Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first sign that something is wrong is the cracked-open door. Bruce is a man who follows his routines down to a microscopic level, and he always closes that door when he leaves. Dick never used to. But then, Dick hasn't lived here for years.

Bruce pushes the door open slowly and silently. The two beds — his own, and Dick's disused one — have been pushed together.

The shadowy sight of it sits strangely in his chest. The gap between them became a gulf in later years, as Dick began to push and argue and disobey. It is … wrong, for the gap to be closed, for their beds to touch when the rift between them is wider than ever. When Dick is a city away and no longer needs him, when he no longer calls Gotham home and perhaps never truly did.

On the beds is a sprawled figure, lying still. In the corner, another figure, facing him at the door. The odds that Bruce's presence has gone unnoticed are infinitesimal.

Bruce flicks on the light. The two intruders are thrown in sharp relief.

"What is this."

Dick stirs on their beds, blinking his eyes blearily and twitching his head up. He looks out of it: his eyes keep drifting out of focus, and his movements are laggard. Drugged, most likely. He's naked, scarred golden skin on full display, contrasting the deep green of the bed covers. Was he ambushed while he was sleeping, and transported here like this? Or was he stripped? Bruce can't see his clothing anywhere in the room. The former, then. He breathes through his nose, shallow.

From the armchair in the corner, Deathstroke smirks at him. No doubt Dick's condition is his doing. His mask is pulled up, revealing his face, and his eye glints with malicious purpose.

"This? Call it a gift."

Is this a contract? Every muscle in Bruce's body tenses until he feels he could crack with it. "I don't take gifts from home invaders."

Deathstroke barks out a laugh. "Oh, it's not for you. This is a gift for him."

Bruce just barely interrupts the expression that wants to flit across his face before it can manifest itself. Still, some twitch or tensing must give him away — or maybe it's the non-reaction, the failure to project Bruce Wayne's startlement — because Wilson's mocking grin twists into a sneer. He rises from the chair, moving to the beds. Towards Dick.

"Don't touch him," Bruce growls.

Deathstroke reaches out to run his hand through Dick's hair. "I've done a lot more than touch him, you know," he comments idly.

Dick makes a soft, pleased sound, leaning into the touch. A vein throbs near Bruce's temple. His knuckles creak in his clenched fists.

"I mean, you see what he's like. Practically begging for it. And let me tell you, he's awful pretty when he begs."

"What," Bruce says, through gritted teeth, "The hell. Do you want."

Wilson takes a moment, as though thinking it over. He keeps touching Dick. "Well, it's his gift. So the real question is, what does he want? We're not leaving until he gets it."

A pause. The air is thick.

"Don't play the fool, Mr Wayne. You know what he wants from you."

Blood pulses in Bruce's ears. The pressure threatens to burst. He does know what Dick wants from him. Something neither of them can have. And apparently, something Dick has sought out in Deathstroke instead.

What he doesn't know is how Deathstroke knows this too. Dick must have told him. But that speaks to more than a …. physical closeness, though that is clearly also present. No. For Dick to have bared himself emotionally to Wilson — offered himself up like a lamb to be gutted — that suggests an intimacy that makes Bruce want to cave Wilson's face in.

"I can tell you're going to need some persuasion," Wilson says, when Bruce fails to respond beyond forcing himself to hold still and staring at that hand running through Dick's hair. "I anticipated that."

Wilson pats Dick's cheek, then grips his hair, pulling Dick's head up and pointing him at Bruce. Dick hisses and blinks, eyes focusing a little beyond the vacant stare. "…Bruce? Whatsh…"

"Go on, kid," Wilson tells him. "Tell your daddy what you want."

Bruce bites his tongue so hard that a metallic tang spreads across it. Dick stares up at him with big, round eyes. "Daddy…?"

He's confused. Of course he is. What Wilson is saying doesn't make any sense. While Dick may have some… attraction, to Bruce, he has never wanted Bruce to be his…

But then Dick is turning, frowning in puzzlement at Wilson instead of Bruce. "…Daddy?"

