[fic] Terms of Psychic Warfare (Jason/Tim OYL, adult)
Title: Terms of Psychic Warfare (source)
Pairing: Jason/Tim; Batman/Robin mentioned
Rating: Adult
Spoilers/timeline: Early OYL for both ROBIN and NIGHTWING.
Summary: "You occupied my space and you occupied your mind."
Disclaimer: DC, not me.
Notes: A lot of people I love are having a crappy time lately. Maybe rubynye, inlovewithnight, sockich and oneangrykate will get a kick out of this. Written for the dc_flashfiction A Thousand Words challenge, inspired by this piece of GUH by kahneerovix. Beta by my beloved thenotoriousg; title and summary from Husker Du; thanks to Night and jubilancy for encouragement.
Something's wrong.
Tim knows that as soon as he steps through the door to the stables.
Everything looks normal. The shadows are still and familiar, deep and regular in the empty stalls and across the wide aisle. The stairs up to his apartment in the former hayloft are silent. Despite the evidence, he's more certain than ever that something is wrong. Off, disturbed, *different*.
He mounts the broad stairs, knapsack over one shoulder. His khakis whisper against the kevlar of his uniform leggings.
Shiva had been able to get in here. He sorts out the candidates most likely to break in from those who would have left some trace of their presence.
Catwoman could do it, though these days she has no motive. Dick, of course, but Tim would like to believe he'd call first; it's a small hope, one not quite borne out by Dick's sense of humor, but it's all he has.
There are Hush and Riddler, but their issues are with Batman, not Robin. Ra's and Talia, and there, Tim's not quite so sanguine.
On the next to last step, his boot crunches over a piece of glass. He should have seen that, he should have -. Tim freezes, one hand crossing his chest, reaching for the shuriken *R* beneath his long-sleeve polo shirt.
He replays the sound of the glass. A low, coarse grinding noise, suggesting a thick piece of glass. Not a window or mirror.
For a long moment, there's only silence, the close, *busy* silence of a spring night. Tim filters out the insignificant noise, then hears something he cannot place.
Not at first. It's a long, whispering breath, like wind through poplars, that ends in a whimper. Or a moan.
And it's coming from *his* apartment, from - he slides against the wall and jumps onto the threshold - his *bed*.
His bed is tucked under the eaves in the corner of the apartment, and tucked into *that* corner, legs akimbo, head thrown back, is Robin.
No. "Jason." Tim hears his voice quaver unacceptably. "Jason."
Jason is wearing an old Robin suit, less garish than the one he wore when he attacked the Tower. The tunic is half-unlaced, the mask puckering as he frowns. "Fuck, thought you'd never get here."
Tim drops his knapsack and feints a move for his shuriken.
"Don't." Jason's voice is a growl that ends in another broken whimper; startled, Tim looks up and the shadows resolve, and he can see.
"You're -. What the hell are *you* doing?"
Jason extends his left leg, spreading it, and his sneer deepens into a smirk. "C'mon. You've never -" His hips jerk up and his right arm flaps. He's *masturbating*. On Tim's bed, in Tim's room, in *uniform*. "Of course you haven't."
"Jason."
"Mmm?" He switches his hips, fast, back and forth, the cape bunching beneath him. "Almost done, just -"
Tim should move. Drop to one knee, toss something, anything, to incapacitate the guy. There are eleven ways to get out of here, twelve if he breaks the window. He can see at least four methods with which he could knock Jason out, slow him down.
His elbow twinges where Jason rebroke the arm. The ache is merely a psychosomatic response to stress, so he ignores it.
Eleven or twelve escapes and four offenses, yet all he's doing is standing here frozen, watching.
The room is a mess, his computer monitor upturned, its glass shattered - that was what he'd stepped on - and his papers scattered over every surface. His CDs are tipped out over the floor, stepped on and cracked.
"What did you *do*?" he asks.
Jason rolls his head against the wall and Tim watches him gulp, his Adam's apple moving in the tense line of his throat. "Got bored. Waiting."
"So you -"
Grunting, Jason licks his lips. "Can this wait?"
"No, I -" Tim's teeth click as he closes his mouth. The mess doesn't matter, the catastrophe that is his personal possessions doesn't matter. He needs to focus.
Focus on - Jason.
Jason's got the shorts yanked down over his balls, the waistband biting into them. His legs are long, muscled like Dick's, the musculature of a natural athlete. He's still wearing the gloves, gone mossy green in the dark room, to jerk himself off, to reach through the tunic's laces and tweak his own nipple, and the mask -.
