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Tim looks at Dick sometimes and can’t see anything but Bruce.
It starts with small things, like the set of his mouth and the pitch of his voice and builds up, slow as mountains, until it starts to set Tim’s teeth on edge. Dick doesn’t smile as much now.
It’s just so wrong. Tim can’t really think of anything he wouldn’t do to fix it, up to and including any number of things that would probably make him die of embarrassment or, possibly, force him to be more honest with Dick than he’s ever allowed himself.
That’s certainly why he’s standing here now, in his room barely lit by the first searching fingers of dawn, looking at his own reflection in the mirror above the dresser.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dick says.
Tim ignores him for the moment, too caught by the way his own hand looks as he slides it up his chest, blue and black against blue and black.
It’s strange how thin the Nightwing suit is, and Tim always thought it looked like it could’ve been painted on; he just never realized how little armoring it actually had. He adds that to the top of his mental list of things to fix, and tries not to feel the weight of his missing cape too much.
It’s just another adjustment to make, like learning to fight without using your hands. Or figuring out how to balance on a moving train with a blindfold over your eyes.
Not impossible, just different, and maybe that’s what makes him feel so vulnerable right now, so thin-skinned.
Dick is going to be Batman and Bruce--
Bruce isn’t coming back. Not this time.
To be fair he had asked Dick what would happen to Nightwing. At the time Dick had just shrugged and said “It’s yours if you want it.” Tim hadn’t given it much more thought.
Dick obviously had. Otherwise Tim wouldn’t have found the suit laying on his bed and waiting for him when he got back from patrol tonight. There wasn’t a question of trying it on, if only to see how it fit.
“You really don’t have to, Tim,” Dick says again, his voice loud in the still quiet of the house. He stays paused in the doorway, leaning on the frame like he’s not sure if he’s allowed in, a darker shadow against the dim light of the hallway.
Tim watches himself blink in the mirror. The ‘but I want you to’ is implied, in the wistful undercurrent in Dick’s voice and the way his eyes haven’t left Tim since he stopped in the doorway after following him upstairs.
It’s in the way his hand curves around the doorframe and how Tim knows, right now, that Dick doesn’t want to push.
Doesn’t want this to be anything but Tim’s decision, and it is, except--
There are other things to consider. Tim hold his hands out in front of him and looks at the gloves. Tries to think of what he wants to say and how, exactly, to say it. He flexes his fingers for the shape of them, the too loose weight, and that’s another thing to add to his list. His hands are smaller, more fine-boned, and he’ll need to have the gloves remade, refitted.
“Damian needs the help,” he says, dropping his hands to his sides and examining his reflection again. “He needs the training, he’s--“
“A brat.”
That’s a nice way to put it certainly, but it’s also not what he was going to say.
“--family, Dick. He’s still family.”
“Even after what he did to you?” Dick asks, finally stepping into the room. As he moves out of the shadows the gray, early light catches his face, and he looks just as tired as he probably is. He doesn't stop until he’s directly behind Tim.
Tim wants to say ‘maybe even more so’, but he doesn’t. Instead he takes the opportunity to watch Dick in the mirror’s reflection right over his own shoulder. Watch him chew on his lower lip a little as his worried eyes track over Tim’s face, looking for any hint of uncertainty or upset, any sign of the lie that Tim’s not actually telling this time.
It’s understandable. Tim knows himself well enough to know just how often he tries to hide what he’s feeling. He knows that Dick has become used to it, that he’s always looking for whatever Tim might be trying to keep away from him.
“He’s just a kid,” Tim says.
Dick doesn’t say anything, just continues to watch Tim with a kind of intensity that reminds him almost painfully of Bruce. There are as many things wrong with that as there are right. Tim bites the inside of his cheek because it’s making him want to push Dick a little more. To make him talk or maybe even argue, but he doesn’t especially feel like explaining himself any further.
The kid may be horrible, but he is still family. He knows that Dick understands that, that he believes it just like Tim does.
Just like he knows that if they ever had a chance to bring Jason home, they would.
It's not about Damian anyway. It’s about Dick, and the heavy weight of the cowl, and how Tim knows, deep in his bones, what it would do to him to see Nightwing fade away.
He’s lost so much in the last few years, lost a lot of himself, and he made Nightwing. It’s as much a part of him as Robin ever was. Maybe even more.
