Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/628508.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Batman_(Comics)
  Relationship:
      Dick_Grayson/Bruce_Wayne
  Character:
      Dick_Grayson, Bruce_Wayne, Barbara_Gordon
  Additional Tags:
      Golden_Age_(Comics), Adult_in_a_Position_of_Power, Masochism, Mild_S&M
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-01-07 Words: 6138
****** So Mean and Low ******
by orphan_account
Summary
     The sudden rush of years-old mortification makes him flinch, one
     elbow digging into the bandages trailing nearly the entire length of
     his left side. The bruising is tender: a sickly, disgusting yellow
     underneath the layers of soft cotton and ointment, and the sharp bit
     of contact makes Dick want to yowl, want to drive the head of his
     equally tender erection off onto the pale sheets, onto Bruce’s
     stomach, hard and lean and coarse with the dark trail of hair
     starting at his naval and thickening as it continues downward.
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
Eight thirty in the morning. One hour until breakfast. Forty-five minutes until
Bruce inhales, like clockwork, rolls fluidly onto his side and cajoles Dick
into reluctant wakefulness.
Ordinarily.
Winter is kind to the two of them; the sun doesn’t threaten to leak around the
edges of the master bedroom’s thick maroon curtains until much closer to noon,
and when it does it’s a weak, gentle light, enough to see by but not to
disturb.
Bruce is—closer, Dick realizes, than he normally is. Though perhaps—
-perhaps realizes isn’t the right word, for something he’s been acutely aware
of since he blinked wearily into consciousness an hour ago to the feeling of
Bruce’s breath disturbing his hair, that huge, admirable body curled warmly
around him; not quite touching, but it was a near thing.
Dick used to love to watch Bruce when he went to work with the barbells. ‘A
healthy body contributes to a healthy mind,’ he’d told Dick, another one of the
silly, oversimplified kid-things that made him feel ‘in the loop’ back when he
wasn’t big enough to take on patrol yet, and Dick remembers telling him that he
must have the best mind of all.
It’s an embarrassing thing to ruminate on. Dick doesn’t watch Bruce anymore,
with the barbells or on the pommel horse or anywhere else, though not for lack
of wanting to.
The sudden rush of years-old mortification makes him flinch, one elbow digging
into the bandages trailing nearly the entire length of his left side. The
bruising is tender: a sickly, disgusting yellow underneath the layers of soft
cotton and ointment, and the sharp bit of contact makes Dick want to yowl, want
to drive the head of his equally tender erection off onto the pale sheets, onto
Bruce’s stomach, hard and lean and coarse with the dark trail of hair starting
at his naval and thickening as it continues downward.
It’s a body Dick both admires and covets—he’s no nancy himself, with a strong
chin and wide shoulders, getting ‘more strapping by the day,’ as Alfred says,
but he entirely lacks the incredible girth Bruce seems to possess. Dick
breathes deeply through his nose. Tries to get his bearings again, because this
is.
Is shameful. Depraved. He looks down, to where their legs are almost
intertwined, and even through their loose night pants, he can see how thick
Bruce’s thigh is, muscle-bound and effective, next to his own chicken legs and
narrow waist.
It’s embarrassing. So embarrassing, it seems, that his cock leaks for it. Dick
wants to cry, wants to fall asleep, wants everything to go away.
This was all Scarface’s fault, him and his hired help: Dick could control his
urges so much better than this when he wasn’t hurt, hurt and randy for it, when
he didn’t have to sit through half an hour of admonishments and gentle
apologies as Bruce tugged four neat stiches through his skin, rubbed salve into
painful, purpling skin, murmuring so sweetly while Dick whimpered (though if
the man truly knew at what Dick thinks he’d die on the spot—)
 
“Dick?” Bruce’s eyes are on him when he looks up, the drag of his face against
the pillow leaving a wet trail behind it, and-
“G-god damn i—“
“Dick!”
His next little sob turns into a mortified hiccup; he hadn’t, hadn’t meant to,
he’d just been so startled, so frustrated.
The way his voice cracks is less than ideal, but so much better than carrying
on with an urchin’s language. “Bruce, I-“
There’s a hand at the side of his head, combing gently through the tangled hair
there, and Dick leans into it. “I know, Dick. It’s alright. Just… be mindful.”
