Chapter Text
"I just looked at him, you know, during-. And, fuck, felt such a shame that I dragged him into this thing with me, forced him to be this for me. I mean it's one thing to suffer myself, but to do this to him... I saw it all on his face then, saw it tearing him apart. And, shit, I realized that we cannot do it anymore."
"Okay, Jason... Christ, man. I think that the most important thing right now that you should be focused on is just stopping this, okay, like regardless of whys. Okay?"
Bruce pauses the tape, he's already listened to the whole thing a few times, he just wanted to hear Jason's reason, hear how he said it. It is a shame he never managed to install video in Dick's house. But he feels that he can imagine the facial expressions well enough, knows his sons to be certain in his predictions like that.
The date of the tape dates few months back, around the time of that last sex they've had, Bruce just now retrieved it and listened, suddenly certain as to what could give him the real answers. He was right.
Part of him analyzes the new information - so now Dick knows. Bruce guesses he got lucky that Mar'i was born, distracting Dick. He saw his oldest a few times after the tape's recording, and he's had the sense that there was something Dick wanted to talk to him about, but what's with the baby, it was all shoved under. Was he angry? Bruce rewinds the tape a bit back and listens to the tone of Dick's voice. Oh, certainly, Bruce is sure. Not at Jason. Bruce hears how for the sake of his brother, Dick is trying to control his voice, therefore the anger is all focused on him.
Bruce can see Dick's side easily, and he guesses Dick's thinking is the right one. It is Bruce's fault, the result of Bruce doing something wrong when raising Jason. He knows that he is going to be accused of grooming the young ward of his, and remembering exactly how he was rearing Jason, with all the new perspective afforded to him, Bruce guesses that it wouldn't be far off.
And yet somehow, even now having the disapproval of Dick, even when Bruce is able to discern the degree of his abnormality through this healthy outlook, even though Bruce always held Dick's opinion in the highest regard, Bruce knows that he cannot stop.
His is not the hunger that can be quenched, his is not the wound that once opened, will ever close. He doesn't give himself permission to kill, not even one most disgusting freak in the world, because he knows himself - for him the way back doesn't exist. Once the control has been shaken, there is no coming back to it. The taste of blood, or else the taste of Jason's tongue on his dick changed everything.
And so even now he creates contingency plans for confrontation with Dick, which might come, but more importantly, he wants Jason back.
"So we are to be just father and son?"
"Yes, Bruce, I would like that."
Bruce shrugs, not pointing out that father and sons don't usually sleep together in the same bed, not in their ages, but if Jason was going to turn blind eye to that, Bruce isn't going to complain.
"The most important for me is that you stay in Manor, so long that you do that."
"Okay. I can do that... Dad," Jason smiles.
"Damian!" Bruce hollers, unpacking the parcels. He is aware that usually kids of thirteen buy their own clothes, but Damian, given choice, would walk in his Robin outfit everywhere. Bruce cannot imagine the boy going shopping so he just kept with the responsibility to dress him. In a way this is much easier, Bruce always felt most comfortable when he could extend control over those in his care.
Damian stamps downstairs.
Bruce gives him the new clothing, for his new school year. "Try it all and tell me if anything is in any need of tailoring."
"Father, must I keep going to school?" Damian looks at the new woolen pants, and the numerous shirts Bruce has gotten in addition to the cardigans - school's uniform is lax, so long that the color palette remains in the burgundy, white shirts underneath. They've already had the conversation about needing new clothing, at least for the school. "I can study more effectively in the library by myself."
"Yes, Damian, you must." Even though Bruce is aware that even the elite school he got Damian signed in doesn't stimulate his youngest intellectually, it was simply essential that Damian got proper socialization with the peers his age.
"How humbling, to be a parent." Jason smiles wryly from where he is sitting on the couch, book set aside, fingers holding the page.
"Glad to entertain," Bruce replies, but he doesn't really get it - he can imagine many so much more humbling activities than to sit happily in the family den. He separates the smallest parcel and throws it in Jason's lap. "For you."
"Oh, thank you." Jason touches the packing but doesn't open it.
"It's nothing," Bruce rolls his eyes, surrounded in all those papers and receipts of Damian's new clothes, it simply felt wrong to be getting so much for Damian, without getting anything for Jason, but he doesn't spell it out. He gathers the trash briskly as Alfred calls them all to go eat breakfast. Just as Bruce timed it.
Bruce enters the bedroom late at night and sees that Jason opened his package.
"What is this?" Jason asks in the muffled voice. Bruce notices that his hands cradle the silk of the material quite gently, fingers petting the smoothness, at odds with his voice.
"Well go on, try it on, I need to know if it's the right size." Bruce moves towards the bathroom to do his nightly routine, losing his clothing in the meantime, dropping it in the dumbwaiter. He stays in his underwear, even though he usually loses it before going to bed. It's not much on his mind - to think on how to hide the truth of what is going on from Alfred, a type of inverted detective work, where instead of gathering the clues, he doesn't leave them.
