote sensors in the area. Plausible enough to pull him away for ten to twenty minutes, but not serious enough to make his instincts scream about abandoning the pup.

He waited. Three minutes later, the large thermal silhouette in his monocular froze, then jerked—likely checking a handheld communicator. A moment of processing, then Grayson turned and proceeded into the target’s room. After a still beat—uttering a terse message?—his heat signature flashed back into the corridor and streaked toward the exit. 

Soon, a dark-blue figure, unusually clear in the daylight, slipped out through what looked like a garage connected to the living space and sped off toward the false alert.

Damian didn’t waste time. Like a shadow, he descended from the roof using a grapnel to land silently on the target building’s fire escape. The door—the front one, not the one Grayson had used—was locked with an electronic code. Todd’s weak spot: he relied too much on physical security and brute force, not cybersecurity. Cracking the standard six-digit code took Damian forty-seven seconds with a portable decryptor he’d once stolen from Drake and saved for just such an occasion.

Inside smelled of dust, metal, and the faint but distinct scents of two alphas—Todd’s spicy, smoky aggression and Richard’s cleaner, sharper, more restrained note. And… absolute void. As if there was a hole in the air. It was strange. He couldn’t smell the pup. Sniffing more carefully, he caught a faint, almost faded trace of formula, but the pup’s scent signature was missing.

Damian moved silently down the hall toward the door from which the void seemed to emanate. His hand rested on a batarang.

He wasn’t here to kill. Just to assess. Ask questions. And, if needed, prove a point.

He listened. No sound came from behind the door. No breathing, no movement. As if no one was there. But the thermal scope hadn’t lied.

Calm. Cold. Composed. He pushed away all the rage, all the hurt. Right now he wasn’t the sidelined omega. He was an operative on a threat-assessment mission. And he’d handle it. Just as well as any of them.

Damian quietly pressed the door handle. It wasn’t locked.

Mistake.

The door swung silently inward. Damian stepped inside, his eyes instantly finding the reason he was here.

A teenager sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. Grayson’s old clothes hung loosely on him—clothes Damian himself had once worn—his gaze… not scared. Watchful, studying, with a strange, almost detached indifference. It could be mistaken for confidence if not for the faint tension in his frame. No scent, no wave of instinctual information. Just silence.

Their eyes met. The pup’s brown eyes—he was much older than Damian had assumed—narrowed for a split second, then went unreadable.

So this is you, Damian thought, calculating his next move. He took a confident step forward, keeping his hands visible but ready.

“I’ve been sent for an additional status assessment. We don’t have much time, pup,” he stated clearly, without emotion.

The lie was simple, direct, and would only work while Grayson was distracted. Everything depended on the anomaly’s reaction. Damian was ready for anything.

He’d prove he could handle this. Right here, right now.

Amazing fanart by the incredibly talented @cowniluf on Tumblr! Thanks a million!!!

Chapter Text

The intruder walked in as if it were his room.

Peter didn’t move. He sat leaning against the wall, keeping his body deliberately relaxed while tracking every micro-movement of the newcomer.

His spider-sense, still humming since Nightwing’s departure, buzzed beneath his skin—a warning of less-than-friendly intentions. Not an immediate threat to life, like with Red Hood, but there was a dangerous edge to it. Crossing that line could earn him a few extra holes in his body, something he’d rather avoid.

The teenager was taller than him, maybe fourteen or slightly younger. Sharp features, dark skin, contrasting strikingly with piercing, assessing green eyes. His posture, his light, silent steps, spoke of training—no wasted motion, perfect balance.

Robin? Peter guessed. Too young to be Red Robin from the descriptions, but he had access to the Hood’s safehouse. Unlikely to be Batgirl, unless the name was gender-specific… Did that concept even exist here? How did dynamics and pack hierarchies work with all the varied biologies? If the rumors about friendly aliens protecting Earth were true, it only made this universe crazier in terms of variations, how it— okay, stop. Don’t go down that rabbit hole. Probably the “baby Bat” Tim had mentioned in passing. Sticking with “Robin” for now.

