building on the npa post recently where b is back from the timestream and has no territory and the manor is completely taken over and they've strengthened as a pack in his death...?
maybe he comes back and it leaves him in a position where he's (sort of?) homeless bc he has no territory, no pack, no safety in these places that used to be his including safehouses
he's unofficially kicked out essentially
and he briefly stays at the manor before leaving once he realises how they've bonded without him and he truly has no place and no one thinks anything of it/ dont notice and assume he taking time to himself at a safe home or something
like B has been in this position before on travels and can survive just fine ohsycually but the emotional and mental toll is immeasurable
idk where you can go from this or if this makes sense, but B deserves some comfort
and also the kids dont mean for that to be the message at all its just miscommunication built upon misunderstandings which is the vibe given from npa and what think uve suggested/ mentioned before?
@romanticdestruction no. 54!
He makes it only a few weeks. He can't... His family lands. His ancestral home. Plucked from his grasp. He would've— He would have happily passed it down to his children, but to have it taken from him prematurely is another matter altogether.
At first, he plans to go to the penthouse. But when he walks in, he's hit by a wall of pack scent so entrenched he baulks and walks back out again. The Cave is his next step, but the bed he keeps down there stinks of Cass.
His safehouses have all been compromised, the lingering scents of his children forcing him to abandon another plan.
Nowhere's safe. Nowhere is his.
In a fit of frustration, he packs a bag in the middle of the night and starts down the driveway.
He was forces to figure out how to groom himself so he could still manage undercover missions while between bases, and is this not that? Going undercover as someone normal while his omega cries and whines incessantly at the loss of the pack territory, the last strands of connection he had to his parents, the last pack he ever knew.
Dick cracks a joke about the manor not being good enough for him and he feigns a laugh, feeling tears heat his eyes.
For two months, he spends his days on the streets, and his nights on those same ones, in the Batsuit.
He knew it wasn't sustainable. He couldn't think of another solution, mind clouded by his omega's screams.
He knew it wasn't sustainable. He didn't expect to collapse in on the Watchtower, though. Funnily, on some level, all it took in the end was overhearing discussions about redecorating some parts of the manor, having Tim lean over to him, eyes glinting with mirth, to ask if he's planning on coming back, or if they should give Damian the bigger room he's been wanting.
It's the last thing he remembers clearly.
After that is a blur of his omega's scream, his legs give out. The shouting of familiar voices. Hands pulling at him, poking him, demanding a response he can't give.
The pain that's been sinisterly creeping through him since he came back explodes, and the world goes black.
Dick stares at Constantine. "Starvation doesn't do that," he objects, Bruce's hoarse screams replaying in his mind.
"Not that kind," the mage gripes. "Zee!"
Zatanna looks up, and presses a kiss to Bruce's sweaty forehead before walking across the medbay to them. Constantine puts his arm around her, and doesn't try to cop a feel for once. Dick is glad he's taking the situation seriously.
"Zee is a 'mega," Constantine reminds them. He waves his hand, and a gold haze lifts from her. Thick threads of magic concentrate around her breast, resting over her heart, the pulse making the threads throb.
"That is my omega." Zatanna reaches out, touching the gold threads, which dissolve in the air. "Now look at Bruce's."
She waves her hand, and a similar gold haze lifts over the bed, hovering over Bruce.
"Where's the rest of it?" Dick drifts closer in case it's a case of being at the wrong angle, but no. Bruce's omega is smaller than the size of a fist, the threads thin and almost transparent, not moving out much further than his breastbone, where Zatanna's push out across the entire hologram of her body.
Something twists in Dick's gut. "It can do that?"
"It shouldn't. It's rare that a pack treats someone so badly that their soul starves." Zatanna's voice is waspish, and Dick finds himself suddenly back on the other side of the room, the witch taking his place by Bruce's bedside.
He bares his teeth in a silent snarl. "Bruce made the choice not to be pack. To go it alone. Don't blame us for his poor choices."
The door bangs open, and Clark stalks past Dick towards the bed. "You stole his home, Dick. That was your choice."
He gapes at his mentor. "Bruce moved out on his own."
"Your pack took over the last place he felt a connection to his pack, to his parents. The last pack he ever had. He had no choice but to leave, when you and your pack took everything he had and made it yours."
Dick clenches his fists, swallowing heavily. "He was dead."
"He's not dead anymore. Were you ever going to give it back?"
"It's Bruce!" Clark yells, eyes glowing dully.
Zatanna's glare is venom. "Bruce puts up, and he deals. And that is what he did, until he couldn't anymore. Until you drove him out of his home."
"The mind reader took a peek," Constantine says primly. "Want to know what he saw?"
Dick swallows. "He went to go and stay in a safehouse...that's what he told us."
"It's what you assumed," Clark clips.
Zatanna's eyes are incandecent with rage as she stares him down. "Bruce has spent the last two months staying in the only place he has any tie left to his pack. Sleeping on the floor of Crime Alley."