When Bruce comes back, he sees that Jason undressed to his underwear, too, but has not yet tried his new piece. He still holds in his hands, touching the material.
"C'mon," Bruce orders, pushing Jason to stand up, unfussy, hands direct, dragging the boxers down, Jason's half-hard dick twitches in the air, and then, same fast effective way, he makes Jason step into the new panties.
Bruce moves back to admire the fit. "Ah, look at it, kid," he draws, pleased. Just as he knew, it looks good. Jason's dick which begins to swell looks just about ready to burst out of the new piece. The new clothing is pearly, nearly translucent, highlighting Jason's darker skin, it's same silky quality. Bruce feels his mouth water, ready to lick on all that smoothness, but he keeps himself in check.
Bruce makes Jason turn slightly and looks at the way the thin cloth hugs Jason's buttocks. "Very pretty," Bruce comments to Jason who seems to stand there, not breathing. Aside from the part of him that is swelling with blood, all rest of him stands up there, holding his breath.
Bruce inserts his hand into the cloth, right onto Jason's bare arse, hand covering both cheeks, and he hears Jason's shocked inhale. But before Jason can get the words in order to order Bruce to stop that, he already butts in with the explanation, "That's how you check if the underwear is the right fit or not. You don't want anything too tight, son."
He keeps his hand there, caressing the smooth skin, at long last allowed to touch the forbidden softness, how he missed this. He feels his head light and brings it closer to Jason's hips, as though the skin, the smell of it, the feel of it lure Bruce closer and closer.
Jason laughs, like it is torn out of him, "I'm pretty sure it is Not a good fit, B."
When Bruce looks up at him, Jason nods to his hard dick sticking out of the underwear.
"Right," Bruce traces a finger along the dick vein towards the shroom head and Jason sharply inhales. "But then that's just 'cause you're aroused. Ordinarily your clit should be fit and snug in this."
"My clit?!"
Bruce wants so badly to take the head into his mouth, all his drool in place to make it wet and so pleasant, but he fears that this might be stretching too much at the boundaries.
"Yes, your clit, Jason. I feel like you're overdue a proper sexual education. You need to know these things at your age already."
And at long last Jason finds the strength to push Bruce back, where Bruce goes willingly, and disappears in the bathroom, but Bruce doesn't mind. There is such a sense of inevitability to his win that Bruce feels like he can take his time getting there.
Later Jason returns back from the bathroom and sneaks under the covers, Bruce feels him up and notes with a deep degree of satisfaction that Jason is still wearing the silk panties.
"I'm sorry, okay?! I'm so fucking sorry, and it is obviously my fault, and, shit!" Jason erupts the moment they get back to the cave, tugging his mask away, eyes frantic.
Bruce had not been able to get one single word out the whole drive back home, because his jaw was so tightly clenched it ground into one bone, fear turning into rage and back. He tugs on his mask, and starts undoing his costume. After zipping it halfway down, Bruce realizes that he actually needs to bash his head into the cold water, the fire of madness licking at him, and he just inserts his head into the sink full of iced water, resurfaces and then lowers down to gulp some of the cold water - feels how it moves inside him until he can't.
He turns back to Jason, at last able to speak, and roars, "What was that?!"
"I know, fuck, Bruce, I know!"
"You could've died!"
"I'm so sorry for putting us in such a risk!"
Bruce looks at him, sees how Jason looks at his chest, tracing the hair down, down, down to the navel. Bruce feels the water drip down his chest, the costume lowered behind his back, half-open. He crosses the room in two steps and takes Jason by the neck. "Never do that again."
"Yes, yes, obviously, fine!" But Jason doesn't even fight it, the remorse such a putrid smell coming all from him. He holds himself nonthreatening, agreeable, soft under Bruce, none of that usual snark and poison. And right now eyes all open, begging on Bruce.
"It's not fucking fine." Bruce notes without a surprise that he is hard but he doesn't know when this happened.
"It is not," Jason nods fast, so desperate to be forgiven by Bruce, so clearly ready to do anything to make up for his mistake.
"Yeah," Bruce pushes him around, Jason rattles around the medical table but goes along with everything like Bruce is the only one to control him, like he is soft clay in Bruce's hands. Bruce sweeps the medical tools of it, then lowers down Jason's costume. It is a good thing Jason has already unzipped it or else Bruce would've torn it out. He lowers it down to Jason's knees, liking the idea that the material would serve as a tie should Jason try to run away. Jason is bare under.
Jason seems to know what Bruce needs because he lowers down onto the table, hisses from the cold metal meeting his naked chest, and spreads his legs as far as they can go with the costume bunched around his knees and ankles, perky ass up high.
Jason sways a little and Bruce knows that it is because he is starting to swim in the ether, ready to fly up high. Their fights often have this effect on him, some Pavlovian reflex to the danger and the body confusing anger and sex.
