#slade is very happy to play house husband with his favorite omega

[green-eyedfirework]

When Dick wakes up, he feels warm and content.  The scents of his family surrounded him, safe and protective and home, and it’s the best feeling in the world.  Dick stretches luxuriously, feeling the lingering ache of heat exhaustion, and curls more firmly around his siblings.  Counting heads is an automatic habit, and it’s only when he goes hunting down the source of surprise when he sees three dark-haired heads does he realize where he is.

Bruce, he thinks, elation and dread mixed together, but then he sees the white strip of hair.  That’s not Bruce.  That’s—“Jason?” Dick asks, confused.

Green eyes flutter open, and Jason gives him a strained smile, “Hey, Dickiebird.  How was the beauty sleep?”

Dick shifts up—dislodging Damian from on top of him—and stares at his nest.  Jason is stretched out along his side, Damian is in his lap, Tim is on his other side, but curled away.  The room is empty of anyone else, any other scents than him and his family.

Something in his heart beats to a steady rhythm of wrong, wrong, wrong.

Dick can’t smell Slade.  He expected to spend the whole heat with his mate, hoped that it would be enough to placate him, but he doesn’t smell Slade at all, only his siblings.

“You came back home,” Dick says to Jason, to distract himself from the growing pit of dread in his stomach, but the way Jason’s eyes flash only make it worse.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Jason growls, tilting his head—there’s a bruise on his neck, green-purple, a claiming bite.  Dick goes cold.  “Looks like your mate wanted to collect all of us.”

The words are bitter, but underneath the venom is fear.  Dick knows that submission from claiming bites takes a couple days to fully shake off, so that new pack members don’t immediately challenge the alpha.  Jason makes no move to shift away from where he’s half-curled around Dick, even when Dick sits up fully.

Why—why would Slade do this?  Dick doesn’t understand—if Slade wants leverage, he already has Damian and Tim and Alfred, there’s no point in bringing in Jason, not when Jason is undoubtedly going to challenge Slade the moment the submission wears off.  Not when Dick is already giving him everything he wants.  “What happened?” Dick croaks out, because it feels like he has pieces of a puzzle that refuse to fit together.

“Ask the Replacement,” Jason says coldly, and Dick turns to Tim, heart clawing up into his throat.

Tim is not curled away from Dick because he’s asleep.  Tim is curled away from him because he’s crying, and Dick wipes the tears off his little brother’s cheeks with trembling fingers.  “Tim?” Dick asks softly.  What did you do?  “What happened?”

Tim ducks his head, refusing to meet Dick’s gaze.  “I—I thought he would be distracted with your heat,” Tim whispers, and Dick feels the crushing hollow of horror open in his chest.  “I—left.  I wanted to—to find Bruce, but he—he came after me.”  Tim shakes with a silent sob.  “He just—brought me back here.  He didn’t say a-anything about punishment.”

“And then he showed up and attacked me and dragged me back here too,” Jason adds.

Dick draws Tim into a hug and shoves all the furious words down.  How could he be so stupid—did he not even consider the risks—did he really think he’d be able to defy Deathstroke and get away with it—Slade was alarmingly patient over the past couple weeks, and now all of that is ruined—

“It’s okay,” Dick says with a calm he does not feel.  “Shh, baby bird, it’s okay.”

Jason’s level gaze shows that he knows it’s not.  Damian is watching him silently, and Dick knows that League training would’ve given him an idea of what angry alphas do to pack members who disobey them.

The fact that Slade didn’t punish him immediately, that he brought Jason here, that he waited for Dick’s heat to be over is not a good sign.

Slade is vicious enough when he’s running on blind rage.  When he’s calculating, planning and thinking things through?

Deathstroke could take out the entire Justice League, given sufficient time and materials.

“It’s okay,” Dick whispers, knowing in his heart that it’s not.

~#~

“Grounding,” Dick says numbly, “What do you mean by grounding?”

Slade just blinks at him.  “He’s not allowed to leave the house?  Restricted TV time?  No video games?”  Dick stares at him, and Slade huffs, “Kid, I’m not quite sure why you’re asking me.  Surely Pennyworth has better suggestions for you, he managed to raise the Bat.”

“Suggestions.  For me.”  It feels like his head’s been stuffed with cotton.  Dick can’t comprehend what he’s hearing.  “You—you’re not going to punish him?”

Slade quirks an eyebrow.  “He’s your brother,” he says in the same tone of voice of someone handing back a crying child to their parents.

“And—and Jason?” Dick forces himself to ask.  There has to be something he’s missing here.  He feels wrong-footed, like walking on flat ground after swinging on bridges and tightropes.  “Why did you claim him?”

“You were asking for him,” Slade says, and Dick can’t find a lie in his tone.  The statement is simple—like it’s obvious that Slade would do anything Dick asked him too.  Like if Dick was heat-drunk and calling out for his wayward brother, Slade would just...go and get him.

Dick feels abruptly lightheaded.

“Dick?” Slade says, alarmed, and strong hands close around his elbows and maneuver him until he’s sinking down on the couch.  “Are you okay?  Do you need some water?  Dick?”

Dick grabs the hem of Slade’s shirt before the alpha can leave, drawing him back onto the couch and fitting into his arms, curling up against him until Dick can feel Slade’s scent envelop him, protective and warm as the tears start falling.

“Dick?”

“Just need you,” Dick says softly, because—because he forgot.  Why he called Slade.  Why he asked Slade.  Why he trusted Slade, of all the alphas he knew in the world.

Slade’s arms wrap around him, gentle and strong.  “Okay, little bird,” he murmurs, and Dick allows himself to exist in his mate’s presence.