"Shit, you're hurt." Tim doesn't think much about setting the bo staff aside and trying to blink some sobriety back into himself, reaching for Bruce's chest plate to find the clasp that would unearth it from the rest of his suit. Tim had always liked that about the Bat Suit - it was like a big puzzle that very few people knew how to solve.
And Tim is one of them.
"What happened?" Tim makes a clicking sound, not unlike what Alfred might do, at the sight under the kevlar.
Which was not untrue, exactly. Bruce had accounted for every part of the attack on the couple walking home. Three men, two of them armed with blunt objects. The third, a knife. Tim didn't need to know that. He just needed to know that one of them managed to get close enough to cut into the kevlar. He doesn't mind that Tim is close enough to smell the alcohol he's been drinking, but it's something to save for later.
"I'm fine, Tim. I just needed to clean up." He says he's fine, but doesn't stop TIm from removing the chest piece to get a better look. The wound is shallow, as if the tip of the blade glanced across his skin. More of a graze than a true stab. Blood still oozes, slow but stubborn. He could have dressed it himself. He just. Didn't.
"A mugger did this to you?" That's---very, very unlikely. Even Tim's
sluggish, alcohol laden brain knows that a mugger getting that close to
Batman is nearly impossible, even on the days Bruce is off his game. But
fortunately for Bruce, Tim's brain isn't able to hold there on that
suspicion for long. He's already at the sink to wash his hands and then
back to poke at Bruce's chest to make sure there's nothing in the wounds.
With Bruce sitting down, Tim has to bend in half and squat to look him over
properly, so eventually he takes a knee in front of him.
And it's not his fault if his face flushes, just a little. After all, he
was just on his knees for something much less innocent barely an hour ago.
He's still wound up from it, as he didn't let the other guy take care of
him in turn. That wasn't what Tim was after in the bar.
"I'll help patch you up. Only surface deep wounds, thankfully." His gaze
flicks up, catches Bruce looking down at him, and then swallows a sudden
mouthful of spit. Christ, he was still fucked up from the club if he was
getting hot over this. "You okay?"
Tim is smart. Exceptionally smart and Bruce doesn't expect him to readily accept the story he's been told. Not completely. Maybe question it in his head, but not out loud. Clock the inconsistencies, but not confront Bruce about them. The alcohol would see to that. That much Bruce does expect. It slows the sharper parts of him, enough to keep the confrontation at bay. Just enough that he'll choose taking care of these shallow cuts over interrogating the flimsy excuse that brought Bruce here in the first place.
Bruce watches his boy sink to his knee in front of him and it stirs up that dark place inside of him and for a minute, he doesn't say anything. He knows where Tim's been tonight, knows what he's been doing and the thought feeds into that festering sense of ownership.
"I'm fine, Tim," he says finally, "I should be asking if you are okay. You've been drinking." And letting someone else touch him. But. Bruce would get to that.
Tim's sure hands stutter. He pauses altogether, as if the wheels in his
head are literally turning. Cranking to decide whether to lie or not. It
doesn't feel worth it.
"Drinking a little on a night off means I'm not okay? Better check on
literally everyone else in the world too." He swallows, swiping alcohol
pads over Bruce's cuts. Glancing up again. "I'm fine. Really."
Bruce is quiet again, maybe for a moment too long. Stares at Tim for a moment too long. Just taking in the sight of him. The line of his shoulders, the curve of his neck. How easy it would be to just pin him down and pull the answers out of him. Instead, he just leans into Tim's sure touch while he cleans his wounds.
He can smell him when he's this close. Alcohol. Sweat. Cigarettes. Something he doesn't immediately recognize. Cologne, perhaps?
"Are you?" Bruce lifts his gaze to fix it on Tim. Maybe to dare him to lie. "Did you at least get his name?"
Another stutter, this time bringing Tim's hands to a full stop. His palms
flatten against the battered chest of his former partner. Under his touch,
Bruce is like a furnace.
He watches the flicker of hesitation in Tim's hands, the way they stop tending. Stop caring and settle against his chest. It's enough to confirm what he already knows.
