always with the Dick jokes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
irrelevant) wrote2011-04-15 11:49 am
irrelevant) wrote2011-04-15 11:49 am
Entry tags:
[fic] with the kisses of his mouth (DCAU)
with the kisses of his mouth
DCAU | Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson (Batman/Robin) | R | ~5100 words
notes: Forjust_kazari, prompt: pressure.
Bruce leans on him all the way to the car.
It might be because he doesn’t give him the chance to say no. He just pulls Bruce’s arm over his shoulders, wraps his own arm around Bruce’s waist and points them in the right direction. Bruce stares at him, gives him one of Batman’s long, blank looks, and then his arm tightens around Dick’s shoulder and Dick hears what sounds like the crutch falling away.
He checks, and it did fall, it’s on the ground now. Which was the point of this exercise in stubborn, which means Dick gets to smirk – his win – and nudge them into motion with his hip.
Nudge and steer, take the decision out of Bruce’s hands so Bruce can… lean without guilt.
In Bruce’s case, leaning without guilt means not much leaning at all. Dick’s not taking even a quarter of Bruce's weight. Just enough to help keep the rest of it off Bruce’s bad leg, to feel Bruce solid against him, reminding him he's someone's partner. And it’s not like Bruce couldn’t have shaken him off or told him to get lost any time during the last twenty minutes; he’s done both of those things before in similar situations, with less reason.
Of course, that he didn’t might have something to do with not wanting to talk, and conversation of the loud and explosive kind is what would have happened if he’d blown Dick off. Dick’s not in the mood to get blown off; he’d have started something, and Bruce probably knows it. But Bruce was downright chatty earlier – for Bruce, anyway – and that’s got to be worth something, right?
Kind of like the way Bruce leaning means something; or the way Bruce's arm resting across his shoulders feels really close to acceptance. Of what, he’s not sure, but they both said things tonight, more words than they’ve given each other in years. Both of them, out there on the pier – words that can't be taken back or forgotten or… ignored?
Well, he hopes not. Because the thing is? He’s had moments like this before. In the field, in the aftermath of throwdowns with Joker or Two-Face or Ivy, grinning at each other because they’re alive and glad to be that way in the same place at the same time.
Moments like this, he’s always sure they’re finally on the same page, only to pull into the cave after Bruce, start walking towards the car, hoping… and then Bruce gets out of the car and walks away without looking at him once. Shuts down on him, then shuts him down, every time.
More times than he can remember anymore, and he’s getting too old to play this kind of hot and cold, back and forth game. Bruce has always been too old for it, and that might even be what drives him so crazy.
Because Bruce does still treat him like a kid, and maybe he’s even a little justified. Right now there’s an echo in Dick’s head of himself, talking to Alfred earlier this evening, and he can hear the whine in his own voice, a kid’s dissatisfaction.
He can still hear himself telling Bruce that he doesn’t understand, that he can’t, and never will.
And he can’t believe he actually… well, yeah, actually he can. When he’s mad enough he’ll say anything, and nobody pushes his buttons like Bruce. Just thinking about it gets him going, pounds in his temples and clenches his jaw up tight. He can feel his fingers wanting to curl into fists, and he has to will them to relax.
Bruce's fingers, wrapped loosely around his upper arm, tighten a little in response.
Dick relaxes his hands. And hopes.
Tips his head back against Bruce’s arm and the early morning breeze feels good on his face; cool, but not too cool for cooling skin. And he probably shouldn't be glad that spring means short sleeves and Bruce's gauntlet on his bare skin, but he is, aware of every shift and slide, hypersensitive to the point that he can feel torn Nomex near the pad of Bruce’s thumb. It’s distracting as hell; almost, but not quite enough to distract him from the distant sound of Zucco getting that extra special you-made-Batman-really-really-mad treatment from the GCPD.
He wonders sometimes if he shouldn’t’ve just gone into the academy instead of applying to college. He thought hard about it. The Commissioner would have defended his decision to Bruce – would have been happy to – and he thinks he could have made a good cop, although probably not in Gotham.
It would have been a good life. Dangerous, but he's never lived any other way. Not even when he still had Mom and Dad and Zitka and the security of Haly's stretched tent wall to tent wall under his future, waiting to catch him.
Until Zucco cut those ropes and he fell, and there was another net waiting. Bullet proof, fire-retardant webs, furled around him, pulling him down into the dark, but he wasn't afraid. Never afraid of that dark, not even after he started to understand why he should be.
And maybe that makes him crazier than Bruce, but he can’t regret it. Just like he can’t regret the real reason he’s not ever going to be a cop, not here or anywhere else. Not with his arm around Bruce’s waist and Bruce leaning into him like he’s finally decided after almost ten years that leaning is something he’s allowed to do.
“Your bike?” Bruce says as they take the corner limping-slow and the car is right there, exactly the wrong kind of shape for breaking daylight.
Dick fumbles along his belt with his free hand, looking for the right-- “Aha!” He clicks the remote and the car hums, security powering down as the canopy slides open. “Still in one piece,” he answers as he helps Bruce in. Then he remembers that last jump. “I think.”
Bruce’s mouth quirks. “Be sure,” he says, and Dick smirks back at him and crouches down, propping his elbows on the window frame and his chin on his forearms.
“Sure enough,” he says. Bruce just looks at him. He returns the look, but Robin’s never won a stare-off with Batman yet, and even if he does, someday, today is not going to be that day.
Dick sighs and detaches his palmtop from his belt. “The alignment’s slightly off,” he says, pushing buttons and watching the shifting diagnostics, “but it’s safe to drive.” Bruce is still looking at him. “I’m serious! See?” He holds it out.
Bruce takes it, flips through several more screens than Dick would have, and it’s completely unnecessary, but—yeah, Bruce. Anal retentive doesn’t come close. “All right,” he says eventually. “Once you’re back, don’t take it out again until—”
“Jeeze, I know, I know,” Dick interrupts. “I’m not twelve anymore, you know.”
In the process of handing him back the palmtop, Bruce goes very still. His mouth flattens and Dick’s gut flips, and he wants to take back whatever it was he said wrong, wants to say something else, anything else to stop Bruce from saying whatever it is he’s about to—
The palmtop drops into his hand. “I know you’re not,” Bruce says, and it’s—
A reprieve? Not as bad as it could have been? He wishes suddenly that he could see Bruce’s eyes, and then in an equally sudden one-eighty reversal, he’s just as glad he can’t.