He continues before Dick can even begin to nod vigorously, eyeing the tears
still wet on Dick’s cheeks with obvious discomfort and a clumsy, uncommon
tenderness.
“Have you been up the whole night?” Bruce looks discomfited at that, as though
it were somehow a fault of his own, not noticing Dick’s distress, perhaps not
tending to him well enough before bed.
It wasn’t though, and Dick never wants Bruce to think that of himself, not when
the source of his discomfort is nothing but Dick’s own shortcomings and
distasteful unconventionality. “No! I only woke about an hour ago, because…”
Because his hips had been pushing softly but insistently at the bedding, penis
jumping every time one of those movements created pressure on the little row of
stitches just above his hip bone, and he’d been panting so enthusiastically
into the pillow beneath his head that he’d woken from a distinctly stressful
lack of air.
“Because your side hurt?”
He nods emphatically. He hates lying to Bruce, more than anything, but in this
rare instance it’s infinitely preferable to telling the truth.
Bruce sits up, nudges at his good arm to indicate he should do the same.
Blessedly, the blankets pool and bunch across his pelvis with the motion,
obscuring the source of his shame. From the bedside table, Bruce grabs a small
pot something sickly sweet smelling and opaque, dipping his fingers into it.
“You should’ve woken me, Dick; what kind of a chum would I be if I were irked
by your malaise?”
Dick’s hands fist the fabric at his sides, excitement mixing with dread low in
his stomach as Bruce reaches for his injured side. “I didn’t think you’d be
upset! I just… wanted to be a man about it. Like…”
Bruce catches the unspoken hint more clearly than Dick would’ve liked. “Like
me? Dick,” And there’s that fond little voice again, the one that had gone from
registering as kind to condescending to mind-numbingly arousing all in the
space of one perplexing year, “nothing could make me happier than you aspiring
to be as little like me as possible. You-“ A kiss at his temple, as Bruce works
some of the oily substance with infinite mindfulness into his skin, and Dick is
lost, stomach tight with butterflies, “are far too decent a man for that.”
Dick doesn’t get it, not at all (who wouldn’t want to turn into someone like
Bruce,) but he nods, putting his head down and shutting his eyes tight and
pretending every little noise he’s not strong or reserved enough to restrain is
agony.
One minute and fourteen seconds later, Bruce is done.
“There.” It’s punctuated by an affectionate swipe against Dick’s unharmed
torso, tickling low on his belly, and Bruce smiles for the way it makes his
ward snort in unexpected mirth. “Alfred will be up soon to roust us for
breakfast; can you get changed by yourself?”
“Yes.” It’s an enthusiastic response. Bruce probably thinks he’s offended the
boy with the implication of lameness, and makes an appropriately contrite face,
which is just as well, considering; Dick glances pointedly towards the
bathroom, and Bruce gracefully slides out of bed, nodding at him. “I’ll shower
in the spare bath this morning.”
Dick nods again, silent for the unexpected thickness of his throat and sudden
difficulty swallowing. When Bruce has closed the door behind himself, Dick
steps gingerly out of bed, and limps, careful not to interact in any way with
his swollen penis, towards the master bathroom.
---
The cover story is that he fell off a horse, which is—
—okay, it’s a little bit embarrassing, but it does a better job explaining the
scope and pattern of his injuries than most of their thin façades do, and
that’s something to be happy about.
The pain is still a problem, in that deeply uncomfortable and equally unusual
way that it had been ever since Bruce had started minding him more tenderly for
it. Dick feels the need to explain himself to someone, despite the care he’s
taken so that nobody knows— he didn’t feel like this at the time of infliction:
when catching Rhino’s massive, meaty fist in the side of his ribcage, it had
felt every bit as awful as he remembered pain being, every bit as awful as it
should have felt.
It was just. Bruce. When he’d run, frantic, over to check on him, fingers
skating too fast, too hard over traumatized skin, not knowing where the damage
was, that this had started. Nearly concussed, Dick had flashbacks to the
exceptionally few vice missions Bruce had allowed him to come along on: smoky
rooms, and things he shouldn’t have enjoyed watching, hearing from a room away.