This is something Tim can do for Dick, to make things easier. He can’t be Batman for him, no matter how better suited he may be for the job.
It’s not his turn, and there’s a large part of him that can’t help but feel a little relieved. He’s seen his future staring back at him with a gun in its hands and dead, cold eyes; it’s nothing he wants. He can continue to play backup if it keeps him even a step farther away from that.
Besides he’s no stranger to standing in the shadows. Not the shadows of the Gotham night, with the strap of his camera tugging against his neck and his heart beating triple time. Nor the shadows his big brother has left for him-- that they’ve all, in some way, left for him.
So he fidgets with the suit instead of pushing Dick. Tugs at the seam where the top meets the bottom to make sure the fit is good.
It’s flawless; just as snug as it should be and he’s actually a little surprised at how well it fits.
Knowing he hit a growth spurt not too long ago is nothing against seeing it so clearly. He wouldn’t have thought that he’d grown enough for this. There had been times, certainly, when he thought that he never would, and if he didn’t know better he would think that Dick had had this one made especially for him.
But it had still smelled like him, like it was one of the few that had made it intact long enough to be worn over and over again.
Which is a little distracting.
Just like the feel of it. It’s so sleek, smooth black and bright blue, and Tim’s never been particularly body-conscious but this is making him blush a little.
Of course that could also be the fact that he’s holding Dick’s completely undivided attention right now.
Dick’s hands fall onto Tim’s shoulders like brands. Heat and the spread of his fingers where Tim would normally only be able to feel pressure and weight. He’s so focused on the feel of it that when Dick says, “And now you’ll be leaving me too,” it takes him a moment to figure out what he means.
He shakes his head, stretches his neck a little by dropping it down and rolling his shoulders back. There-- that’s all it takes to get Dick’s thumbs massaging circles into his neck. He smiles.
“Dick, not every Nightwing has to live on his own.”
Tim knows that he’s thinking about what had led him to create Nightwing in the first place, but--
Dick is not Bruce. There’s no reason for Tim to leave, not when he’s so needed and not when--
This is his home now, in a way he never thought he could have again after his father died; he belongs here.
“And I have no urgent desire to leave the nest,” Tim says, turning around to face him. Dick lets go of his shoulders for the moment it takes him to move and then his hands are on his arms again. Sliding down to curve around his elbows and Tim can feel every millimeter of it as though Dick was touching his bare skin. “At least not anytime soon," he finishes.
Dick’s smile is small but he pulls him close. Tim finds himself being hugged, and wraps his arms around Dick in return. “That’s good to hear,” Dick mumbles into his hair.
One of the earliest things he learned about Dick was that he’s not capable of giving anyone a simple hug. Especially not his little brother, who he’s always seemed to think needs them a little more than anyone else. So each time he pulls Tim in as close as possible, and never lets go until he’s ready to.
Trying to pull back too soon will only make him hold on tighter, and Tim uses that sometimes. When a normal hug just isn’t quite enough, when the only thing Tim has to take home with him at night are the rough press of Dick’s fingers through body armor and Kevlar. He’s used it sometimes when it seems like Dick needs it too, when Tim can tell he wants to hold on tighter than he thinks he’s allowed.
Dick is very careful, sometimes, about what he takes.
Tim shifts back just enough to make Dick tighten his grip, and then relaxes into him, breathing him in and holding on. This time he’s not sure who he’s doing it for.
It's obvious to Tim that Dick needs the connection. He’s not been dealing with everything as well as he pretends to be. This is something else Tim can give him, will gladly give him, and maybe that’s part of the problem.
Tim feels a little greedy. Needful of the way Dick’s fingers are digging in to him, pushing warmth into his skin through the thin suit. He’s going to have little round bruises on his shoulder but he can’t do anything but look forward to seeing them. He wants--
Too much.
It doesn’t help any of Tim’s more pressing concerns either, but this isn’t about him any more than it is about Damian. It’s about Dick: about what he needs and what Tim can do for him; how Tim will fight if he needs to in order to make this easier for him.
If Dick’s body against his is distracting, well, he can ignore it like he always has. Push it to the back of his mind and save it for later and God-- he really wishes he could’ve tried this thing on without an audience.
Or without this audience.
