Work Text:
"Tomorrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
And call my true love to my dance.
Sing O! My love! O my love, my love, my love!
This have I done for my true love."
The song of the wassailers in the bailey—those not already too drunk to sing—was drowning out the music from the band in the great hall, at least from Bruce's current position on the parapet. It being well-known throughout Gotham that Alfred Pennyworth, the steward of the castle, was generous at all times to the people but particularly at Christmas, an even larger than usual crowd was assembled to partake of the free bread and spiced ale.
The castle's hospitality was tonight including not only the bottom of society, but also its heights—or at least those of high society willing to be in the scandalous company of the infamous omega duke, unmated still at five-and-thirty. Fortunately—especially for the account balances of the merchants in the area—there were a great many people prepared to spend money travelling to, and purchasing extravagant gowns for, the annual Wayne Christmas Masquerade.
"People are asking where you are."
Bruce turned slightly and looked up. Dick was clinging casually to the side of the battlement, still in his masquerade costume, a frivolously feathered blue bird with a beaked mask.
"And what did you tell them?"
"Stolen away into a corner kissing a servant, no doubt," Dick said cheerfully, dropping into a somersault and springing up beside Bruce.
"Show-off."
Dick ignored this, leaning his arms on the cold stone and looking down at the wassailers. "I thought you might be trying to get a moment, tomorrow being what it is. If that's the case, I can throw them off for even longer, if you like."
Tomorrow. The day when he had lost Jason.
The eccentric and fabulously wealthy duke was notorious not only for the rumour that he took a different partner every heat, but for the fact that he had taken very unsuitable children in and treated them as cherished wards. Dick first, of course, "a gypsy orphan," as the gossips had it; and now Tim, who as the omega son of a baron was high enough in birth to be sure, but whom Bruce had somehow finagled the king into letting him raise, rather than allowing Lord Drake to arrange him a perfectly suitable marriage; then there was Stephanie, a girl of no birth at all who had given birth without any father even known, most shocking; Cassandra, doubtless an idiot as she couldn't talk properly, what a shame; and Duke, whom people supposed that Bruce must have taken in as a mascot because of his silly name.
But once there had also been Jason, most unsuitable of them all. The orphaned bastard of a criminal, who had been caught trying to steal from the duke, an offense worthy of severe punishment, but the duke had ignored the law as he ignored all morality and taken the little urchin in.
And when Jason was fourteen, four years ago, they had been on a ship at sea, and there was a storm.
Bruce had told Jason to stay below deck. It was dangerous, they were out of their element here; Jason couldn't possibly help and would only hinder the sailors in their work keeping the ship from sinking.
But Jason had come up on deck anyway, and Bruce saw him just in time to see him swept overboard by a wave. He'd been so small, even after a few years of good food. People had usually guessed him to be only twelve or so, which had irritated the proud boy so much...
"Bruce?"
Bruce blinked. Oh. Dick was still waiting for an answer to his question, the concern clear in his voice, though the mask disguised his face.
"This costume was a lot of work," Bruce said, pushing back a little from the wall. "It would be a shame not to let it be seen more."
Dick laughed. Bruce's costume was, of course, outrageous. Everything he wore in his public persona was outrageous, and at the masquerade he always tried to push it a little more than he had the year before. This year he had gone for a hidden element of audacity because his costume was of none other than the Bat, the semi-mythical crusader who the common people lauded as their champion against the plague of bandits and corrupt officials alike. But not exactly a faithful recreation of that mysterious man's fairly sensible armour and disguise. No, this was, to coin a phrase, a Sexy Bat: piles of lace, incongruous feathers, unnecessary cut-outs revealing the generous swell of his chest, heels that made the already tall omega sure to tower over most alphas.
When he sashayed thusly around the masquerade, even those who knew better would find it hard to imagine that Bruce was the actual Bat: the no-nonsense, growly voiced, scentless shadow of protection against villainy.
Dick gallantly offered his arm. "Shall we, then?"