“I’ll see you at home,” Bruce says, and starts the car.
Dick pushes to his feet, one hand still resting on the car. “It’s starting, isn’t it?”
Bruce looks straight ahead. “What is?”
“Nothing,” Dick says. “Absolutely nothing.” The canopy is already closing.
And he could just stay here with his hand on the car. Keep it there until Bruce has to open the canopy back up and tell him to move away.
“Robin,” Bruce’s voice says into the comm. “Some room.”
Or he could do that.
Dick steps back. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Bull-headed, self-righteous jerk!” He shouts it in the car’s wake and then stands there, hands clenched, hoping for a crime to be committed right here and now so he can wade in fists first.
No such luck. There’s nothing even marginally criminal going down aside from a row of trash cans overflowing their lids into the alley. Dick stops grinding his teeth, spins and kicks out.
The cans go over in a satisfying domino-effect crash. He looks around for something else to kick, but there’s only brick and mortar and concrete, and he’s not that far gone yet. He leans his elbow against the brick he won’t hit and rests his forehead on his wrist. “Jerk,” he mutters.
He’s not sure if he means Bruce or himself, but he’s starting to think he was wrong. There’s no reprieve here, not for either of them.
He picks up the cans before he goes after his bike. His conscience, otherwise known as Alfred, won’t allow for any other outcome.
--
He can hear the argument coming down from the infirmary as soon as he pulls off his helmet. And he’s not in a laughing mood, but he kind of has to, anyway, the same way he has to grin when he walks into the med bay just as Alfred says: “Very good, sir. I’ll leave the cellular telephone here and Dr. Thompkins’ number on speed dial for the moment your wrench becomes a torn ligament, then, shall I?”
Still grinning, Dick peels off his domino and drops it on the empty instrument table. He crosses his arms and leans his hip against the spare cot, preparing to enjoy himself courtesy of the master manipulator – that would be Alfred – and at Bruce’s expense.
“I can manage,” Bruce grits from between clenched teeth, and maybe he can. He’s doing his best to prove it, sitting straight up on the side of his bed, still fully suited with the exception of his cape, belt, and one boot. The med bay, however, is Alfred’s territory. Nobody gets out unless he says so.
“You saw the board, right?” Dick puts in, because he can. “He could barely walk with it, me, and a crutch.”
Under the shadow of Batman’s cowl, Bruce’s thinned mouth promises retribution beyond Dick’s worst nightmares; or it might if Bruce didn’t know the exact makeup of his worst nightmares.
“I can manage,” Bruce repeats, and his lenses are still down, which will never stop being creepy in this kind of bright, artificial light, no matter how often Dick sees it. Bruce keeps his creepy eyeless cowl aimed at Dick for a few seconds that feel like forever before he turns back to Alfred. “The bandages,” he says, “not the brace.”
The board-stiffness of Alfred’s back is a testament to decades of butling and looking after Bruce Wayne. Which, now that Dick thinks about it, adds up to pretty much the same thing. There’s no question in his mind who’ll eventually win this fight, but Bruce is a stubborn jerk, and eventually could mean hours. It’s been a long night for all of them, Alfred included, and Dick isn’t in the mood to wait Bruce out.
Holding his hand out, he says, “I’ll take care of this, Alfie.” He grins at the relief he sees in Alfred’s eyes as Alfred hands the brace over.
“Are you remaining here for the night, Master Dick,” Alfred asks, “or returning to the college?”
Dick translates that into: Are you prepared to ride herd whilst I snatch an hour or two of much needed rest? “Staying,” he says, waving the brace. “I’ve got afternoon classes, so I can sleep in a little. Don’t worry,” he adds, “I’ll get this on him way before I blow this popsicle stand.”
Alfred makes a sound that, coming from anyone less dignified, would be a snort. “Don’t hesitate to summon me should he prove… fractious.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bruce’s hands tighten. The bed creaks in response. “I’m sitting. Right. Here.”
“As I was saying,” Alfred says as he walks toward the stairs, Bruce’s cape trailing from his arm. “Some individuals have no notion of self preservation.”
Dick sucks back his laugh; the way Bruce’s chin is jutting out, letting it go would be begging for trouble. As soon as Alfred is out of sight, he turns back to Bruce. “Well,” he says brightly, “that was fun. Let’s never do it again, okay?”
“Robin.” Sounds like Bruce’s teeth are still gritted. Dick grins.
“I took my mask off,” he points out, and because beating stuff into the ground is sort of his MO – and also pretty much the only way to get Bruce’s attention – he strips off his cape, belt and boots before he pads over and kneels down in front of him.
Bruce’s glare is a hot weight on the top of his head, focused and intent, but that’s just Bruce. Dick pushes the sensation as far away as his subconscious will let him and concentrates on Bruce’s knee.
The skin is hotter than normal, the tissue slightly swollen in front and back, but the balm Alfred applied seems to be working. “Can you straighten it?” Dick asks, and gets a growl. He prods gently, letting some of his exasperation leak through into his voice. “Can you just this once not give me any crap about how you’re fine and you don’t need any help? I’m wiped, Alfie’s exhausted from putting up with both of us, and you don’t want to do yourself any permanent damage. At least I don’t think you do.”
Something creaks, probably the bed again, and Dick smiles, but he doesn’t look up. Slowly, Bruce straightens his leg. Dick reaches for the brace.
And again with the growling, which, really? Not a surprise. “Look,” he says, fitting the brace around Bruce’s knee, “We both know you’re going to wear this. I don’t know if you’ve got some screwed up Bat reason for not wanting to, or if you’re just being a pain, but if Alfred thinks you need it, ten to one you do.” He adjusts the fit slightly, making sure it’s not going to impair Bruce’s movements more than necessary. “One way or another, it’s going on and staying on.”
He’s watching what he’s doing, but he can see Bruce’s hands at the edge of his vision. He doesn’t need to see Bruce’s white-knuckled grip to recognize the tension knotting Bruce’s muscle under his hands.
Good thing he’s done, for both of them. He says, “That oughta do it,” and Bruce doesn’t answer. He says, “Bruce?” and looks up, and Bruce’s jaw might as well be granite. His mouth is as white as his knuckles.
He says, “Get up.” Rawer, harsher than normal, and Dick feels surprise tugging at his mouth and forehead, turning them into a frown. Then Bruce says, “Please,” sounding like the word’s getting dragged out of him with a block and tackle, and okay, maybe it really is time to worry.
