Suits and Suitors - The End
Title: Suits and Suitors
Pairing: Batman/Gordon
Rating: NC-17 (really, I promise this time!)
Summary: Gordon’s life is never easy, and he wouldn’t have it any other way (usually).
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." ~Oscar Wilde
Disclaimer: Not mine. Unfortunately. Can’t imagine what I’d do with these two sexy men if they were left in my delicate care…
Chapter links are under the cut.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
THIS CHAPTER IS SUPER EFFING LONG. I would have broken it into two, but there's no real natural stopping place in it aside from the end. Oh well. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Chapter Ten
Summary: Because Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. Sort of. Aren't they?
When Gordon woke, he had the kind of headache one might acquire after a rousing night of revelry and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Promise away your first born child, make friends with the porcelain God, kind of drinking.
But he seemed to recall a distinct lack of alcohol precipitating this migraine, and he certainly hadn’t forgotten what had sent him into an unconscious stupor in the first place. He sighed. It might have been easier if he had.
He turned over to regard Batman, who had donned his suit and was now watching him from the shadows; the cowl had been deliberately left between them and its empty eyes stared eerily at the ceiling. The gothic, ghastly sight of it sent a strange chill down his spine. Though his muscles complained bitterly, he forced himself to sit up and settle back against the headboard. Time to pay the piper.
Would it be easier to imagine in the darkness that it was his lover regarding him? Or should he close his eyes and picture Bruce Wayne’s face? Would that make it simpler to hear the conversation that was sure to follow? Resentment spiked through him and he had to bite his lip for a moment.
“Do I call you Bruce or Batman?”
The shadow made a noise, a garbled sound of uncertainty, neither yes or no. For some unknown reason, it made Gordon flinch in reaction. Batman didn’t make indistinct noises of uncertainty. Or have twinges of uncertainty. At all.
Gordon decided on Bruce. This conversation was too personal to have while calling someone ‘Batman’ (an ironic thought, as they’d been having sex long before Bruce Wayne’s name came into the picture).
“That depends on who you want to be talking to.”
Gordon shook him head. “I think it’s a little late for that game, don’t you?” He asked tiredly.
He watched those armored hands clench and relax in a deliberate bid for calm. He felt a perverse need to upset that attempt and suppressed it for the childish impulse it was. He was an adult, he would act like one. No matter how tempted he was to do otherwise.
“I didn’t do this to hurt you.”
“No,” he agreed, nodding. “I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t. But I need you to explain. Now.”
Bruce nodded, or Gordon thought he saw the impression of a nod in the night. There was a long silence. Gordon did his best not to get angry even though he felt entitled.
“Starting at the beginning is usually best,” he prompted finally when he thought he’d waited long enough.
Bruce sighed from the shadows and leaned forward where the moonlight lit up his features like a macabre silhouette, deep yawning pits of black where his eyes should be. Gordon stared into the abyss and was vaguely surprised to find himself unafraid.
“Do you love me, Jim?”
Gordon, carefully, did not react to the radical change in topic, even though his heart leapt at the question. It was the first time either of them had mentioned love out loud. He kept his voice steady through a massive act of will. “I’m exercising my right to silence.”
The weak attempt at humor fell hopelessly flat, but Bruce didn’t seem to notice as he barked a laugh that sounded like it hurt.
“I’m not an easy man to love. Ask Alfred. Ask Rachel.” He shut his eyes, the deep black turning a deeper black; Gordon felt a pang of sympathy. Sometimes he still woke up thinking he’d have to take the kids to school or get breakfast ready for Barbara - that kind of long-ingrained instinct was hard to let go of and very painful. He wanted to comfort Bruce badly, but held himself back.
“Bats frighten me, and now they frighten Gotham; can a person love the face of fear?” The man sounded wistful as he asked, but factual. Gordon almost, almost, reached out for him, but the only comfort he had to offer was his silence. He deserved an explanation, and it could never have been an easy one. Like tearing off a bandage, perhaps it was simply better to just get it done.
Bruce didn’t look at him, which was infuriating, since Gordon found that in contrast, he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
“They say Batman is the mask, but that’s not really true. All I seem to wear is masks; Batman’s face is only one of them.” He took off his gloves with even, measured movements, as he often did under stress; it seemed to be the mans one nervous tick. The detective in Gordon filed that information away for later. “Bruce is a bigger part of me than I thought - than Rachel thought. Alfred saw it. Can you understand when I tell you that - I needed you. And I needed you to need me. All the parts of me.”
“You could have told me after the first dinner, or anytime between then and now. I would have understood.” Gordon said calmly, very calmly. His head swirled with the magnitude of what was being said, and what was yet unsaid.
