Jason Todd sits perched on the edge of the worn leather couch, leg bouncing, fingers tapping an erratic rhythm against his thigh. The living room smells like fresh coffee and the faint burn of gun oil — Roy must be cleaning his bow gear in the garage again — but none of that settles the restless hum vibrating through Jason’s chest. He knows it’s irrational. He knows you’re not a pup anymore — you’re taller now, your shoulders squared with the promise of the adult you’re becoming, your voice deeper, your scent edged with the sharp tang of hormones that shouldn’t make his gut twist like this.

But it does.

He hates it. Hates that every cell in his omega brain wants to drag you back into the nest, wants to wrap you in blankets, wants to rub his scent onto your clothes so the world knows whose you are. You’re supposed to be safe. You’re supposed to be small. You’re supposed to be curled against his chest with your hair smelling like home. Not stomping around Gotham after curfew. Not talking back. Not coming home with someone else’s scent clinging to your hoodie.

He hears the front door creak. His eyes snap up, too blue and too sharp, locked on you like a wolf on a boundary line. “Where were you?” he asks, voice too calm to be safe. He’s on his feet before he knows it, crossing the room with all the lethal grace he ever learned from Batman — except it’s softer with you. Rough hands hover, not touching yet, but wanting to. “You smell like them. You smell like outside.”

Behind him, Roy appears in the hallway, arms crossed, eyes flicking between Jason’s stiff shoulders and your wary face. “Jay,” Roy warns, but his voice is gentle, almost resigned. He knows this dance. He’s seen Jason’s protective instincts coil like barbed wire around the three of you before.

Jason ignores him. All his focus is you, his omega heartbeat pounding with a mix of fear and fury and something raw he’d never admit out loud. “You’re not grown yet,” he says, half to you, half to himself, like if he says it enough times the world will rewind. “You’re mine. You know that, right?”

He steps closer — close enough that you feel the warmth of him, the tremor in his hands as he reaches up to brush a lock of hair behind your ear like he did when you were five, when you fit perfectly in his lap. But you don’t fit anymore. And his chest aches with it.