———
"Tell me, darling Bat," chittered Lady Victoria, letting her hand rest too familiarly on his arm, "how have you been?"
Bruce patted her hand rather than using it to swing her out the window as he would much rather have done. Lady Victoria thought he didn't know she was the writer behind Lady Ondit's Hum, the most widely read gossip periodical in the country. "Do I not appear in the best of health, my dear Unicorn? As do you, of course."
Lady Victoria's horn was in fact rather askew for a unicorn of good health. It wobbled as the woman leaned closer. "I think I know everyone, but there is one that I just cannot work out. You must tell me: who is under the Red Hood?"
Bruce laughed. The Red Hood was another notorious figure, already semi-mythical despite only having been active for about six months. Some said he was merely a greedy smuggler while others claimed he only avoided the excisemen in order to get the common people things they truly needed at prices they could actually afford, but everyone agreed he was brutally violent to any who attempted to stop him. "Every marshall and bailiff in the country wants to know that."
"No, no, I mean the one here. Him." Lady Victoria's horn wobbled again as she jerked her head.
Bruce saw him, then. Bruce had never seen the Red Hood in the flesh, but the stranger's version of the Red Hood certainly looked far more practical and realistic than Bruce's parody of the Bat. The Red Hood was standing in the vortex of attention of a number of excited young society omegas, so Bruce supposed he had to be an alpha.
There was no sign that the Red Hood had noticed himself being noticed. He held himself at ease, and was of a striking height, about the same as Bruce's.
The door to the outside opened, and a rush of winter air blew in, along with a few masquerade revellers who had been cavorting with the wassailers in the bailey. The air moved over the Red Hood and his little group and to Bruce, and behind his mask, his nostrils flared and eyes widened.
A deliciously sweet honey musk that Bruce was sure he had never smelled before. Who was this Red Hood?
"Well?" pressed Lady Victoria eagerly.
She had caught on to Bruce's interest, but luckily his reputation offered an easy explanation for it, and he put a bit of purr into his answer. "I don't know, but I will find out."
He walked over to the stranger, and the lesser omegas in his way removed themselves.
"My, my, the Red Hood," Bruce began. "Are you not afraid that the Bat will strike you down where you stand, o villain?" Bystanders laughed.
"I am no villain," the Red Hood answered. He sounded young, despite the breadth of his shoulders. A local lower-class accent, but perhaps put on for the role. His mask had no mouth, and only slits for eye holes.
"A hero, then?"
"Not a hero, no. Not like you."
Bruce struck a pose. "Oh? An admirer of my work? But your own is tres déclassés, non? Un boucher d'hommes, voilà tout." ...very low-class, right? A human butcher, that's all. A bit of French might help reveal if the man were really an uneducated commoner or not; if he did understand it, insulting his choice of costume might make him angry, and angry men were more likely to be careless.
"Tiens, tiens," Well, well, the stranger merely said, amusement in his voice, but crossing his arms and standing a little straighter. "Je ne sais pas dire qui a été déclassé. I would have thought it would be the one insulting his guest." I can't say which one is low-class.
His French pronunciation was good but a little harsh and regional to Bruce's ear, maybe Belgian? Interesting. A very good actor, or...? Who could this be? How did he get in and when did he arrive?
"Let us not be enemies," Bruce said, "will a pair of dances clear me of the charge of inhospitality?"
"I would not for all the world be your enemy." The Red Hood held out a gloved hand.
———
All his life, Bruce had suffered with poor dance partners. If they weren't too cowed by his size and rank and wealth into barely being able to follow Bruce's lead, they were aggressively attempting to swing Bruce around the floor, not trusting Bruce to follow without the partner dance equivalent of a duel. Very unattractive and liable to leave his partner with bruised feet.
This Red Hood clearly had grace in his movements. When the music began, he made a light tug upon Bruce's hand in one direction, but when Bruce pulled the other way, he allowed Bruce the lead with no sign of discontent, and followed in good time. Very unusual; only his wards ever danced with him with this kind of easy trust.
