Disclaimers: Not even close to mine.

Spoilers: None, really.

Summary: Jason breaks a rule. Bruce fails to live in
the past.

Ratings Note/Warnings: NC-17. Contains content
some readers may find disturbing.

Author's Note: I'm pretty sure this isn't my fault.
In fact, I'm pretty sure this is LC's fault. And
Weirdness Magnet's. And everyone's but mine.

Acknowledgments: To the #deliciouscrack crew
for audiencing and encouragement.

*

Discipline.

For all the importance it has had to his life, discipline is
remarkably easy to forget. It's the pain you ignore to
finish the job, the exhaustion that fades into false and
blessed mania. It's the stale, terrifying taste of oxygen
through a rebreather, and the way it becomes simple,
ignorable necessity until he's finally able to remove it
and breathe again.

Discipline was a fact, and one not unpleasant so much
as well-seated -- *firmly* seated within him.

Dick had been the same, needing a bare few
reminders. A partner, a friend, but never a child in his
care.

Bruce could have such a thing, perhaps. Batman never
could.

But Jason...

Jason is not Dick.

The boy sits beside him, not quite bouncing in his
seat. The adrenaline always wears off slowly in the
young, and the temptation is to revel in it, open
himself to it. There are so many reasons why he
needed a Robin.

Why he needed *Jason*.

Discipline *was* a fact, and the past-tense isn't
nearly as unsettling as it should be, not with Jason
drumming his fingers on the dash and humming
something that seems jangled and discordant even
in the boy's own pleasant tenor.

Jason has only just begun playing his music loud
enough for Bruce to hear it without actually being
in the boy's room. He can't identify the song, yet.
He --

Jason's palms slap the dashboard in a sharp,
sudden flourish, and the grin on his face is just a
little too wide to be a private one.

Bruce breathes in, and breathes out again. Slowly.
It's doubly effective, calming and forcing him to
notice the smell of reasonably fresh blood as more
than just a pleasant undertone to the boy's sweat.

The cut on his calf is shallow.

It shouldn't be there at all.

And... there. The memory is as clear, as *vital* as
it should be. The sound of his own voice, the sharp,
crack of '*Robin*,' in the tone of voice Jason knows
full well means 'wait.'

Jason's practiced, near-perfect flip as he moved in
to take the man *anyway*, without so much as a
pause.

The flash of the knife, whickering out of the man's
boot-sheath and *into* Jason's bare skin.

Discipline.

Bruce feels his mouth tighten into a firm line and
shifts into third as they move onto the private road
leading to the Cave's secret entrance.

Jason starts to hum again -- a different song -- and
Bruce can tell himself he doesn't hear it. Almost.

It's better and worse when they actually stop. He
has the forethought to force himself to unhook his
restraints before opening the roof, to give himself
more *time* -- and he shouldn't need it, he
*shouldn't* -- but it's also enough time for Jason to
remove his own restraints and rear up in the seat to
continue his drum solo on the car's ceiling.

"Come on come *on* --"

Bruce closes his eyes behind the cowl and pops the
roof, the soft release of air nearly lost entirely under
Jason's whoop as he vaults up and out, moving
toward the tray Alfred has left for them. Bruce gets
out of the car with as much control as he can
manage. "Jason."

Jason blows on his mug of cocoa and nods at him.
"Man, I bet this stuff would taste even better
*mixed* with coffee."

"It's far too late for --" Coffee, he doesn't say. That
isn't the conversation he wants to have, even
though --

"I know, I know." Jason takes a long swallow,
breathes, then takes another before setting the
mug down just a little too hard. "It's not like I
*need* it right now, anyway."

Bruce watches Jason eye the practice equipment,
and, even from the side, the predatory gleam in
the boy's eyes is perfectly visible.

Palpable as the banter he could easily indulge in. The
desire to remind the boy of the term paper he needs
to write before Monday morning *while* following
him to the rings, or even the mats.

His own eyes want to gleam.

And Jason starts to turn, the corner of his mouth
turning up in that expression that only misses 'snarl'
because of the obvious, fundamental joy behind it.
To call it a 'smile' would be nearly criminal, and
Bruce --

No. "Jason," he says again, and he knows the tone
of his voice is correct by the way Jason's expression
freezes on his face. He doesn't --

He doesn't want to be correct and he *has* to.