The naked fingers painted an invisible web on the bedspread between them, traces of frustration leaking into their delicate stillness. “I could have told you,” he agreed. “And you would have brushed Bruce Wayne off as a persona or an annoyance. You were after the Bat; you needed him at your side and he needed you. And Batman is more of me than anything else is in this world. But I was Bruce first. Maybe it was selfish but I wanted you to see, I wanted to - to share…” He stopped, as though choosing his words carefully or perhaps rethinking the words he’d intended to say. “I only intended friendship. When this began. All the days after. Until the night you told me - told Bruce - to stop flirting, and I realized why it bothered you… ” Bruce laughed, sounding breathless and amazed.
“Is it possible to be jealous of myself? Up until then it had been a - a fiction, an act, a game, and I don’t mean at your expense. Bruce Wayne has always been an incorrigible flirt. It didn’t - mean anything. At first. I certainly never meant for you to want him, like - that. But once I saw what was happening it was hard to let it pass, and I admit I let it go farther than I intended.” He took a breath, the kind of breath a person takes when they’re about to dive into unknown waters. “I let Rachel walk away because she couldn’t reconcile the two halves of me. I needed you to see me honestly, without bias. I won’t apologize for wanting my lover to want all of me, just for me.”
Gordon grit his teeth, seesawing between irritation at the mans stubbornness and gratitude for the very same thing. Batman made excuses to no one, it seemed, not even his lover. As frustrating as that was, it was definitely not a ‘Wayne’ comment, and the brief glimpse of his partner suffused Gordon with hope. Hope that the person he’d fallen for was there, under all the pomp and prestige of the Wayne family name; that they could work this out. Although, still. Couldn’t he have at least pretended to be sorry for the hours of mental torment he’d put him through?
“But I will apologize,” the infuriating reprobate continued gently, “for making you so miserable while I got over my - cowardice.”
And if the man didn’t stop reading his mind like that, soon Gordon would have nothing at all to sulk about. He deflated, defeated at this show of remorse in the same way a bullet might have dropped him on another day. The reasons behind the - charade - he could, and did, understand. Would have even been thrilled for, if not for the ache in his chest and the burn of forgotten anger. To be so trusted, to have the man so enamored of him…
He cast his mind out for something less urgent, less intrinsically emotional when his emotions were still seething so uncertainly.
“I just can’t believe I didn’t know right away,” he said finally. “That you… It seems so obvious now.”
“Does it?”
“What?”
“Does it really seem so obvious? Batman and Bruce don’t mesh as well as you might think; everyone would be guessing about them otherwise.” There was a hint of a smile in that voice and Gordon supposed that if there was anything to be proud of, successful dual identities was it. If only he hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire. “There’s a lot of effort that goes into keeping the two of them separate. You’re in the unique position of being around when it’s impossible to keep them distinct. I wanted to stop pretending.” He smiled depreciatingly.
Gordon took a breath to say something, something along the lines of, if you’d only been honest, or, bad form to trick your lover like that, or, how dare you, etc, but he felt like the wind had been taken out of his sails. Much as he’d like to argue for complete disclosure from start to finish, realistically the idea was flawed. At what point in a relationship did you deem it safe to inform your lover of your secret crime-fighting, kevlar-toting nighttime activities? Was there an average waiting period for revealing secret identities? An application to fill out? And even aside from that, he was in the extremely awkward position of either accepting his lover’s flaws and faults, or holding his insecurities against him. How did you tell someone wanting to be accepted was wrong, even if the means of gaining that acceptance had been frustrating in its consequences?
If only it hadn’t felt so underhanded. It wasn’t just the omission of truth; Bruce had lied to him, had been sleeping with him in the darkness, making unspoken promises, and pursuing him by day with smiles and laughter. And in all that time he’d never once even hinted-
Or had he?
The security of Gotham has always been a concern of mine, Commissioner Gordon. // Sometimes you never know what you're missing until you take a step beyond your defenses. // Wayne is - in a unique position in Gotham. You could say we have an - understanding.
What do you need, Jim?
Okay. So he hadn’t lied. More - misrepresented himself. But it was all the same thing, wasn’t it? And if it wasn’t, then where did he draw the line? Gordon spent a moment just digesting. The silence felt swollen with possibilities, seething with unknown potential.
“Jim, I want to - I need to ask you something.”
Gordon took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hearing the tone of voice change from apologetic to purposeful. He had an inkling of where this was going. “Okay.”
“You knew, didn’t you? Before tonight. You never gave any real indication, but there were times… you hesitated. And I thought you might - know. Even if you - didn’t want to know.”
Gordon pressed his fingers into his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut against a painful truth. Alright. Maybe Bruce hadn’t been trying all that hard to keep him in the dark. Maybe Gordon had helped him, just a little. A very little. Subconsciously. Mostly.
“Know that you and Bruce Wayne were one and the same? No. I didn’t know.” He snorted a barely there laugh and took the step outside himself that he’d been fighting for weeks. “But- Okay. Okay. You’re right. Aren’t you always? There was a big part of me that didn’t want to know.”
Bruce was silent, and he wondered tiredly what he was thinking, if he was as bewildered as Gordon was by the entire thing.
“Why?” He was asked at last, and Gordon opened his eyes.
