Chapter Text
Dick wasn’t asleep. Though, if someone were to peer in through the windows (an impressive feat considering what floor they were on and all the security around the building), he would look it. He was quite content, curled up on his side with his phone as he scanned through social media.
Every time Wally breathed, Dick’s hair would move and it was tickling his ear, but beyond that, he had no complaints. Wally was a warm wall against his back, and his arm was a reassuring weight over his waist, with his hand falling just below Dick’s belly button.
Wally had been sleeping that way subconsciously ever since the possible pregnancy scare a month and a half ago, back in February.
Even then, Dick had known he wasn’t pregnant. His blood had been too saturated with suppressants, plus he trusted his birth control to do its job. But he’d tested with standard at-home pregnancy tests anyway — just to be safe.
Six tests total, three separate brands, all results negative.
He knew he could have gone to the clinic, he wouldn’t have to worry about Leslie leaking the news to the public the way he might have to if he went to a hospital instead. But she would absolutely tell Bruce.
Wintergreen was an alternative solution, he supposed, but a rendezvous with ‘Billy’ couldn’t happen without also seeing Slade himself. And Dick did his best to avoid that whenever possible.
It’s not that seeing Slade was bad necessarily. He cared, albeit in his own strange, and complicated ways. Dick just preferred to keep his problems to himself when he could help it.
Slade would ask him about Bruce, Gotham, and the Titans, before he’d ask about Dick’s personal life. But inevitably he would probe and prod his way into whatever it was Dick was trying to keep him from sinking his teeth into.
It wasn’t like Dick was giving Slade any information he didn’t need to know, and he’d made sure Tara had a clear understanding that she was to keep Titans’ intel to herself unless it was strictly necessary. But even still, Slade Wilson was an acquired taste Dick had only learned to tolerate, never enjoy.
As far as the non-pregnancy was concerned, Bruce probably already knew Dick had been testing, and it wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest if he also knew the tests results. That’s just how he was. But that didn’t mean Dick wanted to talk with him about it. No, fear gas, or techno-sorcery mind control, or hell, experimental CID’s were all preferable to that.
Dick had been avoiding his Pack Head since February. As a matter of fact, the last time he’d seen Bruce was when he and Wally were hashing out courtship paperwork back in February. He’d seen Batman since then, but Bruce was considerably less likely to bring up anything personal while under the cowl.
Wally mumbled something in his sleep and adjusted, pressing closer to the curve of Dick’s back before settling back into sleep.
When they were on the East Coast, staying the night in one of Dick’s apartments, or crashing at a safehouse for a day or two — more often than not Wally was already asleep by the time Dick crawled into bed after patrol, never failing to rouse a round of hazy, sleep soaked ‘mornings’ from his boyfriend before he sunk back into sleep.
This morning, however, Wally had been caught up across the world, not slipping into bed beside Dick till nearly four a.m. Dick knew only because he was woken up by Wally nuzzling fondly into his hair, before they both drifted off to sleep together. His body only managed about two more hours of rest before it decided that Dick should join the land of the living.
Sleep was a rare commodity for him, and he, like most Bats, got his sleep when and where he could. But he tried to keep his sleep schedule a fairly consistent 3-9 am when staying in Jump so he wasn’t too thrown off when he inevitably returned to Gotham.
The clock on his phone read 6:13, his body was a traitor.
He put the phone face down on the bed and sighed, leaning back into his boyfriend’s warm body. He took Wally’s hand and played with his fingers for a moment, before lacing them with his own. Sleep would elude him, but he closed his eyes anyways.
As happy as he was to be awake at this hour… he had to admit that it was nice, just laying here with Wally. He could have gotten out of bed to get food, try and organize the mission docket for the next month, or even squeeze in a workout while the gym was likely empty.
Well, the gym usually wasn’t an option this time of morning — not the good one anyway. Roy liked to use it for his post patrol workouts, and Dick had no desire to interact with Roy any more than strictly necessary.
Roy wasn’t harassing him anymore. They weren’t arguing, or slamming each other’s faces into half-full bowls of soggy cereal like they had been before the proposal, but That didn’t mean his behavior was any less unnerving than it had been before. His gaze was always heavy on Dick; a sharp, and constant pressure at the back of his neck whenever they were in the same space.