The mask has no lenses, the mask is looking right *at* Tim, arresting him, keeping him here, sick and uncertain and fascinated.
With the shadows of the eaves darkening, blurring, Jason's face, only the mask - and his mouth, wet and open - are visible.
"Let me show you how it's done," Jason says, and grunts, and shoves his hips up into his fist. His thighs are corded with tension, his torso is twisting left, then right. "Watch and learn, little man."
Tim swallows and takes a step forward. To increase his options, he thinks, to get just near enough for -. A nerve strike, an uppercut, something.
"Aren't you supposed to be in New York?" Tim asks. "Annoying Dick?"
Jason sighs gustily and his arm moves faster. "Can we not -. *Fuck*, just a sec -." He bites his lip and slows his hand. "No Dick when I'm -"
Tim snickers. Jason starts to sneer, or say something, but then his back arches and he's pulling hard and fast again.
Tim finds himself standing at the edge of the bed. Almost within reach of Jason, almost too close - for comfort, for safety, for -.
The *R* on Jason's tunic has bunched up, become unreadable. Jason's face is still shadowed, still invisible in the dark, but the mask, Tim's always been able to see the mask. The bed is squeaking, Jason's head is thumping the wall, and the pound of Tim's pulse in his throat and his ears seems to match the rhythm of Jason's movement.
"Like what you see, little brother?"
It has to be the arousal and psychosis, it must be, that make Jason's voice sound like that, drop in range somewhere molasses-sweet and -dark, sound like *Dick*.
Tim blinks hard. He evaluates his options: hand-to-hand, with his new training, not caught by surprise, he could take Jason.
He would have been certain of that fact a moment ago. Now, he's only nearly sure.
He has loved Dick for much longer than he's loved anyone. But he's wanted -.
Somehow, impossibly, Jason slows his hand. He tilts his head and blows upward, but his hair's sweaty, sticking to his forehead. "Why don't you slip on a cape and get comfortable? Robin?"
And now he sounds unerringly like Bruce, like the night and a rush of gritty wind. Tim smiles tightly as he retrieves the matchbook-sized package from his pocket and opens it, flaps it into his cape.
"See, that's fucking *good* -" Jason arches and pulls, his forearm hitting the light from the window, his chin driving into his chest, as Tim pulls off his khakis and polo, buckles on the cape. "Fucking preppie shit never -"
"Are you almost finished?"
"Why? Wanna lend a hand?" The tendons in Jason's neck stand out like struts on the Sprang when he moves. His free hand, ungloved, runs up and down his thigh, pinching his skin, as the breath comes out his mouth in a needy wheeze.
"No." Tim crosses his arms under the cape.
"You don't even *look* like -" Jason's mask appears to fold nearly in half as his mouth opens wide and his body jerks upward.
Tim watches him orgasm, the jitters and spilled curses, the quick pulses that darkly splatter the tunic, then his hand. Jason's breathing quickens and deepens, the mask folding horizontally as he scowls.
Sex is an ugly thing, as ugly as anything else bodily, anything filled with as much need. Ugly and glorious all at once, Tim thinks, as he plants one knee on the edge of the bed and grabs Jason's wrist.
The palm is callused, a little grimy. It tastes like motor oil and sweat wherever there's no come. And where there is, Tim licks it up in broad, quick strokes, feeling Jason shudder before him, gripping the wrist tightly enough for the bones to grind a little. He sucks Jason's fingers clean and ducks away when the gloved hand reaches for him, scraping his teeth down the knuckles.
"Oh, fuck, yes -" Jason starts to say. He stops, spasming, the only sounds the thunk of his head against the wall and a sort of deflating wheeze, when Tim strikes his sciatic nerve, right at the junction of gluts and quads.
After tying Jason's arms securely behind his back and leaving him propped in the corner like a large, half-naked doll, Tim cleans the worst of the mess. He sweeps the broken glass and fragments of circuitry into the dustpan, then straightens and rights the furniture and papers.
It does not appear that Jason was looking for anything in particular. All four of Tim's primary hiding places are secure.
He's still wearing his uniform; it hardly ever occurs to him, any more, to remove it.
He should call Bruce.
However, the fact that the prodigal psycho is still here suggests that Bruce has kept his promise not to bug the apartment. Tim makes a note to be grateful for that. Later.
