Archive of Our Own

Puppy Mill

“There’s two in here! I think they are still alive.” One of the GCPD officers called from the back. Bruce blinked. Pups? Alive? And still here?

He had teamed up with the GCPD to break apart this puppy mill and they had found the place frustratingly empty. The criminal must have gotten a tip, they wouldn’t have had the time to pack an entire operation otherwise. 

This puppy mill looked like it had been abandoned for days. The cages were empty, the water bottles were dry, dust had begun to settle on the flat surfaces. They had found a small corpse in another room, and two of the officers had begun to wrap it to take it away.

Bruce had expected to bust this operation and knowing that the criminals had gotten away made him want to punch a hole in a wall. 

These fuckers were still somewhere with dozens of captive omegas, alphas and pups, and they were back at square one.

But at least there were two. 

At least they could save two pups, and that was worth suiting up. 

The fact that two were still alive was a miracle and Bruce couldn’t be more grateful for it. Two alive meant two they could get to safety and away from the hellhole they had been tossed into. 

A question still tugged at the back of his mind though. Why were they here? Why had they been left behind when all the other puppies were taken when the mill fled? It was strange for a puppy mill to leave behind two of their pieces of “merchandise”.

Revulsion rolled in Bruce’s stomach as he began to walk back to where the officer had called from. The mill was absolutely filthy, and the smell made nausea threaten to come up. It had been clear that when the mill left, they had fully intended to leave the pups to die. 

Bruce’s alpha absolutely snarled at the idea that someone could knowingly and willfully do that to a child. 

Bruce easily found the officer leaning over a cage that had been shoved into a corner. As Bruce got closer, he could hear the pups’ high-pitched puppy snarls and the sliver of panic that made that sound wobble at the end. 

The puppies may have been tossed to the side, but they certainly hadn’t given up.

Their tiny defiance made Bruce’s lip quirk, because he was so happy to hear that fight still in them.

He leaned in past the officer, peering through the cowl to see two matching sets of blue eyes peering back at him. 

Bruce blinked. 

The pups blinked back, and the smaller one started to snarl. 

It was clear to tell what traits had been bred for. Inky black hair, pale skin (though the larger pup was a few shades darker than the other) and large, light blue eyes. Strong jaws that Bruce could easily see developing into a handsome face.

They were beautiful, even as pups, and the intention behind those looks was clear and it sickened him. These were children, human beings, and traffickers had bred them like dogs to be sold. 

One of the pups was already growling, but both of them began snarling in earnest when Bruce approached. They lifted their lips, exposing their milk fangs to Bruce. Those fangs should be used for nipping and playing, not trying to look impossibly intimidating. 

“Hey babies,” Bruce said, and he forced a soothing alpha rumble from his chest. The noise was supposed to calm pups down, but it didn’t seem to have an effect on the two terrified puppies. Both of them remained stiff and tense, glaring through the wire of the cage at the two alphas leaning over them. 

They were curled tightly together, in a slightly awkward position that had Bruce narrowing his eyes.

Was one of them hurt? The position was unnatural and had to be uncomfortable. Maybe both of them were hurt? That might have been a reason to leave the pups behind when all the rest of them fled.

“It’s alright. I’m not going to— “

A sharp whimper split the air and made Bruce stop mid-sentence. Bruce had been watching the boys, the sound hadn’t come from either of them, which meant…

The older pup whined and leaned down to nuzzle at something behind him. 

The whimpering died down but still hung in the filthy air.  Every single pained sound broke Bruce’s heart even more. 

How could someone leave a pup when they sounded so small?

“There’s a third,” Bruce said to another officer and she radio-ed its in. The two older pups tensed instantly and tried to wrap around the other pup as if they could hide him again.

“No, there isn’t!” the smaller pup snapped. He puffed his chest, trying in vain to look big and scary. “Just leave us alone!”

“Quiet, Jason,” the oldest pup said quickly. “You know you’re not supposed to talk to the alphas.”

“But he wants Tim. I can’t let him take Tim.”

Bruce was more than grateful that the pups were alive, but it did make extraction out of their cage harder. They were bonded and he knew that they weren’t going to separate easily.

But if they wanted to get the last pup the medical attention he needed, then they were going to have to separate them to see him.

Getting the two older pups out of the cage and away from the hurt one would need to be delicate and slow or else he would shatter any chance of building trust.

Bruce stood, backing up from the cage and motioning for the two GCPD officers to follow. 