But Bruce still holds in the mind the mission, the stupid mistake Jason did, the moment when Bruce was so sure that Jason would die that it is not the desire that moves Bruce but rage. He slaps and the sound ricochets in the cave, Jason's long, punched out "Ahhh," following it.
Then Bruce slaps again. This time Jason cries out louder and then says in his small voice, "Daddy..." soft and childish.
Which infuriates Bruce even more because he thinks that Jason is trying to manipulate him, play on his buttons and get everything swept by inside their cute little game when he literally could've been dead and there is absolutely no shutting of Bruce's rage. So he brings his hand down again. The sound reverberates in the caves - first of the slap, skin to skin, and then of Jason's moan. Bruce does it again and again, until he realizes just exactly what Jason babbles: "Please, daddy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please beat me, please. Thank you, daddy, thank you."
Bruce falters, breathes out, just now noticing the scene he is in, Jason lowered to his belly, the darkness of the caves, the glow of the computers. He notes how his hand aches, and how long it takes for him to breathe calmly.
He puts his hand into Jason hair and turns his son's face up to him. Jason's eyes barely even react to the light, the pupils blown, the mouth red and chewed. Bruce sees that Jason, too, is barely in control of himself, eyes unable to focus, everything must be a blur to him. He looks drugged, Bruce thinks.
"I'm sorry," Bruce grinds out, not sure if he means it, only knows that it is probably what he should say right now. Jason shakes his head, murmurs, "no, no," voice spent.
Bruce doesn't know what drives him - shame at his loss of temper or Jason's sweet openness, but he lowers down and down and kisses the red marks he had left, touch different now, almost too tender to feel. And he guesses that the real siren call is of that hole which he hasn't touched in so long, so he spreads out the cheeks and licks broad and moans, loud. Jason's knees quiver.
"I'm so sorry, baby," comes out wrecked out of Bruce, one taste enough to subdue him.
"No, it's alright, ah, ahh-" Bruce drops on his haunches behind Jason's ass and sets into eating it proper, lathering it all in his saliva, licking it all back, slurping the wetness, kissing the sweet open hole, pouring all his love there. And he loses himself in this act same as he lost himself inside the rage first.
When he comes back to it, Jason sinks lower, still quivering and drops right against Bruce. And Bruce holds him, cradles Jason in his lap and get his hands inside Jason's hair to smooth them.
"I think I wanted this for a long time," Jason starts before Bruce has any opportunity to think as to what has just transpired. He became an animal, ruled by his instincts and emotions, was driven, while the rational part of him was relocated to the passenger seat. He feels as though he wakes up after a long night of drinking, the things that have transpired - the mortal danger, the rage and the whipping, and then the animal carnality of the lust, all seem in a haze, technicolor, almost too bright, his senses all too acute, the smell and the touch - were all enhanced but inside a narrow tunnel of the moment, when nothing beyond it existed. In all five of his senses - Jason, Jason, Jason, filling his whole point of view, his smell clouding, his skin intoxicating, his voice a thing that Bruce understood as the emotion behind the words but not the words themselves.
"You wanted to have your ass whipped?" Bruce chuckles, trying to hide how lost in a daze he feels, for even though it is Jason who is still shivering in his arms, it is Bruce who needs him there.
"No, well, not exactly... I guess I wanted all of you. And I always felt like you were... holding out some parts of you hidden from me. I resented that. I felt like I was trying to enrage you all my childhood, but, well, it never worked like I wanted," Bruce is about to argue, remembering differently, but Jason presses on, "No, you sighed, and every now and then you even punished me - 'You're grounded, Jason!', 'Go back to your room, Jason,' I remember, but. Well, it wasn't that. And I think I always knew you had this inside you, and I could feel this burning, but you would just swallow whatever it is that you wanted to say, and leave. I..." Bruce nudges him to continue. "I used to wonder if maybe... you were freer in that regard with Dick. If maybe him you didn't hold back with."
Bruce laughs. "Oh, Dick never came close to you in pushing on all my buttons like you did. Still do, if we're honest." And then, thinking, he adds, "None of them did, Jay."
Jason drops his head into Bruce's neck, Bruce hears the quiet, "Thanks," feels the palpable relief in that word, and moves his head to kiss whatever he can of Jason's, without moving him - his ear, the cheekbone, the ridge of the forehead.
"Did you do it today on a purpose? Put yourself in the harm's way like that," he tries to keep his voice from wobbling. Too often Jason would get defensive when Bruce attempted to talk to him about it, sensing the rage, but not the despair behind the inquiry. Bruce thinks that if he plays calmness, it might go better.
Jason allows the pause to grow. Then at long last answers, "Maybe. But I don't know how to control it, B."
"But this helps," Bruce doesn't know what he alludes to - him holding Jason by his bare ravaged ass in his arms, or them breathing in tandem, calm just this once, after getting through the horrible shit-storm of emotions between them. He nods at the walls of the cave, the safety of the Manor.
"Yeah, but it doesn't make it right."
