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When Jason skidded into the Batcave with a bleeding Roy at his back, it had been empty. Everybody else was on patrol, or showing off at some fancy Wayne Enterprises shindig upstairs, so the echo of his bike engine was the only human-made sound in the dank cavern.
“Roy, I swear to fuck- “ throwing his helmet off, Jason grabbed hold of Roy’s quiver strap before he slumped to the ground, eyes unfocused and ragged canine ears splayed in two different directions “-you and your stupid shit is gonna get us both kicked off this mortal plane sooner rather than later .”
All Roy offered was a delirious chuckle, leaning into Jason’s side as he dragged the other Omega off the bike like a potato sack.
With most of his weight on Jason, the two managed to stumble into the Cave’s infirmary without falling into a crevasse, and Roy was sat on the nearest bed with the same fanfare he’d been lifted with, tail thumping against the clean sheets.
“Strip, you dumb, jerkified fuck.” Jason grumbled, turning his back to rummage around the medical cabinet. “Preferably before you bleed out.”
“ So mean .” Roy huffed under his breath as he unlatched his quiver and bow with difficulty.
“I’m actually being way nicer than you deserve.” Crooked tail lashing, Jason dropped his armful of pilfered medical goods on the bed and sighed at Roy’s pawing attempts to remove his gear, nudging the maned wolf’s unburnt shoulder with his gloved knuckles as he came around to his side.
“Need a hand, Red?”
“Whaddyou think?” Roy asked cheekily, waggling his prosthetic fingers in the other Omega’s face. Snorting, Jason simply rolled his eyes and caught hold of the hidden zipper on the back of his suit.
The two Omegas fell into an easy silence as Jason helped Roy out of the top half of his suit, broken only by sharp hisses of pain or soft asks to move one way or another. The top was well and truly fried, as was the undershirt, and -most importantly- the skin below was red and peeling, burn teetering between second and third degree and spanning from his left shoulder to his right hip. Some of the places where skin had fused to suit bled sluggishly when the two parted, though it was nothing compared to some of the shrapnel cuts that had tore up his arms.
At some point, as Jason was cracking open a bottle of antiseptic, Roy had tried to scrub his cheek against the other’s wrist, only to have his efforts stumped by Jason’s scent blocker. Grumping wordlessly, he grabbed hold of Jason’s right forearm and determinedly began to peel off the bandaid-like patch, leaving the opossum to finish tearing off the shrink wrap with his teeth.
“Yer a jackass, you know that, right?” Jason asked, spitting out the last of the plastic and beginning to unscrew the top. Roy, still only half-lucid, didn’t care, rubbing the side of his face over the newly bared skin of his partner’s scent gland with a satisfied rumble.
While warm, rosy affection had colored most of his old potpourri scent, there was still a sour, formaldehyde tinge of worry to go along with it, and Roy squinted up at the opossum.
“Quit that.”
“What? Being concerned for you?”
“Yeah, exactly that. Quit it.” Despite himself, Jason paused in unscrewing the bottle and barked a sharp, sudden laugh.
“Red, when you schtah doin’ dum shit-” bottle in his teeth, he snagged a towel from behind Roy and tossed it onto his lap before dropping the antiseptic back into his hand “-I’ll stop being concerned. Until then, you’re gonna sit there and deal with it.” Finally undoing the cap, Jason popped a hole in the tamper seal with his finger and screwed it back up.
“This is gonna hurt like a bitch.”
“It always does.” Roy sighed, done-for undershirt finding its way between his teeth as the first drops of antiseptic hit his shoulder.
——————
Curling up further in the space under Jason’s arm, Roy rumbled contentedly as the opossum ran careful fingers through his hair. He’d been bandaged neck to hip and given the painkiller equivalent of half a horse tranquilizer, and now the two were squashed together on a different infirmary bed, adjacent knees hooked one atop the other and watching the news on Jason’s phone in the lamp-lit dim.
Sure, Roy wasn’t supposed to be here -Bats had made that crystal clear the last time Jason had brought him down for help- and the rest of the family was probably going to be back sooner rather than later, but he couldn’t care less if he tried. Roy was comfortable, damnit, wreathed in the scent of old flowers and basking in the warmth of his partner; it felt like it’d been ages since they’d had the time to just exist together.
Nuzzling at Roy’s cheek, Jason’s eyes were half-lidded, a soft purr bubbling in his throat as he inhaled Roy’s soft, orange candy scent.
But with everything in their life, they were never just allowed to have anything, not even if one of them had already gotten the shit beat out of them. Life just took pleasure in throwing both of them nothing but curveballs and sliders, and both Omegas stiffened at the violent crack that ripped through the cavern.
“What the fuck?” Jason’s rounded ears flattened to his skull as another, higher pitched crackle sounded from outside the infirmary, followed by more.
“Dickie fuckin’ with his shock sticks again?” Roy asked, question coming out far more bleary than intended as the other Omega drew away, throwing his legs off the bed and extracting his crooked tail from behind Roy’s back.
