Chapter Text
The Ninth Wave is probably Aivazovsky’s most famous and popular work. Originally acquired for the Imperial Hermitage, it was one of the first paintings in the collection of the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum in 1897.
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In Irish mythology, the Ninth Wave is a mystical concept that has been passed down through the ages as a powerful and foreboding force. This legendary wave is said to be the final wave of a series of nine waves that strike the shore, and it holds within it the power to carry away the souls of the dead.
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Surfboard riders, borrowing an old sailor's expression, often speak of a 'Ninth Wave'. It means a single wave larger than all the others. Colossal, unexpected - Ninth Waves are the stuff of legend. It is said that nothing can withstand their power.
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The Ninth Wave — in popular legend, the most terrible, powerful and destructive wave — is fast approaching. Yet the darkness of the night is broken by the light of hope. A small group of people cling to the wreckage of the ship’s mast, which seems a more reliable refuge at dawn than it did in the darkness of the night. The desperate attempts to survive will conquer the stormy sea.
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The Ninth Wave is the last of a series of consecutively larger waves. It is the largest, most terrible, and most feared wave that sailors face during stormy seas. As the people hold on for survival, the final Ninth Wave approaches.
The omega was looking skyward, eyes blank. His mouth was split open, dried-out lips flaked with brown congealed blood. Rainwater collected in the folds of his shirt, and, upon closer inspection, the mouth itself.
Jason leaned in, inhaling. A frisson of instinct went down his spine as the scent registered, note by note, in the back of his mind. He was baring his teeth before he was conscious of it, muscles going rigid and eyesight sharpening as his body sought out a threat long-gone.
A dead omega’s scent was awful on a good day. His nose had learned and learned and learned under Lex’s instruction, had been battered instead of coddled, sharpened to the thinnest of scents, and yet even a newborn pup could have scented the wrongness of this scene from a half-mile away, downwind.
Death smelled rotten, like the backed-up sewers in the Narrows after a bad storm. Omega smelled sweet, even in death, but now it was the rotten scent of fruit left out in the sun, of sugary decay and sour, overripe heat.
Jason reached out, using a glove to pry the omega’s arm away from their body. The body wasn’t fully in rigor mortis, but it wasn’t fresh, either; it took a moment for the arm to fall away, revealing what the dead omega had been desperate to protect.
A soft swell sat between the omega’s hips, just under the belly button. The omega -- male, slim, barely in their thirties, if that -- could only have been a few months along. Long enough to show, and showing enough, as Lex said, crudely, to be fucking prey.
The comm in Jason’s ear chimed twice, indicating an incoming line.
“Update?”
For once, it was a relief to hear Lex’s voice. It meant Bruce wasn’t on comms tonight. Jason reached up, tapping the earpiece hidden in his ear.
“I just found the body. Tip-off was accurate, it’s fresh. Ish. Up on one of the roofs near 55th.”
Silence. Jason half expected to hear Lex break out the chips again, munching away happily in his ear just to annoy him.
“Cause of death?” Lex’s voice asked, impossibly flat. If Jason didn’t know him as well as he did, he would’ve said the other omega was barely interested.
“Not sure.” Jason sat back on his heels, scanning up and down the body a second time. “There’s blood at the mouth, but no obvious injuries.”
“Hm,” Lex said in his ear, neither pleased nor displeased. “Scents?”
Jason closed his eyes behind the mask, taking a deep breath just to be sure. Omega fearbloodpain bloomed in his mind, stale and bitter. “Nothing stands out from the others.”
“Pregnant?”
That, Jason could smell without having to try. Bruce’s scent had broadened and sweetened in the same way. It was like waving a bright red flag at his instincts; even as an omega, he still felt the itch along his teeth to protect this omega. To keep them from harm. To prevent any of this from happening in the first place.
“...yeah.” Jason cleared his throat, opening his eyes. “Maybe a couple months along.”
Lex hummed again, a slightly lower pitch. It was meant to be relaxing, a Pack-like noise, and while it set Jason’s instincts at ease -- it didn’t help. It wasn’t what he needed right now.
“Just spit it out,” Jason said, because he’d already been tired of Lex’s cryptic bullshit three days ago. And he knew the other omega more than he’d like, more than he’d care to admit, and he knew that tone. He knew what it meant.
“You have company.” Lex trailed off, likely looking at something on one of Bruce’s insane wall of screens. “Insisted on coming to inspect the scene himself. Incoming in…hm, two minutes?”