“It looks really good on you, little brother,” Dick says, and Tim can tell by the shift of their stance that he’s looking at their reflection in the mirror, and add that to the hand absently tracing circles as it moves down his back…
“Are you looking at my ass?” he asks, surprised.
Dick freezes, statue still, but only for a second. Then he laughs. It’s got to be the best thing Tim’s heard in far too long, and he smiles reflexively. Dick should always be laughing.
“You should probably go ahead and get used to it.”
“Hmm… I’m sure there are certain tactical advantages,” Tim says into Dick’s shoulder.
Dick doesn’t have anything to say to that, just sort of ‘hmms’ in agreement, his fingers continuing to shape soft circles across Tim’s lower back.
This feels different from any other hug they’ve shared. If that’s potential or wishful thinking, or the thin material of the Nightwing suit messing with Tim’s head, he’s not sure.
He knows how lonely Dick has been. He needs other people in a way that Tim just doesn’t, and coming back to Gotham has been hard on him. That’s certainly part of what’s making Dick hold on a little longer, part of what’s making this feel so different.
It’s just-- there are opportunities to ignore and opportunities that need to be taken, and well… Tim feels like he’s spent most of his life letting things like this slide away from him.
It’s still not a good excuse for what he’s about to do, for the risk he’s about to take.
“Distraction, certainly,” he says, and arches up onto his toes a little, for just long enough that Dick’s body takes the hint, with or without his actual approval, and his hand moves down those last few inches so that it ends up on Tim’s ass.
He knows that there’s no room for deniability here.
Not when he’s shaking just a little and not with Dick holding him so close-- he feels like he must be obviously hard, even behind the armor.
Of course, that’s really the whole point.
Maybe if he keeps telling himself that he'll start to believe it.
He has no idea what he's doing.
“Tim?” Dick asks, and he sounds uncertain, but he’s still holding on.
They’ve been through so much, and it could’ve torn them apart but it didn’t, and Dick--
Dick is all he has left, the one bright, beautiful thing he can’t let go of, could never lose. Tim doesn’t think he’s going to hurt anything by being honest here.
Not after everything that’s happened. The worst that Dick can possibly do is push him away, but Tim doesn’t think he will. Doesn’t think that he can.
“Part of me wishes you hadn’t been here to watch me try this on,” he admits, rubbing his face into Dick’s neck, across the thin cotton shirt he’s wearing. It smells a little like fabric softener, but mostly like it belongs to Dick. It’s the smell that all of his clothes have, and Tim has a flash of sense memory, sudden and vivid, of one of those times he crashed at Dick’s place-- Bludhaven or New York, he can’t remember-- with nothing to sleep in but Dick’s borrowed clothes and the way it had felt to be wrapped in that smell, held close by it and surrounded…
Dick’s hands flex against him a little. “And the other part?”
The words are said low and so close to his ear. He really needs to start paying attention because the shock of Dick’s voice makes him shiver, and if he’s not careful he’s going to do something even more incredibly stupid than what he’s already done.
Which is what? Try to make Dick feel better? Try to reassure himself that they’re both okay?
He doesn’t know.
“Is enjoying the attention, I think?” he manages to answer. He presses up against Dick again without really meaning to and it makes the hand on his ass tighten and hold him there. Hold him still. “Besides, if you hadn’t been here there’s no way I would’ve lasted five minutes in front of a mirror in this thing. It still smells like you--“
“Jesus--“
Tim has time for a sucked in, startled breath. Then there’s a hand in his hair, tilting his head up until Dick can kiss him, maybe just to shut him up, or-- he doesn’t care.
Just opens up for it, for the slide of Dick’s tongue into his mouth. There’s a large part of his brain wondering what the hell has gotten into him, but the rest of him is reaching for the feel of it, the slick wet heat of it. He thinks: I always thought I’d have to be on my toes for this.
But this is good too. Wonderful even. Flat on his feet with his head tilted back and Dick may not be that much taller than him anymore but it doesn’t matter.
The reality of it is better than he could’ve ever imagined.
So Tim kisses him back, pouring everything into it that he can, all of the love and the loss and the years of wanting this--
The bedroom door is open.