"We --"

Jason sighs and rolls his head on his shoulders,
turning and planting his hands on his hips. "It's about
the guy with the knife, right? Man, I *knew* you
were too quiet."

"You disobeyed an order."

Jason doesn't -- quite -- roll his eyes. "It's a shallow
cut and the guy won't wake up until they're
arraigning his skanky ass. What's the *problem*?"

"It might have been a gun."

"I would've *seen* a gun. You know I can recognize
a hidden piece from twenty paces. I could do that
*before* --"

"That isn't the point." And Bruce wants to wince at
the weakness of that, the.... He swallows, knowing
the cowl will hide it. *Part* of him wants to wince at
the weakness.

Jason's eyes are narrowed, obviously so. Another
part of him entirely is thinking, again, about
redesigning the mask. For Dick's expressions to be
noticeable was one thing. On the street, Jason's
expressions are often of questionable usefulness,
telegraphing his desire to attack, and holding far
too much of his own attention.

Jason's emotions are too much --

Too much.

Right now, the boy is no more watchful and
questioning of him than he is of himself. He can't
afford to wait. If he's -- he *has* to. "Come here."

Jason doesn't fidget so much as shift. His stance is
not so much defensive as rife with potential, with
*choices*.

He cannot repeat himself, not for this, not *now*,
and so he pulls the lower half of his face into
something that has no real place here. Even in the
Cave. It's an expression for the streets, for
everyone who isn't *them*.

The fact that it works is a sickly relief at best, a
compromise that leaves him feeling more broken
than bent.

Bruce turns his back and moves toward the bench.
Jason's pace behind him is steady, deliberate. A
blank sort of...

It isn't *enough* to have this proof that the injury
is minor. Not to any part of him. He sits down and
Jason doesn't pause until he's standing in front of
Bruce again. Close enough to...

To *eye* him in a near-perfect imitation of the
way he studies microscopic evidence. The avid
skepticism is a thin, fragile skim over the wariness
that's making Bruce *work* to keep the right
expression on his face. He sits up straight, and
gestures at his lap, and.

Jason is not Dick.

There is no contrition on his face, and none of the
fear and guilt that had made this necessary so very
*few* times. That had made this -- in some terrible,
insulting way -- *easier*, because they both knew --

"You *aren't* serious," Jason says, upper lip curling.

His heart is beating much too fast, and he isn't, he
*can't* be. The choices spiral out in front of him like
a dozen fever dreams at once. All the ways he could
do this, all the ways he could *end* this, and go
back to something like what he needs. All he would
have to do is push back the cowl, show his *face*.

Surely Jason would know, would understand how
little he wants *this*, that it was just important
to --

"You are. Fine." Jason's voice is cold and blank and
*false*, and he'd waited too long -- long enough for
Jason to focus on the cowl, and Bruce's sweat feels
slimy and cool beneath the thing.

And Jason lies across his thighs, bracing his palms on
one side of Bruce's legs and his toes to the other.
His body is heavy, palpably tense, and Bruce can't
help but catalog the muscle he's developing, the
strength and solid weight of him.

That night in the alley he'd been a vivid slash of
color with hands that smelled of rubber. Tonight he
makes the Cave seem like something sketched with
lazy hands, a pencilled dream of nothing much
important at all.

Sweat and blood.

Bruce stares down at the muscles flexing along the
backs of Jason's thighs. Impatience, anger. He
wants to be --

The first crack of his gauntleted hand echoes like a
child's perception of a gunshot, making the air
seem to thrum with everything wrong, everything
that has no right to be possible.

Jason gasps, but doesn't make any other sound. Bruce's
gauntlet sits black and obscenely possessive over the
boy's shorts, and there's a voice in his mind screaming
with disbelief. Not this. Not for his *partner* --

"*One*," Jason says, with growled deliberation, and
Bruce's hand isn't a part of him, not really.

It *couldn't* be. There is no part of *him* that would
take that as something right, something *fitting*.
There is no part of him that could take that as a cue
to continue.

"*Two*," Jason says, and the bats should be
screaming, the perimeter alarms should be
screaming.