Something deep and ugly in Bruce's stomach burns. For a moment, his vision whites out with the force of it.

"Ah, not now, champ," Wilson purrs. He guides Dick's head back to Bruce; Dick goes with it, meek in a way that's unnatural on him at this age. Even as a child, he was so rarely this compliant. "There he is. Mr Bruce Wayne himself. Tell him what you want him to do to you."

Dick seems to think for a moment. Bruce can almost see him rally sluggish thoughts behind his eyes. "To… kiss me?"

Bruce feels a great many things all at once, none of which he gives himself time to name before he ruthlessly squashes them down into a box. God. He wants to scream.

"Good start." Wilson levels a look at Bruce. "Well? Kiss him. Or I will."

"I won't entertain this." Bruce hasn't moved, though. His feet are rooted to the spot, when he should be tackling Wilson out the window. "He's my…"

He gropes for the word. Son comes to mind — it's what he should say. But it sits not quite right, and it's the not-quite-rightness — and the image of Dick's open face just now, looking up at him as Daddy spilled from his lips, lying on their beds that once belonged to Bruce's parents — that makes blood pulse in his ears and echo in a throb between his legs.

"Suit yourself," Wilson shrugs, and his lips press to Dick's. Dick makes a muffled noise of startlement—

"Get off him!"

Bruce's feet unroot, and he flies across the room to shove Wilson away, and—

If the clawing, desperate, furious feeling tearing its way out of his chest were protective rage, that's where it would end. Bruce would push Dick safe behind him and force Deathstroke away from him and it would be over with.

But it isn't. It's an ugly, wretched thing he buries in the dark, finally bursting its way free. Bruce pushes Deathstroke away from Dick, and captures Dick’s lips with his own.

Dick jolts in his arms. Wilson has some kind of reaction, probably, but Bruce is inexcusably focused on the chapped, pliant lips against his, on the way Dick moans softly and clings to him in return. Bruce's hands brace on the sides of Dick's neck, and he can't quite believe this isn't some dream he's having, sitting on their beds with Dick back in his arms, still wanting this even so long after Bruce shut him down. Still wanting him.

Dick's head is yanked back by the hair, breaking them apart. Dick yelps; Bruce snarls.

"Let him come up for air," Deathstroke says. It's a taunt. Bruce can hear the smirk in his voice, even if he's not looking at him. His eyes are fixated on Dick's mouth, hanging tantalisingly half-open, lips wet and red.

"Leave."

"Is that any way to thank me?"

And Wilson's hand, the one not in Dick's hair, is suddenly groping between Bruce's legs. Bruce startles, an unacceptable reaction — Dick's safety is on the line here and Bruce is losing track of what the threat is doing. Focus is impossible. He feels fevered, delirious, scrabbling uselessly for the cliff edges of his sanity.

"Here's the deal," Wilson begins, fondling Bruce slowly through his slacks. Bruce locks his hips in place and does not respond to it. He can't let go of Dick. He can't move away. "You get to choose. But someone's going to get him off tonight, and it's either you, or it's me. And I'm getting off tonight, so I better get a show, or I'll find another way that you'll hate much more."

Bruce breathes. He doesn't answer. He holds very still and he tries, tries to think, tries to—

"You and your thousand strategies, Bat." Wrong. Bruce has no strategies. Dick in his lap, in his arms, has wiped his mind clean. The confirmation that his identity is compromised barely even registers. "You could fight me. But your precious Grayson will get hurt. Or you could give him what you both want, and everyone walks away happy."

"What do you get out of this," Bruce demands. It can't be just the control he's enjoying. This is too beyond, too deliberate and personal for Deathstroke's M.O.

"You're not really getting with the program here, Mr Wayne." Wilson stops touching him, a mild relief, but the hand in Dick's hair moves to grip the back of his neck in an obvious threat. "How about you stop asking questions and get on with making the boy feel special, hm?"

Dick blinks at him. His face is flushed a pretty pink, a little frown furrowing his brow. "Bruce…?"

"Is that what you want to call him?" Wilson's hand grips tighter. Dick groans, eyelids fluttering.