"I’ve been sent for an additional status assessment. We don’t have much time, pup.”

That snapped Peter out of his thoughts. The word was deliberate. He caught the same dismissive tone as from the man in the alley on his very first day in this hellhole called Gotham. It reduced him to a biological category again—something small and insignificant.

Another one, Peter groaned inwardly, unable to suppress a familiar flash of irritation. Outwardly, he only raised an eyebrow slightly.

“You’re late,” he said, unlacing his hands from around his knees and slowly rising from the floor. Better to be ready to run if things went south. “The status assessment already happened.”

The teen narrowed his eyes, giving Peter a vicious once-over. For a split second, open displeasure flashed in his gaze. Peter clearly saw the moment it—shifted into frustration, his enhanced hearing catching a low, almost stifled growl rumbling in the boy’s chest.

He didn’t know?

“Not by you,” Peter clarified. “By the big scary alpha with all the guns, in whose house we're now standing just the two of us, because, I'm almost certain, you somehow lured Nightwing away.”

The boy took a step forward. Peter’s spider-sense tightened, a clear signal of how close he was to crossing the visitor’s patience.

Peter didn’t back down.

“So you’re here without clearance,” he voiced his thoughts. “And you’re lying.”

Peter wasn’t trying to accuse, but he wanted to get to the truth of the situation. Why was he here? Why now? If this guy—he was a guy, right? Biologically, at least—was trying to intimidate him, Peter had bad news: no one could top the Hood’s performance.

Instead of exploding as Peter half-expected, the teen blinked slowly, then tilted his head.

“You don’t feel it,” he said, sounding almost confused.

“If you mean awkwardness, then no, I feel it,” Peter replied. “I usually get that when someone interrupts my quiet day by barging into a supposedly impenetrable building where I’m meant to be safe—Nightwing’s words—and then just waltzes into my room where I’ve been spending most of my time lately, right while I’m relaxing. What if I’d been naked? Knock, man, it’s not that hard. I mean it, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again. Not the knocking, obviously, since you skipped that, but the sudden entrances and cryptic lines with veiled threats. And tell the other Bats too. Seriously, please stop. We could just meet for tea if you want to get to know each other, okay? We’re civilized people.”

He cautiously took a step forward, trying to win the boy over with the same stupid, nervous chatter that used to amusingly irritate Happy, casually shrugging his shoulders. Deliberately invading his personal space. Testing who would flinch first.

The teen didn’t back away.

But his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly.

Gotcha.

"You weren't afraid because you didn't catch the scent," Robin repeated, more confidently. "Interesting."

“Did you want to see fear?”

The boy smirked faintly.

“Perhaps.”

His hands hung loosely, but Peter, observing the position of his feet, forearms, and hips, saw dozens of possible scenarios unfold. Painful holds, strikes to pressure points.

“Right now, your only job is to be a good pup if you want to prove your harmlessness and stay with Nightwing. Nothing complicated, right?” A mocking smile hinting at a snarl. “Let’s start simple. Show me your hands.”

An order that brooked no argument. 

This kid is definitely toying with me.

Peter tuned into his spider-sense. Not a trap. A test. And if he didn’t rush, he might fail it before it even began.

Peter let annoyance flash in his eyes but demonstratively raised his hands, palms up, causing the sleeves of his sweatshirt to slide down to his elbows. The gesture screamed unarmed.

Cold fingers immediately clamped around his wrist. The grip was like a vise, testing the resistance of bone and sinew. The boy’s fingers moved with confident precision, millimeter by millimeter, probing his skin. Peter let him, consciously relaxing his muscles, suppressing the instinct to pull back. He feigned compliance—as if he couldn't punch Robin through a wall with a single motion if he wanted to—even though such intimate examination by a stranger made him feel deeply uneasy.