“I’m a cop. There were times… the chess game. You remember in the car, at the station, I (he stumbled on his words, but forged on) bit you. Your hand. When you gave me the king, I could see - something - but I ignored it. I guess I didn’t want to see it.” He rubbed his hands, hard, over his face, hard enough that he was seeing spots by the time he let go. He flung his arms up in frustration, trying to think through his own motivations. Self-deception was a bit of an art, especially for a cop, for whom deception was always noticeable.
“It was all impossible anyway, wasn’t it? Bruce Wayne, the Batman? Having sex with the billionaire playboy? Yeah, right. Insanity. The idea was so farfetched it was laughable.” Hell, it was still laughable. Except for the humor part. “That was the first time I considered it, and discarded it, but there were other times, too. Sometimes it was the things you said. Not what you said, but how you said it. One time you laughed and I could swear it wasn’t you laughing.” He sighed, and saw that his hands were shaking. He’d always been rock steady with a gun no matter what strain he was under, but he’d never been good at emotional displays. God, what a pair they made.
“You talk about the two halves of yourself, how neither defines you, or is completely real - alone. Well, sometimes our - relationship - was never truly real either. Sometimes it felt like knowing, one way or another, would be the beginning of the end. And to be honest, I don’t know how I felt about the possibility that you and he were… the same. There were times early on when I didn’t even like Bruce. So I - shut it out. But I might have suspected, if I’d let myself.”
Bruce chuckled, in derision or amazement, Gordon couldn’t tell. “And I thought I’d been so careful.”
“Oh, you were. It helps that I’ve known you in the, ah, biblical sense for months now, but Bruce Wayne has only been knocking of my closet door for weeks. And I can count on one hand the number of times you touched me without wearing bulletproof armor.”
There was a pause where they both waited, as though daring the other to speak first. At last Bruce asked, quite hesitantly, quite unlike the vigilante part of himself, “where does that leave us?”
Gordon frowned. “I don’t know. I lied to myself certainly as often as you didn’t tell me the truth. And it’s not as though I didn’t know the risks going into a sexual relationship with a man who goes by the name ‘Batman’ - I just didn’t think I’d be at risk from you as well as the rest of Gotham.”
Bruce made a noise like pain without actually saying anything. Gordon sighed, but didn’t take it back. “I can understand why you did it and still not like it. Partnership is about trust. I went through years in this town watching over my shoulder for the unknown. I don’t want to do that with you.”
“That’s interesting, because I was thinking the same thing when I started this,” Bruce said, completely neutral. Gordon winced. Okay. So there were good reasons for what he’d done, even the way he’d done it, even the long, lingering nature of it. That didn’t mean Gordon had to like it. He sighed and let go of the last of his anger. Bruce was clever and funny, and Gordon liked him a lot. He could learn to like the parts of him he saw in his lover. Together the two of them formed the man he’d fallen for, who existed in a world of uncertainty as best he could, an island untouched by the squalor around it, enveloped by it and part of it but uncorrupted by it.
Still, it seemed too easy to just let it go at that.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“Just one?”
He laughed, the tension evaporating slowly. “For now. Eventually I want to know the whole thing.”
“That sounds like a long-term proposition, Commissioner,” Bruce said, a sly look of cleverness on his face, and it was a purely non-Batman look. Gordon tried not to be surprised. It was going to take him a little while to put the two together in his head.
“Don’t try negotiating yet - the contract is still on the table,” he said sternly but Bruce was unrepentant, and there was a smile on his face that on another man might have been called relieved.
“I want to know if the need to be - known - was the only reason you did this. Sought me out.” There was more to this. Gordon could feel it.
Bruce hesitated, looking like a man debating between prudence and honesty. Gordon just gave him a long, hard look and had to suppress a grin of satisfaction as he deflated, his playboy exterior collapsing like a popped bubble.
“No,” he admitted. “I - initially, I did it for you. For both of us,” he corrected hastily when Gordon opened his mouth in outrage to say - something.
“There were times it felt like I was - consuming you, with my darkness. There are places inside me that aren’t fit for company. If it’s in my power to do it, and most things are, I’d give you anything you wanted, anything you needed. I’ve never held myself back from something once I’m committed, but I’m sure you’ve guessed that.” He certainly had. A man didn’t dress up like a Bat and spend what must have been years learning to take out criminal trash and fly through the air like his namesake, unless he had a streak of dedication a mile wide.
“At first I was only thinking about giving you an out with Bruce, and when the time came that you saw… I thought we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. I knew you needed a balance, someone who could be everything Batman’s wasn’t. At first I thought Barbara might... but no.”