Bruce climbs up the stairs to his room and is greeted by Jason's ironic gaze, "What, sent the goblin into the normal world? 'Here are the regular people, Damian, you need to get friends, Damian'."
Bruce is in a good mood and allows Jason to poke fun at him, encouraging his son to go on with a nick of a brow. There is something about the beginning of the day, the sun entering through the curtains, the responsibilities all done with - Damian sent to school and even Alfred, mercifully, has today free and went to tend to his business.
"Though how you can set a good example on how to be a normal person, I don't know, B..."
"That's what the school is for, isn't it? To pick up where I fail. By the way, there is something I need to pick up since school failed you there, Jay."
"What'd ya mean?"
Bruce crosses the distance and hauls Jason up, he doesn't exactly go limp, so Bruce puts some force into it. He pushes Jason to stand before the mirror and places the chair right behind them so he could sit down.
"Well go on," Bruce watches Jason standing in the mirror.
"What?" Jason doesn't exactly fight it though, apparently willing to entertain Bruce. Curiosity has always been Jason's weak spot.
"Undress." Bruce tugs on Jason's shorts slightly, not pushing when Jason immediately holds on to them for his dear life.
"Listen, B, I thought that we've agreed-"
"That we will be nothing but father and son, I remember. I'm doing nothing but my parental duties by you, I promise." Bruce watches Jason like a hawk - will his son insist that this surely is muddling the lines. Then Bruce will need to counter that normal fathers and sons don't sleep in the same bed, boy in nothing but silky girly underwear, father in nothing at all; normal fathers and sons don't make out every morning, grinding against each other; normal fathers and sons don't take showers together, rubbing each other's bodies - and Bruce might risk it all because Jason might agree to all that and where would it leave Bruce? But maybe Jason needs all those strange rituals because he doesn't bring the thousand ways in which they transgress the boundaries of normality. So Bruce continues, "After all, your school has left you with a gap in your education."
"And what's that?" Jason asks nervously, Bruce can just taste how torn he is - needing Bruce to give him only a good enough an excuse so he could have this.
Bruce tugs on Jason's shorts gently, uncontested now. Slowly Jason's dick makes appearance in the mirror, inch by inch of pale skin, and then springs free. Bruce's mouth waters, he notes that he starts to breathe deeper, wanting to feel the musky smell, but he can't. Not yet, he reminds himself, gathering control.
"Look at that, baby." Bruce flicks the head and watches the shaft bob. "Your clit, and you didn't even know that you had one."
Air leaves Jason in a sudden shocked exhale, snags there in the throat for a moment so you could mistake the sound for aborted laugh.
"My clit?" Jason says, voice without air.
"Exactly. You see, I told you school didn't cover the basics of your sex ed, if you don't even know your own organs, baby girl."
"Baby girl?!" Bruce wonders if Jason is only going to repeat what he's saying but he doesn't mind it, Jason rendered stupid and bothered and breathless is apparently something he very much enjoys. There is something about Jason, usually so snarky, so confident and downright rude, losing all his spikes and attitude. Yes, Bruce decides that he likes it very very much.
"Well, Jason, girls have clits. Look at that. But most importantly, girls have pussies," Bruce tugs Jason to sit on him which Jason does by dropping all the weight on Bruce, beyond fighting. Bruce moves the shorts down Jason's legs to his knees and then raises both feet in his hands so that Jason's hole would be visible in the mirror. "Aww, look at that, baby. That's your pussy."
Jason's breathing hard, and even though the laugh that escapes him is torn out and is probably the result of shock, still Bruce smiles back.
"So here - your clit," Bruce tenderly squeezes the shaft, "your labia major," he cups Jason's balls and then moves lower, "and your sweet pussy."
"Fuck," Jason pants out.
Bruce spits on his hand, then brings it back and rubs saliva in, "It gets wet so that when a man fucks you, you'd feel all good down here."
Jason has gotten surprisingly sensitive about the anal play despite all his early claims. It was probably Bruce's single-minded focus that has done it. And so even now, legs hiked high, hole taking Bruce's fingers in and out, his dick is leaking, turning harder and redder, flushing with color.
"And you know, don't you, Jay? That a man will need to fuck you, breed you," Bruce's own breath gets punched out at his last words, the mere idea of Jason being bred, filling in until he gets swollen and grows bigger, a seed planted grows inside. "Will get you knocked up, and then when you give birth to some sweet little babies, you will be able to feed them from your tits." Bruce hikes up Jason's shirt and touches his chest, the muscles there that are almost round and perfect, and the nipples that stand alert from the air and arousal.
"A man?.." Jason whines.
"Yes, baby, your husband who will take care of you." It is after all a game, Bruce reminds himself, there is no reason to be jealous of someone who will never exist.
"Like you care for me, daddy?"
"Sure, love," Bruce only focuses on the feelings of his fingers being swallowed, how Jason relaxes further in his arms, and gives in to the feeling. This is heady for him, too. He, too, is starting to swim.