If Bruce were more honest, he would have told Tim the truth. Maybe tell him where the cameras were so he could root them out and have some semblance of privacy again. Maybe tell him about the listening device hidden in his bo staff, so Bruce couldn't collect his secrets so easily.
Bruce would never be that honest.
"I didn't have to, Tim." Not when he gave the information up so easily. Even when the answer is yes. "I can smell him on you." His voice is quiet, almost gentle. But it must scrape like gravel. It's stark against the cold way Bruce looks at him, like he's waiting for the boy to unravel and isn't sure if he should stop it or see it through.
"I---asked for space." The words come out much smaller than he intends, but
god. Can't Bruce just give him one thing? Tim rarely asks for anything.
He's good, he's not like Jason breaking every rule just to fuck around, and
he's not moving to a new city like Dick. And yet Bruce can't let him go
further than arm's reach.
It stings, but if Tim's honest, he knew it wasn't as easy as asking.
"You can't just---- fuck." Tim pulls his hands away. He sits back on his
heels, looks up at Bruce with heavy eyes. "Did you really get mugged?"
"And I have given it to you," Bruce counters. He hadn't been intrusive. He hadn't intervened. He'd kept his distance and allowed Tim the space he asked for. So what if he tracked his movements? So what if he never turned his gaze away? So what? Tim never said he couldn't look.
But that look in his eye? That burns him. Wakes up a pang of guilt he has to swallow down again before he answers. He reaches for Tim, hand cupping his cheek. It's a soft touch, despite the gauntlet.
"And you're here to--what, check up on me?" Tim asks. He doesn't stop Bruce
from touching, and if anything he leans into the cup of that strong hand
against his cheek. Their dynamic is so strange now, so different from how
it was before, and it feels like it just keeps spiraling further out of
Tim's control. "Or... Something else?"
He sighs, tired and tipsy and still high off sucking a stranger off in the
bathroom, and Bruce is right there. They could just--fall into each
other. A little. What would it hurt?
"Would it matter if I denied it?" Bruce didn't think it would. Tim had made up his mind long ago it seemed and he was always ready to believe the worst about him. Even if the only thing he's truly guilty of is caring. Every line he's crossed? Or boundary he's stomped on? It's because he cared. How could he make Tim understand that?
"Do you think I only care about your body, Tim?" Even if Bruce lets his hand drift from his cheek down his neck and chest. "I care about you."
"No, of course I don't think that," Tim says, but that's a lie. He's been
thinking it non-stop. How if Bruce wanted something else, he would have
asked for it before the rooftop, before Tim was practically incapacitated
and overwhelmed by drugs.
He's still leaning into Bruce's touch though, eyes sliding shut. God, he
wanted more. Like last time. Harder maybe.
"I just---I wasn't expecting you tonight. I'm a little off my game." A lot
off. Drunk.
It's an opening. A crack in the door wide enough for Bruce to wedge his way through. And he did, slowly, subtly until it's too late to retreat. He wanted Tim to want this as badly as he did. Let him be an addiction, so there'd never be room for anyone else.
"You're drunk." A transgression, but Bruce forgives him. "Stand up and come here."
Tim stands, feeling stupid but obedient. He's never wanted to let Bruce
down. He spent most of his young life trying to live up to others but more
importantly to Bruce's needs for him. The perfect soldier, always. Now
there he is, drunk like an idiot in front of the only person who matters.
He moves forward, slowly, and it's barely a step to get close enough to
Bruce for him to see how sluggish Tim's eyes are. The heat in his cheeks.
Maybe even the flutter of his pulse against the slope of his neck.
"I didn't--intend to get drunk," he says. "I mean, maybe a little. Just to
let some steam off, you know?"
While Tim is getting to his feet, Bruce peels his gauntlets off and sets them on the table beside him and when Tim is close he's reaching for him, fingers sliding under his shirt to palm over the familiar grooves of his ribs and muscle. He hadn't intended to get drunk and Bruce could have scolded him for it, but if he were honest, that really wasn't the pressing issue here.
"Did you let him touch you?" His voice is low when he says it. It seems like a question, but it isn't one. It's the first little hook. The start of a slow, deliberate reeling in. He didn't mind if Tim noticed or not. It'd work out for him either way.