“Dick,” Bruce says before Dick can get his brain/mouth connection working. “Get up.” And he’s using the voice this time, of course he is, and that is so unfair Dick can’t even begin to express the total lack of fairness that is Bruce getting up off the bed and limp-stalking him across the room.
He’s already on his feet – he’s hardwired to react to that voice – and backing up, and for the first time in his life, he’s got some fellow feeling for the criminals who get to watch Batman coming for them on a nightly basis. Even limping, Bruce is scary as hell, and that he’s using that right now is just—
Bull. Superstitious, cowardly bull, and it’s not Dick who’s the coward – or the cowed – around these parts. He’s in the right and Bruce isn’t, and maybe his back’s to the wall (the bed, actually), but he can still stand up straight and cross his arms; he can give Bruce some of his own back-off back while he looks him straight in the… well, straight in the cowl, but it’s the thought that counts.
“What is up with you?” he asks – no, damn it, demands, because they’re going to have this out right now. “You were in an okay mood until we got to the car. Not great,” he allows, “but okay. So what’s the deal? And don’t say the alignment. Not even you are that anal.”
Bruce is still coming at him, and he doesn’t stop until they’re pretty much toe to toe and nose to nose. Dick hopes Bruce appreciates the willpower it’s taking to stay where he is and not crawl under the bed, whimpering. He glares, and Bruce glares back – well, it’s kind of hard to do anything else when you’re wearing the cowl. Then, “This,” Bruce growls, “is the deal.” And kisses him.
Dick’s brain takes a short vacation to Mad Hatter Land. It must, because he can’t come up with any other reason for Bruce to be kissing him.
It’s just… pressure, barely there. Enough to leave an impression of Bruce’s mouth on his. Just enough to catch his breath up hard somewhere down in his chest, and more than enough to make him close his eyes.
He opens them when he can’t feel Bruce anymore, and the stupid cowl is still down. He croaks, “Take it off,” and not even Bruce can pretend it’s a request.
Bruce’s hand twitches – he still wearing the gauntlets, too. Dick clenches his hands and says it again, “Take it off.”
Bruce hesitates. He wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t. When he finally moves he does it fast, probably the same way he ripped off Band-Aids when he was a kid. He shoves the cowl back like he can’t stand to have it on another second, and then he lifts his head and Dick looks up into his face and sees—
His brain feels like the jumble of Great Wall of China jigsaw puzzle pieces looked when he dumped them out on his desk yesterday. How long has this been there, out in the open where he, where anyone could see it? How the hell did he miss—
“When…?” And that’s all he can get out because there’s this look on Bruce’s face, guilt combined with something else Dick can’t parse, and this is too much, too big for him to deal with right now.
He says, “Why now? Why not two years ago?” But he changes his mind, and before Bruce can start with the equivocation, he says, “You know what, forget it.” Because. “I don’t need your excuses.”
The sound of creaking gauntlets is, to Dick at least, unmistakable. Bruce just got called on his bullshit, and he knows, and he knows Dick knows. This is the freaking black hole of knowing, and can anyone say impasse?
“Guess it’s my move, huh?” Dick says softly, his words falling into the gravitational pull of Bruce’s silence.
He says it just to see Bruce’s reaction. And then he makes it.
It’s not that controlling the action is better than the alternative, per se; he wouldn’t swear to that in Joker’s court; but Bruce doesn’t really give him a chance to get a feel for being in the driver’s seat. Bruce’s gauntlets close tight around his wrists, he makes an impatient noise against Dick’s mouth and Dick’s laughing into his mouth when he shoves Dick hard against the bed and pushes in with his tongue and his hips.
Dick hears his laugh trail off into a moan, and control? Who needs it, what’s it even for? Not for him, not right now, and maybe not ever again.
Except maybe it should be. Because there’s a new noise, Bruce’s noise, a gulping hitch of air that’s more about pain than anything else, the kind of sound guaranteed to drop Dick back down into a reality where Bruce’s knee is a brace shy of the torn ligament Dick promised Alfred he’d prevent. So far, he’s not doing such a stellar job. Way to go, Grayson.
The situation’s getting a little tricky for straightforward tactics, though, if he knows anything about Bruce, and after ten years, he likes to think he’s got a little bit of a clue. So he pulls back, out of the kiss, but he gets a good grip on Bruce first. He just has this feeling…
It’s a feeling destined to become fact. Bruce is already pulling at his hold, trying to get away from him, something too close to horror for comfort in his eyes. Dick rolls his eyes, tightens his grip and says, “Don’t even think about it.” He yanks Bruce back in, until he can feel the rise and fall of Bruce’s chest, jerky and uneven and just this side of panic.
He’s almost panting and his breath rushes out, moist and erratic against Dick’s chin. “I’m so—”
“If you apologize, I will punch you,” Dick warns him. “Stop freaking out. This isn’t me saying no, this is me saying we need a different venue.” He grins, and he thinks that might be a tiny, answering twitch near the corner of Bruce’s mouth. “’Fess up, that knee’s killing you.”
Bruce’s hands tighten, his fingers digging into Dick’s waist and hip, but he says, “This isn’t what I—”
“Sure it is,” Dick interrupts cheerfully before Bruce can go all consciency ‘You are my ward’ and ‘I am responsible’ and freak out worse than he already has. “You don’t get to change your mind,” he says, years of Bruce turning his back and walking away from him present and clear and today. “Not this time.”
Saying it out loud is the hard part. Action has always been so much easier.
His hands are tangled up in Bruce’s uniform shirt. All he has to do is topple backward, let their combined weight take them down together onto the bed.
“Jeeze, you’re heavy. I think that costume weighs more than I do.” It’s a cheap laugh, but he gets a look at Bruce’s expression and adds hastily, “And that’s a good thing.”
And positive reinforcement is an excellent thing. He snakes an arm around Bruce’s waist, hooks a leg over his hip and rocks up into him, biting back a moan at the pressure building under his jock, and thinking that if he doesn’t get out of it soon, there’s going to be possibly permanent damage.
On the other hand, no pain, no gain, not in this cave. And he’s thinking he should save all this thinking, and maybe even the cup, for later, because if he doesn’t get and keep Bruce’s attention now, he’ll probably never get another shot at this. Bruce won’t give him one, he’ll make sure not to.