Like an invitation, an excuse to stop or to leave, and he can’t--
He nudges Dick gently with his knee, puts enough forward pressure into his stance that Dick gets it and starts walking them backwards. They don’t stop kissing and the movement just serves to make it messier, open and deeper. Dirtier, Tim thinks as he kicks at the door with his foot; shuts it with Dick’s body. That’s what finally stops the kiss, Dick making an interrogatory sound into Tim’s mouth before pulling away. Then looking around the room like he’s not sure how they moved.
He’s breathing hard, as hard as Tim is, and that’s as unexpected as it is gratifying. He’s rarely seen Dick out of breath even at the end of a fight, but here they are chests pressed together and breathless, even as--
“What-- What was that?”
Even as Dick tenses all over. His eyes are wide and he’s looking at Tim like he doesn’t know what to do with him, open and honest and not shadowed by anything. It’s the most normal expression he’s seen on Dick’s face in days.
Tim needs this. After everything that’s happened, he can’t deny himself the chance for it with the possibility whispering in his ear. Dick is so close, and it’s just been so damn lonely here in this monstrous house without Bruce.
So he bites his lip, raises his eyebrows and purposely misses the point when he speaks.
“Kissing. Making out. Necking, maybe?” He tilts his head to the side like he’s really thinking about it. “No, I think that’s the same thing.”
“Tim…” Dick says, his voice is serious except for the way he trails off, and his face is blank in a way that tells Tim he's not letting anything into his expression except what he wants show. That’s not exactly what Tim wants right now, but it’s getting closer.
It’s getting there. There are so many ways he needs to fix Dick, to make him whole again, for himself and for Dick. He needs his brother. And Dick--
Dick needs to not turn into Bruce.
He doesn’t need to forget who he is, not for the Bat.
Tim blinks up at him and then grins. “Am I being too glib? I think it’s the suit.”
Dick stares at him with that blank expression for a moment, but he’s never been good at resisting Tim when he’s in a playful mood, as rare as they are, and Tim knows it.
So he waits, and after a second Dick relaxes a little and smiles back. "Oh?”
“Nightwings have more fun?” he ventures.
“Really.” Dick doesn’t sound convinced at all, voice flat and disbelieving.
“That’s what I’ve been told, yes.”
“I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate.” Dick breathes out sort of raggedly. It’s a frustrated sound, and Tim knows that Dick wants to be moving, pacing around the room or just dragging his hands through his hair, but he’s not. Tim has him pinned to the door-- it’s nothing serious or even remotely effective and it’s nothing he couldn’t break in a hundred different ways, but he’s still holding on, holding Tim close. He closes his eyes, drops his head back against the door with a thump. “We can’t just--“
“Why not?” Tim asks.
“Why not? Are you really asking me why not?” Dick looks down at him again, clearly searching his face. “My little brother, who plans out everything? Everything he wants to say, every conversation down to the last detail?”
Tim doesn’t say anything, because he knows it's true and because yes, he is asking.
“Or maybe I should ask you how long you’ve been thinking about this, maybe you--“
“You’re all I have left," he says. It shouldn't be so easy to say something that's so painfully true, but it's what Dick needs to hear, or maybe just what he needs to say.
“--should tell me. That. Jesus, Tim.”
“I can't lose you, Dick,” he whispers, pressing close enough to almost taste him again.
They both need this, or something like it, contact and comfort. He doesn’t know how to stop it now anyway.
He feels reckless.
Even that doesn’t stop him from taking his hand off the door and sliding it down Dick’s chest, then lower still over the jumpy muscles of his abdomen until he can feel the fly of Dick’s jeans and the heat and shape of him behind it. He learned everyone else’s lessons well; well enough that any sort of recklessness sets off warning bells in his head, but he can ignore them now. He can, and he doesn’t have to over think this. He lets his eyes fall shut like they want to. “Please just let me have this.”
That shocks a laugh out of Dick, even as he arches a little into Tim’s hand. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asks, and he sounds wonderfully breathless and so surprised.
Tim opens his eyes. “I don’t know, is it working?” he counters, tracing the shape of Dick’s erection through his jeans, pressing down a little more firmly until Dick sucks in a breath and pushes into it.
Watching Dick’s eyes fall closed feels like a victory, unexpected and all the sweeter for it--
“Tim--“ he gasps. And that didn’t sound like a protest at all.
That sounded a whole lot more like permission. Tim arches up against him, against his own hand trapped between them and away from Dick’s still too firm hold, kissing him again a little wild and a little messy until he can feel Dick relax into it.