His ban on strenuous activity is an obvious precaution, for the first five or
so days. Understandable, the three past that. By the second week, though, Dick
is stir crazy. It’s not just the lack of continuous motion he’s so terribly
fond of, or the bordering on condescending pity of his classmates. It’s…
…Bruce, treating him like a paramour.
Well, not exactly like a paramour, but it’s… close enough for consideration.
He’s avoided galas and cotillions, staying home to tend to Dick’s wants and
whims, leaving only to manage Wayne Enterprises and scour the city for
wrongdoers. Every invitation to dinner is dismissed, every news opportunity
passed up; if Bruce weren’t being so gosh-darn careful, like his kid gloves
were glued on, Dick would say things were perfect.
Exhibit A on why he needs to get out. It isn’t acceptable, to want a man (‘To
want yourfather.’ a solicitous voice in his head whispers, and it’s not with
anything resembling distaste for the implications) to hold your hand as you get
out of cars and kiss you at night. They slept in the same bed because Dick was
loathe to be alone, even after all these years, and to pervert that gracious
concession of Bruce’s into something unduly, unhealthily sexual was completely
inexcusable.
He doesn’t hear the door to the study open.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Dick startles, head whipping up; but it’s just
Barbara.
He’s been in here for the better part of two hours, trying to put together a
workable rough draft for his freshman thesis in cultural studies, and has
gotten an astounding nothing done: accepting the day as a wash on that front,
he gives her his full attention.
“I’d like to think they’re worth more than that.” She looks lovely, in a
modest, woolen green skirt and a crisp blouse. He used to think he was sweet on
her; he still tries to be. Knows everybody else thinks he is, even Babs
herself. Definitely Bruce.
(But when he’s alone, it’s not her that makes him flush like the schoolboy he
tries not to be, not softness and vaguely floral hair and high, dulcet tones
that make him sweat. Well. It is initially, he means, but then he gets to
thinking too hard, about the bruises on his arms and shins, from patrol, and
how Barbara is always so careful, would never accidently aggravate them, cause
more, a trail leading down his neck or up his thigh, and—
—it’s all downhill from there, really.)
“You’re an expensive date, Grayson.” Her brazen manner is something he’s always
admired about her, though at times like this he wishes her flirting were a bit
less… forward.
He never wants to strike her down, and that’s not just his own cowardly
reluctance to cause friction between them. She deserves more than a boy who
can’t return her affections on the grounds of some deep seated sickness of the
sexuality.
Her smile is sharp though, either not noticing or kindly disregarding (and if
he’s being really honest, the latter is so much more likely) his sudden bout of
recalcitrance, and moving on with impressive promptness.
“Got cabin fever yet, Boy Wonder?”
She gets a dry, obvious look, for that. It’s not even a question that bears
asking at this point. Still, she seems pleased by his response (or lack
thereof.)
“Good, ‘cause we’ve got work to do.”
“Bruce gave you a mission?” Dick is momentarily, irrationally jealous; Babs is
an auxiliary part of the team at best, too untrained (formally, at least) and
untested to send her out on encounters of her own. To entrust her with this
must mean that Bruce thinks Dick is, is too weak or lame to do it himself, to
produce satisfactory results—
“Not… really? It’s a scoop, Dick, one the Bat hasn’t got recorded in all those
meticulous case notes of his: trust me, I looked.”
“You want me to go over his head with you on something?” Evidently the tone of
that wasn’t something she appreciated, because she scowled at him. Even though
she was only three years older than he was, at eighteen, she projected an air
of competency and adulthood that fooled even Dick sometimes, made him wary and
complacent.
“How else are we ever going to branch out on our own two feet? He keeps me on
any tighter a leash and we’ll be stepping on each other. And you two’ve been
working together for years, without him even considering giving you a sense of
autonomy!”
Dick thinks to say that it was really because he’d never actually asked for
such a thing—Bruce was his best friend, and an incredible mentor. Maybe when he
was older, Dick supposes, but at fifteen that’s not anything urgent on his
mind. He decides against it when she plows on, persuasive and irreverent.