Only problem is, now that he’s got his opportunity, Dick’s not exactly sure how to get where he wants to go. He just keeps moving, hands and hips and everything else, because he is not giving Bruce a chance to get distracted by guilt and a bunch of other non-constructive and potentially derailing emotions, but also because moving is what he knows and does best. He’s not expecting much of a response – not yet – so he’s a little—okay, a lot surprised when Bruce curls one hand around his hip, the other around the back of his neck, and says, “Dick.”
He stops. Moving or anything else and he’s just staring up at Bruce, breath caught in his throat waiting. Bruce is frowning at him, a concerned squiggle of forehead lines, and stroking the back of his neck. And jeeze, that’s going to short-circuit his brain real fast if Bruce doesn’t—
“You need,” Bruce says and strokes, and that’s his thumb, petting the skin under Dick’s jaw… “You need to be sure.” Still frowning, but it still looks more like concern than anger. He’s not worried, really not, and Bruce is still petting, and he’s still wearing the damned gauntlets.
“You gonna take those off?” His voice comes out more breathless and needy than he wants. He can’t argue with the result, though, and watching Bruce pulling Batman’s gloves off with his teeth, seeing Bruce’s skin come back scraped and sweaty, then feeling it moving over his own skin is—
Not as good as watching Bruce naked in the showers, or cleaning him up after a dirty, brutal fight, but it’s really, really close.
Bruce’s hands start moving south and this time Dick forgets all the reasons he has, both his and Bruce’s, for not making noise. He wonders if he looks as shameless as he sounds. Maybe, probably if the way Bruce is looking at him is any indication. He looks back, holding Bruce’s gaze, keeping it on him, the only sure thing he has right now. Then Bruce’s mouth quirks up on one side, and he’s leaning down, and Dick forgets why he wanted Bruce to keep looking at him. He forgets to care about anything but slick kisses and hands custom built to cause pain giving him nothing but pleasure.
Bruce’s fingers hook into the waistband of his tights and start tugging. He kisses the skin over Dick’s collar bone, his voice a low growl next to Dick’s ear: “Be sure.” He sounds almost like he did when he was talking about the alignment on Dick's bike.
Dick's hands tighten involuntarily, gripping and tugging at Bruce’s hair. His mouth is open and he hears himself babbling stupid, self-destructive things, but he can't stop them, they won't stop coming out, “Look, can we just accept that this isn’t going to change anything, it’ll probably make everything worse and I’ll probably want to punch you in the face again tomorrow – can we accept those things and, oh god, move the heck along?”
There’s a sound, muffled against Dick’s throat, almost like laughter. And Bruce is sliding down, taking Dick’s tights with him, and his hands—
Are stalled. He cups Dick’s hips in his hands, thumbs stroking restless circles around and around the bowls of Dick’s hipbones. Dick tastes the whimper he can’t hear, he feels the sheets crumple under his hands, and Bruce is looking up at him and his eyes are, god, so blue without the cowl hiding them. The shape of his mouth is almost soft, lips parted, opening up…
“I have a tendency to need to control. To—” swallowing, thumbs still stroking, and Dick hears his own whimper this time— “To own. The things and people I care for. I don’t consciously wish for that kind of… dominance. But I sometimes can’t, or won’t, control my impulses in that direction.” His breath is warm, damp; his fingers are tracing sweat-slick shapes onto Dick’s skin, and Dick would laugh if he wasn’t so close to hysteria.
He moans instead, gasps out, “No kidding. Riddler clue for you, Bruce, that’s news to… no one? Do you s-seriously… think I don’t—” Gasping again, bucking up into Bruce’s hands because they’ve started moving down again, and Dick can’t, he can’t—
Bruce is watching him, half smiling, half… something else he doesn’t want to understand, but maybe he needs to. Through the pound of his blood in his ears he can hear Bruce saying, “I’ll try to own you. Don’t let me.” And he’s smiling all the way.
He’s leaning down, his hands are sliding down between Dick’s ass cheeks and the mattress, tilting Dick’s hips up and his mouth is, god, right there—
Dick looks at Bruce’s mouth, and he knows Bruce said something, something kind of important. A reply is definitely mandatory, and he’s sure he was going to tell him someth—oh yeah. He says, “When have I ever?”
Because he never has. He’ll walk away before he does, and that’s written all over Bruce’s face, obvious in the blue-rimmed black of his eyes staring at Dick like he’s the only thing; only one that’ll ever matter.
It might even be true. Dick… really couldn’t care less. He says, “Bruce,” and, “Yes,” and, “Will you just do it?” And then Bruce does do it and there’s just Bruce’s mouth and his hands, his eyes, just Bruce, Bruce—
--
“Dick," is all Bruce has to say.
It's everything he needs to hear.
--
“We still need to talk,” he says much later, liking the slide of Bruce’s skin under his mouth, sweat-salty and stubble rough. “Soon. About this thing you have with not telling me stuff I really need to know.” He pauses, turning his head enough that his cheek is getting roughed up by Bruce’s scruffy skin.
“Maybe you called it last night,” he continues before Bruce can open his mouth and start backpedaling. “I don’t know. You don’t always, though, and you know it.”
He shifts away, not far: he just wants to see Bruce’s eyes. But he hears the almost-sound Bruce makes, feels his hand tightening on the back of his neck… and he has to laugh, into Bruce’s face, because he’s leaving like hell.
He says it out loud, “Not going anywhere, B.” And because Bruce does better when you tell him things, then act on what you just told him, as opposed to waiting around for him acknowledge anything, he slides his fingers into Bruce’s hair, pulls his head down and kisses him.
Definitely a sound this time. Possibly a protest, or maybe his name, but whatever Bruce meant it to be, it’s as sweet as victory can be in Dick’s mouth. Bruce’s tongue touches his, still weirdly tentative considering what he was doing with it less than fifteen minutes ago, and yeah, Dick’s had about enough of that.
He sucks Bruce’s tongue into his mouth. Sucks on it, digs his fingers into Bruce’s shoulders, and it’s the best kind of goad – one he knows is going to get him exactly where he wants to go.
Which would be flat on his back with his wrists pinned and Bruce between his legs.
And it’s… Bruce is… god, that’s–
Afternoon classes or not, “I’m gonna be so late.” His moans are background to the buzz in his head and ears and Bruce is kissing down his jaw to his throat, Bruce’s hand is on his bare ass, thumb tracing the crack, and he feels his moan drop back down into his throat, trailing off into a whine.
Bruce makes a kind of humming noise, “Mmn.” An approving, pleased sound, and he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be a response or what, but it really is—
God. So, so late, which means Dr. Prasad is going give him that look she’s so good at, and it might be possible to care less, but Bruce is making the noise again and, and biting—
And what do you know? It is possible to care less, after all.