The same breathless excitement from moments before sparkled in his eyes, and it drew Gordon in like a moth to a flame. “Only, it turned out you were more receptive to Bruce than I thought. And… the longer I pretended to be him, the more I realized I wasn’t - really - pretending anymore. Bruce Wayne and Batman are - extremes. Roles, you could say, but still - me. Like a dice cube - roll it and another persona pops up.” He winked, and Gordon rolled his eyes. He wondered how much of the humor belonged to Bruce and how much to Batman. Did they have the same sense of humor? Did they read the same comics, watch the same funny sitcoms? Did they even watch sitcoms? Christ, he was making them sound like two separate people instead of just one person with two distinct personalities. It made him suddenly, fiercely glad that Batman was on their side - if he’d ever ran with the likes of the Joker, with his intelligence and fragile psychological balance… Gordon got sudden, frightening chills. All the parts of Batman, all the savvy of Bruce Wayne, all the resources at both their disposals, working toward the wrongs ends. What a fucking scary thought.
“It’s a disconcerting, terrifying thing,” Bruce said quietly, and Gordon recoiled at the unexpected mirror of his thoughts. As he continued, Gordon realized what he was talking about, and the intensity of his gaze was like a branding iron. “To be known. Wearing masks, but not confined to them. Liberating. I liked it. I - wanted it. But you’re right - it didn’t start that way. I thought I was giving you what you wanted. Needed. I just didn’t realize I was giving it to me too.”
“So basically what you’re saying is - you were trying to protect me. From getting lost in everything. In you. You don’t think that’s a little - arrogant? And let’s not discuss how being called needy pisses me off. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Bruce was squirming, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere else but here; repentance was a good look on him. Gordon didn’t let his expression unthaw a bit, determined to see the man fidget like the recalcitrant little brat that he was. This was going to stop. He didn’t need to be protected, and they were going to get that straight right now.
“When Barbara left you,” Bruce said gently, and the pang of pain was so harsh Gordon had to swallow a gasp. “I didn’t know it would come to this. Before that, I never expected anything at all to come of this. Without Rachel... but then you came to me, on the roof. And I wanted - I needed for this to work. I needed you.”
I needed you. The words bounced around Gordon’s skull as though it were hollow (sometimes he felt like it was) and each time they echoed he flushed with more pleasure at them. He struggled to keep the smile from his face; no need to let the man know he’d been forgiven so soon.
And no need to be the only uncomfortable (needy) one here, either. “If you wanted to tie me to you further,” he said, equally as gentle, “you could have done it without all the drama.” He repressed a triumphant smirk at the guilty flush that washed over pale cheeks.
Bruce floundered for only a moment, then waved a hand defensively, recovering. “Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted,” he said, a sudden grin crossing his lips. Gordon forced himself not to think of those lips in anything but platonic terms at the moment. No thinking. Check. “Don’t tell me that a lover who could support you during the day in full view of Gotham, where the Batman couldn’t go, wasn’t tempting.”
“Alright,” he admitted. “I was tempted. What would you have done if I’d taken you up on it?”
“Told you the truth, of course. I didn’t set out to bed you, much as the thought might stroke your ego, but as a happy coincidence, well… I would have told you earlier, if you hadn’t run out of the penthouse like a bat out of hell. Excuse the pun.” He winked, fully a Bruce Wayne billionaire playboy look, and Gordon laughed, helplessly.
Where did they go from here? He didn’t know but hopefully they’d work it out. Together.
“Okay. Alright. So, no more lies then?” He asked, and wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear, whether he was looking for a playboy’s reassurance of the Batman’s ambiguity.
When he looked up, the dark knight looked back at him and gladness solidified inside Gordon. He liked Bruce Wayne, and in another life they’d have been good friends without Batman’s machinations - but he’d fallen in love with the darker side of Bruce, his sense of duty, his sacrifice, his loyalty, even his silence, and so much more. He was not disappointed to see his lover in the face of his friend. Or vice versa.
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
“I know,” Gordon said, and from the look on Bruce’s face he must have been smiling as maniacally as he felt like he was. It was his turn to wink. “But that doesn’t mean that next time I won’t lock you out of the penthouse.”
“That reminds me. Much as I adore the - atmosphere - of your, er, home, I have this mansion, Wayne manor, and it’s nearly finished being rebuilt…”
“In that case, you can keep the penthouse, and I’ll just lock you out of the manor.”
Bruce laughed in a way Batman might never have, open and carefree, but the grip he took Gordon’s arm in was purely a proprietary Batman hold. Gordon felt happiness move through him like water in the desert, like joy made tangible, the end of a long journey that began in another.
This time, when he held out his arms, it was his turn to reach into the shadows, and pull his lover willingly out of the night.
The End.
I hope you enjoyed the emotional roller-coaster. I have yet ANOTHER idea for these two gentlemen hopping around my brain, but I don't know if I want to continue it as a third to this series or start an entirely new series. Hmm. Decisions... In any case, I'm far from done with this fandom, so I hope you guys are looking forward to more.
Maybe this means I can finally go back and read (and comment) on some of the lovely stuff that's being going up in the community. Back soon with another story (or many other stories... =D). Cheers. - Ragdoll.
P.S - A quick tag, kudos to Brushed_Velvet, I think it was, I'm pretty sure you made a comment on the hand thing a couple of chapters ago, only I couldn't say anything since it was one of my notes for the last chapter lol
Pairing: Batman/Gordon
Rating: NC-17 (really, I promise this time!)