Tim moans at the first slide of Bruce's hands. It's been--he's just messed
up. Ever since the rooftop, all he can think about is Bruce and being held
and touched by him, and it's really fucking everything up but he can't help
it. Bruce is a magnet, and once Tim had really felt its pull he could do
nothing but want to slide into it again. God, it's good. Being touched like
he's everything in the world. More important than even the Mission, maybe.
"I didn't---" Tim can barely breathe, is already getting hard just being
close, even though his hands are reaching to slow Bruce down. "--No. I
didn't want anyone touching me like that."
It's just one more thing they had in common. Neither of them had been able to stop thinking about that rooftop. He'd wanted his hands on Tim again from the moment they parted. His hands slide Tim's shirt up higher, knuckles grazing bare skin. But he stops when he feels Tim's hands on top of his own.
Bruce shouldn't be pleased by it, but he is. A small quiet part of him puts it away. Still mine, it whispers.
He looks up at him. "Would you have wished it were me?"
Yes. Yes, of course, nobody will ever compare to Bruce, no matter how hard
Tim tries to fit someone else into that space. The man at the bar would
have gladly railed Tim into the bathroom stall if he'd only have asked, but
that wasn't what Tim had wanted. He was trying desperately to fill the
gaping hole in him that Bruce had so suddenly opened up on the rooftop.
"Bruce." It's noncommittal but hesitant. Tim's not in the mind to make good
decisions. But they can't just do this again... Can they?
Bruce could sense Tim's hesitation, could feel it in the way his hand sits on top of Bruce's own. In the quiet way he says Bruce's name.
That uncertainty? That hesitation? It's by design. None of his boys were ever meant to find someone to fill the space his absence leaves behind. It's too vast. Too jagged around the edges. No one else would fit. Not the way Bruce does. And Tim? His perfect soldier, Tim, doesn't cannot decide how he feels. Because Bruce made it that way, so he could decide for him. He shifts, hands resuming their slow crawl up his chest, a thumb brushing over Tim's nipple when his hand is high enough to reach it.
"It's okay, Tim," Bruce says. "I'm right here. You can have exactly what you want."
The part of Tim that wants to snap that what he wanted was to be given the
necessary space to deal with shit in his own way is completely and utterly
silenced as Bruce's thumb swipes over a nipple. He's wavering, sure as
Bruce is there touching him, because---the alcohol? The longing? Not
really, if he's honest. Those things, they help, but the crux of the
problem is that he wants Bruce, has wanted him for years and never allowed
himself so much as a furtive glance to make that clear. He'd tried to hide
it, and now look where that had got them. So if Bruce was offering... If
Tim needed it...
With a moan, Tim bows his head, resting it against Bruce's shoulder, his
hands tightening at Bruce's wrists.
"This---it's wrong." It was why Tim had held back for so long. Crossing the
bridge had made the other side that much sweeter.
There were a lot of things in Bruce's life that were wrong. Some of it more egregious than others. Some of it that rightly should have earned him a lengthy prison sentence. None of it was enough to stop him. None of it even slowed him down. Should he have questioned the morality of wanting to kiss Tim so much it made him ache? Perhaps. And maybe he did.
"I don't care." It's a quiet, almost tender confession. Bruce had done much worse. He cared about Tim and he'd never call that wrong. His thumb draws a lazy circle over Tim's nipple, and when his forehead touches his shoulder, Bruce turns to kiss his cheek. "I just want you. That's enough for me."
A breathless laugh is the answer that Bruce gets, followed by another hum
of a moan as Bruce's thumb rubs his nipple to a hardened peak. Fuck, that's
good. Random guys at the club wouldn't know to touch a man's nipple if it
bit them in the ass, but Bruce knew. Tim didn't really want to question how
it was that he knew exactly what buttons to press to get Tim to relent. He
was just a little too tipsy to worry as much as usual and certainly worked
up enough to put some of his concerns aside.
For now.