“Big Bird never passes on the chance to fuck with people, somethin’ else is going on.” Fingers flexing as he stalked around the front of the bed, Jason eyed the depowered prosthetic laying on the side table and it’s half-awake owner with careful scrutiny before reaching into his boot.
“I don’t trust your drugged ass with a gun much,” Jason stated, offering up a deep red and black switchblade to Roy, “so a knife will have to do.”
“Jay, this is a horrible time to propose.” Roy chuffed with a dopey smile as he accepted the blade. “But I’d say yes to you any day.”
“Just stab anyone that isn’t me, Red.” Despite how tense he was -his hackles raising further as the electric noise reached a fever pitch outside- Jason snorted good-naturedly at Roy’s words and drew his Scorpion.
——————
A damp, tech-illuminated cave was decidedly not where Garth and Brin had thought they’d end up, but -as with everything concerning the Time Bubble- it could’ve been far worse.
“Bee, there is no way in hell that this is the twenty-fifth century.” Garth scoffed, looking back at his mate as they stepped onto the dark stone ground one after the other.
The place was massive, ceiling stretching out of sight and long shadows hiding deep holes in the ground. It echoed all wrong to Brin, and the whole place tasted of old water and something fresher, acrid and bitter. Beneath the dripping stones and humming tech, Brin caught the distinct sounds of a click and a measured breath somewhere nearby.
“Livewire-“ Brin called warningly as the oblivious hyena walked backwards ahead of him, straight towards a seething wall of fresh scent that reeked like a morgue.
“I mean, maybe on any other planet, but Earth?” Ignored, he followed his husband towards the smell of death, fighting every urge to bolt forward and haul him back.
“Light of my life-“
“I’m think we dropped in the nineteenth, yeah, or the twentieth. They had this kinda stuff back then, right?”
“Sparky!”
“What?” Finally, Garth stopped, ears flattening and annoyance seeping into his bright citrus scent as he let Brin catch up and pull him in by his waist. “What’s wrong this time? Wolfy senses tingling?”
“We’re trespassing, love.” He hummed tersely into Garth’s hair, taking a few steps back from the bitter warning that steeped the shadows ahead.
“Damn right you are.” Melting out of the shadows, the stranger was quick to level a gun at them, cold hostility boiling in his glowing green eyes.
He looked like a mercenary, but only from the waist down, plain black tee and fingerless gloves at odds with his heavy combat boots and weapon-laden cargo pants. A pale, worm-like tail twisted and lashed behind him, its kinked middle making the movement janky and unbalanced.
Under Brin’s hands, Garth stiffened, the beginnings of a protective snarl rumbling against his mate’s diaphragm as he side-eyed the Omega over his shoulder.
“Easy, Chuckles, your boy’s pretty white hair makes a damn good target.” He raised the muzzle to point at Brin’s head and the hyena’s rattle stuttered into silence. “Smart. Now, gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t paint the Cave floor with grey matter.”
“Feel like that depends on what a ‘good reason’ is to you.” Brin responded calmly, petting Garth’s hip with a thumb and keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the stranger’s elbow. “We can give you an answer for most scenarios, but that question’s a little vague, and what’re the chance you’ll actually believe us?”
“Try me.” The opossum hissed through his teeth, irritated. “How’d you get in here?”
“Maladjusted Time Bubble. The damn thing goes everywhere except where we want it.” He nodded backwards, and the stranger shifted his weight to take a suspicious peek at the glowing yellow orb behind him.
“You aliens or some shit?”
“Sure, yeah, aliens, let’s go with that.” Garth huffed out loud, before lowering his voice to a whisper. “ What the fuck is that? ”
“ Uh, foreign species. ” Brin mumbled back, dredging up the vaguest of memories about a lecture Mar had given once.
“So,” the stranger massaged the bridge of his nose, exasperation beginning to cut through the acidic fury with something floral, “you’re telling me a couple human aliens broke into the hardest to enter place that isn’t funded by the government with a temperamental TARDIS?”
“Not human.” Brin offered.
“Legal Earth resident since I was twelve.” Garth added, finally twisting around in Brin’s hold.
“ Fine, A human and AN alien, what the hell are you even looking for that needs you carting around time and space?” He snapped, throwing up his free hand.
“A person.”
“Oh, yeah, helpful. Friend or foe?”
“You gonna yell if we say both?” Garth asked, ear twitching mirthfully as the Omega’s eye twitched.
“ No, I am NOT. ” He grit out, holstering his pistol with a frustrated flourish and hissing. “Just…just get the fuck out before I change my mind.”
“And if we-“ already anticipating the other Alpha’s snark, Brin clapped a hand over his mouth and started dragging him away.
“Getting the fuck out as we speak.”
“Grand. Goddamnit, can this fucking day just be over already?”
With a parting threat display of bared teeth, Brin and Garth watched from the door of the Time Bubble as he turned on his heel and stalked back into the dark.
“Start the fucking Bubble.”
“Way ahead of you, Bee.”