Summary: Gordon’s life is never easy, and he wouldn’t have it any other way (usually).
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." ~Oscar Wilde
Disclaimer: Not mine. Unfortunately. Can’t imagine what I’d do with these two sexy men if they were left in my delicate care…
Chapter links are under the cut.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
THIS CHAPTER IS SUPER EFFING LONG. I would have broken it into two, but there's no real natural stopping place in it aside from the end. Oh well. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Chapter Ten
Summary: Because Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. Sort of. Aren't they?
When Gordon woke, he had the kind of headache one might acquire after a rousing night of revelry and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Promise away your first born child, make friends with the porcelain God, kind of drinking.
But he seemed to recall a distinct lack of alcohol precipitating this migraine, and he certainly hadn’t forgotten what had sent him into an unconscious stupor in the first place. He sighed. It might have been easier if he had.
He turned over to regard Batman, who had donned his suit and was now watching him from the shadows; the cowl had been deliberately left between them and its empty eyes stared eerily at the ceiling. The gothic, ghastly sight of it sent a strange chill down his spine. Though his muscles complained bitterly, he forced himself to sit up and settle back against the headboard. Time to pay the piper.
Would it be easier to imagine in the darkness that it was his lover regarding him? Or should he close his eyes and picture Bruce Wayne’s face? Would that make it simpler to hear the conversation that was sure to follow? Resentment spiked through him and he had to bite his lip for a moment.
“Do I call you Bruce or Batman?”
The shadow made a noise, a garbled sound of uncertainty, neither yes or no. For some unknown reason, it made Gordon flinch in reaction. Batman didn’t make indistinct noises of uncertainty. Or have twinges of uncertainty. At all.
Gordon decided on Bruce. This conversation was too personal to have while calling someone ‘Batman’ (an ironic thought, as they’d been having sex long before Bruce Wayne’s name came into the picture).
“That depends on who you want to be talking to.”
Gordon shook him head. “I think it’s a little late for that game, don’t you?” He asked tiredly.
He watched those armored hands clench and relax in a deliberate bid for calm. He felt a perverse need to upset that attempt and suppressed it for the childish impulse it was. He was an adult, he would act like one. No matter how tempted he was to do otherwise.
“I didn’t do this to hurt you.”
“No,” he agreed, nodding. “I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t. But I need you to explain. Now.”
Bruce nodded, or Gordon thought he saw the impression of a nod in the night. There was a long silence. Gordon did his best not to get angry even though he felt entitled.
“Starting at the beginning is usually best,” he prompted finally when he thought he’d waited long enough.
Bruce sighed from the shadows and leaned forward where the moonlight lit up his features like a macabre silhouette, deep yawning pits of black where his eyes should be. Gordon stared into the abyss and was vaguely surprised to find himself unafraid.
“Do you love me, Jim?”
Gordon, carefully, did not react to the radical change in topic, even though his heart leapt at the question. It was the first time either of them had mentioned love out loud. He kept his voice steady through a massive act of will. “I’m exercising my right to silence.”
The weak attempt at humor fell hopelessly flat, but Bruce didn’t seem to notice as he barked a laugh that sounded like it hurt.
“I’m not an easy man to love. Ask Alfred. Ask Rachel.” He shut his eyes, the deep black turning a deeper black; Gordon felt a pang of sympathy. Sometimes he still woke up thinking he’d have to take the kids to school or get breakfast ready for Barbara - that kind of long-ingrained instinct was hard to let go of and very painful. He wanted to comfort Bruce badly, but held himself back.
“Bats frighten me, and now they frighten Gotham; can a person love the face of fear?” The man sounded wistful as he asked, but factual. Gordon almost, almost, reached out for him, but the only comfort he had to offer was his silence. He deserved an explanation, and it could never have been an easy one. Like tearing off a bandage, perhaps it was simply better to just get it done.
Bruce didn’t look at him, which was infuriating, since Gordon found that in contrast, he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
“They say Batman is the mask, but that’s not really true. All I seem to wear is masks; Batman’s face is only one of them.” He took off his gloves with even, measured movements, as he often did under stress; it seemed to be the mans one nervous tick. The detective in Gordon filed that information away for later. “Bruce is a bigger part of me than I thought - than Rachel thought. Alfred saw it. Can you understand when I tell you that - I needed you. And I needed you to need me. All the parts of me.”
“You could have told me after the first dinner, or anytime between then and now. I would have understood.” Gordon said calmly, very calmly. His head swirled with the magnitude of what was being said, and what was yet unsaid.
The naked fingers painted an invisible web on the bedspread between them, traces of frustration leaking into their delicate stillness. “I could have told you,” he agreed. “And you would have brushed Bruce Wayne off as a persona or an annoyance. You were after the Bat; you needed him at your side and he needed you. And Batman is more of me than anything else is in this world. But I was Bruce first. Maybe it was selfish but I wanted you to see, I wanted to - to share…” He stopped, as though choosing his words carefully or perhaps rethinking the words he’d intended to say. “I only intended friendship. When this began. All the days after. Until the night you told me - told Bruce - to stop flirting, and I realized why it bothered you… ” Bruce laughed, sounding breathless and amazed.