They aren't, and it's --

One after another, as Jason's voice slowly begins to
lose the ruthless even-ness for the wrong reasons.
As emotion creeps in, jagged and *forced*. The
gauntlet blocks all but the barest sensation of what
he's --

He's not *doing* this. This isn't who he is, because
who he is --

Curled in a corner of himself at the first time Jason
shouts at the pain, hiding, trying to hide, trying not
to *hear*.

Trying not to feel the jerk of Jason's thigh over his
own, to see his foot kicking out helplessly -- he
should *never* --

"*Eight* -- *ah* --"

Not this. Not this way, not this heat he can barely
*feel* through the suit, as if he was some soft,
pathetic thing stuffed into another animal's shell, as
if he were imperfectly anaesthetized.

Nothing of him, because he's reaching, he's --

He reaches up and yanks the gauntlet off with his
teeth, spitting it away and helplessly aware of the
plastic taste of it, along with the tang of other
men's sweat and blood. The *wrong*, and it
lingers on his tongue like *oil*.

Like the way his bare hand lingers on Jason's
shorts. The heat of him. The --

It's muted, too, and Bruce never thought he would
ever -- *could* ever -- look at the Robin suit as
something to *hate*.

"Jay --"

Jason growls and *jerks* as though the nickname
is just another blow. "I -- *fuck*, Bruce --"

Or perhaps it's his voice, which is no more familiar
to his own ears than... Bruce shoves the cowl back
and off with his other hand and breathes. He can
*breathe*. He...

He can't move his hand. He --

He listens to Jason panting and feels the writhe
that's just beneath the boy's skin, the *fight*, and
the way he's resisting it, even now. Trying so hard
to be... Bruce can't tell, he can't *feel* it, and he
was wrong.

He can't breathe at all.

"Bruce -- are you --" Another growl, frustrated and
low, and Jason's body moves on Bruce's lap with
the depth of the breath he takes. "How many
more," he says in that false, wrong voice.

And Bruce knows the sound he just made was as
obvious as a scream, and then he *knows* it,
because Jason makes a *shocked* sound and
*grinds* his hips against Bruce's thigh. Just once.

"How many *more*," and the control is gone again,
lost under noise, their heartbeats, the Cave, the --

"I --" He doesn't know what to say. There's nothing
he can. The armor cuts into him precisely where
he needs it to, and the pain is a mockery of what
he deserves for the weakness. No --

For the *act*.

He listens to Jason pant and stares at his own
hand, pale and half-flexed on Jason's... on Jason.
"Oh," Bruce says, and Jason's moan is his echo
and reflection. And the question -- even in this? --
is terrible with hope, even though it's a silent one.

This time, when Jason's hips flex against his thigh,
the shift in purpose is unmistakable. The heat of
him, even through the shorts, through Bruce's
own armor...

"Jay," he says again, and squeezes, and tries to
squeeze his eyes shut. He *can't*.

He can only watch as Jason tenses, relaxes, and
half-twists, half *throws* himself off Bruce's lap.
His stance is unsteady. His face is flushed and his
lips are parted.

Bruce looks up into the boy's face and feels his
hands curl into helpless fists, fingernails digging
into his left palm. His right has the same absent
blankness of the gauntlet. Still. He wants to take it
off.

He isn't sure he *deserves* to.

He isn't sure he deserves to keep it on.

Jason's mouth twists and he rips the mask off his
face with one angry, vicious jerk.

This, too, Bruce thinks, and he feels boneless,
nearly liquid with terror and something else he
doesn't have a word for.

Jason narrows his wide, bright (so lovely) eyes and
searches Bruce's face for a moment more, and
another. His face twists again, and Bruce feels
himself leaning toward it, *wanting* to. The suit
holds him as upright as some medieval cage.

"Bruce. You --" And Jason shakes his head and
laughs something jagged and familiar as bone. And
steps closer, cupping Bruce's cheek. The gauntlet
is rough and cool. Jason's hand, beneath it, is hot
and entirely ungentle. "Next -- next time, you...
just *fucking* ask for what you need. Just --"

Bruce leans into Jason's touch, and his eyelids are
heavy. He can feel them drooping... and then
Jason moans and cups himself with his other hand,
*squeezes* himself, and Bruce needs to keep his
eyes open. Needs to -- He *needs*.