DCAU | Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson (Batman/Robin) | R | ~5100 words
notes: For
just_kazari, prompt: pressure. Bruce leans on him all the way to the car.
It might be because he doesn’t give him the chance to say no. He just pulls Bruce’s arm over his shoulders, wraps his own arm around Bruce’s waist and points them in the right direction. Bruce stares at him, gives him one of Batman’s long, blank looks, and then his arm tightens around Dick’s shoulder and Dick hears what sounds like the crutch falling away.
He checks, and it did fall, it’s on the ground now. Which was the point of this exercise in stubborn, which means Dick gets to smirk – his win – and nudge them into motion with his hip.
Nudge and steer, take the decision out of Bruce’s hands so Bruce can… lean without guilt.
In Bruce’s case, leaning without guilt means not much leaning at all. Dick’s not taking even a quarter of Bruce's weight. Just enough to help keep the rest of it off Bruce’s bad leg, to feel Bruce solid against him, reminding him he's someone's partner. And it’s not like Bruce couldn’t have shaken him off or told him to get lost any time during the last twenty minutes; he’s done both of those things before in similar situations, with less reason.
Of course, that he didn’t might have something to do with not wanting to talk, and conversation of the loud and explosive kind is what would have happened if he’d blown Dick off. Dick’s not in the mood to get blown off; he’d have started something, and Bruce probably knows it. But Bruce was downright chatty earlier – for Bruce, anyway – and that’s got to be worth something, right?
Kind of like the way Bruce leaning means something; or the way Bruce's arm resting across his shoulders feels really close to acceptance. Of what, he’s not sure, but they both said things tonight, more words than they’ve given each other in years. Both of them, out there on the pier – words that can't be taken back or forgotten or… ignored?
Well, he hopes not. Because the thing is? He’s had moments like this before. In the field, in the aftermath of throwdowns with Joker or Two-Face or Ivy, grinning at each other because they’re alive and glad to be that way in the same place at the same time.
Moments like this, he’s always sure they’re finally on the same page, only to pull into the cave after Bruce, start walking towards the car, hoping… and then Bruce gets out of the car and walks away without looking at him once. Shuts down on him, then shuts him down, every time.
More times than he can remember anymore, and he’s getting too old to play this kind of hot and cold, back and forth game. Bruce has always been too old for it, and that might even be what drives him so crazy.
Because Bruce does still treat him like a kid, and maybe he’s even a little justified. Right now there’s an echo in Dick’s head of himself, talking to Alfred earlier this evening, and he can hear the whine in his own voice, a kid’s dissatisfaction.
He can still hear himself telling Bruce that he doesn’t understand, that he can’t, and never will.
And he can’t believe he actually… well, yeah, actually he can. When he’s mad enough he’ll say anything, and nobody pushes his buttons like Bruce. Just thinking about it gets him going, pounds in his temples and clenches his jaw up tight. He can feel his fingers wanting to curl into fists, and he has to will them to relax.
Bruce's fingers, wrapped loosely around his upper arm, tighten a little in response.
Dick relaxes his hands. And hopes.
Tips his head back against Bruce’s arm and the early morning breeze feels good on his face; cool, but not too cool for cooling skin. And he probably shouldn't be glad that spring means short sleeves and Bruce's gauntlet on his bare skin, but he is, aware of every shift and slide, hypersensitive to the point that he can feel torn Nomex near the pad of Bruce’s thumb. It’s distracting as hell; almost, but not quite enough to distract him from the distant sound of Zucco getting that extra special you-made-Batman-really-really-mad treatment from the GCPD.
He wonders sometimes if he shouldn’t’ve just gone into the academy instead of applying to college. He thought hard about it. The Commissioner would have defended his decision to Bruce – would have been happy to – and he thinks he could have made a good cop, although probably not in Gotham.
It would have been a good life. Dangerous, but he's never lived any other way. Not even when he still had Mom and Dad and Zitka and the security of Haly's stretched tent wall to tent wall under his future, waiting to catch him.
Until Zucco cut those ropes and he fell, and there was another net waiting. Bullet proof, fire-retardant webs, furled around him, pulling him down into the dark, but he wasn't afraid. Never afraid of that dark, not even after he started to understand why he should be.
And maybe that makes him crazier than Bruce, but he can’t regret it. Just like he can’t regret the real reason he’s not ever going to be a cop, not here or anywhere else. Not with his arm around Bruce’s waist and Bruce leaning into him like he’s finally decided after almost ten years that leaning is something he’s allowed to do.
“Your bike?” Bruce says as they take the corner limping-slow and the car is right there, exactly the wrong kind of shape for breaking daylight.
Dick fumbles along his belt with his free hand, looking for the right-- “Aha!” He clicks the remote and the car hums, security powering down as the canopy slides open. “Still in one piece,” he answers as he helps Bruce in. Then he remembers that last jump. “I think.”
Bruce’s mouth quirks. “Be sure,” he says, and Dick smirks back at him and crouches down, propping his elbows on the window frame and his chin on his forearms.
“Sure enough,” he says. Bruce just looks at him. He returns the look, but Robin’s never won a stare-off with Batman yet, and even if he does, someday, today is not going to be that day.
Dick sighs and detaches his palmtop from his belt. “The alignment’s slightly off,” he says, pushing buttons and watching the shifting diagnostics, “but it’s safe to drive.” Bruce is still looking at him. “I’m serious! See?” He holds it out.
Bruce takes it, flips through several more screens than Dick would have, and it’s completely unnecessary, but—yeah, Bruce. Anal retentive doesn’t come close. “All right,” he says eventually. “Once you’re back, don’t take it out again until—”
“Jeeze, I know, I know,” Dick interrupts. “I’m not twelve anymore, you know.”
In the process of handing him back the palmtop, Bruce goes very still. His mouth flattens and Dick’s gut flips, and he wants to take back whatever it was he said wrong, wants to say something else, anything else to stop Bruce from saying whatever it is he’s about to—
The palmtop drops into his hand. “I know you’re not,” Bruce says, and it’s—
A reprieve? Not as bad as it could have been? He wishes suddenly that he could see Bruce’s eyes, and then in an equally sudden one-eighty reversal, he’s just as glad he can’t.
“I’ll see you at home,” Bruce says, and starts the car.
Dick pushes to his feet, one hand still resting on the car. “It’s starting, isn’t it?”