Some days all he did was stare, but there were times when no one else was looking that he’d wink or flex his muscles in ways that were inconspicuous. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dick was so painfully familiar with the way Roy flirted, it could be ignored. It was subtle, and pointedly never around Wally, but it was there.
Subtle enough that if Dick were to call him out on it, Roy would have no trouble denying it — pointing a clear finger at irrational Omega paranoia.
And maybe Dick was paranoid. Roy was being professional with him. He hadn’t touched him in the two months since the appeal. He hadn’t cornered Dick, or even so much as started what could be seen as anything other than polite conversation. Beside the discreet flirting, he hadn’t bothered Dick at all, or continued pursuing him.
So why did Dick feel like he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop for his face to meet the glass of a window, the marble of the kitchen counter, or cold wood of that appeal room table again.
There was something looming just out of sight, but he couldn’t figure out what.
His phone buzzed repeatedly, and Dick frowned. He didn’t need to wonder about who was calling him at 7:23 in the morning. Tim was in school, so it couldn’t be him unless he was playing hooky — again. There were only a handful of people left who would try to call him at this time. Bruce, Barbara, and Selina wouldn’t bother — they’d assume he was asleep still. But Dinah…
Without opening his eyes, he reached for the phone and declined the call. He wasn’t sure why he just hadn’t blocked her yet. He admired her persistence regardless. Every other therapist Bruce had tried to shoehorn Dick into seeing would have given up by this point. But two months later and she was still calling him three times a week like clockwork.
Wally yawned behind him and squeezed his laced fingers. He hummed, lips skiting over the nape of his neck, so close and yet so far from where Dick wanted them. “Who was it?” Wally’s voice was heavy with sleep, and the husk of it went right to Dick’s gut. His breath against Dick’s skin sent goosebumps climbing over his shoulder.
He debated telling Wally to just go back to sleep, then decided against it, he was tired of being awake alone. “Telemarketer.” he lied.
He didn’t want to lie to Wally, but keeping secrets was all he knew how to do. He knew he should be opening up to his boyfriend. Should be telling him things — things like what he did to survive the time they’d been separated, or what happened at the appeal, or how even now Roy wouldn’t stop flirting with him.
But he couldn’t. Every time he opened his mouth, an admission held in the space behind his teeth, his throat refused to even take in air enough to breathe. So, he just kept lying. Lying, lying and lying — hoping that one day, somehow, he’d wake up and magically, everything would be fixed. The nightmare would be over.
But Dick knew broken bones couldn’t heal without the pain of being set back into place.
He knocked his head gently against Wally’s and let out a quiet trill of greeting before turning his head and meeting Wally’s lips with his own. The kiss was languid, smooth — passionately unhurried. In the quiet hours of the morning, there was no commotion to disrupt them.
He leaned back into Wally and then the next thing he knew, he was half on his back with Wally half over him, bracing himself with one arm on the other side of Dick’s shoulder. Wally licked his lips and considered Dick with dilated eyes.
“I could get used to waking up like this,” he said through an amused rumble.
Dick tipped his head back in response, baring his throat for his Alpha.
“Baby,” Wally’s whisper was revenant, lips tracing the column of his neck down to the clavicle. Dick had an idea of where this was going. Wally was always a generous lover, but ever since they got back together, it was like that generosity had been multiplied tenfold.
He twisted his fingers into the bedsheet below him and let out a quiet mewl. Wally’s soft kisses and licks morphed to teeth steadily working a mark over the tender skin of Dick’s throat, just beside his unscarred scent gland. His hand itched to tangle into Wally’s hair, and redirect him to the scent gland proper.
Wally readjusted himself so his weight was supported by one arm allowing him to slide his now free hand under Dick’s sleep shirt. Dick gasped, and his back pressing impossibly closer to Wally’s fingertips, each gentle touch imbued with the barest hint of the Speedforce. Every spark causing the muscle beneath it to twitch with pleasure.
“Ah—” He barely swallowed down ‘Alpha’ before it could fully escape; ending up closer to whine than word. “Don’t tease.”
Wally laughed — breathy, light, and beautiful against the shell of Dick’s ear. “But you make such sweet noises for me.”