Relax his grip on him enough that Tim can drop to his knees.
“Tim…”
"You're going to have to tell me no, Dick. If you don't want this." Tim unbuttons his pants, fumbling a little with the zipper in the too-big gloves. "If you don't need me..." That's kind of a low blow, but Tim's never really pulled his punches. Not for years now.
He pulls down Dick's jeans and looks up at him. His hands have fallen to brace against the door, and he’s looking down at Tim like he’s trying to figure out what to say. Tim doesn't plan on letting him say anything, not while his lips are kiss-red and a little swollen and not while Tim is so close to having this.
He pulls Dick's boxers down and-- oh. There's a difference between knowing that Dick was hard and seeing it, and the fact that Dick could want this too-- Tim has to, needs to touch. He moves to take one of the gloves off with his teeth-- because he can't let go with both his hands, that's just impossible-- but one of Dick's hands is suddenly in his hair, tilting his head back and forcing him to look up.
"Don't," he says, and the look he's giving Tim is needy and open. Tim already has the tips of his fingers in his mouth so it just seems necessary, right, to push those two bright blue fingers the rest of the way in, get them good and wet and then pull back to lick his palm--
"Oh Tim, little brother--" Dick looks like he's floundering a little, like he's not sure what he wants to call him, and if "Nightwing" wasn't just edited out of that list he would be very, very surprised.
He closes his eyes. "I can be anything you need me to be, Dick. I would do anything... anything at all if you needed me to," he says as he wraps his hand around the base of his dick and leans in. It feels like more than words, like it's some sort of fundamental truth, unalterable and necessary.
Dick's hand tightens in his hair. "Jesus, you can't just say things like that, Tim. You can't. Not if you don't mean--"
"I meant every word," he says. Somehow it's easier to say something like that now that he's here on his knees.
Everything seems easier, and even though he can feel himself wanting to think about it too much, he just... doesn't. He licks his lips and opens his mouth instead, closes his eyes and just goes for it. He can feel Dick tense underneath him for a second before he relaxes.
And then becomes a different kind of tense altogether.
"Oh..."
Now both of Dick's hands are in his hair, cradling his head like he's afraid that if he grips him any harder he won't be able to control himself. Tim feels a little disappointed about that but also a little grateful, because it's not like he's ever really done this before. He's wanted it, dreamed about it, but fantasies and extra-curricular reading can't make up for the reality of it, the weight of Dick on his tongue and the way he tastes, and Tim moans and goes down until his lips bump into his own fist.
The strange chemical smell of the glove just makes it better, and he's really not surprised at how much he loves this. It's like being in control and relinquishing it all at once. He's on his knees, but Dick is ultimately the one who's vulnerable here.
“Oh, Tim…”
Tim has to slide his other hand off of Dick's thigh and press it against himself, trapped beneath body armor that's actually as thick as it should be, and the jock that feels like it's got a deep and personal vendetta against him.
He whimpers a little, sucks a little more and presses his tongue up as he pulls back.
Dick's hands spasm in his hair, and his hips give this aborted little thrust that makes Tim heat up all over. Makes him want.
"I never thought, I--“ Dick moans, and the taste of him gets thicker, heavier.
“You’re so…” Dick trails off, breathing out a surprised little laugh. “I can’t believe-- You look like you love this, oh fuck--“ he breaks off, his fingers tightening in Tim's hair as Tim moans around him.
Tim sucks more and kisses his own fist again, and he hopes to God he's doing this right-- doesn't think that there's a whole lot of wrong possible as long as he's careful with his teeth. Enthusiasm has to count for something, doesn't it?
"I think I need to know--" Dick's breath hitches "what you've done, before this, what-- what I'm taking..."
And that makes Tim stop. Actually stop, because that’s just ridiculous. He looks up at Dick and narrows his eyes. Not taking.
"Ah, what you're giving me then, Tim, please--"
Tim pulls off, all the way, and Dick makes a sort of gasping and almost disappointed sound. It's not enough to keep Tim from stopping, from getting enough space between them so he can actually say it.
“Everything.”
Dick just stares at him, like he can’t understand it, like he needs Tim to say it again. So he does.
“Everything, Dick. Anything-- anything you want.”