"A man who will play with my- my pussy," Jason whispers the last word like it is dirty.
"Just like I do that now, kid," Bruce smiles and rubs his head against Jason's cheek, getting an idea where this is going. His fingers tighten and penetrate harder, Bruce feels his gums rushed with blood, he wants to bite Jason and all that skin.
"And who will fuck my pussy," this time Jason says it hard, emboldened apparently by Bruce's amusement.
"Right, baby. Your husband will fuck you, good and proper." Bruce gets the fingers out and spits generously on them again. Mouths along that skin, meat calling him to take a bite.
"Ah, can't you be my husband, daaddy?" All pretense gone, Jason coming undone with Bruce speeding up, squelching sounds coming from Jason's hole eating and munching Bruce's fingers, hungry, holding on to them, while Bruce rams it hard and fast, deep, deep inside, almost touching the sweet spot here and there.
"Yes, baby, I will marry you. Because I love you. You will be my baby bride," Bruce kisses anything he can get of Jason - his hair, the side of his ear, neck, shoulders, bites it hard, possessive, thinking that Jason will only be his, his, his, that never never never will his son marry anyone else, he will be the one to claim him, before the world entire, wanting, wanting him so hard he could just eat him, wants to chew him, bite whole chunks of meat. Jason quickly gets his hand down and flicks himself to the finishing, screams as the orgasm shakes him, body twitching, attempting to escape the over-stimulation, but Bruce just holds him down and keeps working with the same hardness and the same speed. And Jason, screaming, thrashing in his arms, gives in to this power and opens up and allows Bruce to do anything to him until at long last, after the moments that lasted far longer, he simply goes limp under all that terrible horrible hurricane of a love.
Bruce looks at him, bitten all over, hair wild, panting hard, clothes hiked up, and all the juicy bits out open, indecent, hole not closing even after Bruce removes his fingers from there, and thinks that even now it is not enough.
He pushes Jason from his lap, the boy drops inelegantly on the floor, but already Bruce takes command of Jason's heavy limbs and arranges them, pushes and orders Jason around, hand in his hair to tug him exactly how Bruce needs him in the V of his legs.
With a groan of relief, Bruce opens up his pants, digs a hand inside and drags his dick out, the crown swaying momentarily in the air while Jason in his haze is trying to catch it, eyes crossed. He barely seems lucid.
But then the boy latches on, and Bruce sees how Jason's eyes roll back and he moans around the foreskin. Bruce with his hand still in Jason's hair, pushes Jason more into it, needing him to get going already, and says, "Suck."
Jason moans and then swallows the whole shaft, gag reflex like it doesn't exist, just gets the whole thing inside him, and Bruce knows that it's not going to take much.
But after that first hard swallow, Jason eases out, looks up sweetly, face wrecked, patches of red, eyes still fucked, and says in a boy's voice, "How do I do it, daddy?"
He knows how much it was destroying Bruce that Jason learned this by sucking everyone else, whoring around, how much Bruce wished for this - to teach Jason this.
"Just lick it, baby," Bruce says, but he knows that he can't hold for too long, so he uses his hand to work on the shaft while Jason covers his dick in sweet, kittenish licks, and comes on Jason's open face.
It is not as though Bruce gave in to the vortex without any guilt or shame. The downward spiral caught him and cannot let him go, but the mind, at times the mind rebels against such a transgression.
Interesting that this happens only when Bruce is satisfied enough at breaking all the defenses that Jason has been building after his conversation with Dick. It is only when he is safe in the knowledge that Jason isn't going anywhere that he allows himself to see their situation for what it is - something so fucked up.
This new situation colors or else explains their past, and Bruce can't stop the memories coming.
Jason, thirteen or fourteen and how Bruce loved to lift him up, kiss that belly if the shirt rode high, he thought he was only doing this to make Jason laugh.
They played rough with each other, sparred on the mat for hours, Bruce thought that he was getting a chance of living the normal childhood he'd never gotten. Headbutting Jason when they stood on their fours against each other, pretending to be bulls, fighting for domination. He remembers thrashing Jason around, using his greater strength all for Jason to be laughing at being thrown like this, "Bruuuuce!", and Bruce wanted so badly for Jason to call him dad, it was getting stuck in his throat.
Jason having nightmares, so Bruce paddled into his room and sat on the bed for hours, watching him breathe, occasionally kissing him to smooth the frown, to remind him that Bruce was right there. Bruce thought that Jason needed more love than Dick, and later more than Tim or Damian, because he never had gotten enough of it in his earliest years, and Bruce thought with pride that he would compensate over and above, he had the opportunity to settle the account, a child deserves to be wanted and to be loved, yet Jason didn't get it in his crucial years, but Bruce would make up for it. Never would Jason go thinking that he isn't loved, isn't adored wholly and completely.