The caged boys stopped growling as they got further away but didn’t stop watching them with wary eyes. 

“We need to get them out of that cage without having them hurt themselves or the third pup they are trying to protect.”

One cop nodded to the other. “Officer Ventura has experience and training in working with frightened pups. She can handle an extraction like this.”

A knot released in Bruce’s throat and he felt the tension begin to leave his shoulders. “Good, good. I’m glad for someone with experience.” 

“Of course,” the beta said with a small smile, “I’m happy to help.” She headed to her supply bag and pulled out a glove. The sight of it made Bruce narrow his eyes and the officers standing next to him noticed him tensing. 

“Don’t worry. It’s just protection against their teeth,” the alpha officer explained. “The teeth are small at this age, but they can hurt if they get ya’ in the right spot.”

Bruce didn’t understand what would necessitate the pups biting though. Getting them out of the cage should be a calm process designed to get the pups trusting them so they could lure them out. The pups shouldn’t feel a need to bite. 

He looked towards the cage and at the boys who were visibly getting more anxious within it. 

The woman had the glove fully on now and was approaching the cage. She was manipulating her beta scent, changing it to mimic an omega’s and encouraging the pups to calm. 

“Hello sweet things,” she cooed and began unlocking the cage. “Are you going to be nice for me today?” 

Neither pup answered though Bruce hadn’t expected them to. 

The smallest pup was whining from behind his brothers and the sound was driving Bruce’s alpha mad. 

The oldest child was trying to desperately shove the youngers behind him. His breath was rabbit-fast in fear, eyes skittering for exits that didn’t exist, knuckles white as he kept trying to push himself as far back as possible.

Something was terribly wrong. Horribly and terribly wrong. 

“Wait,” Bruce said, reaching out. “I think you’re frightening them mo—”

Before Bruce could finish, the officer struck. She whipped her gloved hand out, lightning fast, and grabbed the smaller pup by the neck. He tried to snarl, but the sound aborted into a panicked whine as her hand closed around his scruff. He jerked violently, slamming the side of his into the wire cage wall. Blood welled from a scratch along his brow ridge, but he still kept trying to slip from the woman’s hold. 

The woman purred for him, but the sound seemed mocking against the boy’s struggles.

“Calm, puppy,” she hushed, positioning her fingers against the boy’s sensitive scent gland. 

“Calm down.”

She squeezed just right, triggering the instinctive submissive response of a pup. 

The boy made a choked, horrified noise before falling limp like a puppet with his strings cut. 

The older pup made a sound between a whine and a sob but stayed frozen over the third pup. 

Silent tears rolled down the limp puppy’s face as the woman dragged him out of the cage and onto the dusty floor. It looked like dragging a corpse. 

“Good boy,” she whispered as she pet through the pup’s hair. He couldn’t do more than move a couple of inches away from the woman’s touch, but his discomfort when having the woman’s hands all over him was clear. 

“Stop it,” Bruce couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice, “why are you doing that? You’re terrifying him!”

The beta brushes her hand through the tear streaks on the boy’s face. “Scruffing means he can’t hurt himself anymore. It’s standard practice.”

Standard practice?

Bruce looked down at the crumpled, whimpering heap of a pup. Gently, he reached down and positioned him into something more comfortable for the boy. Bruce wiped the blood that was dripping into his eye. He felt himself being analysed by keen, blue eyes.

Bruce wishes he could do more to take the fear and the pain away. 

The oldest pup snarled deeply as the woman approached the cage again. The growl had taken the low tone of an adult even though he couldn’t be older than thirteen.

The boy had the faintest hints of omega in his scent — not a full presentation but an omen of one and probably the reason he had been put in with the youngers. 

Without the younger puppy there to help cover the last, smallest puppy, he was finally revealed. 

He was tinier than Bruce thought he was going to be, probably not over 4 or 5. He looked up at Bruce with similar giant blue eyes and a terrified wobble in his lip. He was impossibly thin, ribs rising from his side like the mounds of freshly dug graves. The knobs of his spine outlined his skeleton, and the pale flush of his flesh only made the red scars starker. Ugly and perfectly round marks of cigarette burns dotted the boy’s skin, creating a violent constellation across the map of his back. 

The marks were framed by bruises along the pup’s side like he had been unable to stand then kicked over and over again. 

Bruce had a sick horror that that might have been exactly what happened. 