“Is it possible to be jealous of myself? Up until then it had been a - a fiction, an act, a game, and I don’t mean at your expense. Bruce Wayne has always been an incorrigible flirt. It didn’t - mean anything. At first. I certainly never meant for you to want him, like - that. But once I saw what was happening it was hard to let it pass, and I admit I let it go farther than I intended.” He took a breath, the kind of breath a person takes when they’re about to dive into unknown waters. “I let Rachel walk away because she couldn’t reconcile the two halves of me. I needed you to see me honestly, without bias. I won’t apologize for wanting my lover to want all of me, just for me.”
Gordon grit his teeth, seesawing between irritation at the mans stubbornness and gratitude for the very same thing. Batman made excuses to no one, it seemed, not even his lover. As frustrating as that was, it was definitely not a ‘Wayne’ comment, and the brief glimpse of his partner suffused Gordon with hope. Hope that the person he’d fallen for was there, under all the pomp and prestige of the Wayne family name; that they could work this out. Although, still. Couldn’t he have at least pretended to be sorry for the hours of mental torment he’d put him through?
“But I will apologize,” the infuriating reprobate continued gently, “for making you so miserable while I got over my - cowardice.”
And if the man didn’t stop reading his mind like that, soon Gordon would have nothing at all to sulk about. He deflated, defeated at this show of remorse in the same way a bullet might have dropped him on another day. The reasons behind the - charade - he could, and did, understand. Would have even been thrilled for, if not for the ache in his chest and the burn of forgotten anger. To be so trusted, to have the man so enamored of him…
He cast his mind out for something less urgent, less intrinsically emotional when his emotions were still seething so uncertainly.
“I just can’t believe I didn’t know right away,” he said finally. “That you… It seems so obvious now.”
“Does it?”
“What?”
“Does it really seem so obvious? Batman and Bruce don’t mesh as well as you might think; everyone would be guessing about them otherwise.” There was a hint of a smile in that voice and Gordon supposed that if there was anything to be proud of, successful dual identities was it. If only he hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire. “There’s a lot of effort that goes into keeping the two of them separate. You’re in the unique position of being around when it’s impossible to keep them distinct. I wanted to stop pretending.” He smiled depreciatingly.
Gordon took a breath to say something, something along the lines of, if you’d only been honest, or, bad form to trick your lover like that, or, how dare you, etc, but he felt like the wind had been taken out of his sails. Much as he’d like to argue for complete disclosure from start to finish, realistically the idea was flawed. At what point in a relationship did you deem it safe to inform your lover of your secret crime-fighting, kevlar-toting nighttime activities? Was there an average waiting period for revealing secret identities? An application to fill out? And even aside from that, he was in the extremely awkward position of either accepting his lover’s flaws and faults, or holding his insecurities against him. How did you tell someone wanting to be accepted was wrong, even if the means of gaining that acceptance had been frustrating in its consequences?
If only it hadn’t felt so underhanded. It wasn’t just the omission of truth; Bruce had lied to him, had been sleeping with him in the darkness, making unspoken promises, and pursuing him by day with smiles and laughter. And in all that time he’d never once even hinted-
Or had he?
The security of Gotham has always been a concern of mine, Commissioner Gordon. // Sometimes you never know what you're missing until you take a step beyond your defenses. // Wayne is - in a unique position in Gotham. You could say we have an - understanding.
What do you need, Jim?
Okay. So he hadn’t lied. More - misrepresented himself. But it was all the same thing, wasn’t it? And if it wasn’t, then where did he draw the line? Gordon spent a moment just digesting. The silence felt swollen with possibilities, seething with unknown potential.
“Jim, I want to - I need to ask you something.”
Gordon took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hearing the tone of voice change from apologetic to purposeful. He had an inkling of where this was going. “Okay.”
“You knew, didn’t you? Before tonight. You never gave any real indication, but there were times… you hesitated. And I thought you might - know. Even if you - didn’t want to know.”
Gordon pressed his fingers into his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut against a painful truth. Alright. Maybe Bruce hadn’t been trying all that hard to keep him in the dark. Maybe Gordon had helped him, just a little. A very little. Subconsciously. Mostly.
“Know that you and Bruce Wayne were one and the same? No. I didn’t know.” He snorted a barely there laugh and took the step outside himself that he’d been fighting for weeks. “But- Okay. Okay. You’re right. Aren’t you always? There was a big part of me that didn’t want to know.”
Bruce was silent, and he wondered tiredly what he was thinking, if he was as bewildered as Gordon was by the entire thing.
“Why?” He was asked at last, and Gordon opened his eyes.