“The shipment of platinum Scarface was jacking while his goons were giving you
those lovely bruises is in warehouse 4B down on the east end of the docks—“
“You want us to go after Scarface, alone?”
“—and minimally protected! He’s got all his boys up at HQ in midtown because he
thinks Bruce is gonna hit him at home for what he did to your lilywhite
complexion—“
“My mother was Romani, I’m olive at least, and I really don’t think you’re
understanding the implications of going behind the Boss’ back to tackle one of
Gotham’s primary weapons dealers—“
“Not behind his back! We’re doing him a favor here! For the last three nights
I’ve seen over three fourths of his regular crew sticking close to home turf.
That leaves at least four to be doing drop off and pick up, which means a bust
on the gold—“
“Platinum—“
“—oh, hush, will be easy pickings! There’ll be what, five guys? And not even
his best.” She gives him a saucy look. “Unless you think the combined forces of
Batgirl and Robin are so helpless without the Big Bad Bat that we can’t tackle
five measly guys without running home to daddy.”
Dick swallows. Thinks about his nearly-healed hurts, and Bruce’s big hands, and
the shame of the man finding out the designs Dick’s subconscious have on him,
left to fester in his inactivity.
Dick sighs. Stutters, for a moment, and then opens his mouth. “It has to be
tomorrow night; Leslie wants him down at her clinic to get the stitches from
that Two-Face debacle a couple of months ago removed, so he’ll be out early.”
“I knew I could count on you, baby bird!”
---
It’s a blessedly dry night, and surprisingly mild for Gotham in the winter;
Barbara’s calling it ‘fate,’ but Dick’s sticking with ‘uncanny.’
The warehouse, which is really a generous term for it, considering the
dilapidated state of its roof and windows, is in a bad part of town. This makes
sense, Dick supposes, and is certainly in-keeping with Scarface’s almost
frenetic focus on being perceived as ‘clever’ and ‘smart.’ Nobody’d think to
look for something with that much value here: too dangerous, open to the
weather and the even less savory elements Gotham teems with.
He and Batgirl are stationed on a high roof about a block and a half away,
peering out of clunky binoculars and trying desperately to seem like it was
more informative to their ‘keen, detective eyes’ than it actually was.
“Run me through where you got this ‘tip’ from, again?”
“It wasn’t a tip! I tailed Mugsy back to that shoddy little bar east of the
Narrows—“
“Archetto’s?”
“—and he met up with a couple of other members of Scarface’s crew: that guy
with the rat teeth and the balding one! And they started talking about this
place, because it’s such a hassle to get down here ever since dad cracked down
on 8B where Penguin was keeping the imports from South America.”
“They just happened to be talking about it. In a public bar. Right after a
heist.”
Barbara shot him a sharp look. “I was in disguise the entire time—no cowl or
cape of Batgirl’s made an appearance all night! They couldn’t have known it was
me, or that they were being trailed for that matter: five o’clock go-home
traffic was in full swing, there were thousands of people catching cabs the
same way that they were making their getaway.”
“I just…” Dick swallows thickly, gloved hands kneading softly at the bottom of
his tunic.
“You’re not comfortable.”
Dick looks up, surprised and relieved, thinking she’s giving him an easy out,
being a chum—
“Because Daddy didn't send you on your way with goodies and praise, and you’re
not used to wearing big boy pants—“
“Batgirl!” It’s a tone much bigger than he is. “I’m uncomfortable because I
think this plan is ill-conceived, not because I need someone else’s cape to
curl into! Did you even bring the knockout gas?”
Liar liar liar.
She brushes her cape aside to reveal two sizeable canisters attached to the
back of her belt. “Do you even need to ask?” She quips back, faux-snotty. They
spend a silent moment making faces at each other, before Dick breathes deep,
steeling himself.
“What are we waiting for, then?”
---
The car ride home is characterized by one of the most oppressive atmospheres
Dick has ever had the misfortune of encountering.
A broken skylight, the loud ‘bang’ of a gas canister exploding onto concrete.