Tim tips his face, catching Bruce's lips for a hungry kiss that leaves
absolutely nothing to the imagination. There's no question if Tim likes
this or doesn't. Of course he does. He's been desperate to hear Bruce's
praise his entire life, and Bruce dolls it out exactly enough to string Tim
along. His hands scramble to find the cowl, to tug it back and off Bruce's
face to let it hang around his neck at the back, so he can tangle hands in
sweat-damp hair.
Is that something Tim really wanted the answer to? Bruce didn't imagine he did. But the truth was? Bruce and Tim were mirror images. Dark reflections casting the same shadow. Bruce knows all of the ways to get Tim to relent, not because he'd studied him, but because they were the same. Jagged, imperfect pieces forcing themselves to be perfect under the weight of their own scrutiny.
Maybe it's not something Tim is ready to confront, but Bruce already had.
Bruce's tongue slides into Tim's mouth as he pulls the cowl off. He's pleased and hums his approval into Tim's mouth. His hands settle in familiar places on Tim's body that makes getting away seem impossible. Or if you asked Bruce? Intimate. It annoyed him the taste of that other man lingers. He'd make Tim forget the encounter. He'd fill him up until there was no more room for anyone else. He kisses Tim like he wants to devour him, while his hands drag across his chest, lifting Tim's shirt higher and higher.
By the time Tim breaks the kiss, it's really only so Bruce can haul his
shirt off. His skin is already pebbling with goosebumps, the fine hairs
standing up on the back of his neck and his arms. Bruce kisses like nobody
else, and he has the deepest taste of anyone Tim has ever kissed. Like
falling headfirst into a deep, dark cave. Consumed by darkness.
He's working on Bruce's costume, eager hands fumbling for the pieces. He's
sloppy in his current state, afraid to slow down because if he does, this
moment might shatter.
He dives in for another kiss, crawling onto Bruce's lap.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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And Tim is one of them.
"What happened?" Tim makes a clicking sound, not unlike what Alfred might do, at the sight under the kevlar.
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Which was not untrue, exactly. Bruce had accounted for every part of the attack on the couple walking home. Three men, two of them armed with blunt objects. The third, a knife. Tim didn't need to know that. He just needed to know that one of them managed to get close enough to cut into the kevlar. He doesn't mind that Tim is close enough to smell the alcohol he's been drinking, but it's something to save for later.
"I'm fine, Tim. I just needed to clean up." He says he's fine, but doesn't stop TIm from removing the chest piece to get a better look. The wound is shallow, as if the tip of the blade glanced across his skin. More of a graze than a true stab. Blood still oozes, slow but stubborn. He could have dressed it himself. He just. Didn't.
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"A mugger did this to you?" That's---very, very unlikely. Even Tim's sluggish, alcohol laden brain knows that a mugger getting that close to Batman is nearly impossible, even on the days Bruce is off his game. But fortunately for Bruce, Tim's brain isn't able to hold there on that suspicion for long. He's already at the sink to wash his hands and then back to poke at Bruce's chest to make sure there's nothing in the wounds. With Bruce sitting down, Tim has to bend in half and squat to look him over properly, so eventually he takes a knee in front of him.
And it's not his fault if his face flushes, just a little. After all, he was just on his knees for something much less innocent barely an hour ago. He's still wound up from it, as he didn't let the other guy take care of him in turn. That wasn't what Tim was after in the bar.
"I'll help patch you up. Only surface deep wounds, thankfully." His gaze flicks up, catches Bruce looking down at him, and then swallows a sudden mouthful of spit. Christ, he was still fucked up from the club if he was getting hot over this. "You okay?"
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Bruce watches his boy sink to his knee in front of him and it stirs up that dark place inside of him and for a minute, he doesn't say anything. He knows where Tim's been tonight, knows what he's been doing and the thought feeds into that festering sense of ownership.
"I'm fine, Tim," he says finally, "I should be asking if you are okay. You've been drinking." And letting someone else touch him. But. Bruce would get to that.
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Tim's sure hands stutter. He pauses altogether, as if the wheels in his head are literally turning. Cranking to decide whether to lie or not. It doesn't feel worth it.
"Drinking a little on a night off means I'm not okay? Better check on literally everyone else in the world too." He swallows, swiping alcohol pads over Bruce's cuts. Glancing up again. "I'm fine. Really."
