Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason woke up in excruciating pain.

This was not a new experience. Jason couldn’t really remember a time when it had been a new experience. Oh, the pain had increased over the years—he hurt worse as Red Hood than he’d hurt as Robin, and he’d hurt worse as Robin than he’d hurt when it was just his dad knocking him around—but he couldn’t recall waking up in pain and thinking this has never happened before.

This was one of the worst. His head throbbed like someone had used it as a soccer ball, his stomach screamed at him every time he breathed, and his limbs—

He couldn’t move.

Why couldn’t he move?

His eyes flew open, or tried to—they were swollen almost completely shut and another jolt of pain lanced through his head at the movement of his lids. His chest felt heavy and the ceiling was unfamiliar. Where was he? How had he gotten here?

He thrashed against whatever was holding him down—bonds, gravity, weakness, he didn’t know, but he refused to stay under. Fresh pain spiked above his hip and in his shoulder, tearing a ragged cry out of him. It didn’t matter, he didn’t care, he hadn’t stayed in his grave so a little pain was nothing…

Footsteps, and then a distantly familiar face looming over him, dark red hair and freckles. “Hey, hey, Jason, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

“Get...the fuck...away…” Jason managed, his throat raw and dry. “Don’t fucking know you…”

The freckled brow furrowed. “It’s Roy Harper. Arsenal. Uh...we met back when I was Speedy.”

“What?” That didn’t make any fucking sense, that had been years ago, before Jason died…

“Jason, calm down. You’re gonna pull your stitches.”

Oh no. Jason knew that tone, that smug I’m-a-Dom-and-I-know-best condescending bullshit. Bruce had used it on him all the time. It wasn’t any better hearing it out of the mouth of a near stranger who had him helpless in his bed.

“You touch me and I’ll cut off your dick and feed it to you, asshole,” he snapped, jerking away and then crying out as something popped above his hip.

“Jesus,” the Dom said. “Jason, come on, you’re bleeding again, please let me help you.”

“Don’t need any fucking help,” Jason snarled, even as his vision swam with the added pain.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The Dom tone was back, and dammit, dammit, somehow in the swirling miasma of Jason’s perceptions it was the only thing that was clear. “No one’s going to hurt you. I’d die before I’d let them.”

The miasma went black, and Jason knew he was about to pass out. Unconscious and injured, alone with a strange Dom.

He’d survived worse.

“Kill you,” he managed before his tongue stopped responding.

“That’s fine,” the Dom said. There were hands, strong and firm and cool, pushing gently at his shoulders and coaxing him to lie flat. Only his shoulders, nowhere else. “Heal up first and then you can kill me twice.”

Idiot, Jason tried and failed to say, and then he was gone.

*

The next time he woke, the pain was...slightly less bad. And when his eyes opened, they opened a little wider, allowing him to see that he was in a bedroom, spartan but clean, daylight streaming in around the closed blinds. There was a bottle on the nightstand, one of those reusable water bottles with a lid that flipped out into a straw.

Looking at it, Jason was suddenly desperately thirsty. He didn’t know what was in it, but there was no reason to drug or poison him when he’d already been unconscious, and he was still so weak and injured he could barely move. Plus, the bottle was metal, which meant he could use it as a makeshift weapon. If he could reach it.

Gritting his teeth against any noise, he tried to sit up, noticing as he braced himself that several of his fingers were splinted. He got farther than he had last time—if he hadn’t hallucinated that—but a muffled groan escaped. Fuck.

Sure enough, someone appeared in the doorway. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Jason, with broad shoulders and the red hair Jason remembered from his maybe-hallucination, and the thoughtlessly confident posture of a Dom. “Oh, hey, you’re awake.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Jason snapped. Well, at least he could talk again.

“I’m Roy Harper. Dick’s friend? I used to go by Speedy?” The Dom came closer and picked up the water bottle. Dammit. “We were very briefly on the Titans together, remember?”

Now that Jason was more lucid, the resemblance to the older boy he’d admired was clearer. The same freckled nose and crooked smile; the same sharply defined arms, straining against the sleeves of Roy’s Grateful Dead shirt, although now they were covered in tattoos. His dark red hair was buzzed short now, though, instead of flopping into his eyes, and he hadn’t had that douchey soul patch back then.

More importantly, he hadn’t been keeping Jason…somewhere, injured.

“What the fuck do you want? How did I get here?” Jason asked.

Roy flipped the catch that made the water bottle’s straw pop out and held it close enough for Jason to drink. “Are you thirsty?”

Jason gave him a narrow look. Roy rolled his eyes. “Oh for Christ’s sake…” He took a sip, pale pink lips pursing around the straw, and swallowed visibly before offering it to Jason again. “Not poison. Just Gatorade.”

“Sanitary,” Jason said, even though his throat burned for something to drink.

“You got shot twice, you can survive my backwash.”

Jason wanted to refuse on principle, but he reminded himself that proper hydration was the first step to getting strong enough to get the fuck out of here. He opened his mouth and let Roy feed him the straw, refusing to think about either the fact that Roy’s tongue had just been pressed where his was now, or how traditional this kind of feeding was. He’d never allowed anyone to feed him before.

When Roy pulled the water bottle away, Jason was breathless, and irritated with himself because of it. “Where am I?” he asked. “And why the fuck are you here?”

“We’re in Gotham,” Roy said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Typical Dom over-familiarity. “One of Dick’s safehouses. Well, Bruce’s, I guess. You were injured in a fight. Do you remember?”

“The docks,” Jason said. It was the last thing he did remember before waking up here. Black Mask had decided to make a move on Red Hood’s territory. Jason thought he’d teach him a lesson, but Sionis had brought more firepower than Jason was expecting.

Stupid, so fucking stupid. He remembered cursing himself for being an idiot as he’d fought off more goons than he’d planned for, all of them Doms—though that was probably coincidence, since Red Hood’s designation was a closely guarded secret. He remembered Black Mask laughing.

He remembered being shot. Once? Twice?

Then it went hazy.

The rest of it was like puzzle pieces scattered on the floor; he wasn’t even sure if they were from the same box. Batman, swinging in on a grapple line, and the instinctive surge of relief that he’d never managed to shake from his childhood, followed by the equally strong fury. The unmistakable damp smell of the cave. Alfred’s worried face over bloody hands in surgical gloves, and Dick’s voice shouting.

“Yeah,” Roy said. “Oracle picked it up on the police scanner. Batman went in to shut it down and barely got you out of there. You were shot twice, a through-and-through in the left shoulder and one on the right side of your stomach that they had to dig out but which miraculously missed any major organs. Plus a severe concussion, two black eyes, a sprained ankle, three broken fingers, and the usual potpourri of cuts, contusions, and abrasions. Put frankly, you’re a mess.”

As he spoke, Jason catalogued the listed injuries, seeing the bandages he’d barely processed before. No wonder he’d felt like he hadn’t been able to move. Between the actual injuries, the blood loss, and the concussion, Roy might as well have been holding him down.

He probably could, with arms like that, a small, traitorous part of Jason’s brain noted before Jason choked it into silence.

“That’s not what I asked,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

For the first time, Roy looked less than perfectly at ease. “Well. That’s a bit awkward,” he said. “You’re gonna need some help until you get back on your feet…”

“But they couldn’t have me cluttering up the cave,” Jason interrupted. It was such bullshit that rejection didn’t only hurt the first time. “You don’t have to explain, I got it.”

“That’s not it,” Roy said. “Bruce wanted you to stay there. Dick said they fought about it. But he thought that given the…tension between you and Bruce, it wasn’t the best place for you to get better. He thought you needed a Dom who you didn’t have so much...uh, baggage with.”

“I don’t need a Dom, period,” Jason snapped.

“Okay,” Roy said.

Jason blinked. No Dom had ever not argued with him when he’d said that. No Dom had ever not argued with any sub when they said that.

“You do, however, need someone to look after you for a bit,” Roy continued. “I know how to care for wounds and I can keep Bat-secrets. So here I am.”

“And because you apparently had nothing better to do,” Jason drawled, unimpressed.

“Oh, I had far better things to do than wait hand and foot on the world’s meanest patient,” Roy said, that crooked smile turning up wryly. “But Dick’s my best friend, and I owe him the most important thing in my life. When he begs me for a favor, I don’t say no.”

Jason snorted, then winced at the way it jarred his head and his bruised eye sockets. “Dick begged you to help me. Sure.”

“Yeah,” Roy said seriously. “He did.”

Jason looked away. He didn’t want to entertain this bullshit. He didn’t want to deal with any of this.

Roy stood up. “I’ll go get you some painkillers.”

*

There had been a very brief window when Jason hadn’t minded being a sub.

Not at first, of course. Not for a single second that his father was alive. Honestly, it was a toss-up who was angrier about Jason’s designation, Jason or Willis.

He’d been unlucky enough to present young, at nine. His dad had had a bunch of his drinking buddies over and his mom had retreated into her bedroom and her high to avoid them, meaning Jason was the one sent scurrying back and forth to the fridge whenever someone demanded another beer. He’d contemplated making a break for it, slipping quietly out the door or down the fire escape and kicking around Park Row until the game was over and they’d gone home, but that would mean leaving his mom alone with them. She’d probably locked the door, but still.

One of the loudest and drunkest of Willis’s friends was holding forth about how he’d put his sub girlfriend in her place when Jason came back into the living room holding two beers. “So I just told that bitch, get on your knees, now!” he shouted over the noise from the TV.

Jason’s knees folded beneath him like someone had put their hand on the back of his neck and shoved. He went down so fast the bottles in his hands cracked against the floor and broke.

All of the men in the room turned to stare at him like they’d just noticed the thing that was fetching their beer was a child. Jason knelt there, frozen, beer seeping into his jeans, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Then one of them started laughing. “Holy shit, Todd, your kid is a fucking sub!” he said, and the others cracked up, too—everyone but Willis, whose surprise morphed to fury as he stared at Jason.

The nearest man lurched out of his chair and grabbed Jason by the jaw, hard enough to hurt even after he opened his mouth to ease the pressure. Jason’s heart pounded in terror and confusion.

“No wonder he’s got such a pretty mouth,” the man said. “What do you think, kid, ready to learn what to do with it?”

“Hey! That’s my fucking kid!” Willis barked, and they all froze again. Jason looked at his father with pleading eyes, past this man who was so much bigger than him and still holding his mouth open.

And then Willis grinned. “You want him, we negotiate a rate first,” he said, rubbing his first two fingers against his thumb, and all the men laughed again. The one holding Jason let him go, and Willis gave him a disdainful look. “Clean that shit up, what the fuck’s wrong with you?”

Jason hurried to do as he was ordered, cutting his hands a couple of times on the broken glass in the process. When the floor was clean and he’d changed into dry jeans, he fled to the fire escape and sat there shaking, trying to figure out why he’d gone to his knees like that when the man hadn’t even been talking to him.

His dad had thought it was funny, so maybe it was okay. At least, so Jason hoped until their guests were gone and Jason found out what Willis and his belt thought of his “pussy sub son” embarrassing him in front of his friends.

Any faint hope that that moment of going down might have been a mistake, a crossed wire in Jason’s brain, was soon dashed. The older he got, the stronger the instincts were: to bare his neck, to kneel, to obey. But he fought them tooth and nail, locking his knees when they wanted to bend. Making furious eye contact when he wanted to avert his gaze.

It wasn’t just that every time he messed up and reminded Willis that he was a sub again, he got the back of his father’s hand for it. It wasn’t even the memory of that man’s hand on his jaw and the unclear threat behind it. He hated not being in control of himself, of his body’s own reactions. Of what he might do in response to a stray comment or firm touch.

And then his father went to jail, and his mother died, and Batman walked into his life.

Batman had the most uncompromisingly dominant energy Jason had ever encountered. It had taken everything Jason had to hit him with the tire iron and run with that deep, resonant voice telling him to stop, and by the time Batman found where he lived, Jason had nothing left but empty sass. When Batman told him to give the tires back, Jason did. When Batman told him to go to Ma Gunn’s school, he did.

When Batman told him he wanted Jason to be the new Robin, he managed to pause.

“I wanna,” he said, staring at his hands. “More’n anything. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” Batman’s voice was a low rumble beside him.

Jason shut his eyes. “I’m a sub.”

“I know.”

Jason’s eyes flew open, and he stared up at that dark mask. “What? You know?” He’d thought he was pretty good at hiding it. It helped that he was scrawny. A lot of people presented by twelve, but Jason knew he looked younger than that.

“Why can’t you be Robin if you’re a sub?” Batman asked.

“Because subs are…” Weak. Vulnerable. Delicate. Jason couldn’t say it. He refused to say it.

“Did you ever consider that being a sub might make you a better Robin?” Batman asked, and Jason stared at him again. “When I’m in the field, I need someone who takes orders so instinctively I barely need to say them. Someone who can move with me, like we’re two parts of the same body. A strong right arm. I need someone very smart, and very brave.” He smiled, just a tiny thing, but it changed his whole face. Well, the part of it Jason could see. “That sounds like you to me, Jay.”

Jason felt himself sitting up straighter. Batman thought he was smart and brave. Batman thought his being a sub was a good thing. And Batman was never wrong.

“I guess you’ve got yourself a new Robin, then,” he said.

He should have known, even then, that it would all go wrong.

*

The first forty-eight hours under Roy’s care were humiliating. Jason needed help with everything, from sitting up enough to sip the broth and Gatorade Roy fed him, to hobbling to the bathroom to pee. Roy always looked away politely once they made it to the bathroom, which Jason wasn’t naive enough to be grateful for. Just because the guy didn’t have a piss kink didn’t mean the asshole Dom behavior wouldn’t materialize eventually.

Mostly, he slept, and tried not to dream.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he said once as Roy helped him back into bed after he’d peed. “No matter what you owe Dick. You’ve gotta know I’m going to kill you eventually, right? It’s what I do.”

“Mm, I wouldn’t be surprised if you tried,” Roy said. “But I’m pretty hard to kill. ‘S part of why Dick wanted me to look after you and not, like, a nurse.”

“I wouldn’t kill a nurse,” Jason snapped. Not just because most people who went into nursing were fellow subs who would leave him the fuck alone. He didn’t hurt civilians.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were telling me how evil and violent you were,” Roy replied. “My mistake.”

Jason tried to scowl, but lost it in a gasp of pain as he lowered himself down to the bed. “Don’t fucking patronize me.”

“I’m not,” Roy said. “I’ve seen news footage of you in action. You’re good. If you didn’t have two bullet holes in you, I honestly don’t know which of us would win. Well, if I didn’t have a bow.” There was that careless Dom confidence that was so annoying. “Hell, take me by surprise, you might still kill me like this, but I promise I’d do some damage on my way down. And I’d hate to undo all my good work here, so do me a favor and save the violence until I’m not changing your dressings twice a day, okay?”

“God, I fucking hate you,” Jason said, leaning back against the pillows and closing his eyes.

“Yeah, well, I hate me too a lot of the time so you’re in good company,” Roy said—but by the time Jason processed that enough to open his eyes, Roy was already out of the room.

The problem, of course, with sleeping most of the time was that he eventually woke up at 3 a.m. and was unable to fall back asleep. He was sulking about it when he realized that his pain was only a dull roar, even though it had been hours since his latest round of painkillers, and Roy was most likely asleep. He could probably stand on his own. And if he could stand, he could leave.

It took a few careful, painful minutes, but he finally made it onto his feet. He was a little shaky, and the edges of his vision had a hazy blackness to them, but he was standing, unassisted, for the first time in days.

The next step was to pick the lock to his bedroom door. But when he reached it, the knob turned easily under his hand and the door swung open.

Roy hadn’t locked him in? Hadn’t Dick told him anything? Hadn’t he listened to a word Jason had said?

Keeping one hand on the wall for support, Jason made his way out of the bedroom. The apartment was dark and quiet. He hadn’t seen any of it but the bathroom, which was right across the hall, but it turned out there wasn’t much to see—a kitchen, a barebones living room. There was a safe set into the wall which Jason guessed was where his guns were if Bruce hadn’t kept them, and a cabinet filled with non-combustible weapons: bows, quivers, knives. He palmed one of the latter and kept going.

The other bedroom door was half open. Roy hadn’t locked Jason in or out. How stupid was this man?

Okay. Walk in, slit his throat. Find something to wear that wasn’t pajama pants. Crack the safe, get his guns back, take all the food and painkillers he could find, and get the fuck out of here and back to his own territory.

Dick would never forgive Jason for killing his best friend. But he should have thought of that before he left him with a strange Dom against his will. Not that Roy had done anything, but…

No. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of here.

He eased the door the rest of the way open, slowly so that it didn’t creak, even though the longer he was on his feet the worse the blackness around the edges of his vision grew. Roy lay curled on his side, facing the door, one arm tucked up under the pillow and the other stretched across the mattress like he was reaching for something. His breathing was steady and even.

Jason stepped into the room. It wasn’t a big one. Three steps, maybe four, would bring him to the side of the bed.

Roy hadn’t closed the curtains very well, and neon peeked in around the gaps, highlighting the curve of his bare arm and shoulder above the blanket, though his face was shrouded in shadow. The room lurched slightly, and Jason tightened his grip on the knife in his hand.

“If you fall you’ll pop your stitches again,” Roy rumbled, his voice low and scratchy with sleep. He lifted the edge of the blanket. “Come lie down before you fall down.”

It wasn’t particularly aggressive. It wasn’t even really a command. But suddenly lying down sounded like the best thing in the world.

Jason wavered for a moment, then picked his careful way forward. Three steps. Four. He put the knife down on the bedside table.

He could always use it in the morning.

He climbed into bed, wincing a little as the movement jarred his stomach. Roy let the covers drop over him. The arm that had been stretched out before curled around his ribs, high up enough that it didn’t bother his wound.

It felt heavy. It felt nice.

“Dumbass,” Roy mumbled, his warm breath gusting over Jason’s bare shoulder, and then Jason was asleep.

*

Being Robin had been wonderful at first. Jason loved the thrill of grappling around the city, leaping from roof to roof and fight to fight like gravity was merely a suggestion. He loved having a secret that none of his classmates knew—a good one, for once. He even loved training, despite it leaving him stiff and aching more mornings than not.

And Bruce had been right that being a sub wouldn’t be a problem. Even when they fought Doms—and most of the people they fought were Doms—they meant nothing to Jason when Bruce was there.

It wasn’t that he was Bruce’s sub. Jason would never have said yes if he’d thought that was what Bruce wanted. He’d had enough of creepy older Doms with an eye for kids, thank you very much. But he still belonged to Bruce, in a way, and his sub instincts knew it, and it made everything else so much easier to ignore.

He was a better Robin than Dick, he thought to himself smugly sometimes. Oh, he might never have Dick’s grace or his speed. But Dick was a switch, and that meant he couldn’t let Bruce take the lead the way he was supposed to—couldn’t be Batman’s strong right arm. He challenged him, fought with him, went off on his own. He was too sub to be Batman, and too Dom to be Robin. But Jason would get it right.

Until he started fighting with Bruce, too.

At first it was small things, like going left when Bruce wanted him to go right, or getting the occasional C in math. Give him a break, he was fighting crime all night and math was the first period of the day.