After thinking it over, Tim dons a surgical glove from his belt and tucks Jason's genitals back into the shorts. Then, a smile burning at the corners of his mouth, he arranges Jason a little more comfortably, one knee up against his chest. He leaves the tunic artfully awry.
He thinks of the Batgirl plushie that Babs keeps next to her computer and smiles more widely.
He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, checking his laptop's firewall, when Jason comes to with a choked roar.
The rope is tied to the bedframe, so Jason only succeeds in banging the bed against the floor.
He keeps it up for longer than Tim had expected.
"You!" Jason shouts when Tim finishes running the security algorithms and glances up. "You fucking little piece of *shit*!"
Tim cocks his head. "Hi."
Jason's cheeks are flushed again, as dark as they were just after orgasm. "Christ, I come to you with my fucking dick and balls out and you -"
"Yes," Tim says and rolls to his feet. "You shouldn't leave yourself quite so. Vulnerable."
Jason's shoulders rise and bow as he tests the ropes. "I can get out of these."
"If you're willing to break one arm and dislocate the other shoulder, then, yes." Tim sits on the edge of the bed, forty centimeters from Jason's feet. "Go right ahead."
"You'll let me out," Jason says, panting shallowly. "You have to."
"Really? Why?"
Jason smiles with half his mouth. "Because you're a good guy."
"Funny thing about that," Tim says softly and waits until Jason tries to lean closer. "A year away and several snapped arms can change your perspective."
"Huh." Jason's brows knit together, just at the edge of the mask, and Tim gets a mouthful of sex and panic-sweat. He swallows and dodges neatly when Jason lunges. He nearly manages to knock his skull against Tim's shoulder, as the bed tips, then falls back to the floor, snapping Jason back against the eaves. "Fuck!"
"About that -" Tim starts, then waits for Jason to quiet again.
Finally, Jason cocks his head and smirks. "You need some tips, little bro?"
Don't call me that, Tim manages not to say. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Every time he gets near, the advantage slips from his grasp. Jason's panting dramatically now, squealing and pretending to beg for it. "Shut up."
"You don't even *look* like Robin, you know that?" Jason says, the porn-sounds abruptly stopping. "That stupid costume. Fucking look like *him*."
"No, I -" Tim makes himself stop.
"Yeah, you *do*," Jason replies, his smirk widening. "It's hot."
Tim closes his eyes and wishes for his mask.
Forty-seven seconds later, Jason tries again. Tim realizes that, just as Dick cannot stay still for very long, Jason cannot remain quiet.
"C'mon, what've I gotta do to get out of here?" Jason smacks his lips and Tim finally opens his eyes, only to see Jason all but *leering* at him. Jason tips up his chin and grins, wide and real and scary. "I could blow you. Wouldn't mind, either."
"Jason -"
"Suck off the little baby Bat? Not like I never have, right?"
The image, unbidden but somehow *accurate* in a way that Tim cannot name right now, of Robin kneeling before Batman, shiny black hair gripped by a gauntlet, the black cape shifting over the red, yellow, and green, flashes before his mind's eye.
He swallows and tries to smirk back. "I don't think so."
Jason shrugs - minimally, because the ropes are holding - and leans back. "Putting it out there. Might be nice for you, be on the receiving end for once."
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Tim lies as smoothly as Dick flies, as powerfully as Bruce punches; that fact is hardly new, but he feels like someone slapped him all the same.
Snorting, Jason wriggles a little closer and drops open his mouth, tongue painting his lower teeth, before he says, "Come *on*. Like he doesn't *look* at you like -." Tim shakes his head and Jason snorts again. "Like you never -"
"Once," Tim says. It's nothing like a confession. Before he was a revenant and a nightmare, Jason was a ghost, and Tim's best friend, a swirl of parti-colored smoke that urged him on and supported him. A suit and mask under glass, an example of far more than Bruce, at least, had ever intended.
Telling him the truth will cost Tim nothing. And it's not as if he has very much left *to* lose.
"Fucking *knew* it," Jason says, and the bitterness edging his tone is - new. Honest, or as honest as he can be.
Tim feels, absurdly, like he's apologizing. "Once. There was a -." He swallows again, then bites the inside of his cheek. "A spell, an age-reversal thing."
"Magic," Jason says and the bitterness is still there, still real.
Tim nods. "I was -. Him, and he was -"
"Robin."
"Yes."