They made only inconsequential conversation in the beats where they were together; it was a country dance.
While they clapped for the musicians, Bruce said, "You dance well. Will you lead me in the next?"
"As you'll have me," his partner answered.
The next song was a waltz, providing Bruce with his closest exposure to the stranger's scent yet. He could swear he'd never smelled it in his life, as the duke or as the Bat. The stranger's accent still sounded as if he'd lived all his youth in Gotham, no trace of affectation. It seemed incredible that such a tall, striking figure of an alpha could have escaped Bruce's notice entirely. And with such a scent... virile, pricking at instincts Bruce often faked but never truly allowed...
"My apologies," said the stranger.
"What?" said Bruce, glad his cover personality allowed him to be unintelligent.
"You made no answer to my question. I must be a very dull partner to have lost your attention so quickly."
"No, not at all, I should be the one to apologize. It has been a long evening. Perhaps some fresh air and hot punch will revive me." Drinking would make the stranger lift up his mask at least a little.
The music was winding up. "Fetch a cloak and go into the Lady's Garden, then, and I'll bring your refreshment there."
The Red Hood had bowed and gone away before Bruce could think how to interrogate the stranger about how he knew the location and name of the castle's walled garden, an intimate space that he never opened for events like these. His mother had planted all the flowers, it was private.
At least the space would allow Bruce to be more pointed in his questions without having to worry about eavesdroppers. He would find out who this stranger was.
———
Bruce heard the stranger's voice before he saw him this time.
"Ce jardin est bel et plaisant ;
Il est garni de toutes fleurs ;
On y prend son ébattement
Autant la nuit comme le jour."
This garden is beautiful and pleasant;
It is decorated all with flowers;
One can enjoy themselves there
As much at night as during the day.
French again. Maybe the stranger was actually foreign, and it was his English accent that was good... then the double meaning of the verse drew Bruce's attention away from trying to analyze his pronunciation. He felt his cheeks grow a little hot, which was a sad lack of control by his own standards. His heat must be coming on earlier than usual, for him to be this reactive. He would need to be careful.
The singing got louder, and then he was there, the torchlight casting him in shadow. To Bruce's surprise, the stranger was not alone; rather, Stephanie was with him, and she was the one carrying a steaming mug.
Stephanie crossed to Bruce and handed him the mug as the Red Hood sang a final verse, then gave a short bow. Stephanie and Bruce clapped.
"Well, fair Athena? Was it a good bargain?"
"An excellent bargain," Stephanie replied, adjusting her cloak around her Greek costume a little to better shield against the cold, and looked at Bruce. "Need anything else?"
"No, thank you," said Bruce, and when she had left, questioned, "A bargain?"
"A small lie." The Red Hood came a bit closer and leaned against a decorative pillar. "I said you had gone to a garden for fresh air and wished for a drink, but I didn't know where to go, and would she show me? This way you know your drink has not been interfered with; she carried it the whole way, in exchange for a song."
"No drink for yourself?" Bruce pushed back his mask and took a deep draught of the sweet, stimulating wine. "My steward's wassail is famous."
"Indeed, I had some earlier. I'll give Alfred my compliments when I see him."
"When you see him? Oh, you know Alfred—he invited you, I suppose." Well, of course. Bruce couldn't believe that hadn't occurred to him before. "I wonder why he didn't mention it to me."
"I know him very well, but I have not seen him for some years."
Bruce nodded and took a drink as if he didn't care. Not for some years... oh, another possibility. A young man with a local accent... one of the common people of Gotham, dressed up in a costume and slipping from the rowdy wassailers into the high society masquerade, on a dare perhaps. Why attempt to get Bruce alone, then?
The stranger was coming closer; when he had gotten at arm's length, he reached for Bruce's mask and pulled it up and off entirely. It knocked back the hood of Bruce's cloak to his shoulders, and he reflexively shivered a bit at the sudden cold air on his ears and cheeks.