Jason felt his back teeth grind together, unspent adrenaline pooling in his limbs. “And no one back there…had a problem with that?”
“Oh no, we had problems with it. We were just outvoted,” Lex said, sounding slightly strained. “You’re about to have a chaperone. Give him a wave, yeah? I’m sure he’s almost there by now.”
Jason glanced at the surrounding rooftops, but he couldn’t spot Clark. Picking out his red and blue colors from Gotham’s gloom should’ve been easy. The fact that it wasn’t -- well. That was someone else’s problem, thankfully. If Clark was watching him, it was a good thing.
But Clark was likely with Bruce. And Jason’s instincts still itched like he was being watched.
“It’s not good for him,” Jason muttered into his comm. “You know how he gets. I swear it makes him sick, just being near the bodies. Physically sick. Alfred -- Alfred agrees with me, and I’m not saying he’s weak, I’m just saying--”
“We should wrap him up in a blanket and toss him in one of the holding cells in the basement?” Lex cut in, painfully cheerful. “Great idea. You challenge him to a dominance fight, I’ll wait to see how that goes first before I jump in.”
Jason rolled his eyes. It always felt weird under the mask. “You know what I mean.”
“Take it up with the alpha, pup.”
Bruce’s arrival was soundless, but a part of Jason knew exactly when he’d reached the rooftop. And that same part of him, riled up and tense from the dead omega in front of him, relaxed. Pack recognized pack, even on unfamiliar territory.
This wasn’t Batman, but it wasn’t Bruce either. A shadow slipped across the rooftop, giving away no hint of the twin lives protected in the cradle of his hips. He carried, in the truest sense of the word, as if the added weight in his midsection had always meant to be there. His steps were silent. The scent blockers ringing his neck made Jason’s nose itch, even from a dozen feet away.
Bruce knelt down next to the body, showing no strain or indication of the extra weight he was carrying. It was strange seeing him in a domino mask instead of his typical cowl. The same kind of strangeness he probably felt looking at Jason, with a matching domino and in-betweenness.
They weren’t Batman and Robin anymore. They couldn’t be. But this strange, almost-partnership was painfully reminiscent. Like hitting an old bruise on a janky bed frame.
In his Pack Omega’s presence, Jason tried not to flag. He pressed a closed fist into the gravel beneath him, setting his jaw as Bruce examined the body. Keeping his eyes up, in case of movement.
Even without scent, he could tell the body distressed Bruce. There was something about the way he moved, chin tilted down in near-reverence, that sparked along Jason’s instincts. The set of his shoulders was almost sorrowful, in a way he’d never seen the Bat on active patrol.
But this wasn’t the Bat. Not really.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
A chill went through Jason as Bruce’s eyes lifted from the body, drilling into his face. The other omega tilted his head just a fraction, as if surprised by the open challenge.
Jason gritted his teeth, not looking away. Customs be damned, deference be damned. He could hear Lex trying to muffle his laughter over the comm, and it didn’t matter. Not when instinct was rearing up in his chest, hot and awful.
“You tell him, pup,” Lex said in his ear, still chuckling a little. “Maybe he’ll listen to you. You’re awful cute when you stamp your foot and pretend you’ll win a challenge.”
Jason could win a challenge. And maybe it wasn’t against Bruce, but it was all practice. If he kept his eyes on Bruce’s nose, if he held his breath long enough --
The wind shifted, just enough to pick up the edges of Bruce’s clothing. His scent, no longer masked by the blockers, flooded Jason’s nose, making him gasp and recoil.
He came back to himself on his knees, staring blankly at the ground. It took a long moment for him to clear the instinct in his head, brain rattled and eyes burning under the weight of Bruce’s griefangersorrow. Too much instinct, overwhelming the practiced calm he’d built with Lex the last few months.
A hand grasped his neck, a silent apology. Jason breathed through it, grateful for Bruce’s touch as he grounded himself again.
“You should--” Jason cleared his throat, steadying his voice, “--you should double those blockers. Whatever they are, they’re -- not fucking working, I’ll tell you that. At all.”
Without the cowl, Jason could see the way Bruce’s lips twitched, a there-and-gone flash of emotion. “They tend to fail under acute waves of emotion. Regardless of application strength.”
“Is that why you came here?” Jason prodded with little grace, sidestepping the incredulity he felt at hearing Bruce Wayne admit to acute emotion. “To emote… acutely?”