If only Wally knew what that ‘sweet noise’ had truly been. He wanted to call Wally ‘Alpha’ outside of cycles. The word always sat on the tip of his tongue, but he knew nothing would take Wally out of this scene faster than saying it. So, he swallowed it down, over, and over, and over — the same lump in his throat that used to come from coolers, and just keened softly instead.
Sometimes Dick thought Wally only tolerated his trilling greetings, and chirped replies, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t seem to get himself to stop.
Wally’s index circled around his nipple, leaving phantom shocks from the Speedforce that Dick’s body shaking with anticipation when there was a knock on the door.
Wally’s dutiful admiration didn’t stutter as they both ignored it. Being here together, half under the sheets and covered in each other’s scents was more important than whatever was happening outside the door — but it came again, and again.
Wally audibly growled as the knocking continued. And then on the other side of the bed, Wally’s phone went off with a chime that Dick knew meant Bart was texting. “Ignore him.” It was a suggestion, but it came out more as a hissed command.
The knocking continued — so did the chiming of Wally’s phone. Dick felt Wally take a deep breath and knew that his Alpha was, in fact, not going to ignore the interruption. He could have hissed in frustration. He might have based on the way Wally sighed.
“I know, babe, but he’s not gonna go away.” Wally picked up his phone and sighed again. “I told him I’d run with him this morning at 8.”
Wally pulled away and, reluctance written into every movement as he slipped out of the bed. Dick frowned as he sat up, pulling the covers over himself.
“If you leave, I won’t be here when you come back.” Dick warned flatly.
Wally winced. “Babe, I—”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me.”
Again, Wally winced. He tried again, but only got so far as “Sweet—” before Dick interrupted.
“Don’t.”
Wally closed his eyes and took a breath. “I’m not winning this, am I?”
“If you leave, I won’t be here when you come back.” Dick repeated, resolute. He grabbed his phone and leaned back against the headboard, pointedly not looking at Wally. “It’s not a punishment.”
“It feels like one.” Wally muttered as he headed for the bathroom. The moment the door closed behind him, Dick’s shoulders dropped. Admittedly he’d expected this. Wally was as attentive to his family as he was to Dick. Sometimes it just stung to have the later chosen over him.
He climbed out of the bed himself and debated getting dressed in the clothes he had stashed in here, but ultimately decided that would take too much time. Wearing nothing but one of Wally’s oversized shirts and a pair of ugly plaid boxers, he triggered the door to slide open.
Bart startled; hand still raised to knock at the now empty air. His gaze turned comically wide as he registered Dick’s appearance. “Wing, uh… I…” Dick didn’t acknowledge him, brushing past the clearly embarrassed speedster him without a single comment or glance.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of what what he looked like, or the picture his scent was painting. It was just that he didn’t care anymore.
Everyone in the Titans knew he was an Omega thanks to the CID in January. and they’d discovered he was Dick Grayson thanks to Roy’s games back in February. Plus, this time around, he and Wally’s relationship was far from secret. That wasn’t to say that they were blatantly flaunting their relationship, but Wally opted for various nicknames over Dick’s codename in the common areas. And everyone knew Dick preferred to sleep in Wally’s room over his own.
Once in his own room, Dick beelined for the bathroom. He put his phone on the counter before taking a cool shower, then changed into some Titans’ Tower appropriate civilian wear. When he ducked back out onto the landing outside the senior member bedrooms, Bart was gone from Wally’s door.
Whatever, he hoped Wally enjoyed his run.
He made his way down to the kitchen. This early in the morning, the only people usually awake were the speedsters, Donna, those who rose with the sun like Kon and Kori, and those who had yet to go to bed.
Donna was at the table, drinking what he presumed to be coffee while perusing the news. Raven was across from her with a teacup in her hands, and tattered paperback floating just below eye-level. She looked up when Dick entered and frowned, but said nothing.
Donna, on the other hand, spoke without looking up. “You’re up early.”
As much as Dick wanted to be grumpy and moody, he had a reputation to uphold, so he grinned and laughed. “Bart woke me up getting Wally for their run.”
Donna laughed. “That explains why Wally was so prickly when they passed through.”
Dick shrugged with one shoulder. He warned Wally, and Wally knew the consequences. He could have gone to the door and told Bart to ‘beat it’, but no. It wasn’t like it was an emergency.
“Long night?” Donna asked, finally looking away from the paper to wrinkle her eyebrows in concern.
“Wally came in late.” He answered.