Whatever this inspection entailed, at the very least, it wasn’t an interrogation. Lately, he’d had more of those than he wanted. Nightwing kept trying to learn something new every damn day, and with each attempt, Peter felt himself involuntarily weaving more truth into his web of lies. Trusting someone again was hard, but Peter was trying. Bit by bit, not fully. But his inner spider nudged him to be honest, to trust, to open up to this intense alpha in the blue-and-black costume.

Before he wound up in Gotham, Peter hadn’t even known his spider-sense could feel a pull toward someone so unfamiliar. It was so strange that it made him want to do the opposite and fight it with everything he had.

The grip on Peter’s arm tightened slightly. Stronger than average for the boy’s age and build, who had burst into the safehouse so unexpectedly. Precise movements. Knowledge of anatomy. Searching for… what? Scars? Injection marks? A subcutaneous chip?

“Skin’s clean,” the assessor muttered under his breath, his gaze sliding over the inside of Peter’s forearm. “Too clean for someone recently pulled from a den. No scratches, not even bruises. Accelerated healing?”

Peter felt his pulse quicken.

“I’m lucky,” he grumbled, trying to avert his eyes, feigning embarrassment.

“Luck is a statistical inaccuracy. And yours ran out the moment you decided to encroach on my pack,” the teen countered, not releasing his wrist.

Peter’s spider-sense, patiently waiting, howled a warning.

Robin locked eyes with Peter and widened his stance slightly, adopting a firmer posture.

“I’ll ask once. Who are you?”

“Just Peter. Nightwing’s temporary roommate. And you are?” Peter retorted, resignedly shifting into a more reactive stance and yanking his hand sharply from the boy’s grasp.

Faint red lines from his nails—which would vanish within five minutes, if not sooner—stood out on his skin.

And he’d genuinely wanted to befriend the kid. What a shame.

“I’m the one who noticed you lack scent glands and have no scars from their removal. The one who can tell just by looking that you’re a disgusting liar trying to pull something shady right under my nose. The one whose place you took, barging into Nightwing’s life. And finally,” the teen said, raising his chin and baring elongated canines, “the one who decides if you get to stay!”

His spider-sense jerked sharply.

So definitely an alpha, flashed through Peter’s mind just before he had to block a strike from Robin. Then another from the left. A swipe from the right. An attempt to break his nose with an elbow almost succeeded, if not for the faint thread of warning that let Peter roll away before the attack fully launched.

The teen didn’t waste time. A low leg sweep followed. A series of short, sharp hand strikes. A lunge and a spinning kick. Peter reacted without much strain—his opponent’s moves were processed faster than he could consciously register them. The teen tried to pin him against the wall, limit his mobility, but he quickly figured it out. Instead of dodging a fist aimed at his jaw, he deflected it and slipped under the boy’s arm, switching their positions.

Suddenly, his sense prickled sharply inside his skull, and something sharp flashed before his mind’s eye. His body jerked sideways, but the attack still grazed the fabric over his chest. A tearing sound.

Peter stopped mid-step.

“Hey! Don’t ruin things that aren’t yours! What if you’d cut me? Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of light colors?”

Silence.

Surprisingly, the teen didn’t immediately lunge. Only his eyes darkened.

“These things don’t belong to you,” he said. If looks could kill, Peter would be dead. Black knives of a strange shape reformed in the boy's hands.

“Obviously! But it’s my duty to take care of them while Nightwing’s lent them to me. And I don’t think he’d be happy if I returned floor rags instead of proper clothes. Seriously, shouldn’t a Robin have more respect for a teammate’s belongings?”

Peter immediately knew the last bit was too much. A black blade nearly took out his eye.

“You don’t get to speak of respect, stray!” A hail of blows rained down on him. Peter could only twist and dodge, backing closer to the room’s center, until he decided to strike, knocking one knife from the boy’s grip and sending it skittering into the hallway with a kick. One down. One left.