It starts out so well. Dick is the noise and the action, the lightening before
the thunder, as always: throwing the goons off guard, giving them something to
try and focus on through the thick haze, while Barbara goes in behind them as
they flounder in their frustration and takes them out properly. Batgirl gets
one, two by the stairwell. Robin gets a third by knocking him off a metal
railway with a wing-ding; broken shoulder blade, most likely, but no lethal
damage. Four and five are bruisers, stationed near the cargo, addressed with a
furious kick to the gut and dislocation of their jaw, rendering them
unconscious.
Then there’s—noise. Above, where Dick had knocked the man over the railing
earlier, and okay, Barbara had said about five, not exactly, but…
The smoke is as much a hindrance to them at this point as it is to the enemy.
Only use it when you know the circumstances, know your surroundings well enough
to make them your weapon, Batman had said, and it makes something low and
worried wrench in Dick’s chest, because Batman isn’t here.
“Bruce, I—“
“Unless you want us to have this conversation right here, don’t.”
Dick quiets, squirming.
When goons number six and seven are down and they can still hear the rustling
of movement from all around them, Dick begins to panic.
“Batgirl, they’re—“
“Don’t talk, fight!”
The smoke is rapidly dissipating, leaving them open to prying eyes and clumsy
crosshairs: Dick dives between two adjacent crates and sinks into the shadows,
peering around through the clearing air.
Ambush. There were—god. There had to be fifteen of them, with the sound of more
cars pulling up outside. They’d wanted Batman to hear, wanted him to come, to
be captured, and instead they’d gotten two stupid kids—
Someone is yelling out directions. He saw Batgirl slip behind a generator on
the other side of the room, obscured but by no means hidden, just like him.
They’re spreading out, searching for them. The element of surprise is gone, and
now they’re just two teenagers, hiding in a den of thugs and murderers.
A scream. Shots fired. At first he thinks Batgirl has done something stupid,
something awful, and he’s far too frightened to look, but then—
“It’s the Bat!”
Relief makes Dick’s entire body shake, the pumping of his blood feeling obvious
and intrusive in his neck, wrists, and ankles, loud as anything. Batman has
found them.
The thugs are short work; Dick worries momentarily when he hears the guys
outside filing up to the entrance, but Bruce has blocked the door with
something. Of course. Because he’s always prepared, always three steps ahead of
anyone, of everyone.
The sound of fists on flesh. Screaming, turning wet and repulsive as their
teeth are knocked out, mouths filling with blood. Robin sits, and shakes, and
smoothes his gloved hands primly down over his cape.
A darker shadow is cast over him. He opens his eyes, under the white out
lenses, but can’t look up. Batman is so big, and that’s important, somehow, but
he can’t pin down why right now.
“Robin.”
“Robin.”
Dick startles upright. The car has stopped. They’re home. He dropped Batgirl
off by the abandoned subway station where she’d stashed her clothes, not a word
said. She was in trouble too, but her trouble would be addressed… later. After
his own, he realized, sinking farther into the passenger seat, as the roof slid
shut behind her and it was just him and Bruce, alone in the Batmobile.
Bruce was using patrol names. That wasn’t good. That meant this wasn’t an anger
Dick Grayson could cajole his way out of, smile and cuddle and endear into mild
exasperation.
“Yes, Batman?”
Bruce breathes deeply, hands squeezing the steering wheel tight and then
releasing, repetitive.
“Get changed. I’ll meet you upstairs.”
There’s an intense pressure behind Dick’s eyes.
“Yes, Batman.”
Padding softly over to the dressing curtain, he toes off his booties, stacking
them neatly where they belong. His fingers shake as he begins unlacing the
vest, undoing the hidden clasp taking more time than it probably should.
By the time the solvent has eaten away at the glue enough for him to pull his
domino off, the skin beneath it is wet, god darn it, god darn it—
Wiping at his eyes too roughly with the back of his wrist, he reaches down to
pull off his shorts, unstrapping the jock.
Oh god. Oh no.
He’s hard.
---
The march upstairs is truly, genuinely awful—the kind when you’re going up the
biggest hill of a roller coaster, where the anticipation is almost worse than
the drop itself: Dick left alone with his thoughts, driving himself crazy.
He’d left the jock on. It wasn’t too visible, underneath the loose pajama
pants, not unless you were really looking for it, because there was really no
way he was going to be able to go up and face Bruce in their room with. With an
erection.