That got a snort from Lex in his ear. “Emote acutely. I’m going to have to use that. That’s exactly what he does.”
The atmosphere on the roof sobered quickly. Bruce’s hand dropped from Jason’s neck, taking its warmth and steadiness with it.
He kept guard as Bruce took samples from the body, positioning himself so his body always blocked the other omega from view of the nearby buildings. He knew where Bruce’s vulnerable points -- stomach, neck, and lower back -- were without needing to look, without needing to feel anything other than the weight of instinct in his mind.
“Keep him moving,” Lex’s voice murmured in his ear, for once, being helpful. “He won’t freeze up if he’s doing something. Get him talking, if you can. We don’t want him to drop.”
Jason pressed his lips together, trying to think of a question to ask Bruce. His eyes landed on Clark’s figure, suddenly perched on the building across from them. He took a step away from Bruce, cupping a hand around his comm.
“You didn’t mention our chaperone was pissed,” Jason whispered, trying not to make direct eye contact with the furious alpha a hundred feet across the open sky.
Mentioning a drop over open comm lines had been a mistake. Or entirely intentional, coming from Lex. It was hard to keep up with where the other omega chose to push, and where he rolled over just to cause issues.
“Well, I thought that part was kind of obvious. Have you met an alpha who happily lets their pregnant mate go traipsing into active crime scenes?” Lex cut off, exhaling loudly. “Look. I did my best. You have a nice, visible chaperone. It could be worse. Gotham isn’t exactly a safe place for omegas these days, if you haven’t heard.”
Jason kept very, very still as Clark’s eyes sparked red in the distance. “So you’re buying into that too?”
“What, that it’s prudent to be cautious of a serial killer targeting pregnant omegas in Gotham if you are, in fact, a pregnant omega in Gotham? Can’t say I’m against the Alpha, in this situation. Since -- and stop me if you’ve noticed this already -- but your carrier is currently all three of those things.”
Bruce stood up, letting another wave of muted scent out across the rooftop. His blockers were almost completely gone now, and he was starting to smell -- well. Pregnant.
Jason took that as his cue, boots crunching in the gravel as he hurried to Bruce’s side. He could feel Clark watching them, but the pit in his stomach still wouldn’t close up. Instinct kept him quick on his feet, urging him to corral the Pack Omega and get them home.
“Time to go.”
It came out more like a question than a statement. His stomach still lurched whenever he tried to order Bruce to do something; somewhere, buried in the back of his mind, his instincts still remembered what it was like to use an alpha command. And he would never stop hating himself for that.
It wasn’t quite a sigh, but Bruce’s shoulders lifted once with his next breath. Jason knew the instant he spotted Clark across the skyline, felt the way Bruce’s body went slightly rigid next to him as he made direct eye contact with his alpha.
“Ooh, now that’s an elevated heart rate,” Lex crowed, clearly reading Bruce’s biometrics panel back in the Cave. “Someone’s in trouble. Oh, that must smell delicious. Please give me a play by play, I’m dying back here with just audio.”
Jason wasn’t suicidal, so he didn’t do that. He waved at the stairwell door. “B.”
It took a long time for Bruce to drop his eyes, disengaging from Clark’s challenge with a sudden, sharp inhale. He tucked the bag of evidence into his belt, heading for the stairwell without a word or sound.
The Batmobile was parked in the same shadowy alley as his bike, because of course it was. Both had been remotely started, clear and plain evidence of Lex’s meddling.
Jason waited until Bruce was in his car and moving before he hopped on his bike. He kicked off the wet brick, gunning the throttle as the Batmobile sped out ahead of him.
The feeling of being watched didn’t let up until they were north of the city limits.
“Nice to have you back in Pack Territory.”
Bruce ignored Lex’s sarcastic welcome over comms, guiding the Batmobile into its bay. In the rearview, he saw Jason’s motorcycle power down, the other omega sliding off and heading Bruce’s way.
There was something to be said about being back in the Cave, even with Lex’s pointed commentary. The instincts in the back of his mind settled at the sight of the familiar surroundings, at ease even before he’d even stepped out of the Batmobile. His body knew this place was safe, just as much as his mind did. The pups certainly did, from the twitching he could feel under the midsection armor.
Jason’s cautious hovering, he could take. Lex’s stubborn, brittle humor, he could wave off. Alfred’s snippiness, even, he could make up for. He’d spent decades winning back the beta after arguments; it was never easy, but it wasn’t impossible.