When Jason was fifteen, Bruce started bringing him to the various galas he had to visit as a Wayne. He didn't like the tedium of the boring conversations and pretending to be someone he wasn't. But he liked going there with Jason, his boy looking sharp in the suits Bruce chose for him, watched over when the tailor made the adjustments. He liked Jason's sleek hair, his clean look, how everyone complimented him on his fine boy. Already Jason was sprouting high, almost Bruce's height. He liked getting Jason a flute of champagne to sip on, and stole the shrimps for him to bite on, and he liked them hiding in the shadows of the big rooms, while Jason made fun of everyone present. He liked it - as though being chosen to be friends with someone cool, and knowing what that cool boy talked about, to be chosen to be a confidante for all his secret thoughts. Somehow, with the other Robins, Bruce had a distinct boundary of them being a mentor and a mentee. Not so much with Jason. The lines were muddled, Jason wanted them just so, and Bruce wanted that too.
His childhood was a lonely one, even before the death of his parents. Bruce would've loved to explain it as though him being the Wayne heir put everyone at a distance with him, but he went to prestige schools, everyone there were heirs of something. It was just him. He played alone, walked through the enormous halls of the Wayne mansion all alone. He was a strange child, and other kids shunned him. It's gotten worse after his parents died.
He never thought he wanted a friend, but there was some wish with which he looked at the other boys playing. He couldn't understand what exactly separated them and what made Bruce the odd one. At the same time it's not as though they interested Bruce as individuals. He looked at them and they seemed... strange to him. It's gotten worse after his parents' death - what did the boys his age knew of his grief and his fears and the darkness that was growing inside, the wound that never stopped bleeding.
By the time that Bruce had gotten Dick, he was tired of being alone. And, strange enough, he liked Dick's cheery nature - it was something he needed at the time, but it was only a distraction even if a welcome one, from his ever-present grief.
But Jason was a type of boy who knew darkness. He didn't know grief of losing the parents but he knew the grief of being unwanted by his parents. He watched those first days as Jason roamed the streets, all alone, and saw in his eyes the same thing that was there in the eyes of young Bruce, who walked through the mansion. He watched how Jason observed other boys playing, his lips curling, what did those boys understand about the game of survival in which he had to live, and Bruce thought that Jason didn't wish to be them, didn't wish to be friends with them, but he watched them, trying to understand what exactly separated them. Or maybe Bruce only saw himself.
Jason was his first friend and perhaps the only one.
Bruce remembers looking into those enormous mirrors in the dancing halls of the galas, Jason standing next to him in the suit of the same cut, complimenting colors, looking beautiful in the light, somehow standing out even in the crowd, so young yet so aware unlike anyone in those rooms, about the wrecking and destroying nature of life, and because of that the closest one to Bruce. They looked at these celebrations and people who were dolling up for them with the irony, aware of the streets of Gotham just beyond these walls on which anything at all could happen. Mostly, people of these events didn't know that.
Bruce remembers looking at Jason from the side, as though seeing him anew, like he was someone he could just meet on these galas, and he thought that he looked so mesmerizing. Beautiful. Perhaps in another life, Bruce would've loved to come up to that young and dark and captivating boy to try and talk to him. He'd even pay for that opportunity. Even back then Bruce wanted Jason for his lover. At times, looking in the mirror at their figures, he imagined these were someone else, the other guests, and thought that he could mistake this closeness, Jason whispering him another tidbit of gossip, the clearly complimenting suits, the poses that were in conversation with each other and somehow cutting off everyone else in the room, and thought that he could mistake their mirror counterparts for the lovers.
"What are you thinking about?" Jason asks him from where he is lying on Bruce's chest, tracing the skin and the hair.
What can Bruce tell him? 'I think that I regret every single of my moves with you. I think that all I did was mistake after mistake after mistake with you. I wish, for your sake, I've never taken you as my ward. I think that I ruined you. I groomed you, took you in when you were a child and molded you all wrong, and now you're here, with me, inside this terrible affair.' How would Jason be able to understand that what Bruce means by all those words is that he loves Jason more, a lot more than he loves himself, that to Bruce Jason's well-being is more important than Bruce getting what he craves so. How will Jason understand the meaning behind the words is that Bruce loves him so much he would die for him?
So he says the next best thing, "Remember you asked about my will?"
"Did I?" Jason chuckles. "I mean, not exactly asked, my man."
"Yes, well, wanna try to guess what I left you in it?"
Jason raises his head from Bruce's chest to look into his face. "No, B. It's not... It's not the Batman's mask et all?"
"I hope that Dick will take Batman's mantle after me actually. I left him the Batcave." He doesn't want this job to fall on Jason, Jason has had enough of dealing with Gotham's horror.
Jason drops his head. "Ah, yeah, obviously. So what did you leave me with? Please say all the money so that I will lord over them all."
Bruce frowns, cupping Jason's head in his palm. "I left you all with the equal amount of money, actually. I mean, there is much of it that will go to various other needs though, so if you want a bigger cut, we could work something out. But I distinctly remember you telling me you didn't need much money." And Jason has had a cheap taste. Bruce didn't believe that a couple of millions wouldn't be more than enough for Jason's life.