"Bruce -- God, I -- so fucked *up*," and Jason
shoves the shorts down, lets go of Bruce's face
long enough to use both hands, and they must be
so tight, so painful, and it's enough time for Bruce
to lean in.

For Bruce to breathe, and it's the same. It's
*Jason*, and even his scent is more true than
anything else in the world. So much thicker,
coiling down into his mouth, all through him.

Bruce can taste him before he opens his mouth.

And then he can *feel* him --

"*Bruce* --" High-voiced, sharp and so real, so
*real*. "Ah -- *ah* --"

Bruce goes down as slowly as he can, and it's still
too fast, it's still perfect. The taste of him is so
male, so *alive*. Hot and heavy on Bruce's tongue,
sharp as the tug of Jason's hands in his hair,
eye-watering and *perfect* --

"Suck me, Bruce, *suck* me --"

Bruce moans and lets himself fall to his knees, lets
himself *touch*, and yank down the shorts even
further, and Jason thrusts and stumbles, beautiful
in his hands, hot, damp with sweat --

His *skin*.

He pulls back enough to lick him, *taste* him and
touch him that way, too, and Jason's gauntlets
scrape over his scalp, Jason's hips buck and
*grind*.

"*Bruce*..."

His name is a sighing moan, breathy and low --

"*Bruce* --"

And then sharp again, because this thrust is direct,
*demanding*, and -- yes. Yes. He sucks harder
and slides his hands up the backs of Jason's thighs,
flexing at the faint scratch of hair and the few
scars.

Every time -- so *close*, they're so *close*, and
Jason's ass is *hot* under his hands, accusing and
firm --

Perfect, he thinks. Jay, he moans around the boy's
erection, muffled and desperate as Jason's own
pained gasp. I'm sorry, I love you --

"D-don't -- don't you dare fucking *stop* --"

*Jay*, he moans again, and this one is choked off
by the thrust into his throat, this one is silent and
needful as Bruce's helpless, reflexive swallows. He
squeezes and the next thrust is hard, nearly painful,
and Bruce feels a few hairs let go. He'll leave them
on the gauntlets for Jason to find tomorrow night.
He'll --

"Bruce -- Bruce *fuck* --"

And they find a rhythm of Jason's working hips and
his own gasping, greedy swallows. Find it and Bruce
wants to *hold* it, but he's spilling pre-come into
his jock and Jason is moaning constantly,
*endlessly*, and the rhythm is gone like so much
smoke, leaving only skin and sweat and sex.

"Open -- open y --"

Bruce opens his eyes to find Jason's look as wide
and full as his own feels. No -- more. Jason has so
much more than he ever could, *is* so much more.

Jason fills him and feeds him.

Jason --

Throws his head back and shouts, spilling down his
throat, onto his tongue when Bruce pushes him
back just a little. *Enough*.

The small separation gives him the time he needs to
settle his hands firmly on Jason's hips, to steady the
boy even as he bruises himself with the taste of him,
the feel of him slipping out from between his lips.

Bruce presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth
and strokes the hollows of Jason's hips with his
thumbs.

"Bruce." More of a gasp than a word.

More of an imperative than anything but, perhaps,
the blood of people who were never supposed to
die. Bruce yanks Jason close and down, feeling
himself *flare* at the way the boy spreads his
knees reflexively, the way he *fits* sprawled over
Bruce's lap.

Just that quickly, Jason's eyes are wild again, bright
and dangerous beneath their wide, deceptively soft
beauty. Jason reaches for him and -- pauses.

And rips off his gauntlets before cupping Bruce's
face in both hands and shoving him into position for
a kiss.

A bite.

"You -- you're so --"

"Yes," Bruce says, and takes another, sucking
Jason's tongue into his mouth and tightening his
hands on the boy's hips, pulling him *in* until both
of them are whimpering. The armor isn't kind to
either of them, right now.

The fact that it isn't *meant* to be is utterly
irrelevant. They strip him together, Jason's hands
firm and sure on the panel of his jock, while his
own shake on the chest-piece. Jason pushes
himself up on his knees and Bruce lifts his hips
and Jason *yanks* --

"*Jay* --"

And Jason cups his sac with one hand, fists his
erection with the other, and squeezes with both
at once.