The alpha standing at the front of the vehicle bay, arms crossed and chin jutting down, was entirely unfamiliar territory.
“Yeah, I’d stay in there if I was you too,” Lex chimed in over comms, continuing on without a reply. “Good call. Hope you have a bathroom or something in that monstrosity of a car.”
Bruce didn’t roll his eyes, but it was tempting. Anything he said to Lex over comms wouldn’t be private right now. Clark was already seething, and sharp, witty, omega banter would only make things worse.
Seething wasn’t the right word. Clark hadn’t moved an inch since they’d arrived. His eyes bored into the windshield, visibly red even from twenty feet out. His arms were crossed over the insignia across his chest, only highlighting the breadth of his shoulders.
Bruce took a breath, scenting the blank, filtered air from the Batmobile’s internal systems. He reached for the door, keeping his spine straight and his jaw set.
“Hey.”
Jason’s omega scent was sour with poorly-concealed worry. He kept close to Bruce as they entered the Cave, scrubbing absently at the scent blockers around his neck. Any other night, his hovering would have been comforting. Tonight, a part of Bruce -- old, omega instinct -- worried about his safety, this close to a furious alpha. Even though he knew Clark, knew the alpha would never touch a hair on Jason’s head if he could avoid it.
“Go upstairs with Lex,” Bruce said, turning back to Jason. “Have Alfred put some tea on. We’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Clark was still staring at him. Bruce prolonged the inevitable for just a bit longer, keeping his eyes on Jason instead of his alpha. After a moment of consideration, he pushed out a quick burst of safepackmine, gratified when Jason’s shoulders relaxed a fraction.
“Safe,” Jason said out loud, naming the scents like Lex had taught him. “Okay. I’ll see you in a few minutes?”
Bruce nodded. Jason gave him one last once-over before heading to Lex at the computer terminal, leaving a worried scent in his wake.
Eventually, the door to the stairs closed. Bruce raised his eyes to Clark’s face, meeting the alpha’s gaze head-on for the first time. Instinct shivered down his spine, but he didn’t bow to its whims. He couldn’t.
There was less than ten feet between them. It felt like a mile. Bruce reached up, pulling off the domino mask still attached to his face.
The redness in Clark’s eyes dimmed, but the blank expression on his face didn’t change. His scent was completely withdrawn, held back so Superman was free from being easily identifiable. Even though he was so clearly, painfully, alpha.
Bruce rubbed at the circle of scent blockers around his neck, another silent admission. When those were sufficiently dispersed, he undid the black armor around his chest and midsection, letting the panel slide to the floor.
He walked up into Clark’s space slowly, telegraphing every step. At the very last moment, he tucked his face into the hollow of Clark’s chin, digging his nose into the alpha’s scent gland. His arms came up to Clark’s sides, his stomach safe and protected between their two bodies.
Bruce let out a soft, wordless whine, feeling it reverberate into Clark’s body. A moment later, the alpha relaxed against him, hands coming up to his waist and squeezing. Thick alpha scent flared from his neck, sharp and rich and everything Bruce’s ragged instincts craved.
I’m sorry, he tried to say through scent and movement alone. It wasn’t a full submission, but it couldn’t be. It was undoubtedly an apology.
Clark let out a breath, and Bruce could feel how shaky it was. The hands around his waist were still squeezing, as if the alpha thought he was likely to sprint away at any moment.
They stood there together for a long moment, scents flaring and dying down in turns. The growl caught in Clark’s chest softened to something that was almost a purr. Bruce scented him greedily, digging his fingers into the alpha’s back to hold him closer.
Eventually, Clark pulled away. Bruce settled back on his heels, not realizing how much of his weight he’d leaned onto the alpha. Clark’s hands drifted down to his stomach, pressing gently into the bump there.
“You disappeared.”
“I know,” Bruce said, not looking up.
“Lex called me in a panic--”
“Lex doesn’t panic,” Bruce cut in, shaking his head. “You knew where I was. I took the car, it wasn’t like I was trying to hide it.”
“Bruce.”
The alpha rumble in Clark’s voice had him looking up without realizing, eyes widening. Clark stared back at him, jaw tight and nostrils flaring.
Don’t tease the on-edge alpha, a voice in his head chided. It sounded a lot like Lex. Look how close he is to snapping. You don’t want him to snap.