A knee drove into his diaphragm, briefly knocking the air from his lungs—a necessary sacrifice to swat the bat-blade, or whatever it was, aside. Peter dropped to his knees, dodging a swing aimed at his neck.

Did this guy want to see bruises or kill him?! At least the former was guaranteed now!

He needed to end this. He was hesitant to attack the teen directly, unwilling to harm someone from Nightwing’s pack if the kid’s words were true—from what he’d observed, pack was paramount here—but this couldn’t continue. It was a pointless, exhausting scrap Robin clearly couldn’t win, but it would drag on until Nightwing arrived. And Peter wasn’t sure whose side he’d take.

Credit where it’s due, the kid’s toned physique wasn’t just for show—every move was precise, aimed at incapacitation, and the aggressive pressure rivaled any alpha Peter had met. If he could smell, he’d probably be choking on the pheromones, unable to catch his breath in this frantic rhythm. Luckily, he can't.

Peter executed an efficient backflip, pushing off the floor with his hands and evading the wide sweep of Robin’s kick, then surged forward. With one hand, he seized the wrist holding the blade, vengefully digging his nails in just as Robin had done earlier—but careful not to exceed human limits—and threw his full weight onto the boy from above, forcing them both to crash to the floor.

A pained yelp from the teen was unexpected.

“What the—? Hey!” The blade clattered from the boy’s grip, landing near his head, but he seemed oblivious, writhing desperately beneath Peter. His head thrashed, green eyes darting wildly around the room and over Peter’s face. The boy strained his neck, trying to bite the arm pinning him down.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Peter asked, alarmed. He cautiously loosened his grip on the wrist but pressed Robin harder into the floor, increasing pressure on the hips he was straddling.

“You!.. Bastard! How dare you!” A guttural snarl was so intense the boy’s limbs vibrated under Peter’s hold. “Let go!” His voice cracked into a shrill, almost childish treble. He thrashed with such force that, had he been a normal human, Peter wouldn’t have held him. His body arched, trying to slip free, legs kicking, elbows tried to drive their knuckles into his face. As if he’d suddenly turned feral. 

“Calm down!” Peter tried to say, stunned by the reaction. He didn’t want to hurt him. He just wanted to stop the fight. “I won’t hurt—”

He didn’t finish. Because in that moment of panicked rage, Robin’s hand—thanks to a convulsive jerk and Peter’s momentary shock—slid free a crucial centimeter and shot toward his own thigh.

Peter saw a flash of metal in the dim light—a small, pen-like cylinder. And his spider-sense suddenly screamed, focusing entirely on that object.

He jerked backward but didn’t disengage—his critical mistake.

Robin’s trembling hand jerked upward. A faint pffft—the quiet release of compressed air.

Something stung Peter in the side of his neck, just below the jawline. He didn’t even see the dart—just instant burning, then a rapidly spreading wave of numbness.

“Wh—at…” he began, but his tongue was already clumsy, uncooperative.

His grip weakened. Robin wrenched free, scrambled back, pressing against the opposite wall, breathing heavily. His face was pale, twisted in a mix of triumph, horror, and smoldering panic. An angry snarl was on his lips.

Peter tried to push himself upright, but his legs barely obeyed. The room swam. He felt his own heart begin to slow. Tranquilizer. A potent one. His accelerated metabolism was already fighting the toxin, but the dose was too concentrated to have no effect. His world narrowed to a dark tunnel, at the end of which stood the green-eyed teen, looking at him like a pest finally neutralized.

“I’m… not…” Peter rasped, trying to stay upright, his hand fumbling toward his neck, finding the tiny dart and pulling it out, stopping any further delivery.

“Quiet,” Robin cut him off, a slight tremor in his voice. “You’ve proven all I needed to know.”

Another dart hit him, from the other side. The last thing Peter saw before consciousness slipped from his grasp was Robin’s cold, merciless eyes, watching his fall.

His shoulder hit the floor, and Peter finally blacked out. Darkness rushed.