"Nah, it is more about... Nevermind. Well, what is it that you left me with? What is there even? Wayne Enterprises?"
"I left it to Damian. He has the Wayne name and I think that he will be best suited for dealing with the various bureaucratic moments of being the CEO."
"I guess the gremlin is the right choice. And he does have a Wayne name, so it is left in the family... And not that I wanted to be the president of your company, no offense, B."
"None taken."
"You know, it is not subtle what you're preparing Tim for. Like you sponsor his Young Justice quarters and all that. He is going to take the big league from you when the time comes, right?"
"Him and his team, yes, that's the plan. I think he is the best-suited for dealing with the international and intergalactic conflicts. So I will separate two of Batman's jobs, the leader of the Justice League and the protector of Gotham. Tim is... a bit too proper to be dealing with Gotham, he doesn't exactly understand it."
"Alright, so what is it? You don't want me to be a Batman, or a Wayne, or a superhero at all apparently, what did you leave for me?" Bruce hears bitterness in Jason's voice. He always suspects that Bruce loves the other sons more, and Bruce doesn't know how to explain to him that he loves Jason in such an incomparable way that he is not even in the competition with the other boys.
"This."
"What?" Jason raises his head to look at what Bruce might mean.
Bruce nods at the room around them.
Jason looks at it, uncomprehending.
"This. The Wayne Manor," Bruce explains. "All yours."
Jason looks up at him, disbelieving.
"You need a home. To live. That's all I want from you. To live."
Jason looks striken, but Bruce sees how he tries to contain it and so allows him to hide his face.
"So for them the mission is to protect Gotham, to work, to deal with international conflicts, but I only get the mission to keep living? Your expectations of me are a bit low, don't you notice, old man?" Even though Bruce hears Jason's voice wavering, he doesn't bring his attention to it.
"No, I think it's a pretty hard mission for you, Jason."
It is never far - the absolute sinking feeling of him realizing that Jason died, all those years passed, and still, the horror persists.
Jason smiles, eyes slightly watering, and he says, "So all this time you were dragging me to My house?"
"Yep, I'm just a guest here, hope you'll let me stay for a while. I promise to make it worth for you." Bruce grabs a nice hold of Jason's ass cheek, probably not ready to go yet so soon, but willing to try.
Jason looks at his face, considering. "Well, I mean don't married couples share their properties though?"
Bruce takes a pause.
Then flips Jason up. He is actually very ready to go.
Jason is reading "The Iliad" out loud, and his voice carries Bruce just like the waves carry the ship they're on: "You who to me are father, mother, brother, and dear husband - have mercy upon me..." each incantation raising up and bringing down, softly, steadily, and so come the moments of their European cruise:
Them walking through some touristy place, the crowds of people, Bruce enjoying being yet another American tourist, anonymity of being unknown, viewing the gallery, Palazzio, a museum, walking the stone paths of the squares. Jason stretching up every now and then, separating from his croissant/pretzel/soft drink, bringing his lips close to Bruce's and allowing Bruce to lick the sweetness of his drinks and the oil from his baked goods thoroughly off. The sun shining above, the crowds of people barely noticing them in their own world. One time, when the people were so dense all around them that Bruce felt sure no one would notice anything, he inserted his hands down Jason's jeans, felt his bare skin, Jason immediately stretched up, moaned, pressed back into Bruce's hands. And then, Jason turned around, lowered his jeans just a little, opened Bruce's pants, stuck Bruce's dick out and inserted it into his hole right there. They walked so tightly clutched around each other that Bruce was sure no one would notice that they were inside each other.
On a ship, a man comes to congratulate Bruce on his young man. Bruce noticed how the man looked at Jason, hungry for that youth, beauty. "Thank you." Bruce says.
In some German club they watched together other couples having sex on the floor, in the stalls, no one batting an eye when Jason, while fucked on his fours, raw and hard, right on the dance floor by Bruce, screamed out, "Daddy, daddy, yes, yes! YES!" until his voice got scratched.
That same man invites Bruce to smoke cigars on the deck, his barely legal wife flaunting in bikini, flirtatiously losing the top to the wind, and Bruce guesses that the man wants them to switch, and tries to bait Bruce into it. Bruce calls Jason who was just watching the dolphins playing alongside the ship, tells his son to get on his knees, which he does with sweet obedience. Then Bruce gets his dick out, and Jason gets to sucking him. He actually does manage to get good advises from that man on the few international threads Bruce was following, apparently being so horny from watching a young boy you were gagging for sucking some middle-aged dick might qualify as being black-out drunk because Bruce is sure that the man spills far more than he wished to. When they leave the deck, he hears the young little wife whisper at Jason, "Didn't you say that this was your father?!"