“I’m a cop. There were times… the chess game. You remember in the car, at the station, I (he stumbled on his words, but forged on) bit you. Your hand. When you gave me the king, I could see - something - but I ignored it. I guess I didn’t want to see it.” He rubbed his hands, hard, over his face, hard enough that he was seeing spots by the time he let go. He flung his arms up in frustration, trying to think through his own motivations. Self-deception was a bit of an art, especially for a cop, for whom deception was always noticeable.
“It was all impossible anyway, wasn’t it? Bruce Wayne, the Batman? Having sex with the billionaire playboy? Yeah, right. Insanity. The idea was so farfetched it was laughable.” Hell, it was still laughable. Except for the humor part. “That was the first time I considered it, and discarded it, but there were other times, too. Sometimes it was the things you said. Not what you said, but how you said it. One time you laughed and I could swear it wasn’t you laughing.” He sighed, and saw that his hands were shaking. He’d always been rock steady with a gun no matter what strain he was under, but he’d never been good at emotional displays. God, what a pair they made.
“You talk about the two halves of yourself, how neither defines you, or is completely real - alone. Well, sometimes our - relationship - was never truly real either. Sometimes it felt like knowing, one way or another, would be the beginning of the end. And to be honest, I don’t know how I felt about the possibility that you and he were… the same. There were times early on when I didn’t even like Bruce. So I - shut it out. But I might have suspected, if I’d let myself.”
Bruce chuckled, in derision or amazement, Gordon couldn’t tell. “And I thought I’d been so careful.”
“Oh, you were. It helps that I’ve known you in the, ah, biblical sense for months now, but Bruce Wayne has only been knocking of my closet door for weeks. And I can count on one hand the number of times you touched me without wearing bulletproof armor.”
There was a pause where they both waited, as though daring the other to speak first. At last Bruce asked, quite hesitantly, quite unlike the vigilante part of himself, “where does that leave us?”
Gordon frowned. “I don’t know. I lied to myself certainly as often as you didn’t tell me the truth. And it’s not as though I didn’t know the risks going into a sexual relationship with a man who goes by the name ‘Batman’ - I just didn’t think I’d be at risk from you as well as the rest of Gotham.”
Bruce made a noise like pain without actually saying anything. Gordon sighed, but didn’t take it back. “I can understand why you did it and still not like it. Partnership is about trust. I went through years in this town watching over my shoulder for the unknown. I don’t want to do that with you.”
“That’s interesting, because I was thinking the same thing when I started this,” Bruce said, completely neutral. Gordon winced. Okay. So there were good reasons for what he’d done, even the way he’d done it, even the long, lingering nature of it. That didn’t mean Gordon had to like it. He sighed and let go of the last of his anger. Bruce was clever and funny, and Gordon liked him a lot. He could learn to like the parts of him he saw in his lover. Together the two of them formed the man he’d fallen for, who existed in a world of uncertainty as best he could, an island untouched by the squalor around it, enveloped by it and part of it but uncorrupted by it.
Still, it seemed too easy to just let it go at that.
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“Just one?”
He laughed, the tension evaporating slowly. “For now. Eventually I want to know the whole thing.”
“That sounds like a long-term proposition, Commissioner,” Bruce said, a sly look of cleverness on his face, and it was a purely non-Batman look. Gordon tried not to be surprised. It was going to take him a little while to put the two together in his head.
“Don’t try negotiating yet - the contract is still on the table,” he said sternly but Bruce was unrepentant, and there was a smile on his face that on another man might have been called relieved.
“I want to know if the need to be - known - was the only reason you did this. Sought me out.” There was more to this. Gordon could feel it.
Bruce hesitated, looking like a man debating between prudence and honesty. Gordon just gave him a long, hard look and had to suppress a grin of satisfaction as he deflated, his playboy exterior collapsing like a popped bubble.
“No,” he admitted. “I - initially, I did it for you. For both of us,” he corrected hastily when Gordon opened his mouth in outrage to say - something.
“There were times it felt like I was - consuming you, with my darkness. There are places inside me that aren’t fit for company. If it’s in my power to do it, and most things are, I’d give you anything you wanted, anything you needed. I’ve never held myself back from something once I’m committed, but I’m sure you’ve guessed that.” He certainly had. A man didn’t dress up like a Bat and spend what must have been years learning to take out criminal trash and fly through the air like his namesake, unless he had a streak of dedication a mile wide.
“At first I was only thinking about giving you an out with Bruce, and when the time came that you saw… I thought we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. I knew you needed a balance, someone who could be everything Batman’s wasn’t. At first I thought Barbara might... but no.”