The oldest pup growled shoving himself right into Bruce’s line of vision. The history of abuse on the boy’s skin made the older pups’ protectiveness make more sense. 

It still didn’t explain why the pups had been left in the first place or what the pup had done to earn such ire. It could have been the merchants being cruel simply for the joy of being cruel, but these boys were products for them. Beating one into a pulp and giving him permanent scars meant lost revenue. 

“Please,” the oldest boy whispered, “please just stop hurting him. He can’t take anymore.”

There were tears running down the boy’s cheeks. He was saying the words, but it was so clear that even he didn’t believe Bruce was going to listen. 

How many times had he begged to an alpha to just be kind and gotten torture in return?

“I won’t,” Bruce said, putting a warm, alpha rumble into his words. It was meant to calm a pup down, to let them know they were safe now, they were protected.

Most pups slumped into Bruce when they heard the sound, giving him their own purr and chirps of trust. This pup just shuddered, frozen in indecision as a war between fear and instinct played out on his face.

“Come here,” Bruce urged, tugging aside the cloth at his neck and letting his scent gland become exposed. He tried to emit his most calming scent and keep all the anger he felt at seeing pups treated like this out of what he was projecting to the pups.

“I promise,” he said putting every bit of sincerity that he could into his voice. “I won’t hurt you.”

The eldest pup’s eyes searched his. It was like the boy’s wide, blue gaze trying to see into his very soul. It was almost disconcerting with how much Bruce felt himself being analysed.

Bruce didn’t know what it was in his face that made the pup give him even the smallest amount of trust, but ever so slowly the pup drew the youngest to him and began to pull them out of the cage. 

The smaller boy was trembling like a leaf but didn’t resist his older brother’s directions. They both looked like hardly more than skeletons as they eased away from the cage walls. 

After what seemed like an eternity, all the pups were fully out of the cage. 

The oldest pup shakily rose to his full height. His legs wobbled under him, struggling to hold his weight after being cramped in a small space for days. He nearly fell, but Bruce caught him by the shoulder. 

The pup startled from the touch but didn’t immediately pull away like Bruce had feared. 

At their feet, the smallest puppy curled over the oldest’s feet and whimpered for attention. 

The eldest’s eyes flickered to Bruce, before crumpling back down to soothe his youngest sibling. The pup petted down the kid’s hair and back, trying to ease away the fear despite how terrified he clearly was. 

Then, the oldest put his arms under the boy’s armpits and lifted him. 

Bruce thought he was going to hold the smallest boy to his chest, but instead he held him out. The silent, shaking offer was clear, even though it looked physically painful for him to do. 

“Please,” the oldest whispered, “I give you anything. My first heat, my mating bite, anything you want, alpha, but please just help him.”

The alpha nodded as he took the puppy. The smallest boy looked even smaller now that Bruce had him in his arms. The boy was deadweight, but Bruce could feel his panicked, pounding heartbeat. The boy didn’t struggle, even as he drew him closer and shifted his body. Bruce had a suspicion that it was more due to exhaustion rather than any trust he had at being held by a stranger.  

But even more worrying than the exhaustion was the raging fever that was ripping through the small body. He had a shiver wracking his bones and splotchy red patches dotting his care chest. 

The alpha in him whined at being so close to a hurting pup, and he couldn’t help but draw the boy up. He gently rubbed his cheek into the pup’s upper back, scenting the sensitive spot of the nape of his neck. It was an intimately protective gesture, one that alphas usually only did to their own pups, but the boys in front of him needed a sense of security terribly. 

The pup in his arms responded instantly and instinctively. He buried his tiny face into the crook of Bruce’s neck, pressing his nose into the gland there. Bruce felt the feather-light whispers of the boy’s nose and his heart filled and ached at the same time.

A sudden, intense urge to protect. A feeling fiercer than he had ever felt before overcame him and he had the sudden desire to hold all these pups close and never let them ever feel pain again. 

Footsteps came closer and Bruce turned to see the medic that had accompanied them on this mission. 

He gave Bruce an empathetic smile before his eyes slid down to the crumpled pup. 

The man leaned in carefully analysing the panting boy. Bruce didn’t like how hard it seemed for him to get in air. 

“I’ll take him,” the medic said, opening his arms. Bruce hesitated for a second, tightening his hold on the pup that he had just scented. But the pup needed more experienced hands than him. 

Bruce hated to do it, but he transferred the weight between them and gave the boy over. 