For the space of one diastolic pause, they are both silent. All over again, Tim can smell the leather and ozone inside the Batmobile, see Bruce tugging at the Robin tights, feel the unfamiliar spread of his own, much larger hand grasping Bruce's bony knee and the insistent pressure of his mouth against Bruce's lips. How Bruce's - *Robin's* - mouth fell open with a sigh and small hands pushed through his hair, the rocking urgency of Robin's hips, thighs tugged down to his knees, Batman's - his own hand on the smooth, pale skin of Robin's belly.
"You're fucking crazy," Jason says at last.
Tim looks at him. "I've heard that."
Jason's far too big for the Robin suit, overgrown and *sweaty*, but when he ducks his head to hide his grin as Tim touches his chest, then his knee, he looks like he's never been anyone *but* Robin.
"I'm not going to be -" Tim pulls his hand back. "I'm never going to be him."
"Sure," Jason says. "Keep telling yourself that."
"I'm not -"
"Yeah, yeah." Jason's teeth flash white in the dark. The ghost never had fangs. "Look, am I going to blow you or what? You planning on keeping me up here forever?"
"He never replaced you," Tim says quietly.
"The fuck?" Jason bounces again and the ropes make a worrisome moaning sound.
"I -" Tim shakes his head. "Promised myself I'd tell you that."
"What is this, some fucking Afterschool Special? You about to off yourself or some shit?"
Tim lets the laughter bubble up out his chest and feels some of the pressure ease. "No, I just -"
When he catches Jason's eye, Jason goes still again. He doesn't relax - a trapped animal never relaxes - but he's watchful, another grin spreading slowly across his face. "I totally won't bite your dick off. Pinky swear."
It isn't exactly a reply, but Tim unbuckles his belt and sets it aside, then does the same with his cape, before lifting his hips and rolling down his tights. They are almost black in the dark room. He pulls the cup out of the way and shifts until he's facing Jason, dick firming in his hand.
"Well, well," Jason drawls. "For a little guy, you're set up pretty -"
"I don't trust you," Tim says and flicks his thumb over his dickhead, three more times until his thighs tense and he's got the rhythm.
Jason bares his teeth. "You really shouldn't."
"Right." Tim shifts again, up onto one knee, as his eyes flutter closed. Just for a moment, to remember the smooth expanse of the Case's glass, the ghost inside, his own face reflected against the shorts.
"Robin," Jason says, pitched just exactly right, and then: "Bro, Jesus -"
Tim opens his eyes and runs his nails over his chest, zig-zagging as he grips the base of his cock and pulls. "I owe you, and you -"
"Shut up," Jason says, still in Batman's voice. Then, more gently, sickly-sweetly, "*Nice*. Real pretty..."
Tim holds out his palm until Jason catches on and spits into it. He works faster than usual, twisting his shaft in his hand, fingering the ridge, stroking and squeezing his balls. Jason's talking to him, and Tim can hear it, hear the lewd encouragement and frankly *disturbing* images - Bruce ever wake you up with his tongue up your ass? and Tell me Dick never copped a feel and I'll give you a million dollars - hear *him*, but he's a ghost again, speaking from the gravity well just over Tim's (Batman's) id. And Tim replies, telling Jason everything, telling him more. I'll never be you and I can't be him and, despite himself, Dick, please and he's coming before he can prepare himself, Jason's breath hot and damp against his face.
He got too close and he falls away, shooting into his hand, as Jason laughs at him and calls him Robin.
He wipes himself clean and rearranges his uniform.
There isn't anything left to say; his skin is burning, his muscles twitching restlessly, as he stands over Jason.
"What?" Jason demands.
"Let's go," Tim says. His voice, thankfully, remains firm and dry.
Jason kicks him twice in the jaw, once in the solar plexus, when Tim goes to tie his knees together and hobble him.
Tim gets an elbow in his eye as he pushes Jason down the stairs, out the stables and into the night.
"Mother*fucker*," Jason shouts when Tim tosses a knife into the long grass off the walk and turns back inside.
Bruce makes a new set of shadows in the first stall.
Tim stands in front of him, checking his posture and returning the nod.
"Looks like you didn't need any help," Bruce says, and that would be his version of an explanation cum apology.
Tim nods again. He isn't surprised that Bruce is here - *was* here, for however long - but he refuses to let anything show.
"Good work," Bruce adds.
"I'm going to move into the manor," Tim says and holds onto a beam for balance. "If that's okay with you."