Bruce moans and arches into it and watches
Jason staring at his mouth. And then Jason looks
up, and looks *into* him.

"What do you want, Bruce? Say it."

"You -- I want. I need you --"

Jason's laugh is breathless and real. "That *wasn't*
what I meant," and the scrape of his calluses along
Bruce's length is murderous and perfect until he
slicks his palm with Bruce's pre-come, and then it's
murderous and sweet. "But it'll do for now."

Bruce groans and *jerks* into Jason's hands.
"Taste you -- all over --"

"Oh -- oh fuck, Bruce, what else?"

He's so full. So -- "Suck you again -- *again* --"

Jason jerks him faster and pants against his face.
"Bruce --"

"I need -- oh, I need you -- *Jay* --"

Leaning in to growl against Bruce's jaw, to *bite*
him there, drag his mouth up over Bruce's cheek
to his ear.

Bruce waits for it, for the words that will save or
maybe destroy him, but it's fitting that Jason only
moans and works him faster still. Harder.

"Bruce..." The sound is soft and pained, and
Jason's hands pause on him before he presses
close. Half-hard again, hot against him, and Bruce
groans and reaches between them to twine his
fingers with Jason's own.

And arches again when Jason squeezes his hand
with immediate encouragement, moans against
Jason's throat and --

So *close* to his mouth. His other hand is still
shaking and all but useless, but it's easy enough
to rip the cape away and *suck*.

Bite.

"*Bruce* --"

It's too high. Most of the boy's collars --

"Oh God, that's -- oh you're gonna break the
fucking skin. Do it. *Do* it --"

It's right, it's so right, and nothing else could
ever --

He can't ever let anything get in the way of this.
Nothing is more important, and nothing more real.

Jason.

Hand on his sac and hand on him, *them*.
Together. They -- he has to hold on to this. He
can't ever --

"Oh fuck *fuck* too soon --"

Bruce groans and forces himself to release Jason's
throat. Some things -- "Does it hurt?"

"I -- Bruce, yes, don't --"

"Every night," Bruce says, and shoves his hand
into Jason's thick, damp hair. It's curling with
sweat and Jason is breathing like every gasp is
punishment. "Every day. I felt -- I *feel* it --"

"Oh God -- oh -- oh *fuck*, Bruce --"

"It's the same. I -- I swear to you --"

Jason tosses his head and bucks, squeezes with
both hands and shouts into Bruce's ear --

"I don't -- I don't know why -- Jay --"

"Doesn't matter. Doesn't --" Jason bites his earlobe
and Bruce whimpers and comes all over their
hands.

Jason freezes and cries out into his ear.

"*Bruce* --"

"Yes," and Bruce tumbles them to the floor, presses
Jason down and listens to nothing but Jason's gasps
and the rush of his own blood. More. *More*.

He presses harder and Jason fights the hold and
bucks up against him and says "*don't* stop," and
Bruce moves down and back and swallows him
again.

He can do it with his eyes open this time, sated
enough to take his fill this way, too, and Jason
tosses his head back and forth, bangs it against
the stone floor once, again, and *shoves* up into
Bruce's mouth.

Bruce holds nothing on the boy but his wrists, and
then only to feel the boy's pulse race dangerously,
wonderfully.

Echoing his own, rhythm and counterpoint and the
sweet heft of him on his tongue.

Jason.

Flushed skin and strangled growls, and the ruthless
reality of everything he is, cutting through Bruce's
life and shoving into his soul. *Demanding*, and
the only answer Bruce can give is yes.

Always, he moans, and the flex and twist of Jason's
wrists in his hands, the sweat-slick slide of his skin
and the scrape of his short, ragged nails over
Bruce's knuckles --

Possession and inevitability.

Blood on his lip and come in his mouth.

Again.

*Again*.

Bruce crawls back up over the sprawl of Jason's
body and swallows every moan he can, and closes
his eyes to match Jason's own.

After a while, Jason squeezes his shoulders. It
doesn't feel like 'move.'

He doesn't move.

"Bruce..." Jason whispers, and his voice is the same
helpless question Bruce hasn't answered for
himself.

He doesn't think he ever will.

And it doesn't matter.

end.