But then he started to disagree with bigger things. Tactics. Strategy. Philosophy.

Batman was tougher than he needed to be on drug addicts and pickpockets, Jason’s traitorous brain thought sometimes. And he was soft on rapists and abusers. Oh, he knocked them out and tied them up and called the police; he gave the addresses of shelters and support groups to their victims. But for all that he talked about using the power of fear against criminals, he didn’t give any of the worst monsters enough to be really scared of. He didn’t give them injuries that would last. He couldn’t even make them think he’d kill them, because everyone knew Batman didn’t kill. What did shitty abusive Doms care about a restraining order or a slap on the wrist from the courts? Doms weren’t wired to listen to anyone. Someone had to make them listen, and Batman wasn’t doing it.

But the more Jason tried to argue his side of things, the tighter Bruce’s control got. And the firm hand that had once felt like a comfort became suffocating. Bruce had wanted him smart, but not smart enough to have his own opinions, it seemed. Brave, but not brave enough to stand by his convictions.

And then there was Felipe Garzonas, and Bruce didn’t listen.

And then there was the Joker, because Bruce didn’t listen.

And then there was nothing.

*

“Hey,” Roy said, sticking his head into the bedroom. “How do you feel about...the couch?” He spread his fingers wide as he said it, like a gameshow host announcing a fabulous prize.

Jason raised his eyebrows. “Like as an item of furniture, or the couch in this apartment in particular?”

Roy came more fully into the room. “Both, I guess. I was just thinking that you’re a bit stronger now, and you might want to come have lunch on the couch instead of being stuck in this bed all the time. You could watch TV, get a change of scenery.”

He didn’t mention the night before last, when Jason had changed the scenery pretty definitively by coming into his room with a knife. He hadn’t asked for an explanation or an apology, and Jason hadn’t offered them.

The bedroom doors were still left unlocked.

“I’m not really a TV guy, but sure,” Jason said, and let Roy help him up and into the living room.

“Yeah? What do you do in your downtime, then? Polish your guns?” Roy asked, with a cheeky grin that showed off both the crooked tilt of his smile and the fact that he was entirely too proud of his double entendre.

“Grow up,” Jason sniffed. “I read, mostly. Easier to take a book with you and harder to miss an episode.”

“Yeah? What kind of stuff?”

Jason shrugged and then eased himself down onto the couch. “Classics, mostly. Some poetry and literary fiction. I was working on Crime and Punishment in Russian when…”

When he’d been stupid enough to let Black Mask’s goons shoot him twice.

“Cool. I was always a STEM guy myself,” Roy said, handing him the remote. “Well, maybe Masterpiece Theater is on. Ooh, or Wishbone!”

“I repeat: grow up,” Jason said, although he did secretly love Wishbone. He turned the TV on and started flipping through channels as Roy disappeared into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Roy called, “you think you can handle a sandwich? I got some cold cuts and shit.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. He had no idea how Roy planned to feed him a sandwich, but his mouth watered at the thought of solid food. “I’ll make it work,” he called back.

Roy returned a few minutes later with two plates and handed one to Jason. He took it uncertainly. “You aren’t going to…”

“Mm?” Roy flopped down on the other end of the couch and took a huge bite of his own sandwich.

“Uh. It’s just. You’ve been. Feeding me?” Jason said. He could feel his cheeks heating up. Fuck.

But it was true. Over the past few days he’d mainly been sticking with things that were easy to sip through a straw—broth, smoothies—and Roy had held the cup for him while he sipped. It had been humiliating, but he hadn’t had the energy to argue about it.

“Oh.” Were Roy’s cheeks going a little pink? “Did...did you want me to? I can cut it up…”

“No. Fuck off,” Jason snapped. He might be stuck here while he recuperated, and he might be unwilling to kill Roy to get away, but that didn’t mean he was going to go to his knees to be hand-fed like the sweet little sub he’d never be, just because Dick had stuck him with a Dom who was young and handsome and strong.

He picked up half of the sandwich and took a huge bite to prove his point. Turkey and mustard and—ugh, was that American cheese? Were they six years old?

“Okay,” Roy said, looking faintly amused. “You let me know if that changes.”

It was the wisp of a smile on those pink lips that made Jason lose his temper. He put the sandwich back down and leveled a finger at Roy. “Okay, what did Dick tell you you were here for?”

Roy’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry?”

“You said you’re doing Dick a favor,” Jason said. “Is it to look after me until I’m back on my feet? Or is it to be my Dom?”

Roy paused. When he spoke, he sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. “I’m a Dom,” he said. “That’s not going to change, any more than what you are is going to change. I think we’d have a lot of talking to do before I was your Dom, though.”

“Yeah, but what did Dick ask you for?” Jason said. “Because I know what he thinks I need.”

They’d had the argument more than once, which was remarkable considering how rarely they spoke when they weren’t trying to kick each other’s ass. Dick thought Jason needed a Dom. Bruce thought Jason needed a Dom. Even Alfred thought Jason needed a Dom. As if some cocky asshole could put a firm hand on the back of Jason’s neck and fix all the things his family thought was wrong with him. Roy’s hands were plenty firm, but that didn’t mean they were what Jason wanted or needed.

Shit. Jason wasn’t sure what horrified him more—the fact that he’d unconsciously thought of Bruce, Dick, and Alfred as his family, or that when he’d imagined Roy’s hand on his neck, his dick had twitched.

The real Roy, not the one in his imagination, looked a little embarrassed. “If you know what he thinks, then you know what he told me.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “You come near me with a collar, I’ll choke you with it.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Roy protested. “I’ve never...look, you know how Dick is, right? A romantic. He can’t do anything without collars and commitment. Jumps into it fast, but…” He waved a hand like he was waving the thought away. “Anyway. I’m not like that. Dick knows that I can Dom casually. That I can...you know. Fulfill a need. And he told me that you’ve never had that kind of relationship.”

Now Jason buried his face in his hands. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.” He’d fucked around, mostly with other subs and the occasional switch, but he’d never been in a committed relationship with a Dom. There was a very good reason for that—a lot of very good reasons for that—but it didn’t mean that Dick could just share his private business with the world.

“He wasn’t expecting us to make any promises,” Roy went on. “He just...look, you and I both know that a lot of Doms can be assholes, and whether you believe it or not, Dick knows that too. But I’m hopefully not an asshole most of the time, so I think he saw this as a way for you to...experience what that could be like. If you wanted.”

Jason lowered his hands and glared at Roy. “And you figured, what? ‘Hey, maybe I’ll get a decent fuck out of it?’”

“Not all relationships between Doms and subs are sexual,” Roy said. “Besides, you couldn’t handle me right now.”

“You wanna fucking bet?” Jason snapped, and then realized what Roy had neatly maneuvered him into when Roy grinned. “Oh, fuck you.”

Roy sobered again. “Seriously, Jay, I have no interest in doing anything you don’t want. You want to keep this strictly medical? Fine. You want to try out platonic submission? I can do that. You want to try out non-platonic submission…?”

Jason waited.

And now Roy’s cheeks were definitely pink. It wasn’t a bad color on him. He ran a hand over his buzzed hair and looked up at the ceiling. “Ah, hell. I’m guessing you’re pretty cute under those black eyes, and I like you, so yeah. Sure. That’s potentially on the table too. But like I said, only if you want it.”

Roy liked him? Every time Jason thought he’d reached the depths of Roy’s stupidity, he found another sub-basement. “I’ve done nothing but swear at you and threaten to kill you,” Jason pointed out.

Roy gave him a wry smile. “Yeah, well, I have a type.”

Jason was tempted to ask him exactly what about him made him Roy’s type, but that was another trap. Instead, he picked his sandwich up again.

“Keep it in your pants, Harper,” he said, and didn’t let himself wonder how his lunch might taste on his knees.

*

By the time Roy took the stitches out of Jason’s stomach and shoulder, Jason hadn’t had a proper bath for a week and was feeling pretty ripe. “I’m going to shower,” he announced as Roy packed up the first aid kit, and waited for Roy to tell him he wasn’t strong enough.

Roy wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, you probably should,” he said, and Jason made a face at him. “Do me a favor and leave the door open a crack so I can hear you if you shout.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to call out for a strong, handsome Dom to rescue me, but keep dreaming, I guess.”

“You think I’m handsome?” Roy said, batting his lashes at Jason, and Jason made a disgusted noise and levered himself up off the bed and toward the bathroom.

The shower was an incredible relief: the cleansing heat of it, the pressure of the water against his back, the dissolution of the vague feeling of clammy stickiness that had been building up over the past week. Jason lingered even after he was clean, even once he started feeling like he really needed to sit down, only turning off the water when he knew it was that or keel over.

He sat on the closed toilet to dry off and re-splint his fingers, and then pushed himself up on wobbly legs to examine himself in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The swelling was mostly gone around his eyes, but the bruising had faded to the truly ugly green-and-yellow stage. Between that and a week’s growth of beard, he looked pretty wild. The bullet wounds at his shoulder and stomach were still red and inflamed, and though Alfred had done his usual neat job with the stitches and Roy’s care had been meticulous, they were still a bit puckered and would definitely scar. A few of the other cuts would probably wind up leaving a mark, too. More to add to the ever-growing collection.

How the hell had Roy thought he was cute?

He made another disgusted noise, this time at himself, and wrapped the towel around his waist. When he made his shaky way back to his bedroom, he found a clean pair of pajama pants and—wonder of wonders—a T-shirt waiting for him on the bed. It took him a few long minutes to get them on and catch his breath, but once he had, he tottered out to the living room.

Roy was fiddling with what appeared to be a disassembled trick arrow when Jason emerged, the TV droning at a low volume in the background, but he looked up when Jason sat down at the other end of the couch. “Well, look at you. A whole new man,” he said, smiling. “Feel better?”

“Much,” Jason admitted. Roy kept watching him, head tilted contemplatively. Jason’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Just wondering if you were planning on sticking with the mountain man look indefinitely,” Roy said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the ‘increasingly paranoid survivalist’ aesthetic definitely works for you, but…”

“Bold words for a man with a soul patch.”

Roy barked a laugh and clutched at his chest. “Ouch! And Red Hood claims another victim.”

Jason surprised himself by not bristling at the joke. He would have, if Bruce or Dick had alluded to his kill count—but then, Bruce or Dick wouldn’t have joked about it. Instead, he shrugged a shoulder. “Figured I’d wait until my hands were a little steadier before I put a blade to my face.”

“Makes sense,” Roy said. He looked back down at his arrow. Jason looked at the TV.

And then: “I could...do it for you?”

Jason turned back to Roy, startled. Roy looked uncharacteristically hesitant, glancing between Jason and the arrow like he wasn’t sure what to look at.

“I mean,” Roy said. “I could help you shave. Or really just, you know.” He waved a vague hand. “Do it.”

Jason rubbed at his chin, feeling the unruly prickle of a week’s growth against his palm. It was ridiculous to even consider. It was just facial hair. He could live with it for another few days. Sure, Roy was a superhero and Dick’s friend and hadn’t done any of the many things he could have done to Jason when he had been much weaker than he was now, but that didn’t mean there was any reason to trust him with a razor. There was extending someone a pragmatic level of trust because you had no real choice, and then there was being stupid.

“All right,” he said, and was startled again.

“Oh,” Roy said, dropping one of the components he was holding. “Uh. Okay. Now?”

“Sure,” Jason said, resisting the urge to squirm. “My schedule’s clear.”

That got him a quick, awkward smile before Roy stood up. “I’ll just. Uh,” he said. “Why don’t we...kitchen? There’s more room than the bathroom.”

Jason followed Roy into the kitchen, where Roy pointed absently at one of the chairs with a “Sit. I’ll be right back.” Something flickered in Jason’s stomach as he seated himself, something he tried to ignore.

Roy returned a minute later with a towel, a razor, shaving cream, and lotion. He dragged the chair closer to the sink, an easy slide despite Jason’s weight, and turned the water on. “Right,” he said. “Here we go.”

Jason had been touched by Roy before. Plenty of times, by now. Helping him to sit up or walk to and from the bathroom. Absently patting his thigh through the blanket as he stood up at the end of a conversation. Changing his dressings and removing his stitches, and the wound on his stomach was low enough to be somewhere most people didn’t usually touch.

A strong, warm hand on his shoulder once or twice when he was fifteen, which he’d nearly managed to forget about until now.

This touching was different, and no amount of pretending could make Jason feel like it wasn’t. Roy’s hands were gentle but sure as they spread shaving cream over his cheeks and chin, as he guided Jason’s head this way and that with delicate pressure.

“I think…yeah,” Roy said as he moved to stand behind Jason, the razor in one hand. “Feels more natural this way.”

Jason knew what he meant—Roy would never approach his own face from the front to shave it, obviously—but something about it felt natural to him too, somehow. Roy’s heat at his back, the warm breathing presence of him behind and above Jason. Roy put two fingers beneath Jason’s chin to steady him and let the razor glide over his cheek, and Jason let out a shaky breath.

“Shh, I got you,” Roy said. “Just breathe.”

Jason did. Jason breathed in the scent of the shaving cream that smelled a little like Roy, breathed steady and let Roy work. The cool metal razor grew warm from his skin, from the water Roy kept rinsing it clean in between steady, meditative passes. Roy’s other hand gently pulled Jason’s skin taut, pressing at his jaw, his cheekbones, his nose. His lips.

“Tilt this way,” Roy said a few times, very low. And “Good, perfect.” And “You’re doing great.”

Time stretched, dilated, melted and pulled like taffy in the sun. Jason didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in this chair, guided by Roy’s voice and his careful touches, suspended in the safety of Roy’s hands and that potentially deadly blade, lulled by the sound of the running water. In the absence of a larger world, his focus narrowed to small, specific details. The bowstring calluses on the pads of Roy’s fingers. The wood of the kitchen chair against the backs of his thighs. A drop of water running down his neck until Roy’s thumb smoothed it away.

“All the way back now,” Roy murmured. “I need your throat.” Jason tilted his head back until the crown of his head brushed Roy’s stomach. Roy smiled down at him, his eyes crinkling. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”

Jason’s lips parted. His dick sat heavy against his thigh, trapped in his pajama pants.

Roy drew the razor up over Jason’s neck; long, steady strokes over that vulnerable column, along his pulse, his Adam’s apple. His other hand spread big and strong under the curve of Jason’s skull, cradling it. Jason could watch him like this, upside down; could study the furrow of concentration in his heavy brows, a darker shade of red than his hair. He wondered how long it would take to count all of Roy’s freckles. To touch them all with his tongue.

“There we go,” Roy said, guiding Jason back upright. He rinsed the razor off one last time and then dampened a towel before turning off the sink. The sudden lack of white noise pressed on Jason’s ears.

Circling to stand in front of him, Roy used the damp towel to wipe Jason’s face clean of any stray hairs or traces of shaving cream, then stood back to assess his work. “Did I say you were cute the other day?” he asked, his voice still very low, and Jason’s heart sank. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Jaybird.”

Jason leaned forward, like he could touch the praise, press up against it like a cat in a patch of sunlight. Roy put a light hand on his chest to keep him in place, and that was good, too, steadying and real. “Almost done,” he said, and picked up a bottle of lotion.

Jason closed his eyes as Roy rubbed the lotion into his skin: his cheeks, his chin, down his neck. Those callused fingers grazed the edge of Jason’s lips and they parted easily, his head turning so he could catch one in his mouth. It tasted faintly of lotion, but it was worth the trade to have something to hold on to.

Roy’s breathing hitched audibly. “Hey, excuse you,” he said, his voice all soft fondness, with a fine tremor of...something else. Warmth bloomed in Jason’s chest. “I need that. Let me finish.”

Jason released Roy’s finger and tilted his face up, his mouth still open. Being very still and quiet and good as Roy finished smoothing lotion into his skin.

And then those warm, strong hands were gone. Jason opened his eyes.

“All right,” Roy said, stepping back. His cheeks were pink, blotchy patches of color under the freckles that Jason wanted to touch, and his pupils were slightly dilated. “I’m all done.”

Jason blinked slowly, like he was underwater, and didn’t move.

“Oh, fuck,” Roy said. Jason’s brow furrowed—what had he done wrong?—and Roy made an aborted move toward him and then pulled back. “No, Jay, you’re fine, but it’s time to come up now, okay? Can you come back?”

Up? Up from where? But Jason tried, because Roy had asked, focusing on Roy’s presence and his eyes and the way his left eyebrow was slightly higher than his right.

“I’m...you’re done?” he asked, reaching up to touch his face, to feel the smooth, sensitive skin that had been hidden under overgrown stubble this morning. Before Roy had shaved him. Before Roy had…

Oh, fuck. He’d gone down.

“Are you with me?” Roy asked, and Jason nodded, his mind reeling. Fuck, fuck, he hadn’t meant to do that and now Roy would be so goddamn smug—or worse, handsy.

But Roy didn’t smirk at him and he didn’t touch him. He just stepped past Jason to pick the kettle up off the stove and fill it with water. “You should drink something, and have some sugar. Hot chocolate okay?”

“Sure,” Jason said, watching warily as Roy took down a mug and then a familiar blue box. “Ugh, Swiss Miss?”

“I’ve been feeding you for a week, I’d think you’d have noticed by now that I’m not a gourmand,” Roy retorted.

Jason shivered at I’ve been feeding you, at the memory of Roy’s fingers on his lips. Fuck.

“Hey,” Roy said, meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry. That went a little further than it should have, and I should have caught it. I’ll be more careful in the future, okay? I promise.”

He was apologizing. He was a Dom and he was apologizing for accidentally putting Jason down. But that didn’t mean he was going to expect things now, that he wasn’t going to start putting his hands on him like Jason was his property, now that he knew that all of Jason’s carefully cultivated defenses were apparently useless against him.

Jason made himself ignore the small, plaintive voice in the back of his head that wanted to know why Roy wasn’t putting his hands on him now.

“You’d fucking better,” he said as the kettle started to whistle, and told himself to be stronger in the future.

*

The next morning, Roy’s soul patch was gone.

Chapter Text

Jason was feeling stronger every day, strong enough that two mornings after the shaving incident, he didn’t even need to keep a hand on the wall to make sure he didn’t fall. Roy’s voice was a low rumble, like he was trying not to be heard, and Jason followed it to the kitchen, curious.

“I miss you too, sweetheart,” Roy was saying into the phone, and the naked adoration on his face stole Jason’s breath. “I love you so much.”

He was with someone. He was with someone, and that was why he’d kept his hands to himself. That was why he hadn’t put Jason down again, even though they both knew how easy it would be for him now.

But that didn’t make sense. Roy didn’t wear a cuff with his sub’s initials embossed on it. Dick wouldn’t have placed Jason with a Dom who was with someone else in the hopes that Roy would tame him—and hell, Roy had offered to Dom Jason non-platonically if Jason wanted.

Maybe he was with this other person casually, too casually for him to have collared them. Maybe they weren’t even a sub. But no, the smile on his face, the soft way he was talking—there was nothing casual about that.

Maybe he was just a cheating piece of shit. But that didn’t seem right either.

“Okay, I’ll see you soon. Promise,” Roy said. “Bye, baby.”