Bruce's teeth are not fangs, but they are white and unfamiliar as he smiles. "I'd like that."
[end]
Pairing: Jason/Tim; Batman/Robin mentioned
Rating: Adult
Spoilers/timeline: Early OYL for both ROBIN and NIGHTWING.
Summary: "You occupied my space and you occupied your mind."
Disclaimer: DC, not me.
Notes: A lot of people I love are having a crappy time lately. Maybe rubynye, inlovewithnight, sockich and oneangrykate will get a kick out of this. Written for the dc_flashfiction A Thousand Words challenge, inspired by this piece of GUH by kahneerovix. Beta by my beloved thenotoriousg; title and summary from Husker Du; thanks to Night and jubilancy for encouragement.
Something's wrong.
Tim knows that as soon as he steps through the door to the stables.
Everything looks normal. The shadows are still and familiar, deep and regular in the empty stalls and across the wide aisle. The stairs up to his apartment in the former hayloft are silent. Despite the evidence, he's more certain than ever that something is wrong. Off, disturbed, *different*.
He mounts the broad stairs, knapsack over one shoulder. His khakis whisper against the kevlar of his uniform leggings.
Shiva had been able to get in here. He sorts out the candidates most likely to break in from those who would have left some trace of their presence.
Catwoman could do it, though these days she has no motive. Dick, of course, but Tim would like to believe he'd call first; it's a small hope, one not quite borne out by Dick's sense of humor, but it's all he has.
There are Hush and Riddler, but their issues are with Batman, not Robin. Ra's and Talia, and there, Tim's not quite so sanguine.
On the next to last step, his boot crunches over a piece of glass. He should have seen that, he should have -. Tim freezes, one hand crossing his chest, reaching for the shuriken *R* beneath his long-sleeve polo shirt.
He replays the sound of the glass. A low, coarse grinding noise, suggesting a thick piece of glass. Not a window or mirror.
For a long moment, there's only silence, the close, *busy* silence of a spring night. Tim filters out the insignificant noise, then hears something he cannot place.
Not at first. It's a long, whispering breath, like wind through poplars, that ends in a whimper. Or a moan.
And it's coming from *his* apartment, from - he slides against the wall and jumps onto the threshold - his *bed*.
His bed is tucked under the eaves in the corner of the apartment, and tucked into *that* corner, legs akimbo, head thrown back, is Robin.
No. "Jason." Tim hears his voice quaver unacceptably. "Jason."
Jason is wearing an old Robin suit, less garish than the one he wore when he attacked the Tower. The tunic is half-unlaced, the mask puckering as he frowns. "Fuck, thought you'd never get here."
Tim drops his knapsack and feints a move for his shuriken.
"Don't." Jason's voice is a growl that ends in another broken whimper; startled, Tim looks up and the shadows resolve, and he can see.
"You're -. What the hell are *you* doing?"
Jason extends his left leg, spreading it, and his sneer deepens into a smirk. "C'mon. You've never -" His hips jerk up and his right arm flaps. He's *masturbating*. On Tim's bed, in Tim's room, in *uniform*. "Of course you haven't."
"Jason."
"Mmm?" He switches his hips, fast, back and forth, the cape bunching beneath him. "Almost done, just -"
Tim should move. Drop to one knee, toss something, anything, to incapacitate the guy. There are eleven ways to get out of here, twelve if he breaks the window. He can see at least four methods with which he could knock Jason out, slow him down.
His elbow twinges where Jason rebroke the arm. The ache is merely a psychosomatic response to stress, so he ignores it.
Eleven or twelve escapes and four offenses, yet all he's doing is standing here frozen, watching.
The room is a mess, his computer monitor upturned, its glass shattered - that was what he'd stepped on - and his papers scattered over every surface. His CDs are tipped out over the floor, stepped on and cracked.
"What did you *do*?" he asks.
Jason rolls his head against the wall and Tim watches him gulp, his Adam's apple moving in the tense line of his throat. "Got bored. Waiting."
"So you -"
Grunting, Jason licks his lips. "Can this wait?"
"No, I -" Tim's teeth click as he closes his mouth. The mess doesn't matter, the catastrophe that is his personal possessions doesn't matter. He needs to focus.
Focus on - Jason.
Jason's got the shorts yanked down over his balls, the waistband biting into them. His legs are long, muscled like Dick's, the musculature of a natural athlete. He's still wearing the gloves, gone mossy green in the dark room, to jerk himself off, to reach through the tunic's laces and tweak his own nipple, and the mask -.