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He can smell him when he's this close. Alcohol. Sweat. Cigarettes. Something he doesn't immediately recognize. Cologne, perhaps?
"Are you?" Bruce lifts his gaze to fix it on Tim. Maybe to dare him to lie. "Did you at least get his name?"
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Another stutter, this time bringing Tim's hands to a full stop. His palms flatten against the battered chest of his former partner. Under his touch, Bruce is like a furnace.
"You're watching me?"
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If Bruce were more honest, he would have told Tim the truth. Maybe tell him where the cameras were so he could root them out and have some semblance of privacy again. Maybe tell him about the listening device hidden in his bo staff, so Bruce couldn't collect his secrets so easily.
Bruce would never be that honest.
"I didn't have to, Tim." Not when he gave the information up so easily. Even when the answer is yes. "I can smell him on you." His voice is quiet, almost gentle. But it must scrape like gravel. It's stark against the cold way Bruce looks at him, like he's waiting for the boy to unravel and isn't sure if he should stop it or see it through.
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"I---asked for space." The words come out much smaller than he intends, but god. Can't Bruce just give him one thing? Tim rarely asks for anything. He's good, he's not like Jason breaking every rule just to fuck around, and he's not moving to a new city like Dick. And yet Bruce can't let him go further than arm's reach.
It stings, but if Tim's honest, he knew it wasn't as easy as asking.
"You can't just---- fuck." Tim pulls his hands away. He sits back on his heels, looks up at Bruce with heavy eyes. "Did you really get mugged?"
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But that look in his eye? That burns him. Wakes up a pang of guilt he has to swallow down again before he answers. He reaches for Tim, hand cupping his cheek. It's a soft touch, despite the gauntlet.
"No. I stopped one."
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"And you're here to--what, check up on me?" Tim asks. He doesn't stop Bruce from touching, and if anything he leans into the cup of that strong hand against his cheek. Their dynamic is so strange now, so different from how it was before, and it feels like it just keeps spiraling further out of Tim's control. "Or... Something else?"
He sighs, tired and tipsy and still high off sucking a stranger off in the bathroom, and Bruce is right there. They could just--fall into each other. A little. What would it hurt?
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"Do you think I only care about your body, Tim?" Even if Bruce lets his hand drift from his cheek down his neck and chest. "I care about you."
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"No, of course I don't think that," Tim says, but that's a lie. He's been thinking it non-stop. How if Bruce wanted something else, he would have asked for it before the rooftop, before Tim was practically incapacitated and overwhelmed by drugs.
He's still leaning into Bruce's touch though, eyes sliding shut. God, he wanted more. Like last time. Harder maybe.
"I just---I wasn't expecting you tonight. I'm a little off my game." A lot off. Drunk.
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"You're drunk." A transgression, but Bruce forgives him. "Stand up and come here."
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Tim stands, feeling stupid but obedient. He's never wanted to let Bruce down. He spent most of his young life trying to live up to others but more importantly to Bruce's needs for him. The perfect soldier, always. Now there he is, drunk like an idiot in front of the only person who matters.
He moves forward, slowly, and it's barely a step to get close enough to Bruce for him to see how sluggish Tim's eyes are. The heat in his cheeks. Maybe even the flutter of his pulse against the slope of his neck.
"I didn't--intend to get drunk," he says. "I mean, maybe a little. Just to let some steam off, you know?"
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"Did you let him touch you?" His voice is low when he says it. It seems like a question, but it isn't one. It's the first little hook. The start of a slow, deliberate reeling in. He didn't mind if Tim noticed or not. It'd work out for him either way.
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Tim moans at the first slide of Bruce's hands. It's been--he's just messed up. Ever since the rooftop, all he can think about is Bruce and being held and touched by him, and it's really fucking everything up but he can't help it. Bruce is a magnet, and once Tim had really felt its pull he could do nothing but want to slide into it again. God, it's good. Being touched like he's everything in the world. More important than even the Mission, maybe.
"I didn't---" Tim can barely breathe, is already getting hard just being close, even though his hands are reaching to slow Bruce down. "--No. I didn't want anyone touching me like that."