"D-daddy," he stutters, and Bruce is burning up, burning everywhere, consumed in a rush of flaming lust that dishonours them both and everything they've had together.

Dick is drugged. He wouldn't want … not like this. He wouldn't want it like this. Unless it's the only way he thought he ever could have it. But no, not even then — he's too good for that, too good for this. Too good for Bruce and Wilson both.

"You really are pathetic. He's ripe and ready and naked in your lap and you still can't do anything about it."

Wilson lifts Dick into a more upright kneel across Bruce's thighs, and Dick grips Bruce's shoulders harder for balance. Wilson's hands are on Dick's hips. Guiding him to rock forward, to grind down — oh.

"I have to do everything myself around here."

No amount of trying to focus on anything else prevents Bruce from being thoroughly, terribly aware of Dick's engorged clit pressing into his crotch, where his own hardness is inevitably and all too quickly cresting. Wilson steers Dick's hips, rolling him forward and back, and licks of pleasure dance over Bruce's skin. He can't stifle them. His breath catches, vision pinholes. He wants— and yet he can't—

Dick's face tips back, mouth falling open. Wilson lets him go, but he's moving on his own now, breathy noises flowing from his throat as he grinds his pussy over Bruce’s lap, quickly soaking a damp patch into his crotch. Bruce can't tear his eyes away to see what Wilson is doing. The barrier of Bruce's clothing doesn't seem to bother Dick, chasing pleasure in excited rhythm with a building flush spreading down his chest.

"Bruce," Dick gasps, rocking. "Ah, Bruce…"

Somewhere beside them, Wilson is grunting, panting. There's the distinct sound of him beating off. Bruce finds he does still have it in him to feel a sliver of repulsion about that.

"Call him properly, birdie,” Wilson tells him.

Dick shivers. His hips buck forward eagerly. He's so beautiful. This is wrong. Bruce needs to— he can't, he's going to, he needs— he's hurtling towards a climax faster than he has with any partner before, and he needs—

"Ooh… Daddy, please, please…"

"Dick," Bruce responds, wretched, and he comes in his pants.

Dick doesn't stop. He likely hasn't even noticed the way Bruce is suddenly fighting not to tremble with oversensitivity as Dick grinds the stickiness in Bruce's briefs around. Bruce bites his tongue. He feels like he's on fire. He can still taste Dick's lips.

"Looks like you made your daddy very happy, little bird," Wilson says with a pleased grunt. "Good boy."

Something shrivels up inside Bruce, but the praise reddens the pink in Dick's cheeks. He swallows, his desperate rutting on Bruce's lap momentarily stuttering before quickening into a rabid flurry. "I, um, I– I–"

"Go on." Bruce can feel Wilson standing over them. Can hear him masturbating himself over the sight of Dick like this, and Bruce should do something, should have done something so much earlier, but Dick has him weak and mesmerised him in place. "Show him, ah, how much you've wanted him."

Dick chokes, and he's coming, clutching at Bruce and shaking apart in his arms. The sight brands itself behind Bruce's eyelids. The sound, the smell, Dick's tremulous moan of "Daddy…" as he sags — the details imprint into Bruce's brain, permanent and unforgettable.

For a moment, the wrongness of it all doesn't matter. The oppressive guilt subsides. There is only Dick, and Bruce, together again at last, together in the one way they never allowed themselves before.

Wilson groans, and the illusion shatters. The sickness comes back in full stomach-swooping force.

"You wanted… to know what… I'm getting out of this," Wilson pants, fisting his cock furiously. Bruce wants to throw up. "Get to see… you realise. I had him first. Part of him… is always. Mine. Fuck."

Warm globs of Wilson’s come splatter over Bruce's face. A stripe lands on the bridge of Dick's nose, another in his hair. Yet more misses them entirely, dripping onto the bedspread. Wilson grunts in satisfaction. Acid burns in Bruce's throat. He wants to kill him.

Dick blinks, swiping his finger through it, and brings it to his mouth as if to taste it. Bruce catches his wrist with a snarl.

Wilson's laugh booms in his ears.