The oldest pup at his hip tensed as a new person took his brother. He didn’t leave Bruce’s side or protest, but Bruce could feel his hand tightening on the fabric of his shirt. 

Gently, Bruce brought his arm to the eldest’s shoulders and gave him a light push forward towards where the medic was disappearing to.

“You can follow them. It’s okay.”

The pup brightened, his muscles relaxing and there was a new, softer consideration in the boy’s eyes when he met Bruce’s gaze. 

“Thank you, alpha.”

Bruce winced at the formal title but didn’t correct the boy. 

He watched the oldest puppy's back and then turned to the remaining pup, the one that was still in forced submission and laying on the filthy ground. 

No one had even bothered to stop the burble of blood coming from his brow bone and pooling in his eye cavity. 

Bruce was extremely unimpressed with how the GCPD was handling these clearly abused children. 

Bruce squatted next to the boy who immediately started growling the moment that Bruce came within arm’s length. He took out a bit of gauze from his utility belt and began to mop up the blood.

He felt the boy’s exhausted body trying to jerk under his hands, a desperate fight against the forced submission. 

It was clear that he was terrified of the submission and a dark fury rolled in Bruce as he thought about what adults could have done to so thoroughly distort an act that was supposed to be comforting.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” Bruce said, using the name that the eldest pup gave earlier. The boy instantly responded, eyes warily narrowing on him and confirming to Bruce that his guess was right. 

“I’ll break the submission. You’ll be able to move again.”

Bruce held a hand out, letting the boy take in his calm, non-aggressive scent. “I’m going to touch your scent gland, but only to break the submission. I will touch you for no other reason, understand?”

The boy glared at him, but then eventually turned his head to bear his abused collar bone. There was light scarring around the gland and the alpha inside Bruce snarled at the sight of the marks. 

These pups would need so much love and medical care to help them recover from the mill. 

Bruce hoped the foster system would be able to get them the loving family that they deserved. They just needed someone to care, someone to put in the time and the effort and the—

A scream pierced the air and it chilled Bruce to his bones. 

A pup. 

Panicking. 

There was a crash. The furious growling of a pup on the edge of becoming an adult and his sudden yelp as something happened. The familiar sound of a struggle on the ground, two bodies grappling against each other. 

Then, came the begging. 

“Let him go! Please let him go! Please don’t kill him.”

Dick didn’t have many happy things in his life. Most of it was cages and collars and people that treated him like something to be sold. They handled him with clinical indifference. They put fingers in his mouth to assess his teeth despite how he tried to snap. They tied him in ribbons that were deceptively tight and held him in place for alphas to gaze on a touch as they desired.

The same alphas that spread his legs apart as an advertisement for his upcoming presentation. 

When they saw him, they saw money, but not something they actually valued. 

But despite the hell that Dick had found himself caught in, he had been given a couple good things - two of them to be exact. 

And now they were trying to take one of them away. 

“Please,” he cried as he struggled against the beta that was holding him down. He was clawing at the woman’s arm, drawing blood but not managing to make her get off. His body was too exhausted. He didn’t have muscles clinging to his bones anymore.

But he had to try.

“Let him go,” Dick screamed, snapping and snarling the best he could. He could hear his own fear in the sound. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, beating a pattern into the back of his bones. 

His pup struggled in the alpha doctor’s arms as the man tried to force a pill into his mouth. 

He had said it was a pain killer. 

But that wasn’t the only thing the doctor had intended to kill.

“Open up,” the doctor snapped, but Tim kept his mouth firmly shut. His small hands punched at his face, nails scraping at his cheek. He was trying to twist away, but he was hopelessly small against the alpha. 

“Please, please, don’t—”

“What’s going on here,” an alpha growl echoed through the room and everyone came to a complete stop.

The large alpha was standing in the doorway holding a still submission limp Jason. 

He looked like a dark angel with his cape billowing around him and Jason serenely balanced on his hip. But Dick knew Jason. He knew that despite how calm his brother looked, if he was in a submission then he was anything but calm.

Jason’s eyes flickered to him and the pup let out a small whimper when their gazes met. 

Dick didn’t miss the way that the alpha unconsciously began to rub up and down Jason’s back. 

“Batman,” the doctor snapped as Tim almost managed to squirm out of his hands. “Put that one down and help me hold this one down.”

Batman didn’t move or let Jason go. “What are you doing to that pup?” he asked, and his voice was barely more controlled than a snarl.