"What can I trade you for this?" the stranger asked, turning it in his hands. "It would be quite a souvenir."
Oh, what a dare, then. Bruce smiled, despite himself. Such a young thing to do... "Bet you can't make it off among those rich folk!" "I can, and I'll bring you the duke's mask to prove it!" This young man would be the toast of his friends, no doubt; he would probably enjoy free drinks for a week.
"Go ahead and have it; it's a silly, fragile thing, anyway."
"Don't sell the Bat as cheaply as that," the young man chided, stepping a little closer. "It's worth more than I can pay, I know, but I must give you something now."
With his heels on, Bruce could still look down on him. "How about a firm handshake?"
The young man laughed, tying the mask on his belt. It was a very pleasant laugh, but it hit against something inside him that made his guts twist. Jason was always laughing when they were together. God, Jason's death day's approach always made him maudlin but this was getting out of hand.
The Red Hood took his right hand but he did not shake it, but rather bent over it and pressed his lips to the pulse point of his wrist.
Bruce had broken a man's jaw the previous night who had attempted to sucker punch him. He was never caught off guard. But not only did the stranger's gallant gesture surprise him, but he was struck instantly unable to think at all. All he could do was feel—and even more so when his wrist was passed against the stranger's neck.
The mark of his scent wafted up to him as the Red Hood let him go and straightened up, mask already back in place.
"What on—you dare—" sputtered Bruce.
"My gift is a mark to let the other hopefuls know your next heat is spoken for."
Now Bruce was in a difficult position. He played the tart as the duke, but in reality he had never risked actually sharing a heat. He did not want to encourage this puppy to think they had some kind of understanding. Him showing up at the castle to share the duke's heat would only result in Dick and the others shoving him into a snowbank. "You are too late, sir; my next three are spoken for, and I never plan more than three heats in advance."
Such slutty rejection should have worked, but the stranger only laughed again. "You have guests, so I will not tarry longer here tonight. Forgive me, I wanted to see you, even like this. We'll talk more when Alfred shows me to your nest."
Now this was an insult to Alfred's loyalty that Bruce would not stand for under any identity. "Alfred would never betray me."
"No," the stranger said, with fondness, "he would not."
And with that, the stranger ran to the wall, scaled it, and was over in a twinkling.
Bruce swore in the empty garden. Damn these heels! He'd never catch him.
He heard a distant laugh, and then nothing.
———
Alfred said he had not seen the man dressed as a bandit either coming in or going out of the masquerade, nor among the revellers taking bread and wassail.
Tim had danced with him and described him as aloof and mostly silent.
Dick, Duke, and Cass did not remember seeing him. Stephanie had only interacted with him for the brief time that they walked together to the garden.
What was his game?! Was he really just a besotted and cocksure young alpha who was attempting to brazen his way into Bruce's nest?
Regardless, when he began battening himself down in his nest for his heat, his primary emotion was frustration that he would not be able to see the youth himself and do his own interrogating. He would have to trust to Alfred to handle turning the young alpha away and Dick to handle tailing him for more investigation.
So when he heard the young man's voice outside his chamber, singing, coming closer, you could have knocked Bruce over with a feather, regardless of still being only in the early part of his heat where his wits were not compromised at all.
"I knew when I was in my mother's bower;
I had all that I would.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay."
Bruce knew the song very well. It had been a favourite of his mother, and whenever he had pups around young enough to keep with him during his heats (even a pup of no blood relation would dampen the fires of a heat and make it much easier to bear without sex), he would sing it to them. Bruce was, he could admit it, not a particularly soft subtitute for a dam for his wards. His heat alone brought out that side of him.
The key turned in the lock.
"Your grace," Alfred announced as the door swung open, "it's Master Jason. He's alive!"
The elderly retainer stepped in, and through the low doorway ducked the man from the masquerade, identically attired except for the lack of mask.