His smile dropped away the second he hung up the phone, and the longing that replaced it was even worse to look at. Something hot and angry blossomed in Jason’s chest. Had anyone ever loved him enough to look like that when they weren’t with him? Could anyone?

He stepped into the kitchen, and Roy looked up. “Oh, hey, Jay—”

“Who was that?” Jason demanded. “On the phone. Who were you talking to?”

Roy’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry, when did my personal phone calls become your business?”

“About four days ago, when you offered to make me your sub on the side,” Jason snapped.

Roy stared. “You think—Jay, that was my daughter. She’s six years old. I’m not—whatever you think is happening here, you’re way off-base.”

Jason couldn’t have heard that right. “Your...what?”

“My daughter. Lian. You were there when I found out about her, remember?” Roy said. “When Cheshire attacked us in Switzerland?”

“But she’s...that was…” Jason remembered, of course he remembered. Roy’s careless charm and fishhook smile—and the uneasy look on his face when he wasn’t smiling. Cheshire’s furious accusations and Roy’s stammered apologies, all shockingly grown-up to Jason’s fifteen-year-old ears. He remembered the moment, but it had never seemed real, never seemed like there was a brand-new little person at the heart of it, who was now… “That was six years ago. Shit.”

“Yeah. Feels like about six minutes, sometimes,” Roy said, his expression softening back to fondness. “It’s insane how fast she’s growing. Needs new clothes every three months, I swear to god. Also, hey, here, you shouldn’t be standing this long.” He got up and pushed his chair toward Jason even though there was another one on the other side of the table, then reached for the coffeepot.

“Where is she?” Jason asked as Roy poured coffee into a clean mug and added sugar. “With Cheshire?”

“No, I have full custody,” Roy said, handing him his coffee. “Drink. Cheshire, uh...did some shit while you were gone, there’s a lot of outstanding warrants. She visits when she can. But right now Lian’s with Green Arrow and Black Canary, back in Star City.”

It was Jason’s turn to stare, hands curving around the warm mug. “Why are you here?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Jason said. “Why the hell are you in Gotham when your kid’s in Star City? I know you said you owe Dick, but there are limits.”

Roy bristled visibly. “Listen, I may not be a perfect father, but—”

“That’s not what I mean,” Jason said. “Like I’m gonna judge you? What the hell do I know about good fathers? My real dad gave me a fat lip every time he remembered I was a sub, and you’ve met Bruce. But you actually seem to give a shit about your kid, so why are you wasting time with me when you could be with her?”

Roy opened his mouth and shut it a couple of times before finally seeming to figure out what he wanted to say. “First of all, I wouldn’t even have Lian if it wasn’t for Dick. He’s a big part of the reason I have custody. So yeah, I owe him. I’m always gonna owe him. Second, I know we don’t know each other all that well, but I would have thought you’d know I wouldn’t leave someone on their own with a couple of bullet wounds, come on.”

“Oh, please,” Jason said. “If you’d said no, Dick would’ve found someone else. Hired a regular nurse or something. Or just kept me at the cave until I snuck out. You’re not here because you think you’re the only one who can give me proper medical attention.”

Roy sighed and leaned against the counter, arms folded. It made his biceps look even bigger than usual. Jason refused to let them distract him.

“Yeah, fair,” Roy said. “But come on. We talked about this. You know what else is on the table.”

“Do I?” Jason asked. Because when he’d been down, when Roy could have done anything with him, he’d turned him away instead.

Roy spread his hands. “A chance to try subbing properly in a safe environment. That’s all.”

“Like anything’s safe for a sub,” Jason snorted. Although he had felt safe enough with Roy to let him put a blade to his throat. “You and Dick are so big on me just trying. Bruce and Dick keep saying I need a Dom. But Doms need subs, not the other way around. What the hell does the sub get out of it?”

“Exactly! That’s what too many people don’t understand!” Roy said, lighting up like Jason had just said the magic word. “Doms do need subs. It goes both ways. It’s supposed to be a partnership, not service going in a single direction.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

“No, but it is,” Roy said, his blue eyes earnest. “It’s supposed to be about both partners’ needs, both partners’ desires. To be...to be balanced. I know a lot of people abuse it, and even more just get it wrong, but when it’s done right, I think it’s really beautiful.”

Of course he would think that—he was a Dom. He could just take his pleasure when he wanted it and tell himself it was balanced.

Although if Jason was honest with himself, Roy didn’t really seem the type. He’d never crossed a line with Jason, not even when Jason was truly helpless. Not even when Jason was down and all but begging him to.

Maybe that was why Jason had immediately jumped to the conclusion that Roy was on the phone with a partner when he’d walked into the kitchen. Roy should have a partner, someone to absorb all that earnest affection, that easy strength.

Besides, if Roy wasn’t with anyone, there was no reason for him to have turned Jason down when he was in subspace. No reason except Jason himself.

Shame made his face go hot, and he clutched his undrunk coffee tighter. “If you think it’s so beautiful, why don’t you have a sub?”

Roy...shuttered, was the only way to put it. Jason watched it happen: how his eyes went cold, his jaw tensed, his body language turned inwards. He hadn’t realized how open Roy was until he saw him closed.

“You should eat something,” Roy said, and his voice was closed, too. “I’ve got shit to do.”

And he walked out of the kitchen, leaving Jason alone. A minute later, Jason heard Roy’s bedroom door shut.

Fuck.

*

Jason avoided Doms as a rule, but nowhere moreso than his sex life. Not that he had much of a sex life.

Talia was a fellow sub, who knew all too well the impotent fury that came from struggling to escape from under the thumb of a thoughtlessly dictatorial Dom. He’d had a sparse handful of flings with other subs, and hooked up a couple of times with switches who he could mostly count on not to be assholes.

The one almost-exception to his no Doms rule had proven exactly why he needed the rule in the first place.

He’d been seventeen, still a virgin, and still deep into his doomed quest to eventually kill Bruce. Talia had sent him to study with a German assassin named Egon. He was more than twice Jason’s age and handsome in a sharp, clean way, like an ice pick. He was also, of course, a Dom.

He’d pegged Jason for a sub almost from the beginning. Most of the teachers Talia had sent Jason to did. They were the best, and you didn’t get to be the best by lacking basic observational skills. Jason was good at faking it, but he was there to learn, and that meant taking orders, and that meant...well, whatever Doms saw when they smelled fresh meat.

He taught Jason by example, beating his own men to a pulp—and then by throwing Jason to fresh opponents and barking out commands, always ordering him to take the more lethal blow, to override the Bat-trained muscle memory that steered him towards moves that merely stunned or disabled. Jason did his best to hear the words and not the command. It was harder to fight his opponents—all Doms and switches—and Egon’s voice, and it meant he took a worse beating, but it was necessary conditioning. He couldn’t be reliant on Egon to tell him what to do in a fight, to get used to subsuming his instincts to a Dom’s orders.

He’d already done that dance. It had gotten him killed.

The first three fights with Egon’s men had ended with Jason being beaten into unconsciousness. The fourth ended with him as the only one standing. Lip bloodied, head ringing, and he was probably going to be pissing blood for a few days, but standing.

“Better,” Egon said. “You are not avoiding zhe killing blows so much. You vill still get yourself killed, but maybe not so fast, now.”

Jason glared at him and spat blood on the floor. Egon laughed. “Go clean up,” he said, and Jason stumbled out of the makeshift fighting ring.

As he passed Egon, the assassin reached out and squeezed his dick through his pants. Jason froze.

“And vhen that pretty mouth isn’t bleeding, maybe I’ll teach you some other things, yeah?” Egon murmured.

Jason’s mind went blank. Egon laughed again and let go of him, walking toward his office.

Jason didn’t let himself think about it until after he’d showered and taped himself up, lying in bed with an icepack on his head. It had been a long time since a Dom had tried to lay claim to him so boldly. A lifetime, if he wanted to think about it that way. He’d heard any number of crude things as a child, but that was before he’d been under Bruce’s protection, and then Talia’s.

He wasn’t a child anymore. He wasn’t a legal adult, technically—but then, what did birthdays matter after he’d died? He didn’t even know whether he was supposed to factor in the time he’d spent six feet under into his age.

When he had been a child, being grabbed like that would have terrified him. He couldn’t deny the spike of fear he’d felt today—but he couldn’t deny the shiver of curious arousal, either.

What would it be like, to put himself in the hands of a Dom? He was already part of the way there, letting Egon train him to kill. What if he did let Egon teach him other things? After all, everyone said that was what subs were for—to be trained and used by Doms. If that was the case, if all of his instincts since he was nine had wanted him to yield to the Doms around him, then going all the way under had to feel good, didn’t it?

And maybe Egon wasn’t the best possible choice for Jason’s first time, given that he was a ruthless assassin, but it was in his best interests to keep Jason happy. Jason was paying him, after all. The fact that he was a vicious, gleeful killer wasn’t really relevant.

Bruce would be furious if he knew.

And with that thought, Jason was suddenly so turned on he could hardly breathe. Going to his knees for a man Bruce would hate, would leave rotting in jail if he got half the chance...that seemed like a very good way to further his education indeed.

It was a few days before Egon said anything else about it. Jason had put down three opponents this time; he was bruised and battered but still on his feet, blood trickling from a cut over his eye. He looked up at Egon for his take on the fight, breathing hard—and Egon smiled, a slow thing that made Jason’s stomach roil with nerves and anticipation.

“Good,” Egon said. “And now I teach you zhe next thing. Go vait in my office.”

The command was unmistakable, but that was okay—Jason wanted to go. He made his way across the compound to Egon’s little office, which had very few things in it—a desk, some paper records. A mini fridge.

A couch.

Jason wiped sweaty palms on his thighs. Should he sit on the couch? Or at the desk? Fuck, maybe he should kneel, but that felt a little desperate.

Finally he settled for leaning against the desk, his arms folded, ready to give Egon an insouciant smile when he walked in. Okay. He could do this. He wanted to do this.

The door opened. Jason forgot to smile.

Egon didn’t acknowledge him at first. He shut the door behind him, shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the couch. Jason watched him, admiring the sharp line of his jaw and the definition of his muscles through his shirt, as he opened the fridge and pulled out one of those disgusting energy drinks, taking a long swig before putting it on the desk.

Finally, he turned to Jason, studying him for a long moment. Jason fought not to blush, to keep his gaze up even as some fundamental instinct in him wanted to lower it.

“So,” Egon said finally, smiling faintly. “Zhe pretty little rich boy who zhinks he can pay for vhatever he vants is a sub.” His hand curved around the back of Jason’s neck, rough and heavy. His breath smelled like artificial cherry, and his voice was all Dom. Jason felt mildly dizzy. “And now he vants to learn to play, does he?”

Jason blinked sleepily. Egon’s grip tightened. “Answer me.”

It was hard to find his words. “Yes,” Jason managed finally.

“Good,” Egon said.

Then his hand tightened painfully on Jason’s neck and his heel hooked into the back of Jason’s leg at the same time, sending him to his knees on the concrete floor of the office, hard.

“What the fuck—” Jason managed to say before Egon slapped him open-handed across the face, reopening the cut over his eye.

“Vhen you are rich boy, you can do vhat you vant,” Egon said, grabbing a fistful of Jason’s hair and yanking his head back so that Jason was forced to face him. His voice was low and all command, like a vise around Jason’s throat. “But vhen you are little sub bitch who vants me to show him a good time, you vill vait for me on your fucking knees.”

There were half a dozen ways for Jason to break his hold and get to his feet, ranging from mildly painful for Egon to incapacitating. He could see the options, the ones he’d learned on the street and from Bruce and from Egon himself. But it was like they were on the other side of frosted glass—visible, but fuzzy and inaccessible.

“I don’t…” he managed, trying to pull away. “I don’t want it like that.”

Egon laughed. “Like vhat?” he asked. “You vere made to take it zhis vay, slut. Don’t worry.” He squeezed himself through his pants. “Zhey always like it in zhe end.”

“No,” Jason said, fainter. He’d wanted something, but not this—not pain and humiliation and being treated like he was something disposable. He’d had enough of that for two lifetimes.

Maybe it was what he was made for. Being a sub certainly wasn’t helping him now. But he’d fought those instincts for years, and he could do it again.

He just wasn’t sure he could do it before Egon had gotten what he wanted.

Egon had gotten his belt and pants undone with his free hand and was reaching into them, spewing filth in a mixture of English and German all the while, when there was an urgent knock on the door. “Go avay,” Egon barked.

Whoever it was shouted something in German, something Jason was too rattled to translate in his head. Egon made a disgusted noise. “Stay,” he told Jason, letting go of him and refastening his pants and belt. He stormed out the door and slammed it behind him, yelling at his lackey in German as he went.

Jason knelt there, shaking, for several long moments.

Finally, he managed to pry himself off the floor. Feeling every second like he was going to be caught and punished, he crept out of Egon’s office and across the compound to where his own little room lay. He locked the door behind him, then dragged the flimsy compressed wood dresser in front of it before crawling into bed, fully dressed, heedless of the dried blood on his face or the other injuries from the day’s fights. He lay awake all night, shaking with cold despite the several heavy blankets he’d been provided with.

Two days later, he killed Egon.

He didn’t do it for himself. He’d discovered that Egon was deep into child trafficking, and though Jason was no hero, those kids deserved not just to be rescued, but to sleep soundly knowing that the man who’d masterminded their pain could never hurt them again—or anyone else.

But Jason slept a little bit sounder too, untroubled by the fact that he’d just carried out his first premeditated murder. He’d wanted Egon to be his first, after all.

His first murder and his last Dom, because if Jason was no hero, he was also no fool. And there was no fucking way he was walking willingly into a situation like that ever again.

*

Roy kept to himself the rest of the day after that disastrous conversation. He didn’t ignore Jason, exactly, but the easy welcome that had been there before was gone. Jason hadn’t known he’d been basking in that welcome.

He wasn’t sure why what he’d said had pissed Roy off so much. Okay, yes, so his tone had been bitchy, but he’d been telling Roy to go fuck himself since he’d woken up in the safehouse. He’d threatened to murder him multiple times. How could snottily asking why he was single be the thing that finally made Roy lose his temper?

He tried to tell himself that anger was what he’d seen on Roy’s face before it had closed down. Anger, and not hurt.

Anyway, what did it matter? They weren’t friends. Jason was still here somewhat against his will, and once he was strong enough not to need help, he and Roy would go their separate ways, and that would be the end of it.

Not that he really needed help anymore.

Roy was still withdrawn the next morning when Jason walked into the living room, but he nodded toward a book sitting on the coffee table. “That’s for you. Ordered it online,” he said.

It was Crime and Punishment. In Russian.

“...Thanks,” Jason said.

“Yeah, well, you said you didn’t really watch TV, so.” Roy shrugged a shoulder. He didn’t look up from the arrow he was tinkering with.

Jason stood there for a minute, watching Roy work. Studying the long, straight line of his nose, his pink lips twisted in concentration and the clever delicacy of the fingers that had put him back together and never, ever hurt him.

Then he went into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and studied the contents before pulling out a little cardboard pint crate of strawberries. Further rummaging in the cabinets—wincing a little as reaching up pulled at both of his healing wounds—earned him a colander, and he rinsed the strawberries thoroughly in it before carefully removing the tops with a paring knife.

He transferred the strawberries to a bowl and went back out into the living room. Roy still didn’t look up.

At least, not until Jason picked up a throw pillow from the couch, placed it on the floor next to Roy’s feet, and knelt on it, the bowl cradled in his hands.

Roy went still. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Jason swallowed, as if it would quiet the hammering of his heart. What was he doing? Something he’d sworn he never would again, for starters. He wasn’t even sure if he was doing this to apologize or just because he was curious. After all this time, he was still curious.

He offered Roy the berries. “Will you show me?” he asked.

Roy gave him a long look, and Jason tried not to squirm. What if Roy said no? What if he was too angry? What if he’d had more than a week to get to know Jason and he’d decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of trying to break him in?

What if this was Jason’s only chance and it was already gone?

Then Roy’s shoulders straightened, and he took the bowl out of Jason’s hands. A shiver ran down Jason’s spine.

“Sit up straight,” Roy said. His voice didn’t get deeper, or harder, or—Jason didn’t know how to explain the change. But it hooked under his ribs in a way that Roy’s normal speaking voice didn’t. “Hands clasped behind your back.”

Jason wasn’t sure which was stronger, the instinct to fight or the instinct to obey. But he’d initiated this, so he might as well see it through. He lifted his chin and clasped his hands behind his back. It was a little unnatural, and would probably be uncomfortable if he held it for too long.

He braced himself for the too-tight grip. The blows. The names.

But Roy just picked up a berry, one small enough that Jason could eat it in one bite. “Open your mouth.”

This was it. Jason could refuse, could say he’d changed his mind. He knew well enough by now to know that Roy would listen. He could get up off of his knees, go back into the kitchen, and make himself a proper breakfast. He could walk away from all of this.

He opened his mouth.

Roy fed him the strawberry carefully, not letting his fingers graze Jason’s lips or teeth. Jason tried not to feel disappointed so early, closing his mouth and chewing.

“Good,” Roy said. “Do you want another one?”

“Yeah, somehow a single berry wasn’t a sufficient breakfast for an adult man,” Jason said.

Roy’s mouth quirked. “Do you want another one, or do you want to be sassy?”

Jason forced himself not to squirm. “I want another one.”

Roy picked up another berry. “You’re going to say ‘please’ every time you’re ready for another. That’s the only way you’ll get one. No jokes, no sarcasm. Just ‘please.’ Understand?”

Of course he couldn’t just make it easy. Jason scowled. “Yeah, I get it.”

Roy waited.

Jason sighed and opened his mouth. “Please.”

Roy fed him the berry. This time his finger brushed Jason’s upper lip. “You can stop scowling at me. You can’t have it both ways, you know,” he said. “You don’t like the idea that a Dom can just do whatever they want to you. Well, I won’t. I’m only going to do what you ask me for. But you have to ask.”

Jason was tempted to just scowl harder, but it did make sense, as much as he hated to admit it. He watched as Roy’s pale, nimble fingers selected another berry, a bigger one this time. It would take two bites at least.

“But there’s another reason,” Roy said. “I gave you directions because if you can follow them, it will show me that you can be good.” He met Jason’s eyes, and for the first time since Jason had fucked everything up yesterday, there was a hint of a smile in his expression. “And I think you really want to be good for me, don’t you?”

Jason’s breath caught. “Please,” he said.

Roy placed the strawberry against his lips. Jason sank his teeth into it, biting it in two, and feeling a droplet of juice well over his bottom lip towards his chin. Roy caught it with his thumb, then pulled his hand back enough to let Jason chew. When he’d finished chewing, Jason opened his mouth again and Roy fed him the rest of the berry, this time letting Jason catch the very tips of his fingers in his mouth before pulling back.

Jason swallowed. He opened his mouth. “Please.”

The discomfort in his arms and shoulders and knees from holding this position went away. The fear that Roy would use this as an excuse to finally show his true colors—that Jason would expose his throat just to have it slit—went away. Everything went away but Roy’s face and Roy’s fingers and the tart-sweet taste of strawberry juice on Jason’s tongue.