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Bruce shouldn't be pleased by it, but he is. A small quiet part of him puts it away. Still mine, it whispers.
He looks up at him. "Would you have wished it were me?"
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Yes. Yes, of course, nobody will ever compare to Bruce, no matter how hard Tim tries to fit someone else into that space. The man at the bar would have gladly railed Tim into the bathroom stall if he'd only have asked, but that wasn't what Tim had wanted. He was trying desperately to fill the gaping hole in him that Bruce had so suddenly opened up on the rooftop.
"Bruce." It's noncommittal but hesitant. Tim's not in the mind to make good decisions. But they can't just do this again... Can they?
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That uncertainty? That hesitation? It's by design. None of his boys were ever meant to find someone to fill the space his absence leaves behind. It's too vast. Too jagged around the edges. No one else would fit. Not the way Bruce does. And Tim? His perfect soldier, Tim, doesn't cannot decide how he feels. Because Bruce made it that way, so he could decide for him. He shifts, hands resuming their slow crawl up his chest, a thumb brushing over Tim's nipple when his hand is high enough to reach it.
"It's okay, Tim," Bruce says. "I'm right here. You can have exactly what you want."
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The part of Tim that wants to snap that what he wanted was to be given the necessary space to deal with shit in his own way is completely and utterly silenced as Bruce's thumb swipes over a nipple. He's wavering, sure as Bruce is there touching him, because---the alcohol? The longing? Not really, if he's honest. Those things, they help, but the crux of the problem is that he wants Bruce, has wanted him for years and never allowed himself so much as a furtive glance to make that clear. He'd tried to hide it, and now look where that had got them. So if Bruce was offering... If Tim needed it...
With a moan, Tim bows his head, resting it against Bruce's shoulder, his hands tightening at Bruce's wrists.
"This---it's wrong." It was why Tim had held back for so long. Crossing the bridge had made the other side that much sweeter.
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"I don't care." It's a quiet, almost tender confession. Bruce had done much worse. He cared about Tim and he'd never call that wrong. His thumb draws a lazy circle over Tim's nipple, and when his forehead touches his shoulder, Bruce turns to kiss his cheek. "I just want you. That's enough for me."
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A breathless laugh is the answer that Bruce gets, followed by another hum of a moan as Bruce's thumb rubs his nipple to a hardened peak. Fuck, that's good. Random guys at the club wouldn't know to touch a man's nipple if it bit them in the ass, but Bruce knew. Tim didn't really want to question how it was that he knew exactly what buttons to press to get Tim to relent. He was just a little too tipsy to worry as much as usual and certainly worked up enough to put some of his concerns aside.
For now.
Tim tips his face, catching Bruce's lips for a hungry kiss that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. There's no question if Tim likes this or doesn't. Of course he does. He's been desperate to hear Bruce's praise his entire life, and Bruce dolls it out exactly enough to string Tim along. His hands scramble to find the cowl, to tug it back and off Bruce's face to let it hang around his neck at the back, so he can tangle hands in sweat-damp hair.
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Maybe it's not something Tim is ready to confront, but Bruce already had.
Bruce's tongue slides into Tim's mouth as he pulls the cowl off. He's pleased and hums his approval into Tim's mouth. His hands settle in familiar places on Tim's body that makes getting away seem impossible. Or if you asked Bruce? Intimate. It annoyed him the taste of that other man lingers. He'd make Tim forget the encounter. He'd fill him up until there was no more room for anyone else. He kisses Tim like he wants to devour him, while his hands drag across his chest, lifting Tim's shirt higher and higher.
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By the time Tim breaks the kiss, it's really only so Bruce can haul his shirt off. His skin is already pebbling with goosebumps, the fine hairs standing up on the back of his neck and his arms. Bruce kisses like nobody else, and he has the deepest taste of anyone Tim has ever kissed. Like falling headfirst into a deep, dark cave. Consumed by darkness.
He's working on Bruce's costume, eager hands fumbling for the pieces. He's sloppy in his current state, afraid to slow down because if he does, this moment might shatter.
He dives in for another kiss, crawling onto Bruce's lap.
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