He’d tried to get rid of it; a brisk shower would take too long, make Bruce
madder, make it seem like Dick was trying to delay the inevitable, but there
were other things.
He thought about cats and trapezes and things completely unrelated, but that
didn’t keep his interest for long, didn’t really do anything, because he was
too worked up about Bruce to fixate on anything else. He thought about how mad
Bruce probably was at him, how he wasn’t supposed to feel like this, was going
upstairs to be reprimanded, but that just made it worse.
Easier to leave the jock on, and hope Bruce wouldn’t notice; hope Bruce
wouldn’t send him to his own room, cold and unused and alone, hope that the
intrusive wall of plastic would keep him down for the night.
Bruce is sitting on the bed when Dick sticks his head in fearfully, legs
hanging over the side of the in their flannel bottoms, chest as broad and bare
and breath-catching as ever.
He steps in quietly, head lowered, blinking back tears. Thinking how awful it
would be, how embarrassing, to cry in front of Bruce, and having to blink back
more for how it made his penis twitch again.
“Do you know why I didn’t follow the ‘lead’ Barbara sent you two after, Dick?”
Dick inhales, opens his mouth to speak, but his throat is so tight with crying
that it hurts, so he swallows it down, and shakes his head ‘no.’
“Did you think I didn’t know about it?” It’s a calm tone, free of malice or
threat, and Dick’s not sure if that’s better or worse. He starts to shrug, then
stops. Shakes his head ‘yes,’ because—well. He supposes that is the conclusion
they’d come to. Dumb, in retrospect.
“They’ve been circulating that ‘bit’ of info anywhere with any semblance of
privacy for the past three weeks. Did you get a look at the hangar doors in
there, while you and Batgirl were playing lone ranger?”
Another no.
“They’re too low to get crates the size of which the shipping company that
transported the stolen platinum use inside; at least on a forklift, which would
have been necessary for anything of weight that substantial.”
Dick looks at his feet, dragging bare toes across the carpet.
“Come here, Dick.”
Dick goes. He’s trying, he’s trying so hard, but his breath hitches as he stops
in front of Bruce’s knees, and he knows he’s going to shatter any second now.
“You could have been killed. If I hadn’t put that tracking device in Barbara’s
cowl I never would’ve found you two; never would’ve believed she’d have the ill
judgment to go after something like that alone, or occurred to me that you
might show that same lapse by going with her, despite explicit orders not to
attempt anything strenuous, and certainly not without myself or Alfred there
to—“
A sad, quiet, hiccupping sob, as the hang of Dick’s hair over his face can no
longer obscure the tears dripping down his chin, nose running disgustingly.
“Dick. I’m not saying this to try and make you feel bad, I’m telling you this
because I love you, and I was so worried—“
“No, that’s not what I- Bruce, I’m—I’m hard.” Whispered like the worst secret
imaginable.
Bruce freezes, the hand that had come up to thumb the moisture off Dick’s
cheeks stopping, motionless.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m c-crying because I’m ashamed, and i-it aroused m-me, which made me more
ashamed, which made it worse!” It’s expelled in one huge, messy breath, and
he’s sure this is it, that Bruce is going to send him back to his room, send
him away, to somewhere where they fix people like him, and he’ll never get to
be Robin or sleep next to Bruce again.
“Does this happen… often?”
Dick stands there, startled and so deeply mortified, for a few more seconds.
Sniffles, and then tries to pull back, to flee, because this is the beginning
of the end, but maybe if he can make himself shut up about it, never bring it
up again—
“Robin.”
He freezes, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, and Bruce pulls him back towards the
bed, picking him up by the scruff of his nightshirt and sitting him down on it.
“I just—sometimes.” It’s a quieter voice than he’s ever used before.
“Sometimes… I need….” He stops himself. Rearranges the words in his head, until
they don’t sound… lewd. Don’t sound inherently sick, but that’s, that’s what
this is, isn’t it—foolish of him to try and deceive Bruce, to hope he’s willing
to read it some way that won’t bring to light the… the deviant Dick become.
“That is to say, I—“
“It’s perfectly alright, Dick.”