And then Roy started to talk.

“You’re doing so well, Jason,” he murmured between bites. “So good for me. I’m so proud of you for trying. You’re being so brave.”

“Please.” Jason’s chest was warm and his face was hot. He didn’t mind.

“You look so beautiful on your knees, did you know that?” Roy fed him another berry. He let Jason suck on the tips of his fingers, let him chase them when they pulled away, berry-scented. “My pretty little Jaybird.”

Jason frowned and Roy paused. “What’s wrong? Don’t like the nickname?”

Jason shook his head vehemently, as if he could stop Roy from taking it back. It was a stupid nickname, objectively. It made him feel adored. But the rest… “I like it,” he managed. “But I’m...I’m not…”

“Not what?” Roy asked.

Pretty. Beautiful. Good. Jason’s throat locked, and he shook his head again.

And then Roy’s palm was under his chin, lifting it and making him look Roy in the eye. His firm but gentle grip was nothing like the bruising one Jason had half expected, and his blue eyes were soft and earnest.

“You’re gorgeous,” Roy said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. You’re fucking gorgeous, Jaybird. “You are. Gorgeous and so good for me—and I’m the one who gets to decide that,” he added as Jason opened his mouth, tapping a finger lightly against Jason’s lips. “I decide, and right now you’re being so, so good for me. I knew you could.”

Jason’s eyes welled with tears. Roy made a soft sound and brushed a thumb over his cheekbone.

“Shh, you’re okay,” he said. “Do you want another berry, sweet boy?”

Not bitch or slut. Sweet boy. Jason swallowed hard. “Please,” he managed.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, asking Roy to feed him, licking and sucking at his fingertips while the warm tenor of Roy’s soft praise drifted over him. He grew gradually sleepier and fuller and harder, his dick tenting his pajama pants. It didn’t seem important.

His requests for more stretched further and further apart, until Roy tilted his head and asked, “Are you full, baby? Do you want to stop?”

How did he know? But Jason nodded, and Roy reached past him to set the bowl on the coffee table. “You did beautifully, Jaybird. Such a good boy for me.”

Jason gazed up at him, at that handsome face a little flushed and flustered. Roy thought Jason was good. He wanted to keep being good; he wanted to make Roy feel as pleased and satisfied as he did right now.

“You can put your arms down. Any way you’re comfortable,” Roy said. His voice was a little rough. Jason loved it.

He let his hands move from behind his back to fold loosely in his lap. His shoulders were a little sore, but he didn’t mind.

“Do you want to put your head down?” Roy asked, patting his own thigh, which suddenly looked like the most comfortable place in the world.

“Please,” Jason said, and watched as Roy’s breath hitched visibly.

“Go ahead,” Roy said. Jason leaned his cheek against the lean muscle of Roy’s thigh, warm through his sweatpants. Roy’s fingers scratched lightly through Jason’s curls, and he nearly purred.

With his head down like this, it was impossible to miss that Roy was hard, the line of his dick clearly visible where it was trapped against his sweatpants. Jason’s chest rumbled with pride, and his mouth watered. He shifted forward, mouthing against Roy’s thigh, moving closer to where he knew he was supposed to be. He would be good.

“What—oh,” Roy said. “Oh, Jaybird, no, you don’t have to do that, baby.”

Jason tilted his head to meet Roy’s eyes. “Please,” he said.

Roy let out a shaky breath. “Fuck,” he said. “No, sweet boy, I can’t let you. I’m sorry.” Jason felt his face crumple. “Shhh, it’s okay, you didn’t do anything bad. You’re so good, baby. I know you would feel like heaven. But I’m not doing anything like that with you until we talk about it, and that has to wait until you come up. Okay?”

No, of course it wasn’t okay, Roy was hard and Jason’s mouth was right there, why wouldn’t Roy let Jason take care of him? But Roy was still petting Jason’s hair and so it didn’t feel like rejection, even if it didn’t make sense.

“I just want you to relax and enjoy yourself, okay?” Roy said. “You don’t have to do any work. You were already so brave, and you followed all my directions. That’s all I need. Just rest now.”

Jason let himself go that last little bit, sinking against Roy’s thigh, safe and suspended in the knowledge that he had done well. His eyes didn’t close, but they sank to half mast, and he drifted there in the space Roy had built for him, safe and satisfied.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was when Roy’s tone changed, becoming a little brisker, a little more alert. “You ready to come up, Jaybird?” he asked. “Come on, come sit up here.”

He helped Jason up onto the couch. Jason blinked through the fog. “...Time’s it?”

“Almost noon. You should probably have something to eat besides strawberries,” Roy said. “And something to drink.”

Jason blinked again, then reached for Roy’s abandoned mug on the coffee table and took a sip. He made a face. “Ugh, cold,” he said. “And how many fucking sugars did you put in this?”

Roy laughed. “Okay, now I know you’re back, because you’re riding my ass again,” he said, and Jason flushed hot at the possibly intentional double entendre. “How are you feeling?”

Jason let himself think about it. “Um...good,” he said. “A little tired? And my shoulders are a little stiff. But, um...relaxed?” And still half-hard, but he didn’t say that part.

Roy smiled, and Jason realized that the look on Roy’s face until now had been nervousness. “Good,” he said. “That’s really good. That’s the point. Well, part of the point. To take away all the…” He waved his hand vaguely near his head. “...and let it go, at least for a little while.”

Jason had always thought it was about control, mainly. Well, control and fucking.

But Roy had let him maintain control, hadn’t he? Even when Jason had been so out of it he would have done anything Roy said, Roy had found a way to ensure that things only happened when Jason asked for them. And he hadn’t taken advantage when Jason had offered to...had tried to…

His cheeks burned again. “How do you feel?” he asked, to distract himself from the shame of begging to suck Roy’s dick. And from the fact that he still kind of wanted to.

Roy looked startled. “Me? I don’t…you were good, Jason, really. I wouldn’t say it just because you wanted to hear it.”

Jason fought against the desire to slip down again at the casual praise. Roy was too effusive for him to go under every time he let out a compliment. Jason would spend the rest of his life on his knees. “I didn’t ask how I was. I asked how you felt. You said it’s supposed to be balanced, right? So it shouldn’t just be about making me feel good, or what’s the point?”

He didn’t know how to interpret the look on Roy’s face. It was like no one had ever asked Roy that question after a scene before, but that couldn’t possibly be true.

“Oh,” Roy said. “I, uh, I feel good too. Also relaxed. I like...I really liked taking care of you.”

“Oh,” Jason said, and then they were both staring awkwardly at their hands, blushing, and this wasn’t anything like Jason had thought the aftermath of subbing would be.

He didn’t hate it.

“Do you…” Roy started, paused, then pushed forward. “Do you think you’d like to do it again?”

“Yes,” Jason said before he could stop himself, then cringed at how embarrassingly eager he’d sounded.

“Okay,” Roy said, and smiled at him—not the blinding one he usually greeted Jason with in the morning, or the cheeky one he let out when he was pleased with himself, but something smaller and shyer altogether. Like the others, it was irresistible.

Fuck, Jason was in so much trouble.

*

It was a couple of days before either of them broached the topic of Jason subbing again. Jason spent a lot of them curled on the couch, working his way through Crime and Punishment while Roy built arrows and listened to surf rock, of all things. Jason wasn’t used to feeling so comfortable in a space with another human being, just existing—at least, not since he’d been a kid tagging around the manor after Alfred.

His injuries had faded to a manageable level. The bullet wounds still hurt, but they didn’t impede his movement, and everything else had mostly healed. He didn’t get dizzy standing up too long. He probably could have left. Roy probably would have let him go.

Instead, he tucked his toes under the warmth of Roy’s thigh and kept reading.

When Roy did bring it up, it was over a dinner that they ate sitting at the table, which was nice enough that Jason almost didn’t wish he was on his knees. “We should talk about what’s going to happen the next time we scene,” Roy said. “If you still want to.”

Jason paused, then chewed very carefully and swallowed. “I do,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Last time, you seemed interested in, uh, turning things sexual,” Roy said. “I wouldn’t spring that on you while you were down, but is that something you think you’d like to incorporate going forward?”

Jason’s heart thumped against his ribs. If he said yes, Roy might take it as a free pass to do whatever he wanted. This might be the end of that safe, secure space Roy had made, if Jason offered himself up for Roy’s use.

But looking at Roy across the table—the lean muscular lines of him, the concerned tilt of his mouth, the softness of his clear blue eyes—Jason couldn’t deny that he wanted him. And if there was a way to have him, and still have that safe space…

“I...yes,” he said. “I want...yes.”

A pink flush washed over the tops of Roy’s cheekbones. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Is there anything in particular you want? Or things you would rather we didn’t do?”

“Wait,” Jason said. “Is...do you want that? With me?”

Roy’s cheeks went even pinker. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.

Heat surged through Jason’s body, and he thought about going to his knees right there next to Roy’s chair. He thought about the strength in Roy’s hands and how they would feel curved around his throat.

He thought about kissing Roy.

He forced it all down, forced himself to take another bite, chew it thoroughly, and swallow again. “Well, yeah,” he said when he thought he could trust his voice. “I’m a fucking snack,” and Roy’s bark of surprised laughter made him feel like maybe this wouldn’t all end in disaster.

*

Roy made him talk about it, first. Roy took him through endless lists of things to say yes, no, or maybe to. Some of them made Jason’s skin prickle with interest, some of them made him recoil, and a couple made him so turned on it was difficult to concentrate on what Roy was saying.

Under the theory that turnabout was fairplay, he made Roy give his answers too, but that just got him that startled look again, like no one had ever bothered to ask Roy what he wanted. It made Jason’s chest hurt in a way that he was starting to like a little too much.

One of the things Roy asked about was collaring. “I have a set already,” he explained. “So we wouldn’t have to wait.”

“Are you asking if I want to wear your ex’s castoffs?” Jason asked, trying to force enough droll sarcasm into his tone that Roy wouldn’t pick up on how intensely he hated the idea of wearing a collar someone else had worn before him. Someone Roy had touched. Maybe someone Roy had even loved.

“Uh...no, actually,” Roy said, looking sheepish. “I, um, picked it up a couple weeks ago, while you were napping. Um. Just in case.”

Jason blinked. “Oh. Um...can I see?”

The set was in Roy’s bedroom. Jason sat on his bed while Roy took it out of the nightstand drawer and handed it to him. The logo on the box belonged to one of the most upscale retailers in Gotham.

Jason opened the box. He’d never actually seen a complete set mint in the box like this except on TV—his parents barely wore theirs, and Bruce hadn’t been able to maintain a relationship long enough to even say the word “collar,” let alone buy one. There was a sturdy collar in a deep red leather, lined with black silk, and a matching cuff for Roy’s dominant wrist in the same materials. Coiled between them was a silver chain of links that looked delicate but probably weren’t.

“I know I sort of jumped the gun here, but hey, it worked out, right?” Roy asked. He sounded nervous. “Unless you don’t want to wear it, which is totally fine. You don’t have to. I get it.”

Jason trailed his fingers over the soft, supple leather, the silk that would feel cool and smooth against his throat. If they were serious about each other, the collar would have Roy’s initials embossed on it, to show the world whose property Jason was. And the cuff would have Jason’s initials. A matched set.

But Roy had gotten these before they’d even really talked about sceneing; before Jason had been anything but awful to him. Just in case.

He took the collar out of the box and held it out to Roy. “Put it on me?”

It was quiet enough in the room that he could hear Roy’s soft catch of breath. He took the collar from Jason’s hands and undid the buckle. Jason lifted his chin to give him room to work.

The silk was cool against his throat, but Roy’s fingers were burning hot. The collar was a heavy weight around his neck—not uncomfortable, but impossible to forget, especially when he swallowed.

“How does that feel?” Roy asked.

Jason swallowed again, just to feel the pressure. “Good,” he said. He was already starting to sink.

“Good.” Roy took the box out of Jason’s lap and set it on the bed. “Strip for me, and then kneel.”

Jason stood and began taking off his clothes slowly, methodically, finding that his bullet wounds barely even pulled anymore when he raised his arms to tug his shirt off. He folded each item as it was removed, placing it at the foot of the bed before starting on the next. Normally he might have felt self conscious about his scars, his size, his everything, but Roy had already seen him wearing almost nothing and in much worse condition than this. Besides, what he looked like mattered less than being good, and being good meant getting naked.

He was half-hard by the time he knelt at Roy’s feet, completely bare. Roy had already put the cuff on his own wrist and attached one end of the chain to it. Now he tipped Jason’s chin up with his fingers and stepped back to appraise him, those soft blue eyes running all over Jason’s body, almost as palpable as a real touch.

“Fuck, you’re so goddamn beautiful,” Roy finally said, in a hushed voice like a secret.

The words settled over Jason like a blanket, warm and glowing. He knelt up straighter and eyed the other end of the chain in Roy’s hand. “Are you going to do something with that, or…?”

Roy laughed and stepped forward to clip the chain to Jason’s collar. Something else clicked into place between them as he did—a tether, invisible and stronger than steel. Jason had never been properly collared before. He’d never wanted to be.

“Smart mouth,” Roy said, tapping Jason’s lips with a finger and pulling away when Jason chased it. “You gonna give me trouble tonight?”

“Maybe,” Jason said, because that was all he’d ever given anyone, wasn’t it?

“I don’t think you will,” Roy said. He stepped in close and ran his fingers through Jason’s hair, using that grip to tilt his head back. “I think you’re going to do exactly as I say, because I think under that big bad facade, you just want to be good for me, don’t you?” He smiled. “And I know you can be, because you were so good for me last time.”

Jason’s mouth fell open. “Roy…” he said.

“Tell me what you want,” Roy said. His tone was firm, all Dom, but it wasn’t the firmness of a hand forcing Jason to kneel, or a blow knocking him down. It was the firmness of the earth beneath his feet.

“I want to be good,” Jason said. “I want to be good for you.”

Roy’s smile widened. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Do you want to know how you can be good for me right now, baby? What I want you to do?”

Jason considered his position; Roy’s nearness; how easy it would be to unzip Roy’s fly. HIs mouth watered. “Suck you?”

“Fuck,” Roy breathed. “Someday, yeah, someday I want you to do that for me, but not tonight.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “Then I don’t…”

“I want you to see how good this can be for you,” Roy said, scratching lightly through Jason’s curls, making him want to purr. “I want to learn how you like to be touched.” He sat down on the bed and tugged gently at the chain, making Jason turn to face him. “You’re going to jerk yourself off for me. Right here. Just like this.”

“I...what?” Jason asked, startled.

“You’re going to show me how you like to touch yourself, and I’m going to watch,” Roy said. As if it was simple.

Jason felt his face going blotchy with heat. “I don’t understand.”

“You still think subbing is about someone else doing things to you,” Roy said. “It’s not, not when you’re with me. It’s about giving you space to let go, a space where you feel safe to feel as good as you possibly can. But it’s also about learning to take orders, even when they’re embarrassing. Even when they make you feel vulnerable.”

“That’s a contradiction,” Jason said, frowning.

“So is subbing,” Roy said. “But I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t hate the idea.”

His gaze dropped lower. Jason blushed harder when he realized he was fully erect. He couldn’t deny a strange, shameful thrill at the thought of Roy just…watching him jerk off, but… “What do you get out of it?”

“What do I get out of watching an incredibly hot man get himself off because I told him to?” Roy asked, drumming the fingers of his free hand against his chin. “Hmm, let me think.”

Jason ducked his head. “Shut up.”

Roy’s hand tightened in his hair, tugging his head back up firmly but painlessly. He looped the chain around his other hand several times rapidly, so that Jason was held tight by the head and neck simultaneously. “Did you just tell your Dom to shut up?” he asked, and the steel was back in his voice.

Jason shivered, both at the anticipation of being disciplined, and the probably inadvertent implication of that particular grammatical construction. His Dom. Like Roy could belong to him as much as a sub belonged to a Dom. Like Jason could keep him.

“I’m sorry,” he managed.

“I will never lie to you, Jason,” Roy said. “When I tell you you’re beautiful, I mean it. When I tell you it gives me pleasure to see you feeling good, I mean it. Do you understand?”

He was so close, leaning in like this. Close enough for Jason to count his freckles, with enough time. Close enough to kiss.

“Yes,” Jason said, fighting not to close that gap.

“Are you going to be good now?”

“Yes,” Jason said again. He was.

Roy sat back, putting more slack in the chain. “Good,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

It was mortifying. It was overwhelming. But Jason dragged his hand down over his belly until he reached his cock, until he could wrap his hand around it and stroke. Roy’s breath hitched audibly, and Jason closed his eyes to get away from the weight of his gaze.

“No,” Roy said, soft but firm. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

Jason forced them open, cheeks flaming. Roy smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Good boy.”

A strangled noise escaped Jason. Roy didn’t say anything, just...just watched him, as he teased himself with light strokes, working himself up slowly. Precome beaded at the slit of his cock and he ran his palm over it, using it to slick himself up.

“That’s it, Jay. Just like that. You’re doing so well,” Roy said. “Is this how you always do it? Slow like this?”

The praise made it a little bit easier; made it feel a little more natural to be touching himself like this, on display like this. “Sometimes,” Jason said, still stroking himself, still looking at Roy. “Sometimes I...I can’t wait. I need it fast. I...most of the time.” Roy’s mouth quirked, like Jason’s impatience was to be expected. It probably was. “But sometimes I...I like to make it last.”

“When?”

The question made Jason frown and struggle to marshall his thoughts. It was hard to think like this, with Roy’s eyes on him, with the world hazy around them, with the pleasure building low in his belly. “I...I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess...when I’m not tired, or rushed, or...when I’m feeling good.”

“And are you feeling good right now, baby?”

The endearment made the last of the tension evaporate from Jason’s shoulders. Roy wasn’t mad at him for being sassy before. His Dom was happy with him. He was being good. “Yes.”

Roy smiled again. “Good, that’s so good, Jaybird. That’s all I want. To make you feel as good as you deserve to feel.”

“Roy,” Jason managed, choked. His hand was slick and wet. “Can I...I want…”

“What, sweet boy?” Roy asked, reaching down to cup his face with one hand, and Jason turned his head and caught the first two fingers in his mouth. They twitched against his tongue. “Oh,” Roy said. “Is that what you need?”

Jason made a mumbled sound of agreement, and felt the callused pads of Roy’s fingers slide back across his tongue. “Then you can have it,” Roy said. “Anything you need, baby.”

Jason moaned his appreciation and stroked himself a little faster. He floated on pleasure, caught between his dick in his hand and the fingers heavy on his tongue and the proud, fond expression on Roy’s face, the heat in his eyes. Roy didn’t stop talking to him, not for a minute.

“That’s good, baby, that’s so good. You’re doing so well for me.” He pressed the heel of his free hand into the bulge between his legs, but didn’t otherwise move to get himself off, his focus entirely on Jason. “That’s it, sweetheart, just like that.”

When Jason came, it was Roy who moaned, low and pained. “Fuck. That’s perfect, baby. You’re perfect.”

Jason sobbed wetly around Roy’s fingers, and Roy let him suck on them for a moment more as he came down, come cooling over his knuckles. Then he withdrew them and wiped them dry on his pant leg before stroking Jason’s hair back from his forehead.