Bruce looks straight ahead. “What is?”
“Nothing,” Dick says. “Absolutely nothing.” The canopy is already closing.
And he could just stay here with his hand on the car. Keep it there until Bruce has to open the canopy back up and tell him to move away.
“Robin,” Bruce’s voice says into the comm. “Some room.”
Or he could do that.
Dick steps back. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Bull-headed, self-righteous jerk!” He shouts it in the car’s wake and then stands there, hands clenched, hoping for a crime to be committed right here and now so he can wade in fists first.
No such luck. There’s nothing even marginally criminal going down aside from a row of trash cans overflowing their lids into the alley. Dick stops grinding his teeth, spins and kicks out.
The cans go over in a satisfying domino-effect crash. He looks around for something else to kick, but there’s only brick and mortar and concrete, and he’s not that far gone yet. He leans his elbow against the brick he won’t hit and rests his forehead on his wrist. “Jerk,” he mutters.
He’s not sure if he means Bruce or himself, but he’s starting to think he was wrong. There’s no reprieve here, not for either of them.
He picks up the cans before he goes after his bike. His conscience, otherwise known as Alfred, won’t allow for any other outcome.
--
He can hear the argument coming down from the infirmary as soon as he pulls off his helmet. And he’s not in a laughing mood, but he kind of has to, anyway, the same way he has to grin when he walks into the med bay just as Alfred says: “Very good, sir. I’ll leave the cellular telephone here and Dr. Thompkins’ number on speed dial for the moment your wrench becomes a torn ligament, then, shall I?”
Still grinning, Dick peels off his domino and drops it on the empty instrument table. He crosses his arms and leans his hip against the spare cot, preparing to enjoy himself courtesy of the master manipulator – that would be Alfred – and at Bruce’s expense.
“I can manage,” Bruce grits from between clenched teeth, and maybe he can. He’s doing his best to prove it, sitting straight up on the side of his bed, still fully suited with the exception of his cape, belt, and one boot. The med bay, however, is Alfred’s territory. Nobody gets out unless he says so.
“You saw the board, right?” Dick puts in, because he can. “He could barely walk with it, me, and a crutch.”
Under the shadow of Batman’s cowl, Bruce’s thinned mouth promises retribution beyond Dick’s worst nightmares; or it might if Bruce didn’t know the exact makeup of his worst nightmares.
“I can manage,” Bruce repeats, and his lenses are still down, which will never stop being creepy in this kind of bright, artificial light, no matter how often Dick sees it. Bruce keeps his creepy eyeless cowl aimed at Dick for a few seconds that feel like forever before he turns back to Alfred. “The bandages,” he says, “not the brace.”
The board-stiffness of Alfred’s back is a testament to decades of butling and looking after Bruce Wayne. Which, now that Dick thinks about it, adds up to pretty much the same thing. There’s no question in his mind who’ll eventually win this fight, but Bruce is a stubborn jerk, and eventually could mean hours. It’s been a long night for all of them, Alfred included, and Dick isn’t in the mood to wait Bruce out.
Holding his hand out, he says, “I’ll take care of this, Alfie.” He grins at the relief he sees in Alfred’s eyes as Alfred hands the brace over.
“Are you remaining here for the night, Master Dick,” Alfred asks, “or returning to the college?”
Dick translates that into: Are you prepared to ride herd whilst I snatch an hour or two of much needed rest? “Staying,” he says, waving the brace. “I’ve got afternoon classes, so I can sleep in a little. Don’t worry,” he adds, “I’ll get this on him way before I blow this popsicle stand.”
Alfred makes a sound that, coming from anyone less dignified, would be a snort. “Don’t hesitate to summon me should he prove… fractious.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bruce’s hands tighten. The bed creaks in response. “I’m sitting. Right. Here.”
“As I was saying,” Alfred says as he walks toward the stairs, Bruce’s cape trailing from his arm. “Some individuals have no notion of self preservation.”
Dick sucks back his laugh; the way Bruce’s chin is jutting out, letting it go would be begging for trouble. As soon as Alfred is out of sight, he turns back to Bruce. “Well,” he says brightly, “that was fun. Let’s never do it again, okay?”
“Robin.” Sounds like Bruce’s teeth are still gritted. Dick grins.
“I took my mask off,” he points out, and because beating stuff into the ground is sort of his MO – and also pretty much the only way to get Bruce’s attention – he strips off his cape, belt and boots before he pads over and kneels down in front of him.
Bruce’s glare is a hot weight on the top of his head, focused and intent, but that’s just Bruce. Dick pushes the sensation as far away as his subconscious will let him and concentrates on Bruce’s knee.
The skin is hotter than normal, the tissue slightly swollen in front and back, but the balm Alfred applied seems to be working. “Can you straighten it?” Dick asks, and gets a growl. He prods gently, letting some of his exasperation leak through into his voice. “Can you just this once not give me any crap about how you’re fine and you don’t need any help? I’m wiped, Alfie’s exhausted from putting up with both of us, and you don’t want to do yourself any permanent damage. At least I don’t think you do.”
Something creaks, probably the bed again, and Dick smiles, but he doesn’t look up. Slowly, Bruce straightens his leg. Dick reaches for the brace.
And again with the growling, which, really? Not a surprise. “Look,” he says, fitting the brace around Bruce’s knee, “We both know you’re going to wear this. I don’t know if you’ve got some screwed up Bat reason for not wanting to, or if you’re just being a pain, but if Alfred thinks you need it, ten to one you do.” He adjusts the fit slightly, making sure it’s not going to impair Bruce’s movements more than necessary. “One way or another, it’s going on and staying on.”
He’s watching what he’s doing, but he can see Bruce’s hands at the edge of his vision. He doesn’t need to see Bruce’s white-knuckled grip to recognize the tension knotting Bruce’s muscle under his hands.
Good thing he’s done, for both of them. He says, “That oughta do it,” and Bruce doesn’t answer. He says, “Bruce?” and looks up, and Bruce’s jaw might as well be granite. His mouth is as white as his knuckles.
He says, “Get up.” Rawer, harsher than normal, and Dick feels surprise tugging at his mouth and forehead, turning them into a frown. Then Bruce says, “Please,” sounding like the word’s getting dragged out of him with a block and tackle, and okay, maybe it really is time to worry.
“Dick,” Bruce says before Dick can get his brain/mouth connection working. “Get up.” And he’s using the voice this time, of course he is, and that is so unfair Dick can’t even begin to express the total lack of fairness that is Bruce getting up off the bed and limp-stalking him across the room.