A large hand on his head, carding gently through his hair. Bruce’s eyes are
fixed carefully on his cheek instead of his eyes, but he suspects that’s more
for his own benefit: he’d shrink from the attention, during a conversation like
this, unmanfully unable to retain eye contact discussing his abnormalities.
It’s not okay, though, and Dick doesn’t know how Bruce can’t see that: this is
the kind of, of ungentlemanly craving catered to in the seedy, low light clubs
that require passwords to enter, the kind that they often encounter on vice
missions, who’s clientele tends to be, by and large, the filth of humanity, the
crooks and call girls and addicts. Who those places attract.
They’re the only places Dick has ever seen people who react to… to
traditionally unpleasant physical contact like he does, to distain,
humiliation, like he does. Women and men in collars and harnesses: whipped,
beaten, spanked, and leaning into it, moaning for it as all manner of, of awful
things were said about them.
He’d only been on surveillance one of these instances, only subject to the full
spectacle of depravity once: watching for a man called Jimmy Hangnail in a
shadowy corner while Bruce hunted down his drug dealing associates. When
Bruce—Matches—had come by to check on him, notes passed by a sympathetic
waitress the only clue they might know each other, Dick had begged off the
duty, stating he simply didn’t have the stomach for it, and Bruce had
graciously accepted this: sending Gordon’s squad in to deal with the pushers
who’s addresses Batman had ascertained and taking watch while Dick, back in
civilian clothes, waited for Alfred up on street level, sick to his stomach-
-and harder than he’d ever been in his life. That was the first night, fingers
pressing tentatively, ever-so-careful, into the bruises of patrol, and then
harder for the way it made his toes curl and his cock drip.
“It’s pain too, and. Bruce, I’m, I’m so sorry, I know I was dumb and I was bad
and I’ll fix it, I’ll never say anything about it again if you just keep me,
just don’t send me away—“
“Robin.” That name again, that name in this room, but this time Bruce looks
fascinated—like he’s discovered something entirely new, something he’d never
thought to exist before, transfixed by how rigid his protégé’s spine goes, and
the shiver that runs through the tense muscles of his thighs.
“Dick. I’m not going to send you away. I could never…”
A pause. They both try to compose themselves. They both fail.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. Different people— well, they have different
inclinations, and just because the things that-” Bruce’s eyes dart down to the
crotch of his pants, as though he can’t help himself; linger there for a
second, uncomprehending, before his pupils dilate at the realization that Dick
has worn his jock to bed “-stimulate you are considered… unconventional does
not mean they’re wrong.”
“But it’s guys, Bruce.” A prominent swallow, another instance where they both
know what Dick really meant to say: It’s you, Bruce.
“Irrelevant.”
They’re quiet, for a few seconds. Bruce’s hand is back up to Dick’s cheek, but
it’s cupping it now, fingers in his hair, thumb rubbing ever so slightly up and
down, up and down, at the corner of Dick’s mouth, the friction making it ruddy
with blood.
“You’re not alone, Dick. You’re not even the first person I’ve encountered with
such a proclivity.”
Dick breathes deep. Opens his mouth a little at the next swipe of thumb, bold.
“Would you perhaps like me to-“
“Yes. If it’s—if you don’t mind-“
“Not at all.”
---
“Spread your legs a little wider; there we are.”
A deep breath, squirming on the finger already inside of him as his eyelids
flutter wildly. Dick is awed, perplexed, and so beautiful, with his narrow
waist and ample hips, that it makes Bruce wonder how this bright boy could ever
have thought he might be sent away or forgotten.
Dick is naked now, clothes in a pile beside the bed, protective cup gone (but
not before Bruce put a hand there and pressed it into his aching prick, hard,
and it had hurthurthurt so good that Bruce had to tug at his balls to stop him
from ejaculating inside of it right then.)
Bruce still has his pants on, but that’s good, that’s Correct: Bruce and his
big presence and his booming patrol voice in the bedroom, very much in charge
and the only thing Dick can focus on.
“Fffu-oh!” Dick can feel the expletive building before it makes it out into the
open air between them: uncouth, distasteful language that he knows Bruce is
distressed that their nightly activities have introduced him to. Leaning in, he
nips pointedly at Dick’s clavicle. Moves his mouth to the juncture of his
shoulder to bite marks into young, elastic skin, just a little bit of blood
where the older man’s tapered canines pressed.