“Did that feel good, Jaybird?”

Jason nodded. Roy gave him another one of those soft smiles Jason was starting to think he would kill for. “Good, I’m glad. You did so well. Do you want to come up now, or do you want to stay down there and rest a bit?”

With an effort, Jason found his voice. “Rest.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Roy drew him closer, let him lean his head against that lean thigh the way he had after their last scene. “You just rest.”

Jason pressed his cheek into the warmth of Roy’s thigh and closed his eyes, enjoying the weight of Roy’s hand in his hair and the collar around his neck, the soft jingle of the chain as Roy pet him. He knew Roy’s dick was only a few inches away, hard and expectant, but Roy wasn’t treating it as if it were urgent, and so Jason let it go. He let everything go, the pain and the fear and the anger and the grief, and let Roy hold him.

For the first time since he could remember, Jason felt safe.

*

Another week went by. Jason got stronger. Roy perfected the design for a trick arrow that, when shot—or accidentally dropped, as they discovered—let out a stench that sent them running to throw the windows open, hanging out of them with streaming eyes. Jason finished Crime and Punishment.

And Bruce called.

Jason had barely looked at his phone since he’d been here. He’d been surprised to find it at all, once he’d been well enough to go through the items that were in his room. He would’ve thought Bruce would have kept it. Maybe had the replacement go through it for intel.

But it was in his nightstand, along with a charger. Once it was charged, though, Jason found there was little he needed it for, after sending an email to Talia to assure her he was okay.

He chose not to think too hard about the fact that there was no one else who would notice if he wasn’t.

He wasn’t sure why he kept it charged and out on his nightstand where he could see it—habit, probably—but it was sitting in its usual place when it started vibrating. Jason recognized the number immediately. It was one of the few landlines he still had memorized, from back when memorizing landlines was something anyone needed to do. The Manor.

He picked up the phone. He sat down on the bed. The call went to voicemail.

And started ringing again.

Jason took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. He was an adult. He’d died and come back to life. He could handle one phone call with his fa—

WIth his Do—

With Bruce.

He swiped to answer. “Hello?”

“Jason.” Jason shut his eyes against the bass rumble of Bruce’s familiar voice, somewhere between Brucie’s smooth gladhanding and Batman’s growl. “Dick tells me you’re recovering well.”

“How did he—oh.” Roy must have told him. Jason had been stupid, unforgivably stupid, not to consider the possibility. How often did Roy report back to Dick, he wondered? And how much did he say?

“I was against bringing Arsenal in, but it seems to have been a good solution to...your problem,” Bruce said.

Jason gritted his teeth. “Don’t dance around it, Bruce. I don’t have a problem. I am the problem, right?” Bruce was silent. “You know, you could have asked me how I was, instead of telling me that a switch said that a Dom said I was fine. But that would have required you to trust my judgment on something, huh?”

“Are you trying to argue that you didn’t show seriously questionable judgment when you allowed yourself to be shot multiple times?”

“Allowed myself to be…?” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “How many bullet scars do you have, Bruce?”

“We’re getting off the subject,” Bruce said. “When will you be returning to the Manor?”

Jason blinked. “Returning…? I’m not coming back to the Manor.”

“Then you’ll be continuing to stay with Roy?”

A normal father might have been awkwardly trying to ask if Jason and Roy were an item. Nothing about Bruce was normal, and very little was fatherly. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

Roy chose that moment to poke his head in through the half-open doorway. Seeing that Jason was on the phone, he mouthed “Sorry” and started to draw back.

“Of course it’s my business,” Bruce said.

“Why?” Jason asked. “Because you’re not my father, and you’re sure as hell not my Dom!”

Roy froze, then stepped all the way into the room. Not speaking, not interfering, not even coming any closer—just listening. Part of Jason was furious that he thought he had the right, especially if he was reporting back everything they did to Dick. Part of him was relieved to have Roy close by during an upsetting conversation, and that just made him angrier, because since when did he need to have a Dom watching over him in order to defend himself?

“Because you’re my responsibility,” Bruce said.

No. Jason was his own responsibility. He wouldn’t be Bruce’s property, and he wouldn’t be another rod for Bruce to beat himself with. And he sure as hell wouldn’t let his so-called redemption be Bruce’s new project.

“I’ve got good news for you, Bruce,” he said. “Now that I’m legally dead, I’m pretty sure the adoption is no longer binding. Why don’t you go ahead and focus on the new kid? He’s gonna need those survival skills.”

“Stay away from Tim, Jason,” Bruce snapped. “That’s an order.”

The funny thing was, Jason barely felt the compulsion, even though he could hear it in Bruce’s voice. It was there, but it was muffled, buried under the anger that Bruce had tried to compel him, and the resentment that Bruce had, once again, chosen someone else over him. As always.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore,” he said. “I’m not yours.”

He hung up and hurled the phone across the room. It hit the wall and thumped to the floor, the screen visibly cracked.

“It was an older model, anyway,” Roy said, and Jason jumped. He’d practically forgotten Roy was there. “You were probably due for an upgrade.”

“What do you want?” Jason snapped.

“Originally? To see if you wanted lunch,” Roy said. “Now I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?” Jason asked. “Need to give Dick a full report on the ‘fuck Jason into obedience’ project?”

Roy blinked. “Okay, first of all, I haven’t fucked you, that I recall—and I would remember,” he said. “Second, what does Dick have to do with anything?”

“Right,” Jason said. “Like you aren’t filling him in on what’s going on between…” He paused. No. There was nothing between them. “What’s going on here, so that he can report back to Bruce.”

“That’s right. I’m not,” Roy said, folding his arms. “Your brother asked how you were doing after getting shot twice, and I told him your injuries were healing well. I don’t think that’s inaccurate or inappropriate.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “And that’s all?”

Roy shrugged. “I also told him I like you. A lot. Whether or not he shared that with Bruce, I have no idea.”

“...Oh,” Jason said. That was...knowing Roy liked him, that Roy wanted to tell people he liked him, felt good, but it didn’t dissipate the frustration churning inside him, the helpless anger that Bruce was still talking like Jason belonged to him, like he could leave Jason unavenged and replace him and still give him orders—

“Hey,” Roy said, and Jason looked up. Roy had drawn close enough to touch, but he was keeping his hands to himself. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Jason growled.

“Fair enough,” Roy said. “Can I help?”

He didn’t press. He didn’t even ask for an apology. Who the fuck was this man?

Jason reached out and snagged his wrist, holding on probably a little too hard. “I don’t want to think about it,” he said. “Can you make it just...go away?”

Roy’s gaze softened, and his free hand slid into Jason’s hair, the grip just a bit too tight to be comfortable. It made Jason’s skin wake up, made him want to pull against it to see how firmly Roy would hold him if he tried to get away. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do that for you, Jaybird. Anything in particular you want?”

Jason shook his head slightly, feeling the pull against his scalp. They’d had a couple more scenes since the first sexual one. He’d finally gotten Roy’s dick in his mouth, felt the satisfying fullness of it straining his jaw; he’d had Roy jerk him off so slowly he thought he’d lose his mind. He’d take either one again. He’d take anything that would get him out of his head, if only for an hour.

He’d take anything Roy suggested if it meant he didn’t have to think about what he wanted.

Roy looked thoughtful. “Okay. You mentioned fucking,” he said, and a little shiver of anticipation ran down Jason’s spine.

But then Roy said, “How do you feel about fucking me?”

Jason blinked at him. “Don’t you have that backwards?”

“Nope,” Roy said, giving him the crooked smile that always made Jason’s blood run hot. “Didn’t I tell you when we started this that I’m going to change your mind about subbing? It’s not all I take and you give.” His fingers scratched lightly against Jason’s scalp, sending prickles of heat down his neck. “Don’t get me wrong, Jaybird. You’ve got pretty much the hottest ass I’ve ever seen. If you’d like me to fuck you someday, I am more than happy to oblige.”

He stepped in a bit closer, the hand in Jason’s hair forcing him to tilt his head back farther to keep eye contact. Jason’s breath came a little faster. “But I bet you could fuck me real good, couldn’t you, baby? If I told you just how to do it? You’d do just what I said, wouldn’t you?”

Jason couldn’t help the low whine that escaped him at that, and Roy laughed. “I thought so,” he said, and leaned down towards Jason. Jason closed his eyes for a kiss that never came.

Right, he remembered, opening his eyes. This was a scene. Nothing more.

Roy was frowning a little, like he’d lost the thread for a second, but then he straightened up and stepped back. “Take your clothes off. All of them.”

Jason made himself stand up at a normal speed, made himself strip at a regular pace rather than scramble out of his clothes. Roy didn’t take his own off; he just watched, a pleased look on his face that made Jason feel warm and self-conscious at the same time.

“Good boy,” Roy said when Jason was naked. He put a hand on the back of Jason’s neck and held his other hand in front of his mouth, palm out. “Lick. Nice and wet.”

Jason obeyed, dragging his tongue over Roy’s palm. He was still somehow surprised when Roy wrapped it around his dick, stroking lightly, his other hand firm on Jason’s neck. He would have been embarrassed about how fast he got hard if this wasn’t Roy, Roy who he never had to be embarrassed around.

“There you go,” Roy said, once Jason was full and throbbing in his hand. “That’s my gorgeous boy.” He let go. “Now go get the lube and your collar. They’re in my nightstand drawer.”

Jason shot him a betrayed look. Roy wanted him to walk like this?

But Roy just waited expectantly, and Jason wanted to be good, so he obeyed, walking gingerly into the bedroom next door and digging into the drawer in question. The collar was in its box, along with the chain, but the cuff was missing. Jason felt a brief twinge of panic, but Roy had only said to bring the collar, hadn’t he?

Sure enough, when he returned with just the collar and lube, Roy only smiled.

“Thank you, baby,” he said, tossing the lube onto the mattress and taking the collar from Jason. As always, the world seemed to slot into place when he fastened it around Jason’s neck, heavy and unignorable.

“Perfect,” Roy said, stepping back to look at him. “Want to help me undress?”

“Yes,” Jason said immediately, and then “Please.” They’d been fooling around—no, sceneing—for a week, but Roy had always just taken his dick out. He’d never gotten totally naked. Jason wanted to see. He wanted to touch.

He helped Roy tug his shirt off; unzipped his jeans and pushed them down so he could step out of them. Roy’s boxer briefs were tenting, but he wasn’t as hard as Jason was yet.

But he was beautiful, especially when the briefs were gone and he was standing bare before Jason, miles of pale, freckled skin and long, lean, tattooed limbs. Jason’s fingers twitched.

“Get on the bed,” Roy said. “On your knees.”

Jason knelt obediently on the bed, watching Roy climb on after him and open the lube. He didn’t expect Roy to pour some into his palm and reach for Jason’s dick again, stroking him a bit more firmly this time. Jason’s breath caught.

“Always love the way you feel,” Roy murmured. “You get this hard for everyone, baby, or just for me?”

Jason shut his eyes, his hips rocking toward Roy’s hand. “Just you,” he said. He wasn’t even sure that was true, but it felt true. No one else made him feel like Roy did. “Please...I can’t…”

Roy let go. Jason opened his eyes and Roy handed him the lube. “Get me ready,” he said, lying back against the pillows and spreading his legs, and Jason had to dig the nails of his empty hand into his thigh to try to regain some control. “I know you’re gonna do such a good job, aren’t you, sweet boy? Gonna make me feel so good.”

Jason nodded a little helplessly, opening the lube again and pouring it onto his fingers, dripping it onto the sheets. He edged forward on his knees, rubbed the slick pads of his fingers over Roy’s hole. Roy let out a perfect little sigh.

“Start with one,” he said, “slow,” and Jason let one finger ease in. Roy was hot inside, tight, and Jason had to bite his lip against thinking about how Roy was going to feel on his dick.

“Mm, good boy,” Roy said, his legs falling open further. “Deeper.”

Jason went deeper. Jason opened him up with one finger, then two, then three, following Roy’s directions—stroking in and out when Roy told him to, twisting his fingers, curling them forward to press against Roy’s prostate. The world dwindled to Roy’s quiet commands, the tight clutch of his body, and the distant throbbing ache in Jason’s groin, begging for release.

“That’s good. You’re doing so well, Jay,” Roy said, his hips rocking back against Jason’s thrusts. He was fully hard now, his dick bobbing against his stomach, flushed prettily and wet at the tip. His face and chest were blotchy with heat. “Take your fingers out.”

Jason obeyed, kneeling up to get into a better position. “Can I—”

But Roy was already sitting up too, reaching for Jason again, his big callused hand tight around Jason’s cock as he stroked him. “Yeah, baby. You’re gonna fuck me now, and you’re gonna do such a good job, aren’t you? Gonna feel so hot and thick inside me, make me feel so good.”

“Roy,” Jason gasped, torn between pulling away and pushing into Roy’s fist and staying exactly where he was like a good boy would. “Please...I’m gonna...Roy, it’s too much, I can’t, I’m gonna come—!”

And suddenly Roy’s fingers were a tight ring around the base of his cock, staving off his orgasm in the nick of time. “Shhh, shhh, I got you.”

Jason trembled, unsure if it was from relief or frustration. “Why did you...I’m too close, I can’t…” He wasn’t supposed to question Roy, he was supposed to be good, but how could he make it good for Roy on the knife’s edge like this?

“I know, baby, I know you’re close,” Roy crooned. “But you’re not gonna come yet, are you? No, you’re going to fuck me as long and hard as I want you to, and you’re not going to come until I give you permission, because you’re my good boy.”

Jason let out a choked sob. “I can’t—”

“You can. Just for me. I know you can.”

Jason squeezed his eyes shut and trembled and finally nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

“There you go.” Roy let go of him. Even the contrast of the cold air against Jason’s slick skin instead of Roy’s warm palm threatened to push him over the edge, but he dug his teeth into his lip and watched as Roy lay back, legs spread and a hint of mischief in his smile, everything Jason had ever wanted.

“Slowly,” Roy warned him as he lined himself up. Jason braced himself and pushed in, watching Roy’s face for any hint of pain, any change in what he should be doing. Watching him so closely that it almost let him forget about how impossibly good Roy felt around him, tight and hot. He’d done this before, but never when he was under—and never with someone who made him feel the way Roy did.

He wasn’t going to last. He couldn’t last.

But Roy looked so pleased once he was fully seated, if a little shaky. “Fuck...that’s perfect, baby. Just stay right there for a minute, okay? You’re doing great.”

“Roy…” Jason said. It came out as a whine.

“Hey, here, c’mere,” Roy said, opening his arms, and Jason curled forward against him, both of them gasping as the new position made him shift inside of Roy. He pushed his face into the muscle of Roy’s shoulder and felt strong arms wrapping around him, a hand in his hair.

“I’ve got you,” Roy murmured in his ear. “You’re doing so well, Jason. You feel so good inside me, did you know that? My perfect boy.”

“No,” Jason mumbled.

Roy held him tighter. “You are,” he said. “I know it’s hard. I know you want to come. But you’re not, are you? You’re filling me up so good instead. So big and thick, just what I wanted.” Jason let out a shaky gasp. “That’s right, baby. You’re everything I want you to be.”

The warm skin under Jason’s cheek suddenly felt wet. It took him a minute to realize it was because he was crying, weeping silently into Roy’s chest. Roy’s hand smoothed down his back, soothing.

“Shhh,” he murmured. “I’ve got you. I’m right here with you. I’m not letting you go.” Jason let out a sound at that, an embarrassing choked sob that Roy’s skin couldn’t entirely muffle. “I know, baby, I know.”

Roy let Jason cry for a minute or two, murmuring soothing nonsense as he stroked his back. Then he rolled his hips, as if to remind Jason that he was still there; as if Jason could have forgotten his own throbbing need. “Time to start moving,” he said, soft and comforting but uncompromising. Jason couldn’t even begin to argue with that tone.

He tried a shallow thrust and found that his control held. Roy made a pleased noise and arched up again. “Deeper.”

Jason pulled out farther this time, a long stroke out and then in that made the sweat stand out on his upper lip. But god, the noise Roy let out made it worth it.

Somehow Jason found the strength to do it again, and again, pushing himself up on trembling arms to get a better angle. Roy looked filthy and debauched and so, so proud, reaching up to grip his arms, rolling his hips to meet every thrust.

“Fuck, that’s right, just like that, Jay,” he said. “So good to me, baby, fucking me so well.”

“Roy,” Jason gasped.

“Yeah, I’m here, sweetheart, I’m right here,” Roy assured him. “Can you go a little faster? Can you do that for me?”

Jason whined but obeyed, rocking into Roy harder and faster, digging his nails into the sheets. Time dissolved again, went soft and tacky and meaningless. He had always been here. He would always be here, driving into the unforgivingly sweet clutch of Roy’s body, aching with the need to come.

And yet if he had to be somewhere forever, he wanted it to be here.

Finally, finally, Roy reached down to stroke himself. “Just a little bit longer, baby,” he panted. “I’m so close, you got me so close, Jay…”

“Please,” Jason sobbed, overwhelmed by the feeling of it, the headiness, the sight of Roy getting off on his dick.

“Fuck, Jason, I’m—ah!” Roy gasped, and then his abs clenched as he spilled across his knuckles. Jason drove in hard and stayed there, clinging to this side of orgasm with bloody fingernails as Roy clenched around him.

Roy sagged back against the mattress, blinking up at Jason with sleepy, satisfied eyes. “Holy shit, Jaybird.”

Jason couldn’t stop shaking. He knew he was crying again when Roy went blurry. “Roy,” he said again, desperate. “Please.”

“You want to come, baby?” Roy asked, and Jason nodded jerkily. “Go ahead.”

“Inside?” Jason managed to ask, hips twitching.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I want you to.”

All it took was one thrust. One thrust, and Jason was coming harder than he could remember ever coming before, curling into Roy again as his release shook through him. Roy pulled him close, kissed his hair and stroked his back again as Jason wept through the aftershocks.

“That’s it, go ahead and let go,” Roy murmured. “You did so well, baby. You held on so long and made me feel so good. I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you.”

Once Jason had cried himself out, Roy cleaned them both up and then pulled Jason back into his arms. Jason drifted against Roy’s chest, the steady thrum of Roy’s heartbeat pressed against his ear. His body ached and his eyes stung, but his head was finally, blessedly quiet.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been when the world started to come into focus again. He must have tensed in Roy’s arms or something, because Roy lifted his head a little. “Coming back up?”

Jason nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“Want to have something to eat?”

Right. Roy had come in to offer him lunch. Jason shook his head and burrowed closer. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

Jason thought he napped for a bit, then. He certainly woke up in a new position, curled on his side with Roy’s warmth pressed against his back, a heavy arm slung around him. He picked up the pale, freckled hand that had been pressed against his stomach and felt out the calluses on Roy’s knuckles and the pads of his fingers; traced the blue veins on the soft inside of his wrist.

“Mm?” Roy said sleepily.

Where was the cuff? The collar was still heavy and comforting around Jason’s neck. Why hadn’t the cuff been in the box?