The young man's cheeks were a little redder than the firelight alone would explain, but he straightened up and looked at Bruce steadily. Jason—if it was Jason—had thinned out a little in his face, but he was still recognizable in his features. If this was a hoax, they were starting with an excellent likeness.
Bruce had reflexively clutched at his nesting materials when the door to his den was breached, and he saw both Alfred and... the other one notice.
"I'll allow your grace to see how true it is without my carrying on," Alfred said hastily, wiping at his eyes with a hankerchief, "knowing as how your grace dislikes visitation and fuss during this period, as a rule, though I'm sure, after such a long time, your grace won't want to take even a moment longer to—well, there I go again. Won't Master Dick be pleased and all!" With this declaration, he practically floated from the chamber.
The door shut and locked, and the two men regarded each other a moment: the younger standing in bandit's attire, and the elder on his knees in nothing but a simple linen smock, in a poster bed with the heavy curtains drawn on two sides, the feather mattress completely invisible between bolsters, pillows, quilts, and sheets.
The only sound was the crackling of the fire.
Bruce spoke first. "If you've convinced Alfred, you are either very good, or..."
The other smiled a little. "I have never been very good. I would never have been swept off that boat if I had. But I suppose I never would have survived my years with the pirates who rescued me, either, if I hadn't been mostly bad."
Bruce was torn between wanting to laugh, wanting to jump to Jason's defence against this stranger, and wanting to take his beloved lost ward into his arms and never let him out of his sight again.
"I can show you the same birthmark I showed Alfred," the young man continued, shifting a little from one foot to the other and not seeming quite so confident, "or... I can answer anything. Anything you want to know, I remember everything, I could never forget it."
"If you could never forget it, then why didn't you come back? Didn't you know how I grieved?"
"I couldn't," he answered seriously. "First because I had no power to; I was sick and weak as a runt, when they dragged me out of the water, and then, as they said, I had to pay them back with interest for the trouble they'd gone to in saving me, as a cabin boy. Years of my life at sea and outside the country, even, doing things you'd have been ashamed to see me doing—"
"If I'd known you were alive," Bruce interrupted, with heat, "if you could have sent me any word, I would have stopped at nothing to save you."
"But you already saved me once," Jason said, his smile a little sad, "which was already more than I deserved. I had to save myself this time, B—do you understand? I had to bring myself back to you. I had to know I could handle myself, in order to be sure I had anything to offer you."
Bruce's mouth opened and shut, and he knew in his marrow that he didn't need to ask for any more proof than this. Of course, of course that is what Jason would say and do. "Jason, I didn't—I don't need a soldier. You didn't have to prove yourself that way to me."
"You don't need a soldier," Jason agreed, blue eyes locking with blue. "You need an alpha."
Bruce laughed, but it was mostly a disbelieving bark. "An alpha? Jason, I've never needed or wanted one, you know that."
"I know you don't want or need someone to come in and take over, and you've assumed that an alpha would do that, and you haven't been wrong about it, either. That's what I've been learning to do, working to do—becoming someone who will be the alpha that you do need. Someone who's not afraid to let you lead, nor to take care of you."
Bruce wanted to open his mouth to deny that he needed or wanted someone to take care of him at all, thank you kindly, but he found that somehow he just couldn't.
Before Alfred had brought in Jason, Bruce had been lying on his side, curled up, with his wrist against his nostrils, rocking himself like a pathetic abandoned pup. Yearning for comfort he couldn't have.
And here was that exact comfort, that exact smell, offering itself to him; and to crown it off, that smell was coming from his worst failure, the one he'd thought he'd lost forever.
Wasn't it despicable, this lust he was feeling for a man that he thought ten minutes ago was a dead child? He wanted to be able to say it was like a nightmare, but it wasn't. It was like the guiltiest of wet dreams.
"Don't think so much. All you have to do is let me in. Nothing needs to change outside your nest. Think only about what you want and what you feel, right now." Jason approached, but rather than invading, he dropped to his knees right before the edge of the bed. "Do you want me in your nest, omega?"