“Language, chum.”
“I’m—I’m sorry Bruce, I didn’t m-mean to—“ A high, abrupt shout, dragging
itself out into something low and decadent, Dick’s hands fisting in the sheets
like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s uncommonly awkward in his
own body, in this moment, utterly unaccustomed to the idea of carnal pleasures,
at least when they’re being tended to by an outside party. Bruce pushes his
thumb into the hollow of Dick’s hip and keeps pushing, until he can feel the
blood rushing to the area, feel it darkening with the outline of a hand.
“—golly that feels s-ah!-swell, though.”
Bruce kisses his cheek, kisses his shoulder and the corner of his mouth:
chaste, gentlemanly, as another finger is wedged in next to the first one in
Dick’s little pink rectum.
They’re lubricated, of course, the momentary pause to rifle through his
nightstand well worth it; the kind of pain lack thereof might cause isn’t
anything Bruce is willing to indulge. Still, he’s still taking it uncommonly
fast. Certainly faster than he normally would, was this any other kind of
encounter. As fast as he reasonably can, without worry of ripping or tearing.
Dick is young, so young beneath him, young enough to make him feel every year
of his thirty-five, feel sick. But the boy loves it, is incoherent with it, as
Bruce slowly parts his two fingers inside of the teen, scissors them in time
with the brutal thrusting motion.
“Oh gosh, gosh, gosh, g-uh!”
“You’re doing such a good job, Dick—“
But Dick shakes his head, a shiver running through his whole body, and says,
“I’ve been— Bruce, I was so—“
“Bad?”
A ‘yes,’ barely audible, sighed into Dick’s bicep as his arms reach up above
his head, looking for something to grab onto, to ground himself with.
“And you think you should be punished?” Another shudder wracks the lithe frame.
Bruce leans closer, another finger, more friction, and Dick is this close to
falling to pieces when a hand is pressed to the still-yellow bruising right
below his line of stitches, Bruce’s voice lowering still into the gravel of the
Bat.
“Perhaps a spanking?”
Dick is gone. His entire body arches up, up into the hand still pushing down on
traumatized skin, and the three huge fingers stuffing him so full, too full,
until he can’t stand it anymore.
A jet of ejaculate hits the bottom of his chin, landing in thick lines up his
chest and stomach as he exhales reedily, entire body seeming to deflate.
Somewhere outside of his haze of endorphins he hears a wet, vulgar noise: body
clenching around the fingers still inside of him, still moving when he realizes
what it is, that Bruce is masturbating.
Because of him.
Dick’s chafed penis sluggishly dribbles more cum into his bellybutton when he
feels Bruce’s release join his own in a sticky mess on his chest, still
murmuring a quiet “ah” with every movement of that hand until it’s ever-so-
carefully pulled free, with a slick, frankly disgusting ‘pop.’
He thinks they’re going to… not cuddle, maybe, now, but lie down for a while,
perhaps, because he’s so tired, and Bruce looks it, but.
No. He’s scooped into a sitting position in Bruce’s arms, and the older man
walks them into the bathroom to begin running water into the tub. It’s a silent
affair; largely because Bruce has never been much of a talker without
prompting, and Dick’s too out of sorts to provide stimulating conversation of
kind, at the moment.
He gets nervous, though, when Bruce wipes off his chest before lowering them
both into the bath with exceptional awareness of all of Dick’s old and,
um—newer hurts.
“Bruce, are we…”
His chest is scrubbed with mild body wash, big hands careful to skirt around
the worst of the bruising, though he’s unable to avoid interacting with it
entirely.
It’s too soon for Dick to be hard again, but only just.
“Are we alright?”
Bruce grabs his chin, and tilts his head so they’re eye to eye.
“Perfectly.”
“And can we… can we do that again?”
His answer is a kiss.
End Notes
     Because of Cornflake’s post a few weeks back. It was going to be more
     focused on the actual swearing thing, and then it kind of mutated
     into Confused Teen Masochist, Dick Grayson. Cross posted to tumblr.
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