For a second Jason wondered if there was someone else, but he dismissed the thought. Cuffs and collars were sold as matched sets—Roy wouldn’t bring just one of them somewhere. And though he left the apartment sometimes, it wasn’t frequently enough or for long enough to be...well, it wouldn’t be cheating. He and Jason weren’t together.

Still, Jason wondered.

“Why don’t you have a sub?” he asked softly, unsure if that was still a forbidden question.

He felt Roy tense against him. “What?”

“It’s just…” Jason couldn’t stop touching Roy’s wrist. “It matters so much to you, and you’re so good at it. I would’ve thought you’d have collared someone pretty ages ago.”

Roy’s dry laugh tickled the skin above and below his collar. “It’s kind of a long story, I guess,” he said. “Well, maybe not that long.”

Something needy and sad twisted in Jason’s stomach. “Just never found the right person?” he asked.

“Oh no, I did. Lots of times,” Roy said, and the sad thing twisted harder. “They just never found me.”

Jason opened his mouth, then closed it again. What was the point? He wasn’t the right person for Roy. He wasn’t the right person for anyone.

Still, he laced his fingers through Roy’s, pressing Roy’s hand back against his stomach, and they lay there together in silence.

*

The next day, the doorbell rang, and Jason’s heart leapt into his throat.

It was a stupid reaction. Anyone coming to hurt either of them wouldn’t have rung the doorbell. It was probably a solicitor of some kind. But it had been so long since Jason had seen anyone but Roy that the reminder that the outside world still existed was a startling one.

He must not have been the only one feeling that way, because Roy palmed a small crossbow out of the weapons cabinet and put himself between Jason and the door. Jason wasn’t sure whether to be touched or irritated. He was basically healed by now; he could take care of himself.

“Who is it?” Roy called.

“It’s me, you dope. Quit being paranoid.”

Roy relaxed visibly and lowered the crossbow, but Jason went even more tense. He’d recognized that voice, too.

Roy unlocked the door to reveal Dick, looking casually perfect as always in jeans and a henley. “A Bat telling me not to be paranoid?” Roy asked, hugging Dick. Jason’s jaw tightened. “Next you’ll be telling me to brood less and get more sun.”

“What can I say? Do as I say, not as I do.” Dick looked past Roy’s shoulder to where Jason was sitting on the couch, scowling at him. “Hey, Little Wing.”

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked, then kicked himself mentally. Regressing into a petulant preteen wasn’t going to impress either of them.

Dick glanced at Roy, who just raised his eyebrows. “Well, what are you doing here?” Roy repeated. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but it’s been weeks.” The you should have stopped by earlier was unsaid but still perfectly audible.

Dick opened his mouth to say something, and Jason cut him off as the answer hit him. “Oh, come on. Really, Grayson? It’s like you’re the sub and not me.”

Roy turned those raised eyebrows on Jason. “Care to translate?”

“Bruce sent him,” Jason explained. “And like a good little boy, he came to see what the bad little boy was up to, didn’t he?”

“I’m not here because Bruce sent me!” Dick protested. “I did actually want to see how you were.” Roy cleared his throat. “And to see my dear friend Roy, who I cherish.”

“Nice save,” Roy muttered.

“But, okay, yeah.” Dick sighed. “Bruce was concerned.”

“And there it is,” Jason said. “Well, I’m fine, and as you can see, Roy is still in one piece. Your duty has been done, golden boy.”

“Jason…” Dick started.

“Hey, you know what?” Roy suddenly interjected. “I just remembered I have some errands to run, so I’m gonna just...do that.”

Jason blinked, surprised by the sudden subject change. Dick snorted. “That was very subtle, Roy, well done,” he said dryly.

“Okay, fine, yes, I’m giving you two a chance to talk. You caught me,” Roy said, reaching for his jacket, then pointed at Dick. “Be nice.”

“Me?” Dick said, looking affronted. “What about him?”

“What about him?” Roy shrugged into his jacket and met Jason’s eyes. Something in Jason, some ridiculous childish fear that he was being abandoned, quieted under that gaze. “Do I have to tell you to be good, Jaybird?”

“What do I get if I am?” Jason asked, lifting his chin a little, and Roy laughed.

“That’s my boy,” he said, and scooped his keys off of the hook by the door. “I’ll see you guys in a half hour or so. Play nice!”

Jason looked away from the door to see Dick fixing him with an appraising look. Shit. “Well, I guess that answers one of my questions,” Dick said. “Roy wouldn’t tell me if you two were sleeping together or not.”

Jason wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that Roy had kept that from Dick. “What do you care?” he asked, lowering himself down onto the couch with only the slightest twinge from his injuries. “Didn’t you essentially pimp me out to him? No, I guess it was the other way around.”

Dick bristled. “That’s neither accurate nor fair.”

“Really.” Jason folded his arms. “So you didn’t leave me with Roy in hopes that he’d turn me into the good little sub dear Daddy Bats always wanted me to be?”

“No, and don’t be gross,” Dick said. He took a seat at the other end of the couch. “I just thought...well, first of all I knew you’d be safe with Roy.”

“And that he’d be safe from me, right?”

“You’re gonna need to kill fewer people before you can be indignant about me trying to stop you from killing people,” Dick snapped. “But yes, fine, that too. And Roy’s...well, I knew it wouldn’t get complicated.”

Jason frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you know how possessive most Doms can get,” Dick said. “I knew if anything…happened between you two, he’d be able to let you go.”

Dick had kicked Jason in the head once, while he’d had his helmet off. This hurt worse. “Right. Because I’m so disposable,” Jason said through gritted teeth.

“That’s not what I meant. It’s got nothing to do with you,” Dick said. “It’s Roy. He doesn’t care.”

“Oh, so Roy not caring about me has nothing to do with me. Got it,” Jason said.

“No. Would you listen?” Dick said. “I mean Roy doesn’t get weird about this stuff. You’re the one who’s always saying you don’t need a Dom up in your business telling you what to do all the time. Well, Roy’s not like that. He’s like...everybody has fun, everybody goes home happy, nobody gets hurt.”

Realization hit Jason right between the eyes. “Oh my god. You two have fucked,” he said, staring at Dick. “How did I not realize this?”

“I...that’s not the point,” Dick said, looking flustered.

Jason dragged a hand over his face as if it could somehow wipe away his furious mortification. “Jesus.” No wonder Roy hadn’t been particularly rushed about getting into bed with him, not after having someone who looked like Dick.

Though Roy seemed to like the way Jason looked just fine. Fuck, you’re so goddamn beautiful.

“It was a long time ago. We were both still figuring ourselves out,” Dick said. “But that just proves my point: Roy’s good at no strings. You want a friend for life? He’s your guy. But when it comes to sex…” He shrugged. “He’s a good time, not a long time.”

It shouldn’t have made Jason feel sick inside. It shouldn’t have hurt. After all, Roy had said basically the same thing himself, hadn’t he? Dick knows that I can Dom casually. That I can...you know. Fulfill a need.

He’d been honest from the start. Everyone had been. Jason had needed someone to help him heal, in more ways than one, and Roy was good at that.

But that wasn’t the only thing Roy had said.

Just never found the right person?

Oh no, I did. Lots of times. They just never found me.

Did Roy not have a sub because he just wanted to have fun? Or did he not have a sub because everyone assumed that he just wanted to have fun?

And why the fuck did he let them?

“That’s a pretty shitty fucking way to talk about your friend,” Jason managed through the rising tide of his anger.

Dick blinked. “What are you talking about? Roy says that kind of thing all the time. He practically brags about it.”

Jason had no doubt that was true. Maybe he was being stupid, thinking he knew something about Roy after a few weeks that Dick didn’t after a lifetime of friendship. It was subs who needed protecting, subs who got used and taken advantage of, not Doms. Everyone knew that.

But Jason had been fighting what everyone knew about subs since the day he presented. Maybe what everyone knew about Doms was wrong too. Maybe Dick was wrong.

“Yeah, well, if all my friends were just keeping me around for sex therapy, I might pretend I liked it too,” Jason said.

“That is not why I’m friends with Roy. Just because we used to hook up in high school doesn’t mean that I—oh,” Dick said, mouth falling open. “Oh, you’re jealous.”

He was so jealous he could die. “I’m not fucking jealous—”

“You really like him.” Dick was staring at Jason like he’d never seen him before. “Oh, Little Wing…”

Jason snorted, even though he felt flayed open, exposed down to his bones. “Well, that can’t be true. We both know I’m a heartless killer, don’t we, golden boy?”

“I never said you were heartless. Don’t put words in my mouth,” Dick said.

“And don’t put them in mine,” Jason snapped back. “I’m sure you’d love to think you’ve killed your slutty Dom and unruly sub problems with one stone, but whatever romance you’re building up in your head? That’s the only place it exists. I don’t want you in my business, and I don’t want you in my apartment.” He pointed to the door.

Dick’s mouth twitched. “This is Bruce’s apartment.”

“I will fucking shoot you.”

Dick opened his mouth, then shut it with an audible click of teeth, looking annoyed. “Okay,” he said. “I didn’t come here to fight with you, so fine. You want me to go, I’ll go.”

He stood up and turned toward the door, then back to Jason. “Look, this thing with Roy…”

Jason stood too, and waited. Waited for Dick to tell him to stay away from his friend. Waited for him to say some more dismissive shit about Roy’s feelings. Hell, he might manage both.

Dick sighed. “What’s the point? Neither of you have ever listened to me before, you’re certainly not gonna start now. And I guess I’m the one who started this in the first place anyway.” He shrugged. “Just be good to him, yeah?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t you mean good for him?”

“No,” Dick said, and gave Jason a faint smile. “Bruce will be glad to know you’re on your feet again. I’ll see you around, Jay.”

He was out the door before Jason could figure out what to say in response.

*

Roy came back about ten minutes later. “Jay?” he called, and Jason heard the door close and the jingle of keys. “Dick? I don’t like how quiet it is in here, this is horror movie shit.”

His footsteps came down the hallway. “Jay? Where are you?”

“In here.”

Roy stuck his head into his own bedroom, where Jason was sitting on the bed, a box in his lap. “Dick’s not here, so I’m assuming things didn’t go so...uh.”

He stopped, clearly taking in the wreck of his bedroom. Jason had pulled open every drawer, pawed through the contents, rifled through the closet. There wasn’t even that much in the room—Roy didn’t live here, this wasn’t a home—but it was enough to make it look like a tornado had torn through it.

Sitting in the wreckage made Jason feel a little better. At least it matched what was in his chest.

“Jason, what the fuck?” Roy asked. Jason wasn’t sure if his frown was concern or anger.

“Were you in love with him?” Jason asked. “When you were sleeping with him? Are you still in love with him?”

“In love with who—wait, with Dick?” Roy asked. “That’s what this is about? He told you we used to hook up?”

“I figured it out,” Jason said. “Answer the question.”

He could see Roy’s temper kindling, the tension in his shoulders and the flash in his eyes. “When we were kids? Maybe. Who knows, we were seventeen and stupid. Now? No, I’m not fucking in love with Dick, and I’m not sure how you got from there to throwing my shit all around my room, but—”

“Where’s the cuff?” Jason demanded. The box was open on his lap, the chain inside. The collar was in his hands. The cuff wasn’t anywhere in Roy’s room. He knew. He’d looked. “The one that goes with my collar. Where is it?”

“You wanna explain what this is about?” Roy asked, but his eyes flickered to the side—just for a heartbeat, but Jason had been trained by the world’s greatest detective. He caught it.

“Who are they?” he demanded. He knew he sounded semi-hysterical, but he couldn’t stop. “Whoever you left it with. Who the fuck are they?”

Roy stared at him. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? How accomplished of a multitasker do you think I am? I’ve spent the past however many weeks catering to your every need and you think I have time to cheat on you?”

Jason knew he was more trouble than he was worth. He’d always known. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to have Roy basically say so. “Sorry I’ve been such a burden,” he spat, standing up. The box and the chain hit the floor with a soft jingle. “It wasn’t my idea, as you’ll recall. That was your ex.”

“Jesus Christ, Dick is not—”

“And I didn’t think you were cheating.” Jason made his fingers uncurl, let the collar drop onto the floor beside the box. “We’d need to actually have a relationship for that, and that’s not what this is, remember? You’re just fulfilling a need.”

Roy actually looked hurt at that, but that wasn’t a surprise. Jason was aware he wasn’t being entirely fair here. After all, Roy had always been upfront about the fact that he was taking care of Jason as a favor to Dick.

But he hadn’t told Jason that he and Dick had history. And Jason couldn’t be the distraction Roy used to kill time until he found someone else he actually wanted to keep—someone who finally wanted to be kept. Someone who mattered to him the way Roy mattered to Jason.

If Jason was important to Roy, the cuff would be here. It didn’t matter, really, if Roy had lost it or thrown it out or used it with someone else. The fact that it was in question was enough. And Jason had sworn he would never be the type of sub who let himself be used.

“Do you want to back up for a minute?” Roy asked, and if he was hurt, he was definitely angry, too. Good. That was easier to stomach. “What the fuck did Dick say to you that’s got you acting like this?”

“Be a little more patronizing, why don’t you?” Jason asked, shouldering past Roy and out of the room. “I know I’m just a sub, but I can actually come up with my own opinions.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” Roy protested, and then seemed to take in the fact that Jason was putting on his jacket, which had been hanging on a hook in the front hall. That he was fully dressed for the first time since they’d been in this safehouse. “Where are you going?”

Jason almost said home, but he didn’t have one of those, not really. “Out.”

“Jason—”

“You did it, okay?” Jason said, turning to face Roy. “You were supposed to look after me until I healed, and you did. See?” He flipped his shirt up to show the mostly healed bullet wound on his stomach, then let it drop. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. Go home to your daughter.”

Roy flinched visibly at that. Jason suppressed both a twinge of guilt, and a surge of vindictive triumph. He’d always hated leaving a fight the only one bleeding.

“Why are you suddenly being such an asshole?” Roy asked.

“I’ve always been an asshole, Roy. Never hid that.” Jason checked his pockets. His phone with its cracked screen; his wallet, which he’d found in his nightstand. He hadn’t come here with anything else. If his guns were in the safe, they’d have to stay there; he had more at his own safehouses, where there was no one to make him feel like maybe there was something in this world for him besides loneliness and struggle. There was nothing else here for him to take with him.

“Right,” Roy said, his jaw tight. “Guess I thought you were something else, too. My mistake.”

He was between Jason and the door, and for a second, Jason wanted Roy to block his exit. He wanted Roy to tell him what else he had thought Jason was. He wanted Roy to do what he’d always hated Doms for doing: try to keep Jason when he was telling him not to.

But Roy didn’t, and that was how Jason knew for sure he needed to leave. Roy had always been able to read Jason so well when they were sceneing. If he was letting Jason go now, it was because he wanted to.

“Yeah,” Jason said, “it was.”

And he walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Dick called, not that Jason picked up.

Roy didn’t.

*

A week later, Jason was able to lie to himself that his life was nearly back to normal. He’d settled into one of his own safehouses, made sure that the word had spread amongst the underworld that the Red Hood was back in action. He’d have to deal with the Black Mask issue eventually—it wouldn’t do his reputation any favors to have it widely known that someone could put two bullets in him and escape punishment—but it would take him a while to build up a new base of strength to operate from. Better to start small.

He didn’t let himself think about Roy. What was the point of brooding on it? If he looked at it the right way, the whole situation had actually worked out really well for Jason: he’d been able to recuperate away from Bruce’s disapproving eye, he’d gotten to try proper subbing without any real risk, and he’d even gotten a fair number of orgasms out of it.

Well, there was one risk he hadn’t known to be cautious of, but he’d get over that eventually.

Probably.

In the meantime, he was taking his own advice and starting small. Some chucklefucks had apparently decided that the Red Hood being MIA for a few weeks meant that the Narrows would be a perfect place to set up a meth lab. Jason would have to teach them—and everyone else—how wrong they were.

He’d managed to plant a few bugs near the doors and windows during the day, enough to pick up chatter. Now night had fallen and he was crouched on a roof across the street, listening to the hum of conversation and waiting for the right moment to drop in and give them the shock and awe treatment.

There was no sound, but instincts honed from a lifetime of danger told him someone else was suddenly on the roof with him. Experience told him who it was before he turned around.

“Keep moving, B.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Bruce replied.

Jason allowed himself one brief, childish second of gritting his teeth behind his helmet before he turned around and rose up from his crouch. “I’ve got this handled. One little meth lab doesn’t need Batman to take it down.”

“No,” Bruce agreed. He folded his arms, the cape billowing out majestically behind him. Jason had never figured out if he practiced that or not. “But the men in there might need Batman to protect them from you.”

Someday digs like that would stop stinging. Maybe. “You and I both know they’re scum,” Jason said. “They’re using kids to peddle this shit. Getting it into the schools. I’m not planning on waiting until children start dying to do something about it.” He paused. “Not that children dying seems to move you one way or the other.”

Bruce didn’t even flinch. Of course he didn’t. “I’m not going to rehash this with you,” he said. “I’ve already told you I mourned for you every day you were gone. I’m still mourning for you.”

“I’m right fucking here, Bruce.”

That made him react—a tightening of his jaw. Not over the reminder of Jason’s death, but over the use of real names in the field. Typical.

“Then be who I trained you to be,” Bruce said—because that was who he’d been mourning, wasn’t it? The obedient sub Jason had managed to pretend to be as a child. Not the real Jason. “Get rid of the guns. Stop killing.”

Jason shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll stop when they stop.”

“Don’t make me put you away again,” Bruce warned.

Jason couldn’t help laughing. “And we’re back to threats. You know, I’m really starting to feel guilty about all those Father’s Day presents I owe you.” He turned away, walking back across the roof in the direction of the meth lab. “This is my territory and my problem. I’ll handle it my way.”

“Jason,” Bruce growled, and who was using real names in the field now? “Stop. Walk away. Let me handle the meth lab. That’s an order.”

And it was—Jason could hear it in his tone. That was Bruce’s Dom voice, the low rumble of command he used to intimidate criminals; the one that had made Jason feel safe and protected as a child, and then stifled and suppressed as a teenager. Bruce had used it more and more in the months before Jason had died, overriding Jason’s rebellious tendencies with Robin’s carefully trained need to obey Batman. Even when Jason had first come back to Gotham as an adult, when he’d been nearly shaking himself apart with rage with every breath, it had been hard to fight that tone.

But now?

Jason felt nothing.

Well, not nothing. He was furious, and exhausted from going around in endless circles like this, and heartbroken the way he always was when confronted with Bruce. He even felt a little guilty. But there was zero compulsion, and as soon as he recognized that, he also realized why.

Bruce wasn’t his Dom. Not even a little bit. Not anymore.

Jason belonged to someone else.

“Fuck off,” he said, and kept walking.

Something flew past him to explode in a blinding flash of light directly outside of the meth lab. Jason shied away, hands going up instinctively as shouts of alarm came from the lab, audible even without his bugs. He blinked furiously to clear his eyes as panicked meth heads came running out of the building.

Well, fuck. He had to admire the elegance of it, as frustrated as he was. No one was hurt—even Jason’s eyes had been protected from the worst of it by the helmet—but the drug dealers were on the alert now. Jason wouldn’t be able to go after them tonight. Maybe not for a week or two, depending on how skittish they were.