It was all too easy, too natural, for his eyes to fall to Clark’s chin, finally giving up the implicit challenge hanging between them. He tilted his head, baring the side of his neck just far enough to make it obvious.
Clark’s pupils dilated, his eyes locked on Bruce’s throat. After a moment, Clark’s hand lifted from his stomach, skimming down the delicate skin of his neck.
“You’re trying to distract me,” Clark said, his voice thick with instinct. His scent bloomed in the back of Bruce’s mind, sending heat down his spine to settle between his hips.
Bruce snorted. “Trying being the operative word there.”
“You wouldn’t be unhappy if you succeeded,” Clark rephrased. His lips were pulled into something that was almost a smile. If it had been a full smile -- one of his boyish, rueful, alpha smiles -- Bruce was certain he would have crumbled, then and there.
“Not unhappy, no.”
And like that, the conflict between them dissipated. Without saying the words out loud, Clark had forgiven him -- and Bruce had, in his own way, apologized for the distress he’d caused his alpha.
Clark’s hands returned to his stomach, gently cradling the pups between his broad palms. Bruce inhaled as one of them moved, kicking out at their sire’s fingers like it knew exactly who was touching Bruce. Maybe they did -- he’d have to ask Leslie, the next time he saw her. Or Lex, who would gleefully lord any and all omega-related information over him.
“There was something different about this omega. Wasn’t there?”
Bruce blinked, torn from his thoughts. “Why do you say that?”
“I saw you on the roof,” Clark explained. “You found something on the body, then your pulse skyrocketed. I thought you were about to go into a drop for a second.”
That explained the anger, when Clark so very rarely played the furious alpha in daily life. Bruce pressed his lips together, conceding the point.
“Who kills pregnant omegas?”
If Clark was surprised by the sudden shift in conversation, he didn’t show it. “Alphas, normally. Statistically speaking.”
“Why different omegas, then?” Bruce asked, pausing a beat for Clark to consider the question. “Why different gestational terms? None of the victims knew each other. Nothing ties them together, except--”
“That they were pregnant,” Clark finished for him, nodding. His hands tightened briefly around Bruce’s stomach, sliding down to bracket his hips. “I’ve seen your casefiles. That’s the only thing that links the victims.”
Bruce looked away. He could feel the way Clark’s attention doubled, catching onto the subtle shift in his scent.
It was part of what had made his miserable omega scent so potent, all those years ago. Not grief, or anger -- those, he had in spades -- but fear. A kind of instinctual fear he couldn’t shake, even with the world’s best suppressants and a vatful of blocker spray to bathe in.
“There’s something Jason missed,” Bruce said. “He was too young to remember -- or maybe he’s repressed it all. But there’s a pattern between the cases I haven’t shared with you.”
Clark let out a low growl. “Why. Not.”
“Because I didn’t want to believe it. Because I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me. Because--” Bruce cut off, throat working. “I--”
“Whatever it is,” Clark’s fingers circled Bruce’s hips, trying to soothe him. “Whatever you’re afraid of -- you don’t need to keep it from me. We’re a team.”
It took a moment for Bruce to swallow the awful wave of instinct down. He nodded, inhaling Clark’s soothing alpha scent like it was pure oxygen. “We are.”
“So tell me,” Clark said, painfully practical, “and we’ll figure it out.”
Bruce’s lips twitched, almost a smile. If he’d been more proud, he would have wiped away the tears welling in his eyes. Or blamed them on instinct, instead of -- fear.
“Every single site we’ve found a body. It’s not the omegas who make the pattern. They’re all locations where we fought him.”
When he looked back up at Clark, his eyes were far, far away. The hands around his hips tightened, as if shielding their pups from the past. He looked like a statue, ripped straight from the pack alphas of old. Staring down a threat with an instinct that forever stood the test of time.
“Him,” Clark repeated, dazed, “You’re sure?”
Bruce stepped back from his alpha, reaching a hand down to his belt. He pulled out a plastic evidence bag, holding it out to Clark.
The card inside the bag caught the light from the Cave, immediately identifiable. Clark took it, examining the face with the lightest touch possible.
The Joker stared back at him through the plastic, embossed into the card mid-revelry. An unassuming card, for such a deliberate message. And yet, it had struck terror into the heart of their Pack Omega.
“Yes,” Bruce said, taking a breath. Omega fear filtered into the air around them, bitter and sharp. “Now, I’m sure.”