On a nude beach in southern France, Bruce laid down on a towel, encouraged Jason to go splash in the waters, when a shadow covered him. "Bruce Wayne?! Can't believe it, what are you doing here?" Bruce lazily opened his eyes, slightly irritated, he got used to him being a no one in the foreign lands. He remembered the woman barely, some director of something in a ministry of something, they met here and there, a Gothamite, and if he is not mistaken, with a desire to get him which he wasn't sure what she was rather after - his playboy persona or his money. "Right, Meryl, isn't it?" Bless his mercury-quick memory. She settles near, chats, he watches her eyes constantly sliding down his body, and figures that maybe it's not money she was after. But then it is a rare American who is comfortable with nudity. "And you're here with your son?" she says when she sees Jason coming closer. Bruce notices with irritation as she takes in Jason's tight hard body. He is such a model-type of beauty, which is especially clear when he is all naked like that, that Bruce knows, he gets it, but it doesn't mean this doesn't make him see Meryl in a far crueler light. So when Jason drops on his towel and draws Bruce into a slow, dick-swelling, dirty, wet moaning slurping kiss Bruce just lets him. "Hi, kid," Bruce greets, understanding that Jason is jealous. He never liked it when Bruce strayed from observing him. Jason couldn't have seen that under the shades, all through that boring conversation, his eyes never strayed from his son's sun-kissed beauty. And so now it doesn't take long for his dick to get properly hard when Jason spits on his hand and flicks him. Meryl is made stone, but she doesn't try to escape. Instead she watches with rapt attention as Jason sits with his back to them and squats above Bruce, guides the dick between his ass cheeks and slowly sinks down. "You were saying- About the waste off that factory?- What was it?" Bruce barely restrains from grunting as Jason works on him. Meryl turns her white face back to him, and Bruce is sure that she is going to run off any moment now. Maybe she'll even try to attack him. (Would Bruce be able to fight her off, without dislodging Jason? Well, that'd be an interesting angle to consider). "Y-yes. Acid. There is- Acid. Might be um," she looks back at Bruce's dick appearing and disappearing between Jason's crack, licks her lips, Bruce notices the tremble, but he sees that it is because she is so turned on that she can't move. "Dangerous. It might be dangerous." She grits out, while Jason moans, even though he is nowhere near, just being a brat, and trying to get all Bruce's attention back to himself.
"Fucking look at this, B, it doesn't even close," Jason shows his gaping hole in the mirror, fingers in and out without resistance. He tightens the muscles and only then does the hole close, though opens up again when Jason relaxes. "I barely let it close this whole day," Bruce says, feeling the wince even now, he's been considering getting some pills so that he could sustain the hardness that Jason needs of him. "Nah, I like you soft though," Jason kisses him when Bruce asks his advice.
"I love you," Bruce whispers to Jason as they make love everywhere - on the beaches, in the hotel rooms, back in their cabin on the ship, kisses his body all over, everywhere, every sweet spot lavished generously and adored wholly. And Jason just giving in to this, helpless, watching Bruce with those eyes that have shed all their poison, rapt, childish innocence and wonder.
"This feels like a honeymoon," Jason says one day. "It is," Bruce replies.
When they're back in Gotham and back to secrecy and hiding, still it feels like something has been settled and changed - it is as though this calmness now comes from them both knowing the full strength of the desire of one another, it is the calmness of a couple who know that they are in for a long haul, so why not save the strength for the marathon. They have all the time in the world to be together, years and years ahead. It is the calmness of the marriage vows, which they've exchanged on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
But even so, the hunger remains, now Bruce knows so many scripts that he likes to play with Jason, that he looks for the underground scenes in Gotham, wondering if they might go there, fill their need. They might get recognized but Bruce thinks that the danger is part of the fun.
Not to say that he ever gets reckless, though how else to explain that day in the mountains, Bruce doesn't know. They went there with the whole family, extended included - Dick and his, Tim, Damian, but also Steph and Cass and everyone to go skiing and generally have a winter holiday together. They rented a house up in the mountains, and Bruce and Jason got settled in different rooms ("So that Dick wouldn't get suspicious," Jason assuaged him). After a week spent apart, not the longest stretch they've done by far, but somehow more unbearable after Paris, Bruce got stupid. He found Jason alone in the living room one day, and he knew that the others went to ice skate down the mountain, so he mauled him up and took him right there on the carpet, unable to think about dragging him all the way back to the bedrooms upstairs. So now Jason lies down, content, shows Bruce the skin rubbed raw from the carpet, letting Bruce kiss the sting, them both basking in the afterglow of the orgasms, being cute with each other, speaking baby, playing, and both don't hear Dick until it was too late.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? I WILL KILL YOU, BRUCE!"
Bruce dodges the first attack from Dick, and even though he knows that he will win the physical fight against Dick (even butt naked), he saw Jason's face - shame and fear on it, and he knows that Dick has managed to land a punch against Bruce, that once again Jason will close off him, that he will attempt to escape Bruce, and sever their connection. But Bruce's hunger is not the one that can ever be put to rest. It's to the death and beyond, baby.