He’s already on his feet – he’s hardwired to react to that voice – and backing up, and for the first time in his life, he’s got some fellow feeling for the criminals who get to watch Batman coming for them on a nightly basis. Even limping, Bruce is scary as hell, and that he’s using that right now is just—
Bull. Superstitious, cowardly bull, and it’s not Dick who’s the coward – or the cowed – around these parts. He’s in the right and Bruce isn’t, and maybe his back’s to the wall (the bed, actually), but he can still stand up straight and cross his arms; he can give Bruce some of his own back-off back while he looks him straight in the… well, straight in the cowl, but it’s the thought that counts.
“What is up with you?” he asks – no, damn it, demands, because they’re going to have this out right now. “You were in an okay mood until we got to the car. Not great,” he allows, “but okay. So what’s the deal? And don’t say the alignment. Not even you are that anal.”
Bruce is still coming at him, and he doesn’t stop until they’re pretty much toe to toe and nose to nose. Dick hopes Bruce appreciates the willpower it’s taking to stay where he is and not crawl under the bed, whimpering. He glares, and Bruce glares back – well, it’s kind of hard to do anything else when you’re wearing the cowl. Then, “This,” Bruce growls, “is the deal.” And kisses him.
Dick’s brain takes a short vacation to Mad Hatter Land. It must, because he can’t come up with any other reason for Bruce to be kissing him.
It’s just… pressure, barely there. Enough to leave an impression of Bruce’s mouth on his. Just enough to catch his breath up hard somewhere down in his chest, and more than enough to make him close his eyes.
He opens them when he can’t feel Bruce anymore, and the stupid cowl is still down. He croaks, “Take it off,” and not even Bruce can pretend it’s a request.
Bruce’s hand twitches – he still wearing the gauntlets, too. Dick clenches his hands and says it again, “Take it off.”
Bruce hesitates. He wouldn’t be Bruce if he didn’t. When he finally moves he does it fast, probably the same way he ripped off Band-Aids when he was a kid. He shoves the cowl back like he can’t stand to have it on another second, and then he lifts his head and Dick looks up into his face and sees—
His brain feels like the jumble of Great Wall of China jigsaw puzzle pieces looked when he dumped them out on his desk yesterday. How long has this been there, out in the open where he, where anyone could see it? How the hell did he miss—
“When…?” And that’s all he can get out because there’s this look on Bruce’s face, guilt combined with something else Dick can’t parse, and this is too much, too big for him to deal with right now.
He says, “Why now? Why not two years ago?” But he changes his mind, and before Bruce can start with the equivocation, he says, “You know what, forget it.” Because. “I don’t need your excuses.”
The sound of creaking gauntlets is, to Dick at least, unmistakable. Bruce just got called on his bullshit, and he knows, and he knows Dick knows. This is the freaking black hole of knowing, and can anyone say impasse?
“Guess it’s my move, huh?” Dick says softly, his words falling into the gravitational pull of Bruce’s silence.
He says it just to see Bruce’s reaction. And then he makes it.
It’s not that controlling the action is better than the alternative, per se; he wouldn’t swear to that in Joker’s court; but Bruce doesn’t really give him a chance to get a feel for being in the driver’s seat. Bruce’s gauntlets close tight around his wrists, he makes an impatient noise against Dick’s mouth and Dick’s laughing into his mouth when he shoves Dick hard against the bed and pushes in with his tongue and his hips.
Dick hears his laugh trail off into a moan, and control? Who needs it, what’s it even for? Not for him, not right now, and maybe not ever again.
Except maybe it should be. Because there’s a new noise, Bruce’s noise, a gulping hitch of air that’s more about pain than anything else, the kind of sound guaranteed to drop Dick back down into a reality where Bruce’s knee is a brace shy of the torn ligament Dick promised Alfred he’d prevent. So far, he’s not doing such a stellar job. Way to go, Grayson.
The situation’s getting a little tricky for straightforward tactics, though, if he knows anything about Bruce, and after ten years, he likes to think he’s got a little bit of a clue. So he pulls back, out of the kiss, but he gets a good grip on Bruce first. He just has this feeling…
It’s a feeling destined to become fact. Bruce is already pulling at his hold, trying to get away from him, something too close to horror for comfort in his eyes. Dick rolls his eyes, tightens his grip and says, “Don’t even think about it.” He yanks Bruce back in, until he can feel the rise and fall of Bruce’s chest, jerky and uneven and just this side of panic.
He’s almost panting and his breath rushes out, moist and erratic against Dick’s chin. “I’m so—”
“If you apologize, I will punch you,” Dick warns him. “Stop freaking out. This isn’t me saying no, this is me saying we need a different venue.” He grins, and he thinks that might be a tiny, answering twitch near the corner of Bruce’s mouth. “’Fess up, that knee’s killing you.”
Bruce’s hands tighten, his fingers digging into Dick’s waist and hip, but he says, “This isn’t what I—”
“Sure it is,” Dick interrupts cheerfully before Bruce can go all consciency ‘You are my ward’ and ‘I am responsible’ and freak out worse than he already has. “You don’t get to change your mind,” he says, years of Bruce turning his back and walking away from him present and clear and today. “Not this time.”
Saying it out loud is the hard part. Action has always been so much easier.
His hands are tangled up in Bruce’s uniform shirt. All he has to do is topple backward, let their combined weight take them down together onto the bed.
“Jeeze, you’re heavy. I think that costume weighs more than I do.” It’s a cheap laugh, but he gets a look at Bruce’s expression and adds hastily, “And that’s a good thing.”
And positive reinforcement is an excellent thing. He snakes an arm around Bruce’s waist, hooks a leg over his hip and rocks up into him, biting back a moan at the pressure building under his jock, and thinking that if he doesn’t get out of it soon, there’s going to be possibly permanent damage.
On the other hand, no pain, no gain, not in this cave. And he’s thinking he should save all this thinking, and maybe even the cup, for later, because if he doesn’t get and keep Bruce’s attention now, he’ll probably never get another shot at this. Bruce won’t give him one, he’ll make sure not to.
Only problem is, now that he’s got his opportunity, Dick’s not exactly sure how to get where he wants to go. He just keeps moving, hands and hips and everything else, because he is not giving Bruce a chance to get distracted by guilt and a bunch of other non-constructive and potentially derailing emotions, but also because moving is what he knows and does best. He’s not expecting much of a response – not yet – so he’s a little—okay, a lot surprised when Bruce curls one hand around his hip, the other around the back of his neck, and says, “Dick.”