Yes. Yes. Yes. "Yes," Bruce managed, and the alpha stood up.
Piece by piece, like a ritual in itself, Jason undressed.
Silver is white, and red is the gold.
The robes, they lay in fold.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
The music was thrumming in Bruce's own heart beat and the rushing of his heated blood.
Through the glass window shines the sun.
How should I love, and I so young?
Bruce was no longer young, not like this man who was taking his hand to reverently climb into his nest. But he did not know how to love. Not like this.
"Shhhh," Jason kissed the palm of his hand again, an echo of that same one that had set his instincts aflame in the garden. The bed curtain was drawn on three sides now, open only for the fire's warmth and light.
Bruce's other hand loosened its anxious grip upon a pillow and reached out for him.
Never had preheat slipped so seamlessly and quickly away into full blown heat for him. He could feel his nipples pebbling up against his shift as if he wasn't on fire and being covered by warm, muscular flesh besides. "Jason," he whispered, moving his hands over his smooth shoulders, then up to caress the soft dark hair framing his face. Could a dream be real? Even if it could, how could two such impossible dreams both be real at once? Jason alive, and a mate who wouldn't change him?
If it was a dream then there could be no harm in enjoying it.
"It's alright," Jason murmured, "you've been so desperate for it, haven't you? So neglected, all these years... this perfect body... it's a crime worse than any of the ones you've stopped, Bruce." Jason kissed away any protest Bruce could make to this as his hands reached down to pull up on Bruce's shift, and then when his callused fingertips touched Bruce's nipples, Bruce had no protest left in him.
"Mmmmm," he moaned, unintelligently, and the sound of it embarrassed him, but Jason teased even more at the perky tips of his nipples and wrenched more of these inelegant sounds from him.
"Don't even try to hold it back, Bruce, it will only make me want to tease you more. Your voice is as sweet and beautiful as these gorgeous little tits."
Bruce squirmed, not sure if he was even trying to escape so much as he couldn't keep still under the sensation. The extra fabric was all hiked and twisted up at his collar bone and Jason frowned.
"That won't do... can't see your neck like this at all. Will you present for me, darling?"
Present. That most submissive and primal of postures. Bruce never took the posture when alone in heat, it only made him feel more empty. But this time he would be filled.
Jason half-lifted off of him enough for Bruce to flip. The omega pressed his head down to the mattress as the alpha tugged the shift over his head but then left it once it was down to his forearms.
Bruce could have simply taken it off, but instead he grabbed onto it with both hands, twisting the cloth in his fingers.
"Don't be afraid," Jason murmured into his shoulder blades, and pressed kisses up to the nape of his neck. "I'll be gentle until you beg me for more."
Jason had still had his braies on when Bruce was facing him, and so Bruce only had a vague notion of the outline of his bulge. He wanted to turn back to catch a look, but before he could gather his wits enough to do so, Jason had his hand over the back of Bruce's neck, keeping him down against the mattress and squeezing just enough on Bruce's glands to forcibly relax the omega.
"You're so wet," Jason said with admiration, almost too quiet for Bruce's fuzzy brain to make out. "I'm going to just slide right in."
And so he did. Bruce let out a long breathy ah as his virgin hole was finally breached and the alpha's thick shaft filled him up. Everything seemed to slow down and get more intense and indistinguishable—the cracks of the fire, his heartbeat, the hand on his neck, the pulse in his wrists, the skin against his skin, the sounds of Jason's breaths, his own breaths, the fabric rubbing in his fingers, the cock in his cunt, the ropes creaking beneath the mattress.
Jason pulled back slow, about half way, and pushed in again.
The cock in his cunt came to the forefront of the other sensations.
And again.
Bruce could swear he could feel the veins and the exact edges of the ridges of Jason's cock inside him as they slid against his inner walls.