The mask has no lenses, the mask is looking right *at* Tim, arresting him, keeping him here, sick and uncertain and fascinated.
With the shadows of the eaves darkening, blurring, Jason's face, only the mask - and his mouth, wet and open - are visible.
"Let me show you how it's done," Jason says, and grunts, and shoves his hips up into his fist. His thighs are corded with tension, his torso is twisting left, then right. "Watch and learn, little man."
Tim swallows and takes a step forward. To increase his options, he thinks, to get just near enough for -. A nerve strike, an uppercut, something.
"Aren't you supposed to be in New York?" Tim asks. "Annoying Dick?"
Jason sighs gustily and his arm moves faster. "Can we not -. *Fuck*, just a sec -." He bites his lip and slows his hand. "No Dick when I'm -"
Tim snickers. Jason starts to sneer, or say something, but then his back arches and he's pulling hard and fast again.
Tim finds himself standing at the edge of the bed. Almost within reach of Jason, almost too close - for comfort, for safety, for -.
The *R* on Jason's tunic has bunched up, become unreadable. Jason's face is still shadowed, still invisible in the dark, but the mask, Tim's always been able to see the mask. The bed is squeaking, Jason's head is thumping the wall, and the pound of Tim's pulse in his throat and his ears seems to match the rhythm of Jason's movement.
"Like what you see, little brother?"
It has to be the arousal and psychosis, it must be, that make Jason's voice sound like that, drop in range somewhere molasses-sweet and -dark, sound like *Dick*.
Tim blinks hard. He evaluates his options: hand-to-hand, with his new training, not caught by surprise, he could take Jason.
He would have been certain of that fact a moment ago. Now, he's only nearly sure.
He has loved Dick for much longer than he's loved anyone. But he's wanted -.
Somehow, impossibly, Jason slows his hand. He tilts his head and blows upward, but his hair's sweaty, sticking to his forehead. "Why don't you slip on a cape and get comfortable? Robin?"
And now he sounds unerringly like Bruce, like the night and a rush of gritty wind. Tim smiles tightly as he retrieves the matchbook-sized package from his pocket and opens it, flaps it into his cape.
"See, that's fucking *good* -" Jason arches and pulls, his forearm hitting the light from the window, his chin driving into his chest, as Tim pulls off his khakis and polo, buckles on the cape. "Fucking preppie shit never -"
"Are you almost finished?"
"Why? Wanna lend a hand?" The tendons in Jason's neck stand out like struts on the Sprang when he moves. His free hand, ungloved, runs up and down his thigh, pinching his skin, as the breath comes out his mouth in a needy wheeze.
"No." Tim crosses his arms under the cape.
"You don't even *look* like -" Jason's mask appears to fold nearly in half as his mouth opens wide and his body jerks upward.
Tim watches him orgasm, the jitters and spilled curses, the quick pulses that darkly splatter the tunic, then his hand. Jason's breathing quickens and deepens, the mask folding horizontally as he scowls.
Sex is an ugly thing, as ugly as anything else bodily, anything filled with as much need. Ugly and glorious all at once, Tim thinks, as he plants one knee on the edge of the bed and grabs Jason's wrist.
The palm is callused, a little grimy. It tastes like motor oil and sweat wherever there's no come. And where there is, Tim licks it up in broad, quick strokes, feeling Jason shudder before him, gripping the wrist tightly enough for the bones to grind a little. He sucks Jason's fingers clean and ducks away when the gloved hand reaches for him, scraping his teeth down the knuckles.
"Oh, fuck, yes -" Jason starts to say. He stops, spasming, the only sounds the thunk of his head against the wall and a sort of deflating wheeze, when Tim strikes his sciatic nerve, right at the junction of gluts and quads.
After tying Jason's arms securely behind his back and leaving him propped in the corner like a large, half-naked doll, Tim cleans the worst of the mess. He sweeps the broken glass and fragments of circuitry into the dustpan, then straightens and rights the furniture and papers.
It does not appear that Jason was looking for anything in particular. All four of Tim's primary hiding places are secure.
He's still wearing his uniform; it hardly ever occurs to him, any more, to remove it.
He should call Bruce.
However, the fact that the prodigal psycho is still here suggests that Bruce has kept his promise not to bug the apartment. Tim makes a note to be grateful for that. Later.