“Leave it alone, Jason,” Bruce said. If he’d noticed his failure to compel on his end, it didn’t show in his voice. “Don’t test me again.”

“I wasn’t testing you,” Jason said without turning around, even though he knew Bruce was already gone. “I was testing myself.”

But now that the test was over, what was he supposed to do about it?

*

Jason was pretty sure he used to be able to go more than a month or two without severely injuring himself.

He hobbled over the roofs, swearing silently behind his clenched teeth. He’d been well outside of his usual stomping grounds, chasing a lead on some weapons souped up with Nth metal that were making their way into the Gotham underworld. The guy he’d been following was low level, barely more than a kid, but he’d spotted Jason following him and gotten in a lucky swipe with a switchblade before booking it out of there.

Now Jason was clutching at his thigh in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding and trying to figure out where he could go to ground. The wound wouldn’t be a problem if he could get to a first aid kit in the next ten minutes, but he was moving slow, and none of his safehouses were in range at this speed.

Hm. None of his safehouses.

Fuck. He really didn’t want to do this, but it was get over himself or bleed out. He changed direction.

Five minutes later, he was letting himself in through the window of his bedroom in the safehouse he’d shared with Roy. No, he reminded himself as he hobbled toward the bathroom—not his bedroom. This was Bruce’s safehouse; everything in it belonged to him.

But it wasn’t memories of Bruce that sat heavy in the atmosphere as Jason made his way through the apartment. It was dark and silent, the air stale. Roy had probably done as Jason had sneeringly suggested and gone back to Star City and his daughter as soon as he’d realized that Jason wasn’t coming back. But that didn’t stop Jason from expecting to see Roy stumble sleepily out of his bedroom and say something like What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jaybird, patching yourself up without letting me help?

He fumbled for the light in the bathroom, peeled off his bloody gloves and dropped his helmet on the floor. There was a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet, and he sat himself down on the closed toilet, pants around his ankles, jaw clenched against the sting of the antiseptic and then against the always-unsettling feeling of stitching himself up.

Dumbass, Roy would have said, but his voice would have been too fond and worried to let Jason think he meant it. Why didn’t you call me? Taking care of you is my job.

“You didn’t want it,” Jason said. The words fell dully in the empty air. “Not really.”

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? Jason had suspected it before they’d fought, but it wasn’t until he’d confronted Bruce that he’d known it for sure: he was Roy’s sub. After all this time fighting his designation, fighting every Dom who’d ever tried to claim any authority over him, he’d gone and fallen in love with a guy who was just doing his brother a favor. At heart, in his bones, he belonged to Roy now.

But Roy...Roy didn’t belong to him. Really, Jason had had no right to get so angry with him. Roy and Dick had both been upfront about it. Roy could Dom platonically, professionally, without strings.

But he wanted strings. It was heartbreakingly clear to Jason, even if Dick hadn’t realized it. And that was why Jason had been right to get out of Roy’s way, even if he could have done it a little more graciously. Roy needed to find someone he wanted to collar for keeps, and that could never be Jason. Jason wasn’t built to make someone happy.

He focused on the bite of his needle through his skin. It hurt less than his thoughts.

Once he was bandaged and had gotten as much blood as possible off of himself and the bathroom, he pulled his shredded pants back up and checked the kitchen. It wasn’t fully stocked like it had been when he and Roy were living here, but there were some shelf-stable field necessities. Jason chugged a disgustingly warm sports drink to counterbalance the blood loss, and stuffed a second bottle and a couple pouches of tuna in his jacket pockets in case he felt woozy on the way back to his side of town. The smart thing to do would be to sleep here, but there were too many ghosts.

He didn’t want to deal with the window again with his leg all fucked up, so he headed for the door—and nearly tripped over a cardboard box sitting on the welcome mat when he stepped outside.

“The hell?” he muttered, frowning. Who the fuck was getting mail here? This apartment didn’t have any residents listed anywhere.

He bent from the waist to get a better look, careful of his thigh, and then blinked in surprise at the name on the mailing label: Roy Harper.

He moved on autopilot, picking up the box and bringing it back inside, closing the door and locking it again. Had Roy ordered a package and forgotten about it? Should Jason call him and ask? It wasn’t that late in Star City…

Except he didn’t have Roy’s number. And Roy might not take his call if he did.

It wasn’t Jason’s mail. He shouldn’t open it. He thought this to himself the whole time he carried the box into the living room, set it down on the coffee table, pulled out a knife, and sliced through the packing tape.

Inside was a smaller box with a familiar logo on it. It was the same store Roy had gotten the collar and cuff set from. Jealousy prickled hot beside Jason’s eyes. Why had Roy needed another set?

He took off the lid to find a handwritten note on top of the contents: Dear Mr. Harper, Thank you for your business! The signature was unreadable, presumably some customer service rep or another. It wasn’t important. Jason took a deep breath and moved the note to the side.

There wasn’t a complete set beneath it—just a cuff. A very familiar one, in deep red leather lined with black silk. But the cuff that had gone missing hadn’t been embossed and this…

This had Jason’s initials on it.

Jason traced the curve of the J with a finger that shook more than he wanted it to, and tried to tell himself that his initials weren’t uncommon, that this could be someone else, someone new that Roy had found. Someone he wanted to belong to.

But he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. This was the cuff that went with Jason’s collar. Which meant…

Which meant that the whole time Jason was losing his mind wondering where it was, Roy was having Jason’s initials embossed on it.

If Roy had put his own initials on Jason’s collar, it would have meant that they weren’t just playing; it would have meant that Jason belonged to Roy, that he was Roy’s sub, and they wanted everyone to know it. Jason’s initials on Roy’s cuff meant the same thing—and Jason knew Roy believed that, believed that a Dom could belong to a sub as much as the other way around, because Roy had talked about balance often enough.

Jason’s heart squeezed so tight in his chest that it hurt. Why hadn’t Roy said anything? When he’d first sent the cuff away; when Jason had demanded to know where it was. Why hadn’t Roy explained? And why hadn’t he done the same thing with the collar? They were supposed to match. Jason wanted to match.

He didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. But he knew that somehow, impossible, Roy wanted him, and not just casually; the initials under his finger told him that much. Wanted him to keep.

Or at least he had. After the way Jason had treated him, Roy might never want to speak to him again, much less belong to him.

But Jason Todd was no coward, and he was no quitter. And there was only one way to find out for sure.

*

Roy lived in a narrow two-story townhouse at the top of a steep hill in downtown Star City, the clapboards painted a cheery bright blue, with white trim, and some kind of flowering bush growing alongside the front steps. Jason couldn’t understand why he’d ever traded this for gray and dreary Gotham, even temporarily. He understood even less why Roy had stayed after finding out what a headache Jason was.

But that was what he was here to ask, wasn’t it?

He climbed the steps, wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs, and rang the doorbell. He was startled by the sound of footsteps racing toward the door, way too light and quick to be Roy’s, until a little voice piped, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

“Slow down there, Kid Flash.” That was Roy, sounding amused. “Okay, what do you say?”

“Who is it?” the other voice—Lian, it must be Lian—called. Oh god, what if she hated him? What if he scared her? Why hadn’t he thought about this part of the equation during the five hour flight out here?

Jason cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, Jason. Jason Todd.”

“Who’s Jason Tom?” he heard Lian ask. “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

Jason winced. He didn’t want to know what expression Roy was wearing to make Lian ask that.

But then locks were clicking, several in a row, and the door opened to reveal Roy in a faded t-shirt and ripped jeans sitting low on his hips, his feet bare on the hardwood floor. There was a little girl peeking out from behind his leg. With her black hair and big dark eyes, she didn’t look much like Roy, except for the spray of freckles across her nose and something indefinable in the set of her chin. Her expression was deeply suspicious.

“Hey, Jason,” Roy said. He sounded wary, and Jason couldn’t blame him.

“Hey, Roy.” He tried to muster up a cheerful, non-child-scaring smile. “This must be Lian, huh?”

Roy put a hand on Lian’s head. “Yep, this is my best girl,” he said, though he still seemed a bit uncertain. “Lian, honey, this is...uh. This is Daddy’s friend Jason.”

“I know, you both said his name already,” Lian said impatiently, and Jason bit back a startled laugh. “Who is he?”

“Remember how I was gone for a while and you stayed with Grandpa Ollie and Aunt Dinah?” Roy asked, and Lian nodded. “I was helping Jason. He got hurt and I was, um. Taking care of him.”

“Oh.” Lian frowned up at Jason, clearly not thrilled with the man who’d taken her daddy away from her for weeks. “That was a long time. You musta been really hurt.”

“I was, yeah. Your daddy took real good care of me,” Jason said, and then felt himself flush. God.

Lian’s frown narrowed speculatively. “How come your hair’s two colors?”

“Oh, uh…” Jason touched his white streak self-consciously.

“Lian! Manners, please,” Roy said quickly. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” Jason tried to figure out an answer that didn’t involve the trauma of violent death and unwilling resurrection. “It just started growing that way one day.”

Lian turned to Roy. “Daddy, I want hair that’s two colors!”

“Mm, yeah, we’ll talk about that when you’re in high school, okay?” Roy said distractedly, and got an indignant expression in response. But he wasn’t looking at his daughter. “What’s going on, Jay?”

He didn’t seem angry, but he wasn’t warm, either. Jason shifted uncertainly where he stood. “Uh...can we talk?”

Roy scrutinized him for a minute, then sighed. “Yeah, come on in,” he said, and stepped back to give Jason room to enter.

Inside, the Harper home was cheerfully cluttered, with crayons scattered on the coffee table and stuffed animals lined up on the couch like they were waiting for the evening news. “Bug, go pick out a movie to watch while Daddy talks to Jason, okay?” Roy said. “It’s gonna be some boring grownup stuff.”

“Ew.” Lian wrinkled her nose and picked up the remote control, scrolling through the menus more adeptly than Jason knew how to do, apparently content to dismiss her father’s visitor.

Roy led the way into the kitchen, which was open to the living room. Not the most private place for a conversation, but Lian was still young enough that Roy probably wanted to be able to keep an eye on her while they talked.

“Sit,” Roy said, gesturing to the table, and Jason did. “You want something to drink?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Roy sat down across from him. “What are you doing here, Jay?” he asked. His voice was pitched soft so that it didn’t carry, but it wasn’t exactly welcoming. “Thought we didn’t have a relationship. This feels like a hell of a commute for a scene.”

Jason winced. “That’s fair,” he said. “I, uh. Found something that belongs to you.”

He’d had a backpack slung over his shoulder that he’d lowered to the floor when Roy had offered him a seat. Now he opened it, took out the box with the cuff in it, and placed it on the table between them.

Roy went pale beneath his freckles, and then red. “Oh.”

“I needed to stop by our safehouse to patch myself up the other night. Found a package for you,” Jason said. “I’m sorry I opened your mail, but I didn’t think you were coming back for it.”

“I didn’t think there was a reason to,” Roy said. His fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach for the cuff but wouldn’t let himself.

Jason opened his mouth to say something reasonable; to ask why Roy hadn’t told him, or apologize for his fit of jealousy. “I want my collar,” came out instead.

Roy stared at him.

“I want my collar,” Jason said again. He couldn’t seem to stop. “I want you to put your initials on it, and I want you to put it around my neck, and I don’t ever want to take it off.”

He saw Roy’s chest hitch. “Jay…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jason asked. “Where the cuff was. Why didn’t you just explain? Why didn’t you get them both embossed?”

“Because it was insane!” Roy hissed. “Because I sent the stupid fucking cuff off on a whim because I’m an idiot, and then what was I supposed to do? All that talk about keeping things platonic and giving you a safe space to try out subbing, and here I am falling for you like an asshole. And you were so terrified of having your choices taken away, and you went down with a whisper—how could I know for sure that you were saying yes because you wanted to and not because I made you?”

“...That’s a pretty fucking bullshit thing to say,” Jason said, even as his heart pounded out falling for you, falling for you, falling for you over and over again. “I told you. Just because I’m a sub doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want without you telling me.”

“What do you want, then?” Roy asked, his shoulders set like he was bracing himself for a hit.

What did Jason want? To slide to his knees. To rest his head in Roy’s lap. To feel Roy’s long fingers curving around his throat.

“To be yours,” Jason said instead, because that covered it all. Because he’d never gotten anything he wanted in this life unless he was brave enough to take it. “And I want you to be mine.”

Roy just stared at him again. He looked so dumbfounded it would have been funny if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. Of the two of them, there was one obvious catch, and it wasn’t the sullen, murderous sub.

“Roy?” Jason nudged when Roy didn’t say anything.

“Why?” Roy asked, sounding choked. “You’ve only known me a few weeks.”

“I’ve known you since I was fifteen.”

“That doesn’t count,” Roy protested. “You haven’t even tried with anyone else. You don’t know if—”

“I know I’m gonna kick your ass if you don’t shut up,” Jason said. “You’re the dumbass who put my initials on his cuff the first time we, uh.” He remembered Lian at the last minute and ended the sentence there. “Who’s rushing into things here?”

“Yeah, but I…” Roy said, caught himself, and trailed off.

“Are the service Dom of the spandex set, I know,” Jason said. “Yeah, you have more experience than me. And yeah, I fucking hate it and when I think about you with other people I want to scream, but I’ll get over it. Eventually. Maybe.” He forced his jaw to unclench. “But you know what makes me the maddest about all of that?”

Roy gave him a wry look. “Dick?”

“Ha. No. Although…” Jason grimaced again, then shook it off. “It’s that you won’t fucking say what you want. Did you want to show up with your best Dom voice every time one of your friends had a bad day? Did you want to let me walk out the door like an asshole when we were so good together? Because it sounded to me like you wanted to stop looking. And I found you.” His voice was suddenly shaky. “I wasn’t looking at all, but I found you.”

Roy looked away, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “Yeah, well, here’s the thing, Jaybird. When you keep asking people to stay and they never do, you stop asking.”

“Then don’t ask me. You’re a fucking Dom.” Jason reached across the table, where Roy’s hand was resting, and curved his palm around Roy’s wrist where his initials should go. “Tell me.”

Roy didn’t say anything. But he put his free hand on top of Jason’s, and when he looked back at him, his eyes were wet.

“I’m sorry I was an asshole,” Jason said.

“I like that you’re an asshole,” Roy said with a misty smile.

Falling for you, said Jason’s heart. “You’re in luck, then.”

Roy’s smile widened, then faded. “You live on the other side of the country,” he said, serious. “You barely know me. I have a kid.”

Jason waited.

“Stay,” Roy said.

It was a command, and the worry lifted off of Jason’s heart.

“Please,” he said.

*

Jason knelt on the bed, his spine straight and his hands clasped behind his back. He was completely naked and hard between his legs, caught right on the precipice of going down, and Roy hadn’t even touched him yet. He wasn’t even in the room.

It had been just over two weeks since Jason had crossed the country on a whim and unceremoniously demanded Roy’s love. He’d been staying at Bruce’s Star City safehouse ever since. He would have liked to stay with Roy, but sharing a safehouse while Jason recuperated from bullet wounds was different from jumping into moving in together five minutes after acknowledging they were even in a relationship.

Besides, there was Lian to consider. Roy wanted to give her a chance to get to know Jason before he sprang any major changes on her, so Jason had been over for dinner a few times, had spent most of the past couple weekends with them. So fair, Lian seemed to like Jason okay, which was an enormous relief. Roy might have been willing to spend a few weeks away from her as a favor to Dick, but nothing he felt for Jason would ever keep his daughter from coming first in his heart.

Jason didn’t mind. He liked that Roy was the kind of parent he’d never been lucky enough to have.

It did, however, mean that there hadn’t really been time or space for scenes, especially since most of Jason’s time was taken up trying to figure out how much of his Gotham business he could run from Star City, and how much he needed to be physically present for. There had been quiet, sweet blowjobs and handjobs after Lian had gone to bed, but nothing more elaborate than that.

But three days ago, Roy had texted Jason that a package they’d been waiting for had finally arrived in the mail. Three hours ago, they’d had dinner at Ollie and Dinah’s house so that Jason could properly meet Roy’s extended family, and Roy had brought Lian’s overnight bag, since she’d be spending the rest of the weekend there. And three seconds after they’d gotten back home after dinner, Roy had crowded Jason up against the wall, squeezed him through his jeans, and kissed him hard.

The kissing was still relatively new. It left Jason dizzy.

“Go wait on the bed for me,” Roy had ordered, low and commanding. “Clothes off, hands behind your back.”

Jason had shivered. “Yes.”

He would never get enough of Roy’s smile. “Good boy.”

Now he’d lost track of how long he’d been waiting, straining to hear the distant sounds of Roy straightening up the kitchen and the living room, returning Lian’s toys to her room, checking the locks. He suspected that Roy was drawing it out. He also suspected that his own anticipation was drawing it out even further, especially after more than two weeks of Roy’s gentle touch but not his firm hand.

He didn’t feel like a good boy. He felt impatient and jittery and wanting, as he tried to calculate whether it would be better to keep waiting, or to be a brat and face Roy’s disappointment if it meant he got his attention faster. Roy had never punished him before, but right now even that sounded appealing.

He was on the brink of throwing a fit when he heard familiar footsteps approaching. He scowled as Roy appeared in the doorway. “Uh-oh,” Roy said, looking more amused than cowed. “Am I in trouble?”

“You were slow on purpose,” Jason said, knowing he was whining and unable to stop.

“I was,” Roy agreed easily. He pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the floor as he moved toward the bed. That was annoying too—the hamper was right there—but at least he was getting naked. “Do you know why?”

“Because you’re a dick?”

Jason knew he was pushing it with that comment, but he still gasped when Roy grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged. It didn’t hurt—it was firm, not sharp—but it forced Jason’s head to tilt, forced him to meet Roy’s eyes.

“Because I wanted to give you a chance to show you how good you could be,” Roy said. “And you were, weren’t you? You waited right here. Did you touch yourself to get so hard?”

Jason flushed and shook his head, just enough to feel the pull of Roy’s fingers in his hair. Roy smiled.

“I didn’t think so,” he said. “You were doing so well, Jay. Do you really want to start being a brat now? Or do you want me to show you what I was thinking about while I was making you wait?”

Jason let out a shaky breath. “Show me?” he said. “Please?”

“That’s my good boy,” Roy said, his hand sliding down from Jason’s hair to cup his cheek, and everything unsettled in Jason smoothed itself out, at least for now. “You gonna let me finish getting undressed?”

“Yes,” Jason said so quickly that Roy laughed.

“You have consistent priorities, that’s for damn sure,” he said as he shucked off his jeans and underwear and kicked them out of the way. “I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly feeling a bit underdressed.”

Jason straightened up. He knew what that meant. “Roy.”

“I know, baby. Hang on.” Roy leaned in to kiss him, then walked over to the nightstand. Jason’s heart beat faster as he took out the box that had arrived three days ago. The one that held Jason’s collar, newly embossed with Roy’s initials.

Roy returned to the foot off the bed with both the collar and the cuff. Jason raised his chin expectantly, and Roy laughed as he buckled the collar in place. “Yeah. We’ve been waiting a few weeks, huh?”