It was everything he'd ever desperately craved during a heat, but now somehow that it was happening, his body wanted even more. But more what? Wasn't this it?
"Ngh," Bruce grunted, his hips twisting.
"You want more?"
"I don't—yes, I—I don't know—"
"Faster? Harder? Deeper?"
All three, but something more, too, what was it? "I need... I need..."
"Oh, I see. You already want to be filled, isn't that it? Filled with cum and a big knot to keep it inside you." Jason didn't wait for a response this time. He began to move his hips faster, harder, battering against something inside him.
"Just what you need—never been an omega who needed a thick cock inside more than you—gonna fill you up with me as much as you need, Bruce, never gonna leave you empty ever again. Get you properly bred."
If Bruce hadn't been in full heat, he may have seen the logical contradiction between nothing has to change outside this nest and getting properly bred, but what came out of his mouth in that moment was another enthusiastic, "Yes! Yes, Jason, please, breed me, want to give you pups, want them so much, please!"
"I will—never be apart again, I swear it. I'll claim you and keep you."
Claimed, kept, together, full, oh, oh, oh. Everything he ever really wanted—his toes curled and he cried out as he clenched down with his orgasm, but the cock kept relentlessly pulling out, back in, but then out, not staying, he needed it to stay.
"Oh God, the way you're squeezing me, you're gonna milk the cum right out of me, aren't you? You're trying to lock and there isn't even a knot yet."
"Please, fill me, please, hurry, hurry—" He must sound pathetic, there were tears in his eyes, but he was too far gone now, he was too close. "Please, please, please—"
The next time Jason pulled back, there was a little extra pressure. "Oh, fuck," said Jason, "fuck, impatient, greedy, desperate little cunt—"
The words held nothing but exasperated affection, and Bruce couldn't have felt shame anyway because the knot was growing, shoving into him with one last jolt and expanding as his own muscles joyfully clenched around it, and deep inside him he could feel hot cum starting to spurt. Filling him, going into some little chamber inside him where nothing had been before and filling it.
"Oh, oh, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!" Bruce kept chanting. Whether he heard Jason asking to claim him or not didn't really matter, the only thing in the world that could have stopped him from saying yes over and over until he passed out was Jason's teeth in his neck, and that only because the pleasure of that took him to a place beyond yes.
———
When Alfred came back to the chamber a little later and gave his efficient single rap at the door, he heard a muffled voice from within, and then a minute later the lock turned and the door pulled open only a crack.
"It's been some time, your grace, and I thought you and Master Jason might be... hungry..." His voice died away because even an aged beta like himself could smell the sex coming from the nest, not to mention that even the small amount of Bruce that Alfred could see looked, if Alfred could be so vulgar as to think such a phrase, fucked out.
His hair was wild, love bites were visible all over even the front of his neck, and Bruce's shift was definitely worse for wear.
"He's, ah, asleep, but, ah... things were..."
"Are you alright, your grace?" Alfred pushed gently on the door, and Bruce allowed it to swing open that little bit more, enough for the tray with two mugs to be offered.
Bruce accepted a mug, took a big gulp, and said with his eyes downcast, "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be, Alfred."
"If your grace is alright, then I know I am very glad—very glad indeed, if I may be so bold to say?"
Bruce looked up, smiled back at Alfred's smile, looked over his shoulder at the sleeping alpha still sprawled in the nest, and then said, "Then... I think I am alright, Alfred. And maybe better than that."
Alfred set the tray with its remaining mug on a table, and said, "Right, then, your grace, I'll be along with a fine a meal as any dam-to-be in the country could wish, and you get your rest, without any worries at all, your grace; Master Dick and the others are more than any rogue in Gotham can withstand, and your brain besides—and lord bless me, Master Jason will be here to help as well! Tis a blessed Christmas and no mistake about it!"
With this sunny proclamation, Alfred left, and Bruce closed the door behind him. Gingerly, he touched his abdomen and pondered things. His smile stayed on his face.