“I’m trying,” the doctor huffed and tightened his grip so much that Tim yelped. “To give him some mercy.”

“Mercy,” the dark alpha repeated. “That doesn’t look like mercy.”

The doctor sighed, finally putting Tim on the ground and away from the deadly pill. 

Tim instantly began to try to wiggle his way over to Dick, but the medic put his foot on the boy’s back.

Tim gasped in pain as the boot pushed down into the burns on his back. He writhed under the doctor, desperately trying to get away from the alpha, but it only made the man dig in harder. 

“Please,” Dick begged. “You’re hurting him. He has burns on his back. He hasn’t healed yet. He’s in pain. He just a–”

“Shut him up,” the doctor snapped, cutting Dick off. 

The beta that was holding Dick down, moved her arm to wrap in around Dick’s neck. She squeezed, cutting off his air in a sudden violent movement. 

Dick’s chest stuttered before it flared in panic when he couldn’t draw air back in. He hadn’t had a full meal in over a week. His last drink was two days ago. And now he couldn’t have air anymore either?

He wanted to struggle, but he was so tired and fighting for air was taking all the last bits of strength out of him. 

Black dots began filling his vision. 

His legs were kicking until he just… couldn’t. He wanted to, but…

He…

“Get off of him.”

Dick recognised the voice as the largest alphas. He was barely putting all the words together before the beta was ripped off of him and he was able to breathe again. 

He panted against the ground, dirt digging into his skin. His muscles screamed from exhaustion and strain. He desperately wanted to just close his eyes, but both his brothers were still in danger. 

He tried to make himself sit up, but his arms wouldn’t listen. 

Gentle, alpha hands helped him get fully up, tilting his body in a way he couldn’t force himself to do. Dick was putty under the alpha’s hands, but he didn’t have the energy to be terrified anymore.

But instead of strike, the large alpha gave him Jason, fitting the trembling pup up against his side. 

Jason was a familiar, steading weight against him, and it calmed some of the anxiety in Dick’s heart. When Jason had been forced into submission, Dick wasn’t sure that he would ever get Jason in his arms again. 

But… this alpha had given him back, even when Jason was pliable and vulnerable and so easy to be taken advantage of. 

He accepted the puppy, bringing hands up to begin to rub away the submission from Jason’s collarbone. 

The alpha hummed in something that sounded like approval, but he couldn’t be. Not when Dick was actively trying to get him of Jason’s submission. 

But the alpha didn’t try to stop him and only turned away so he could go towards Tim.

“Get your foot off his back,” the alpha snapped, pushing the other alpha physically away from the collapsed boy. Tim gasped in relief, slumping towards the ground in relief once the torture stopped. 

“You better have a good explanation to why you were torturing a puppy,” the alpha said as he crouched next to the pup. He gently helped Tim up and the boy crumpled into the alpha’s arms, desperately clinging on to the littlest scrap of protection he could get. 

Anxiety lodged into Dick’s heart when he saw Tim cling to the stranger, but he couldn’t help his own relief when he saw Tim marginally safer. 

“I’m trying to be merciful,” the medic said, and the dark alpha narrowed his eyes. 

“What about that was merciful?”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been so violent if he had just taken his pill.”

Dick wished he had the energy to snarl. Tim almost had taken the pill, before either of them realise what it was. They had both seen that bottle in the past.

They had both seen sick pups fall to sleep, become deathly and eerily still, and then never wake up again.

It was all too easy for Dick to imagine their smallest brother just laying down and… never moving, never speaking, never even opening his eyes. 

He would have just been… gone. Before Dick even realised what was wrong. 

The alpha grunted and took the pill bottle into his hand, reading the label. 

“This is a high dose tranquiliser.” He looked down to the already beaten puppy. “This has to be too high of a dose for a pup this size.”

“It’s the right dose if you’re trying to put a pup down.”

The alpha froze.

“What?”

The doctor motioned to Tim, making the boy flinch even though he was feet away from him. 

“The pup is too sick to be taken into the system. He has burns, an infection, potential pneumonia, probably broken bones. I don’t even know if he will make it through the week, putting him down now will save him from more pain.”

The alpha was practically crouched over the puppy and Tim curled so tightly into the man it looked like he was trying to disappear.

“He’s a child. You don’t just kill children.” The man sounded as horrified as he sounded angry.