The same breathless excitement from moments before sparkled in his eyes, and it drew Gordon in like a moth to a flame. “Only, it turned out you were more receptive to Bruce than I thought. And… the longer I pretended to be him, the more I realized I wasn’t - really - pretending anymore. Bruce Wayne and Batman are - extremes. Roles, you could say, but still - me. Like a dice cube - roll it and another persona pops up.” He winked, and Gordon rolled his eyes. He wondered how much of the humor belonged to Bruce and how much to Batman. Did they have the same sense of humor? Did they read the same comics, watch the same funny sitcoms? Did they even watch sitcoms? Christ, he was making them sound like two separate people instead of just one person with two distinct personalities. It made him suddenly, fiercely glad that Batman was on their side - if he’d ever ran with the likes of the Joker, with his intelligence and fragile psychological balance… Gordon got sudden, frightening chills. All the parts of Batman, all the savvy of Bruce Wayne, all the resources at both their disposals, working toward the wrongs ends. What a fucking scary thought.
“It’s a disconcerting, terrifying thing,” Bruce said quietly, and Gordon recoiled at the unexpected mirror of his thoughts. As he continued, Gordon realized what he was talking about, and the intensity of his gaze was like a branding iron. “To be known. Wearing masks, but not confined to them. Liberating. I liked it. I - wanted it. But you’re right - it didn’t start that way. I thought I was giving you what you wanted. Needed. I just didn’t realize I was giving it to me too.”
“So basically what you’re saying is - you were trying to protect me. From getting lost in everything. In you. You don’t think that’s a little - arrogant? And let’s not discuss how being called needy pisses me off. Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Bruce was squirming, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere else but here; repentance was a good look on him. Gordon didn’t let his expression unthaw a bit, determined to see the man fidget like the recalcitrant little brat that he was. This was going to stop. He didn’t need to be protected, and they were going to get that straight right now.
“When Barbara left you,” Bruce said gently, and the pang of pain was so harsh Gordon had to swallow a gasp. “I didn’t know it would come to this. Before that, I never expected anything at all to come of this. Without Rachel... but then you came to me, on the roof. And I wanted - I needed for this to work. I needed you.”
I needed you. The words bounced around Gordon’s skull as though it were hollow (sometimes he felt like it was) and each time they echoed he flushed with more pleasure at them. He struggled to keep the smile from his face; no need to let the man know he’d been forgiven so soon.
And no need to be the only uncomfortable (needy) one here, either. “If you wanted to tie me to you further,” he said, equally as gentle, “you could have done it without all the drama.” He repressed a triumphant smirk at the guilty flush that washed over pale cheeks.
Bruce floundered for only a moment, then waved a hand defensively, recovering. “Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted,” he said, a sudden grin crossing his lips. Gordon forced himself not to think of those lips in anything but platonic terms at the moment. No thinking. Check. “Don’t tell me that a lover who could support you during the day in full view of Gotham, where the Batman couldn’t go, wasn’t tempting.”
“Alright,” he admitted. “I was tempted. What would you have done if I’d taken you up on it?”
“Told you the truth, of course. I didn’t set out to bed you, much as the thought might stroke your ego, but as a happy coincidence, well… I would have told you earlier, if you hadn’t run out of the penthouse like a bat out of hell. Excuse the pun.” He winked, fully a Bruce Wayne billionaire playboy look, and Gordon laughed, helplessly.
Where did they go from here? He didn’t know but hopefully they’d work it out. Together.
“Okay. Alright. So, no more lies then?” He asked, and wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear, whether he was looking for a playboy’s reassurance of the Batman’s ambiguity.
When he looked up, the dark knight looked back at him and gladness solidified inside Gordon. He liked Bruce Wayne, and in another life they’d have been good friends without Batman’s machinations - but he’d fallen in love with the darker side of Bruce, his sense of duty, his sacrifice, his loyalty, even his silence, and so much more. He was not disappointed to see his lover in the face of his friend. Or vice versa.
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
“I know,” Gordon said, and from the look on Bruce’s face he must have been smiling as maniacally as he felt like he was. It was his turn to wink. “But that doesn’t mean that next time I won’t lock you out of the penthouse.”
“That reminds me. Much as I adore the - atmosphere - of your, er, home, I have this mansion, Wayne manor, and it’s nearly finished being rebuilt…”
“In that case, you can keep the penthouse, and I’ll just lock you out of the manor.”
Bruce laughed in a way Batman might never have, open and carefree, but the grip he took Gordon’s arm in was purely a proprietary Batman hold. Gordon felt happiness move through him like water in the desert, like joy made tangible, the end of a long journey that began in another.
This time, when he held out his arms, it was his turn to reach into the shadows, and pull his lover willingly out of the night.
The End.
I hope you enjoyed the emotional roller-coaster. I have yet ANOTHER idea for these two gentlemen hopping around my brain, but I don't know if I want to continue it as a third to this series or start an entirely new series. Hmm. Decisions... In any case, I'm far from done with this fandom, so I hope you guys are looking forward to more.
Maybe this means I can finally go back and read (and comment) on some of the lovely stuff that's being going up in the community. Back soon with another story (or many other stories... =D). Cheers. - Ragdoll.
P.S - A quick tag, kudos to Brushed_Velvet, I think it was, I'm pretty sure you made a comment on the hand thing a couple of chapters ago, only I couldn't say anything since it was one of my notes for the last chapter lol