He stops. Moving or anything else and he’s just staring up at Bruce, breath caught in his throat waiting. Bruce is frowning at him, a concerned squiggle of forehead lines, and stroking the back of his neck. And jeeze, that’s going to short-circuit his brain real fast if Bruce doesn’t—
“You need,” Bruce says and strokes, and that’s his thumb, petting the skin under Dick’s jaw… “You need to be sure.” Still frowning, but it still looks more like concern than anger. He’s not worried, really not, and Bruce is still petting, and he’s still wearing the damned gauntlets.
“You gonna take those off?” His voice comes out more breathless and needy than he wants. He can’t argue with the result, though, and watching Bruce pulling Batman’s gloves off with his teeth, seeing Bruce’s skin come back scraped and sweaty, then feeling it moving over his own skin is—
Not as good as watching Bruce naked in the showers, or cleaning him up after a dirty, brutal fight, but it’s really, really close.
Bruce’s hands start moving south and this time Dick forgets all the reasons he has, both his and Bruce’s, for not making noise. He wonders if he looks as shameless as he sounds. Maybe, probably if the way Bruce is looking at him is any indication. He looks back, holding Bruce’s gaze, keeping it on him, the only sure thing he has right now. Then Bruce’s mouth quirks up on one side, and he’s leaning down, and Dick forgets why he wanted Bruce to keep looking at him. He forgets to care about anything but slick kisses and hands custom built to cause pain giving him nothing but pleasure.
Bruce’s fingers hook into the waistband of his tights and start tugging. He kisses the skin over Dick’s collar bone, his voice a low growl next to Dick’s ear: “Be sure.” He sounds almost like he did when he was talking about the alignment on Dick's bike.
Dick's hands tighten involuntarily, gripping and tugging at Bruce’s hair. His mouth is open and he hears himself babbling stupid, self-destructive things, but he can't stop them, they won't stop coming out, “Look, can we just accept that this isn’t going to change anything, it’ll probably make everything worse and I’ll probably want to punch you in the face again tomorrow – can we accept those things and, oh god, move the heck along?”
There’s a sound, muffled against Dick’s throat, almost like laughter. And Bruce is sliding down, taking Dick’s tights with him, and his hands—
Are stalled. He cups Dick’s hips in his hands, thumbs stroking restless circles around and around the bowls of Dick’s hipbones. Dick tastes the whimper he can’t hear, he feels the sheets crumple under his hands, and Bruce is looking up at him and his eyes are, god, so blue without the cowl hiding them. The shape of his mouth is almost soft, lips parted, opening up…
“I have a tendency to need to control. To—” swallowing, thumbs still stroking, and Dick hears his own whimper this time— “To own. The things and people I care for. I don’t consciously wish for that kind of… dominance. But I sometimes can’t, or won’t, control my impulses in that direction.” His breath is warm, damp; his fingers are tracing sweat-slick shapes onto Dick’s skin, and Dick would laugh if he wasn’t so close to hysteria.
He moans instead, gasps out, “No kidding. Riddler clue for you, Bruce, that’s news to… no one? Do you s-seriously… think I don’t—” Gasping again, bucking up into Bruce’s hands because they’ve started moving down again, and Dick can’t, he can’t—
Bruce is watching him, half smiling, half… something else he doesn’t want to understand, but maybe he needs to. Through the pound of his blood in his ears he can hear Bruce saying, “I’ll try to own you. Don’t let me.” And he’s smiling all the way.
He’s leaning down, his hands are sliding down between Dick’s ass cheeks and the mattress, tilting Dick’s hips up and his mouth is, god, right there—
Dick looks at Bruce’s mouth, and he knows Bruce said something, something kind of important. A reply is definitely mandatory, and he’s sure he was going to tell him someth—oh yeah. He says, “When have I ever?”
Because he never has. He’ll walk away before he does, and that’s written all over Bruce’s face, obvious in the blue-rimmed black of his eyes staring at Dick like he’s the only thing; only one that’ll ever matter.
It might even be true. Dick… really couldn’t care less. He says, “Bruce,” and, “Yes,” and, “Will you just do it?” And then Bruce does do it and there’s just Bruce’s mouth and his hands, his eyes, just Bruce, Bruce—
--
“Dick," is all Bruce has to say.
It's everything he needs to hear.
--
“We still need to talk,” he says much later, liking the slide of Bruce’s skin under his mouth, sweat-salty and stubble rough. “Soon. About this thing you have with not telling me stuff I really need to know.” He pauses, turning his head enough that his cheek is getting roughed up by Bruce’s scruffy skin.
“Maybe you called it last night,” he continues before Bruce can open his mouth and start backpedaling. “I don’t know. You don’t always, though, and you know it.”
He shifts away, not far: he just wants to see Bruce’s eyes. But he hears the almost-sound Bruce makes, feels his hand tightening on the back of his neck… and he has to laugh, into Bruce’s face, because he’s leaving like hell.
He says it out loud, “Not going anywhere, B.” And because Bruce does better when you tell him things, then act on what you just told him, as opposed to waiting around for him acknowledge anything, he slides his fingers into Bruce’s hair, pulls his head down and kisses him.
Definitely a sound this time. Possibly a protest, or maybe his name, but whatever Bruce meant it to be, it’s as sweet as victory can be in Dick’s mouth. Bruce’s tongue touches his, still weirdly tentative considering what he was doing with it less than fifteen minutes ago, and yeah, Dick’s had about enough of that.
He sucks Bruce’s tongue into his mouth. Sucks on it, digs his fingers into Bruce’s shoulders, and it’s the best kind of goad – one he knows is going to get him exactly where he wants to go.
Which would be flat on his back with his wrists pinned and Bruce between his legs.
And it’s… Bruce is… god, that’s–
Afternoon classes or not, “I’m gonna be so late.” His moans are background to the buzz in his head and ears and Bruce is kissing down his jaw to his throat, Bruce’s hand is on his bare ass, thumb tracing the crack, and he feels his moan drop back down into his throat, trailing off into a whine.
Bruce makes a kind of humming noise, “Mmn.” An approving, pleased sound, and he doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be a response or what, but it really is—
God. So, so late, which means Dr. Prasad is going give him that look she’s so good at, and it might be possible to care less, but Bruce is making the noise again and, and biting—
And what do you know? It is possible to care less, after all.