Jason shook his head, feeling the collar snug around his throat, the calluses on the pads of Roy’s fingers as he stroked along the edges of it. The shift of the silk lining against his skin, the heaviness of the leather and hardware, felt even better than Roy’s fist in his hair had. “A lot longer than that.”

Roy’s smile faded, giving way to something softer. “Yeah,” he said. “But god, it was worth waiting for you.”

Jason had held his position for longer than he wanted to think about, but he finally broke at that, reaching for Roy’s hand and kissing his knuckles, his palm, the soft inner skin of his wrist. He waited to be scolded, but Roy just drew in a ragged breath.

“Fuck,” he said, and his voice was shaky. “Put the cuff on me, Jay, please?”

“Yeah,” Jason said nonsensically, and fumbled for the cuff, buckling it around Roy’s wrist. And then it was on, the dark red of the leather stark against Roy’s pale skin, and Jason reached up to trace Roy’s initials on his collar.

“Yeah,” Roy echoed. “You’re mine now, baby. And I’m yours.”

Jason’s heart was pounding. “Kiss me,” he begged. “Roy, please, kiss me.”

“Shh,” Roy soothed, and then he was kissing Jason, and Jason was floating. He was Roy’s. He belonged.

“Do you know what I want to do to you?” Roy asked when he pulled back, stroking Jason’s cheek, petting him. Jason shook his head. “I made you wait so long, and show me how good you could be. I’m not going to make you do any more work, baby, not tonight. I’m going to take such good care of you.”

Jason opened his mouth, then shut it.

“Tell me,” Roy said.

“I…” Jason bit his lip. “I want to be good for you. I want to earn it.”

And oh, the way Roy smiled at him. “I know you do, sweet boy. But tonight you’re going to do that by letting me show you that you’re mine.”

“Fuck,” Jason breathed, as his mind flooded with images of what exactly that could mean. His dick twitched. “Roy, I can’t…”

Roy kissed him softly. “Do you want me to help you be good, Jay?”

Jason frowned. “I...what do you mean?”

“Do you remember when we were negotiating our scenes, way back when?” Roy asked. Jason nodded. “You said you’d be okay with me tying you up. Does that still sound good?”

With anyone else, the answer would have been an immediate and violent no. But with Roy...even that long-ago day, before they’d ever touched each other like this, before Jason knew quite how much he wanted Roy to touch him, the idea of letting himself be bound had felt safe. Appealing, even.

Besides, he belonged to Roy.

“Yes,” he said. “You can...yes.”

Roy crinkled at him. “Lie down on your stomach,” he said.

Jason obeyed, cheek pressed to the mattress so that he could watch Roy return to the nightstand and take out a length of soft cord—and the lube, which made Jason clench his stomach muscles in anticipation, pushing himself against the sheets. Roy climbed onto the bed and over Jason, his knees on the outsides of Jason’s thighs. He gently coaxed Jason’s hands behind his back again, crossed at the wrists.

“How does that feel?” he asked. “Okay on your shoulders and elbows? Will it hurt if you stay like this for a while?” Jason shook his head, already drifting, and Roy tapped his shoulder. “I need you to answer me out loud, Jay.”

Jason made himself concentrate on putting the words in the right order. “It’s okay,” he said. “It won’t hurt.”

“Good boy. Thank you for answering me so clearly,” Roy said, and Jason pushed his blushing face into the mattress. “Aw, come on, you can’t get shy this early, Jaybird.”

Jason mumbled something incomprehensible and then just lay there, relaxing into the weight of Roy across his thighs as his wrists were firmly bound together. “How’s that?” Roy asked. “Not too tight?”

Jason tested it. He couldn’t work his wrists free—well, not without coming up and a whole lot of effort—but the rope wasn’t cutting off circulation, either. “‘S good,” he said.

“Good.” Roy reached over him and snagged a pillow, then shifted off of Jason and tapped at his hip. “Up a little for me?”

Jason pushed up on his knees, just enough for Roy to slide the pillow under his stomach. It didn’t raise him up very high, but it did mean that his dick was no longer pressed between his body and the mattress. If he shifted, he could get it to bump the bottom of the pillow, but it was nowhere near enough friction to get him off.

“That’s better,” Roy said, and Jason could hear the mischief in his voice. “Don’t want this ending too soon, do we?”

“Roy…” Jason said, trying not to whine. But Roy wasn’t touching him, and he needed…

“Shh, I got you,” Roy said, putting a warm hand on the back of Jason’s thigh. The mattress shifted as he moved back, his hand sliding to the inner thigh and making Jason twitch with anticipation. “Spread your legs for me, baby, okay?”

Jason did, anticipation shivering up his spine, and Roy settled between his legs. “Look at you,” he crooned, and now there were two hands stroking up Jason’s thighs, curving over his ass. “So pretty and perfect and all mine.”

“I’m yours,” Jason agreed, “but...I’m…”

“Shhh, you are,” Roy insisted, sliding back, and Jason jumped when he felt teeth nipping playfully at one cheek. “My perfect boy.”

“Roy…” Jason said again, glad that Roy couldn’t see his face from his angle.

“Gonna make you feel so good, baby,” Roy murmured, spreading him open, “like you always make me feel,” and then his tongue was dragging over Jason’s hole, hot and wet. Jason let out a choked, startled noise. “You like that?”

“Yes, please,” Jason said, trying to push up—but he couldn’t use his hands, and his knees were only bent enough to accommodate the pillow underneath him, not enough to give him any leverage.

“Good,” Roy said, and then his tongue was back. Jason muffled his whimpers in the sheets as Roy licked at him, teasing little flicks that made Jason’s brain go fizzy between his ears. He was pinned in this position, helpless even though only his wrists were tied. All he could really do was squirm, and even that just brushed his dick against the pillow so lightly it was almost worse than no contact at all. Besides, the way Roy’s fingers tightened on his cheeks when he wriggled told him that he wasn’t supposed to be moving.

Sure enough, “Stay still,” Roy murmured against his wet skin, and then that clever tongue was pushing inside, and oh, Jason tried. He dug his nails into his palms and focused on the weight of his collar and the solidity of the rope around his wrists instead of how good Roy’s tongue felt inside him, how good it felt to belong to Roy like this. It didn’t help very much.

“Shh, shh, you’re okay,” Roy said when he pulled away, and Jason realized he’d been whimpering “please, please, please” into the mattress. “You’re so good, Jason. You’re doing so well.”

“I want...I need…” Jason managed, breathing hard.

“What, baby?” Roy was petting him—his back, his thighs, his ass. Jason felt so empty, wet and open. “What do you need?”

“Inside,” Jason gasped. “Roy, please...I need you inside me.”

“You just had me inside you,” Roy said, and even like this Jason knew when he was being teased. He whined, wordless and impatient, and Roy chuckled. His weight shifted on the bed, and suddenly his dick was sliding along the cleft of Jason’s ass, heavy and hard. “Is this what you want, baby? Is this what you’re asking me for?”

Jason moaned and tried futilely to rock back against him. “Yes, please, please, Roy, put it in me, I need it, need to be yours.”

“You’re already mine, sweetheart. Do you want me to show you?” Roy asked. He curled forward and kissed Jason’s shoulder blade. “Should I show you how every part of you belongs to me?”

Jason moaned his agreement as Roy kissed his way down his spine, his hips still moving evenly, dragging his cock along Jason’s ass, slick with saliva. Every time the head caught on Jason’s rim, it pulled a soft urgent noise out of Jason, an eager little hope that now, now…

But Roy didn’t reach for the lube, didn’t try to push inside. “Jason,” Roy breathed, and even through the haze of his impatience and frustration, Jason was pleased to hear him sounding less than steady as he fucked between Jason’s cheeks. “God, baby, your ass…”

“Roy…” Jason panted, trying to arch up into him.

“Fuck, Jay, I can’t—” Roy gasped. Suddenly he pulled back, one thumb hooking into Jason and holding him open. Jason heard the slick sounds of Roy’s other hand stroking himself, but he didn’t have enough time to decide whether he wanted to encourage his Dom or beg him to wait until he was inside Jason before Roy groaned and came on Jason’s exposed, empty hole.

“Fuck,” Roy said again, still shaky, his hand relaxing on Jason’s ass. Jason pushed his face into the mattress to hide his reaction, but he could feel his shoulders trembling. It had been so close, so close to what he wanted…

Roy rubbed his thumb over Jason’s hole, slick and sticky. “Mine,” he breathed, and Jason tried to curl around the intense satisfaction in his tone, how happy Roy clearly was that Jason was his. Maybe that would be enough, maybe making his Dom this pleased was all he needed…

But Roy straightened up, reached forward with his clean hand to tuck a curl behind Jason’s ear. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

He knew. Of course he knew. Jason shook his head, still looking down, and fought back tears.

Roy stretched out to lie beside him and kissed his shoulder. “Jason. Tell me.”

It was a command—soft and coaxing, but a command. Jason focused on the comforting weight of Roy’s leg thrown over both of his. Roy was still here. He wasn’t leaving. He was Jason’s.

“I wanted you to fuck me,” he mumbled, his face still averted, his voice barely audible. “Wanted to be good for you.”

“Did I say we were done?” Roy asked, his breath brushing the side of Jason’s neck. “Baby, we’ve got all weekend. You’re gonna have every part of me you want.”

Jason stilled, prickles of heat racing across his skin. There was so much of Roy that he wanted.

Roy’s hand slipped over Jason’s upper thigh and past it, brushing the underside of his cock. Jason jolted at the light touch, on edge and needy.

“Would I leave my beautiful boy like this?” Roy asked, still in that low, coaxing voice that Jason had no defenses against. “So hard for me? Would I not let you come when you’re so fucking gorgeous when you do?”

Jason let out a sob at that, unable to stifle it. “Roy…”

“Look at me,” Roy said, his fingers still grazing the underside of Jason’s dick, and Jason turned his head and let Roy see him. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“Please,” Jason said, feeling something crumble inside him at the soft, adoring look on Roy’s face—adoring and a little apologetic. “Roy, please.”

“I’m sorry, baby. I should have told you everything I wanted to do to you,” Roy said, his expression turning a little mischievous. “And not just because I like watching your face when I do.” His fingers trailed back up Jason’s cleft to tease his messy hole again. “I’ve been thinking about marking you for days—or hell, if I’m being honest, probably since the first time you told me to go fuck myself. Wanted to make you smell like me, right here.” He let the tip of one finger slip inside, and Jason gasped. “I wanted to put a collar on you and come on you, and then in you. Claim you every way there is. Show you how much you belong to me, like I belong to you.”

“Please,” Jason begged, trying not to whine, trying not to push up so as to get Roy’s finger deeper inside. “I want that, I’m sorry, I want that too, want to be yours.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, sweetheart,” Roy said. “It’s my job to take care of you, and you’re aching now, aren’t you?”

He was aching, throbbing against the pillow. He let out a soft whine and Roy leaned in to kiss him.

“Shh, I got you. I’m gonna give you what you need,,” he said, and then he was pulling out, pulling away and setting up. “Let’s get you on your back.” He helped Jason roll over until he was facing upward—his arms still bound behind him, the pillow still lifting his hips, his thighs spread and Roy’s come cooling between them. “How’s that? Comfortable?”

Jason shifted a little until he could ease some of the strain off of his shoulders, until there was nothing distracting him from sinking back down into the place where Roy would take care of him, would give him everything. “Yes.”

“Good.” Roy leaned over him and picked up the lube, finally. Jason wriggled impatiently, and Roy shot him an amused look. “Be good.”

“I’m trying,” Jason retorted. He could hear the whining note creeping back into his voice, but how could he help it when he’d been waiting for this for so long?

But Roy just laughed. “You’re lucky I’m about to give you something to do with your mouth,” he said, and settled back down on his knees—but next to Jason’s hip rather than between his spread legs, like Jason had expected. He slicked up his fingers, and then two of them were pushing into Jason, slow but insistent. “Okay?”

Jason tried to make himself relax, tried to get back to where everything was melty and soft and Roy could do whatever he wanted to him, but he was too keyed up, too eager. “Roy…”

“Shh, I got you, baby,” Roy said again, and pressed the same two fingers of his other hand against Jason’s lower lip.

Jason let his lips part under the gentle pressure. The moment he felt the heaviness of Roy’s callused fingers on his tongue, the eager, impatient noise inside his head faded, and everything settled.

“There we are,” Roy murmured, and he sounded so pleased. It made warmth blossom anew in Jason’s chest at the steady, comforting thrill of being good, of making Roy happy, of having Roy work him open and something steadying in his mouth.

“Look at you,” Roy said as he slid his fingers in and out of Jason’s ass, steady but slow enough to give him a chance to relax around them. “My perfect boy. You’re doing so well, Jay. So good for me.”

Jason let out a wet sound around Roy’s fingers—not a word, not a moan, just a helpless vocalization. He could stay here forever. He needed to be filled now. Both were equally, impossibly true, and so he floated, caught between contentment and impatience, as Roy pumped and twisted and spread his fingers, as he got Jason wetter, looser, readier.

It could have been weeks later when Roy finally pulled his fingers free from Jason’s hole and from his mouth and climbed over his thigh to kneel between his legs. “Gonna fuck you now, baby,” he said, but Jason barely heard him, distracted by the sight of Roy drizzling lube onto his cock. He was hard again, flushed and gorgeous, and Jason wanted.

“Roy,” he begged as Roy lined himself up, as Jason felt the blunt head of a dick against his hole again, this time not a tease. “Yes. I want it.”

“Shh, I’m gonna give it to you,” Roy promised again, stroking his thigh. “You just lie back and feel good, baby.”

And then he was pushing in, slow and careful but unmistakably there, thick and hard and hot. Jason’s eyes fell shut and his mouth fell open. “Roy,” he panted as his Dom slid deeper inside. “Roy.”

The hand on his thigh was trembling now. “Jay, fuck,” Roy breathed, pushing in a little farther and then stilling. “Are you okay?”

Jason’s thighs flexed under the touch. “More.”

“God,” Roy choked out, a breathless laugh, and kept going until he was sheathed to the hilt, until Jason could feel his Dom’s pulse inside him, until no one could say he hadn’t been claimed completely.

Roy was searching his face, those blue eyes watching him so closely. “Are those good tears, sweetheart?”

Jason hadn’t even realized his cheeks were wet. “Yeah.”

“You know you have to tell me if it hurts or you don’t like it, right? You have to, Jason—”

“I know.” It was a little uncomfortable, a little overwhelming, a little too much, but that didn’t mean Jason didn’t like it—and besides, he’d waited too long for this to let Roy stop now. “I will. I promise.”

Roy bumped his nose against Jason’s, pure affection. “Good boy,” he murmured, and the only reason Jason didn’t blurt out that he loved him right then and there was because he’d already done that when he asked Roy to collar him forever.

Instead, he hitched his legs around Roy’s hips and bore down. “Roy.”

“Fuck,” Roy gasped. “Okay, baby, I got you. I got you.”

He rolled his hips, shallowly at first and then deeper when Jason tipped his head back and moaned. Roy peppered him with kisses as he fucked him—his cheeks, his panting mouth, his neck above and below his collar.

“Jay,” he groaned. “God, you feel so fucking good, so perfect for me. My beautiful boy.”

Jason wanted to praise him in return, to tell him how good he felt inside, but all his words were lost in a haze of helpless pleasure. And he didn’t have to talk, he realized. He didn’t have to do anything. That was why Roy had bound his hands. All he had to do to be good was let his Dom have him, which was all he wanted anyway. Roy had made it all so perfectly clear, just for him.

And so he let go—let himself be carried along by the feeling of it. Not just the physical pleasure, but the overwhelming bliss of belonging, of being desired and cared for this deeply, this thoroughly. Time fell away; worries and grief fell away. Everything fell away but Roy.

“Jason,” Roy breathed—a sigh, a prayer. “Fuck, I can’t—do you want to come, baby? Are you ready?”

It hadn’t felt urgent until Roy asked, but suddenly Jason was desperate, aching with the need for release. “Please,” he sobbed.

Roy’s familiar callused hand folded around him. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Let me see you.”

All it took was a few strokes and Jason was gone, hips arching off the bed as he came with a hoarse cry. Roy swore, rhythm faltering as he stroked Jason through it, and then spilled deep inside him, a low groan echoing in his ear.

Jason’s legs flopped to the sides. Roy’s weight felt good on top of him, heavy and grounding, but he only stayed there for a heartbeat before he was carefully pulling out and sitting back on his heels.

“No, come back,” Jason protested. Roy ran a soothing hand up his inner thigh and shook his head.

“Sorry, babe, but I’ll fuck up your shoulders if I lie on you for too long while you’re tied up,” he said. “Can you roll onto your side?”

Jason let himself be helped onto his side, let Roy untie his wrists and check to make sure he hadn’t tied them too tightly. He sleepily permitted Roy to check his shoulders and elbows for stiffness, to rub any soreness out of his joints, to kiss him and pet him and tell him how well he’d done. Even the sight of Roy picking up the lube again only got a small, quizzical sound out of him.

Roy fished through the rumpled sheets and came up with a small silver plug as an answer. “Gonna keep me inside of you for a little longer, baby,” he said. “Is that okay?”

If Jason could’ve purred, he would have. “Mmmyes,” he managed, rolling partially onto his stomach and spreading his thighs again.

He could hear Roy’s shocky inhale. “Jesus, you’re incredible,” he murmured. A minute later the plug was sliding into Jason, cool and slick and hard. Jason clenched around it, pleased. Roy had collared him and marked him and filled him and Jason could keep him. Not inside, not forever, but the collar, yes. His place in Roy’s bed, yes.

Roy kissed his temple. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just going into the bathroom for a second.”

Jason closed his eyes and listened to Roy’s footsteps padding away, to running water, to the creak of the bedsprings. He wasn’t surprised when he felt a soft, damp cloth wiping his face, his belly, between his legs. Roy always took care of him.

Footsteps again, and then the mattress shifted as Roy stretched out beside Jason and stroked a thumb over his cheekbone. “Hey, Jaybird,” he murmured. “Can you open your eyes for me?”

Jason looked into the gentle blue of Roy’s eyes, the color of a perfect June sky. “Hi.”

Roy smiled. “Hi. How are you feeling?”

“Good. Sleepy.” Jason gave a lethargic blink, and Roy laughed softly.

“Yeah, I can tell,” he said. “You want to come here before you pass out on me?”

Jason nodded but didn’t move. Roy laughed again, louder this time, and manhandled Jason into his arms, his head pillowed against Roy’s shoulder and those callused fingers stroking through his curls.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a comforting rumble against Jason’s cheek. “Go ahead and rest.”

Jason sank into him, his eyes drifting to half-mast. Distantly he knew it was still relatively early; he wasn’t sure if he would really sleep, or just float, safe and sated, until he came up again. But he knew it didn’t really matter. He was Roy’s now, claimed in every way possible, and Roy was his. He didn’t even really need the collar around his neck to tell him that, as much as he loved it, or the brush of leather on Roy’s wrist as he stroked his hair. Not when he could hear Roy’s heartbeat thrumming against his cheek where he lay.

Jason closed his eyes and submitted to happiness.