“And Bart woke you up early.” She tutted.
“That why you’re up already?” Roy’s voice came through the doorway. Dick fought every impulse to tense. He kept his easy smile on his face as he turned to face Roy. Everything was fine. He and Roy were cool now.
They hadn’t talked about what happened at the appeal, because there was nothing to talk about. Nothing happened. Dick turned Roy down, and Roy accepted it, gracefully, for once. They were friends, and that was fine; nothing was wrong.
Had he always been such a compulsive pathological liar? Or had being taken in by Bruce turned him into one?
Quick as a blink, Roy’s gaze raked over Dick’s body, his face almost smug. Dick leaned against the counter and took another draw of his stolen energy drink. He didn’t have the energy for Roy’s ‘you can’t prove I’m flirting’ flirting.
“Where’s Walls?”
“On a run with Imp.” Dick replied. Roy frowned, just a little, and gave Dick another look over. Just as quick as before, and Dick almost wasn’t sure if he imagined it.
“He picked a run over a morning in bed with you?” Roy asked, and Dick knew exactly what Roy was not-saying. Roy wouldn’t have picked anything over staying in bed with Dick. Roy would have gone to the door, snarling and growling at whoever was interrupting them to go away. And then Roy would have come back to Dick.
Roy wouldn’t have given Dick the opportunity to give the ultimatum of him or the other person, but if he had… Roy would have picked Dick.
Still holding his stolen drink, Dick folded his arms in front of himself defensively. “Wally promised him a run.”
“Well, if he promised…” Roy trailed off and half shrugged.
He walked up to Dick and stopped just short, barely an inch between them, and then reached up into the cupboard to pull out a glass. Roy usually showered after workouts, but today he seemed to have skipped that particular step. This close to Dick, it was all he could smell. He hadn’t been confronted with Roy’s scent this strongly since…
Dick glanced at Donna to see if maybe she had caught anything, but she was already back to reading the paper. Raven, on the other hand, was still frowning, although now she was also slightly shaking her head.
The glass obtained; Roy brushed past Dick to the fridge to get some water.
Dick’s eye’s followed his movements of their own accord. Dick didn’t want to stare, but he stood there, almost transfixed by Roy’s adam’s apple as it bobbed with each swallow. He finished his drink, put it in the dishwasher. He leaned against the counter across from Dick.
His gaze was heavy. Dick wished he could ignore it.
“It’s been a while since we’ve trained together.” Roy pointed out. “We should probably do that before our mission Saturday.”
Dick wanted to scream. He smiled instead. “You’re right.” He agreed, even though the mission Saturday was an undercover mission. If all went well, there’d be no fighting. At least, not yet. It wasn’t like he could say there was a reason he’d been avoiding training with Roy. That would mean admitting there was still some unresolved problem between he and Roy.
He couldn’t do that. Not when everyone was so happy that the fighting had stopped. Not when everyone was so relieved the drama finally was over. He had a responsibility to the Titans, and he couldn’t cause any more friction when there was absolutely no reason to beyond his comfort.
He just needed to get over himself. It wasn’t like Roy had done anything major to him. And look at all the good that had come out of it! He’d shown Dick that he needed an Alpha, and Dick didn’t want to give Roy credit for it, but he was with Wally now because of his interference.
Spite was one hell of a motivator.
Things were fine between him and Roy now. Really.
Maybe Bruce was right, maybe he did need to see Dinah. Maybe that was why he hadn’t blocked her yet.
“How about later, once I’m up again?” Roy suggested.
Dick nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Great.” Roy smiled, and then very pointedly looked at Dick before saying, “Whelp, I’m headed to bed.”
Dick told himself it wasn’t an invitation; then why did it feel like one? and nodded at Roy. “Sleep well.”
“Sweet dreams.” Donna added. Raven said nothing.
Roy gave Dick another one of those ‘blink and you miss it’ look overs. Goosebumps erupted over Dick’s skin and the back of his neck prickled. When he blinked, wood grain flashed in the darkness. He forced himself to breath as Roy walked away.
He was fine. Fine enough to go on this mission with Roy on Saturday. The mission Wally didn’t want him to go on. But he had this mission on the docket well before he started dating Wally again. It had been pushed off long enough.
Dick turned his attention to Donna. “Tell me you have some paperwork for me to do.”