“You don’t understand. The system already has too many hurt and injured pups and not enough parents willing to take them on. His treatment would be expensive and there’s nobody to pay for it. He’ll just get worse in a home, so putting down the extreme cases saves everyone time and money.”

Everyone except for the pup that got killed because they were too hard to care for. 

Tim whimpered into the alpha, shoving himself to hide in the folds of his cape. The alpha just hunched over him more, making himself a physical barrier between the pup and the doctor.

“Is this standard practice?” the alpha rumbled and the doctor raised a surprised eyebrow.

“Yes? It’s pretty typical for the hopeless ones.”

Hopeless. 

The word hit Dick like a punch. 

Hopeless. Too difficult. Easier to leave behind to die a slow death instead of going through the trouble of trying to separate them from the sick sibling.

He desperately wanted Tim in his arms and the security of knowing he was alive and safe. 

The alpha stood, Tim in his arms and tucked in as tight as he could.

“They aren’t hopeless,” the caped man said as he gently petted Tim’s hair. He brushed the inky strands back and away from his eyes. “They just need someone to care.”

The alpha’s eyes slid to Dick and Jason. 

“They all just need someone to care and take their time with them. They need someone to be there.”

There was a haunted look that Dick didn’t know how to fully interpret. It was as deep as a scar but gaping still like an open wound. For a second, Batman didn’t look like a god anymore, but…

Just a man.

Just like them.

“I’ll take them,” the man said, his voice far away. “I can care for them.”

Dick didn’t quite know what happened after that. His body finally gave out, unable to hold up between the exhaustion and the abuse and the relief of finally realizing that they might, for once, be safe.

One week later, and Dick was lying in a bed surround by pillows and sleeping brothers.

Bruce was working at a desk on the other side of the room. The gentle light bathed him in gold and made the hard angles of his face shine. His eyes were narrowed and flickering over the words on a page, mouthing them to himself.

He had been working non-stop since he brought them all home.

Apparently, stealing three pups from the Gotham City Police was a process that took lots of paperwork.

Dick silently watched as he sighed and rubbed his forehead.

As he made the motion, he caught Dick’s eyes and startled a bit.

But after a second of surprise, his face gentled into warm affection.

The alpha’s calm, protective scent filled the air.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I just… couldn’t fall asleep.”

The alpha stood and Dick surprised himself by not feeling instantly afraid. He remembered a time when he didn’t view all alphas as predators, and that time felt a lot like this.

Slowly, Bruce came to the side of the bed and then gently pet through Dick’s hair.

He couldn’t help himself. He purred and melted against the large, soft hand. His instincts responded to the alpha instantly, telling him to nuzzle against the palm and give him a small puppy chirp.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about his instincts wanting to trust the alpha. Part of him was happy that he could and that the instincts hadn’t been beaten out of him completely. Part of him was still wary of the stranger, the stranger that could mate all of them on a whim if he wanted too.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew it was only a matter of time until he gave them his claiming bite, marking each of them as his property. 

The thought of getting a claiming bite used to terrify Dick but… now with the alpha’s warm, protective scent melting down his defenses and feeling the softness of affection for the first time in years. 

Dick… he didn’t feel as afraid anymore. 

Jason shifted next to him, and Dick hushed him. He turned so he could rub his cheek into younger boy’s head.

The alpha smiled at the small affectionate gesture and rubbed the scent gland of his wrist along Dick’s cheek.

Dick wasn’t sure he trusted the alpha, but he didn’t think that the man would beat them until their head spun or separate them or bring them into a bed before they were ready. He didn’t think this alpha was cruel, not when he held Tim so tenderly or when he tried to wipe the fear from Jason’s brow. 

Dick wasn’t sure what he had inside him was trust, but maybe it could become it. Maybe a claiming bite could be the kind that fathers gave to pups and not what masters put on what they bought. Maybe this warm, nice feeling could last, and he didn’t have to constantly fear for his brothers’ lives. 

And that was more than Dick ever thought he could ask for. 

He wasn’t sure what he could give the alpha, but he would give it. 

Anything. Anything. 

Dick yawned, feeling the press of both his brothers and the softness of the blankets surrounding him. The hand petting through his hair didn’t stop and he couldn’t help but lean into the touch more. A deep voice hummed, and a kiss was pressed into forehead.

It wasn’t trust.

Not yet.

Whatever it was now, though, he gave it to the large, protective alpha, so that he could sleep surrounded by his favourite people.