After thinking it over, Tim dons a surgical glove from his belt and tucks Jason's genitals back into the shorts. Then, a smile burning at the corners of his mouth, he arranges Jason a little more comfortably, one knee up against his chest. He leaves the tunic artfully awry.
He thinks of the Batgirl plushie that Babs keeps next to her computer and smiles more widely.
He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, checking his laptop's firewall, when Jason comes to with a choked roar.
The rope is tied to the bedframe, so Jason only succeeds in banging the bed against the floor.
He keeps it up for longer than Tim had expected.
"You!" Jason shouts when Tim finishes running the security algorithms and glances up. "You fucking little piece of *shit*!"
Tim cocks his head. "Hi."
Jason's cheeks are flushed again, as dark as they were just after orgasm. "Christ, I come to you with my fucking dick and balls out and you -"
"Yes," Tim says and rolls to his feet. "You shouldn't leave yourself quite so. Vulnerable."
Jason's shoulders rise and bow as he tests the ropes. "I can get out of these."
"If you're willing to break one arm and dislocate the other shoulder, then, yes." Tim sits on the edge of the bed, forty centimeters from Jason's feet. "Go right ahead."
"You'll let me out," Jason says, panting shallowly. "You have to."
"Really? Why?"
Jason smiles with half his mouth. "Because you're a good guy."
"Funny thing about that," Tim says softly and waits until Jason tries to lean closer. "A year away and several snapped arms can change your perspective."
"Huh." Jason's brows knit together, just at the edge of the mask, and Tim gets a mouthful of sex and panic-sweat. He swallows and dodges neatly when Jason lunges. He nearly manages to knock his skull against Tim's shoulder, as the bed tips, then falls back to the floor, snapping Jason back against the eaves. "Fuck!"
"About that -" Tim starts, then waits for Jason to quiet again.
Finally, Jason cocks his head and smirks. "You need some tips, little bro?"
Don't call me that, Tim manages not to say. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Every time he gets near, the advantage slips from his grasp. Jason's panting dramatically now, squealing and pretending to beg for it. "Shut up."
"You don't even *look* like Robin, you know that?" Jason says, the porn-sounds abruptly stopping. "That stupid costume. Fucking look like *him*."
"No, I -" Tim makes himself stop.
"Yeah, you *do*," Jason replies, his smirk widening. "It's hot."
Tim closes his eyes and wishes for his mask.
Forty-seven seconds later, Jason tries again. Tim realizes that, just as Dick cannot stay still for very long, Jason cannot remain quiet.
"C'mon, what've I gotta do to get out of here?" Jason smacks his lips and Tim finally opens his eyes, only to see Jason all but *leering* at him. Jason tips up his chin and grins, wide and real and scary. "I could blow you. Wouldn't mind, either."
"Jason -"
"Suck off the little baby Bat? Not like I never have, right?"
The image, unbidden but somehow *accurate* in a way that Tim cannot name right now, of Robin kneeling before Batman, shiny black hair gripped by a gauntlet, the black cape shifting over the red, yellow, and green, flashes before his mind's eye.
He swallows and tries to smirk back. "I don't think so."
Jason shrugs - minimally, because the ropes are holding - and leans back. "Putting it out there. Might be nice for you, be on the receiving end for once."
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Tim lies as smoothly as Dick flies, as powerfully as Bruce punches; that fact is hardly new, but he feels like someone slapped him all the same.
Snorting, Jason wriggles a little closer and drops open his mouth, tongue painting his lower teeth, before he says, "Come *on*. Like he doesn't *look* at you like -." Tim shakes his head and Jason snorts again. "Like you never -"
"Once," Tim says. It's nothing like a confession. Before he was a revenant and a nightmare, Jason was a ghost, and Tim's best friend, a swirl of parti-colored smoke that urged him on and supported him. A suit and mask under glass, an example of far more than Bruce, at least, had ever intended.
Telling him the truth will cost Tim nothing. And it's not as if he has very much left *to* lose.
"Fucking *knew* it," Jason says, and the bitterness edging his tone is - new. Honest, or as honest as he can be.
Tim feels, absurdly, like he's apologizing. "Once. There was a -." He swallows again, then bites the inside of his cheek. "A spell, an age-reversal thing."
"Magic," Jason says and the bitterness is still there, still real.
Tim nods. "I was -. Him, and he was -"
"Robin."
"Yes."
For the space of one diastolic pause, they are both silent. All over again, Tim can smell the leather and ozone inside the Batmobile, see Bruce tugging at the Robin tights, feel the unfamiliar spread of his own, much larger hand grasping Bruce's bony knee and the insistent pressure of his mouth against Bruce's lips. How Bruce's - *Robin's* - mouth fell open with a sigh and small hands pushed through his hair, the rocking urgency of Robin's hips, thighs tugged down to his knees, Batman's - his own hand on the smooth, pale skin of Robin's belly.
"You're fucking crazy," Jason says at last.
Tim looks at him. "I've heard that."
Jason's far too big for the Robin suit, overgrown and *sweaty*, but when he ducks his head to hide his grin as Tim touches his chest, then his knee, he looks like he's never been anyone *but* Robin.
"I'm not going to be -" Tim pulls his hand back. "I'm never going to be him."
"Sure," Jason says. "Keep telling yourself that."
"I'm not -"
"Yeah, yeah." Jason's teeth flash white in the dark. The ghost never had fangs. "Look, am I going to blow you or what? You planning on keeping me up here forever?"
"He never replaced you," Tim says quietly.
"The fuck?" Jason bounces again and the ropes make a worrisome moaning sound.
"I -" Tim shakes his head. "Promised myself I'd tell you that."
"What is this, some fucking Afterschool Special? You about to off yourself or some shit?"
Tim lets the laughter bubble up out his chest and feels some of the pressure ease. "No, I just -"
When he catches Jason's eye, Jason goes still again. He doesn't relax - a trapped animal never relaxes - but he's watchful, another grin spreading slowly across his face. "I totally won't bite your dick off. Pinky swear."
It isn't exactly a reply, but Tim unbuckles his belt and sets it aside, then does the same with his cape, before lifting his hips and rolling down his tights. They are almost black in the dark room. He pulls the cup out of the way and shifts until he's facing Jason, dick firming in his hand.
"Well, well," Jason drawls. "For a little guy, you're set up pretty -"
"I don't trust you," Tim says and flicks his thumb over his dickhead, three more times until his thighs tense and he's got the rhythm.
Jason bares his teeth. "You really shouldn't."
"Right." Tim shifts again, up onto one knee, as his eyes flutter closed. Just for a moment, to remember the smooth expanse of the Case's glass, the ghost inside, his own face reflected against the shorts.
"Robin," Jason says, pitched just exactly right, and then: "Bro, Jesus -"
Tim opens his eyes and runs his nails over his chest, zig-zagging as he grips the base of his cock and pulls. "I owe you, and you -"
"Shut up," Jason says, still in Batman's voice. Then, more gently, sickly-sweetly, "*Nice*. Real pretty..."
Tim holds out his palm until Jason catches on and spits into it. He works faster than usual, twisting his shaft in his hand, fingering the ridge, stroking and squeezing his balls. Jason's talking to him, and Tim can hear it, hear the lewd encouragement and frankly *disturbing* images - Bruce ever wake you up with his tongue up your ass? and Tell me Dick never copped a feel and I'll give you a million dollars - hear *him*, but he's a ghost again, speaking from the gravity well just over Tim's (Batman's) id. And Tim replies, telling Jason everything, telling him more. I'll never be you and I can't be him and, despite himself, Dick, please and he's coming before he can prepare himself, Jason's breath hot and damp against his face.
He got too close and he falls away, shooting into his hand, as Jason laughs at him and calls him Robin.
He wipes himself clean and rearranges his uniform.
There isn't anything left to say; his skin is burning, his muscles twitching restlessly, as he stands over Jason.
"What?" Jason demands.
"Let's go," Tim says. His voice, thankfully, remains firm and dry.
Jason kicks him twice in the jaw, once in the solar plexus, when Tim goes to tie his knees together and hobble him.
Tim gets an elbow in his eye as he pushes Jason down the stairs, out the stables and into the night.
"Mother*fucker*," Jason shouts when Tim tosses a knife into the long grass off the walk and turns back inside.
Bruce makes a new set of shadows in the first stall.
Tim stands in front of him, checking his posture and returning the nod.
"Looks like you didn't need any help," Bruce says, and that would be his version of an explanation cum apology.
Tim nods again. He isn't surprised that Bruce is here - *was* here, for however long - but he refuses to let anything show.
"Good work," Bruce adds.
"I'm going to move into the manor," Tim says and holds onto a beam for balance. "If that's okay with you."
Bruce's teeth are not fangs, but they are white and unfamiliar as he smiles. "I'd like that."
[end]