Dick stares at him for another long moment and then he’s hauling Tim upright, kissing him blindly and stumble-walking them backwards until the backs of Tim’s knees hit the bed. Tim rolls with it, lets himself be shoved onto his back and pulls Dick down with him.
The boots are too big, just like the gloves, and Tim manages to toe them off easily while Dick pushes and pulls at the suit, working Tim out of the tights and mouthing at his neck. He can’t seem to stop talking.
“…can’t believe you-- it’s not enough, not enough. I want to feel you,” he’s saying, licking the line of Tim’s jaw, biting down, “God, want-- I want every little inch of your skin.”
Tim thinks he should feel a little embarrassed about the sound that comes out of his mouth at that, keening and high. God-- he doesn’t know what to do with his hands with Dick moving over him like this, peeling him out of the tights and kicking his own jeans off, and that would never work without some sort of tragic accident if it wasn’t Dick doing the moving. Tim holds on tightly to the bed covers and arches up.
“Jesus, your mouth, do you have any idea--“ Dick kisses him again, pulling his underwear and the tights all the way off.
It feels good to be out of that particular piece of body armor, but it feels even better when Dick presses him to the bed with his body, one leg insinuating itself between Tim’s. There’s just so much skin.
He moans into the kiss and Dick pulls back. Tim blinks up at him, and his eyes are a little wild. “Tim, oh, tell me you want it.”
Anything, he’d said, but that’s not the right answer now, not what Dick wants to hear.
“I--“ Tim starts to say, but Dick rocks against him and he just can’t. It’s so overwhelming, and Tim feels like he’s been hard for years. “I--“
Dicks hands are everywhere, petting down his chest and squeezing his hips, urging him up and into every thrust, every grind. Tim doesn’t know how he’s supposed to think anymore, much less have any sort of coherent response. Not when Dick’s mouth is so close to his ear, breath warm and whispering.
“Please.”
Begging him.
“I want--“ He gasps out, against the tight feeling in his throat and all of the wordless sounds that are trying to claw their way out. “I want you, God, please Dick, please--“
He’s got no idea what he’s begging for, except for more and Dick and yes, the answer to every question is yes. It always has been.
He has no idea if he said that out loud or not. There has to be a better way to police the things coming out of his mouth, because his brain doesn't really seem up to the task. Dick’s eyes are wide and a little dazed, and Tim can’t really blame him. He’s been more honest with him here in the last twenty minutes than he’s been in months.
Part of that’s the contact, it has to be. Sex and the physicality of it pushing him out of thought and into feeling in a way he almost never allows. It’s so dangerous.
But the other part, the bigger part, is his own tendency to use the truth as a weapon, carefully applied at the right time to get the desired results. He spent so many years telling so many lies, and he learned quickly that the best sort of lies had a firm basis in truth.
“I could try and lie to you if it would make this any easier,” Tim offers, the sound of his own voice breathless.
Dick just shakes his head. “I need you naked,” he says, reaching between them to grab the edges of the top. Tim realizes he’s still got the gloves on about a half second before Dick pulls it up and over his head and then it doesn’t matter because the gloves go right with it.
He pulls his own shirt off then, leaning back and giving Tim a really wonderful view, all firm flexing muscle crisscrossed with scars. Tim is suddenly and profoundly grateful for the sun which is just beginning to brighten the room, catching golden highlights on Dick’s skin.
Dick tosses his shirt to the floor and settles back on top of him. Tim’s hands seem to know exactly where they want to be this time, resting on the warm and beautifully alive skin of his back.
Dick relaxes into him, sighing. It seems like the almost frantic energy that characterized him moments before just falls away under Tim's hands. “Mmm… or you could just be honest with me, little brother.”
Dick’s eyes are soft, his expression knowing and almost tender, and Tim’s heart thuds painfully in his chest. “Instead of being just as honest as you need to be to get what you want. Or maybe what you think I need…”
Tim closes his eyes. It’s not like he thought that Dick wouldn’t notice, it’s just that he had hoped that he wouldn’t be called on it. He swallows-- “Ah--“
Dick bites his throat. Soothes the sting with his lips and smiles against Tim’s skin. “If you think you can manage it.” Drags his hips lazily against Tim’s own. “You need to tell me what you want.”
Dick’s hand is on his face again and he opens his eyes. Dick smiles.
I want you to look at me like this every day, I want you to smile again, I want--
He turns his head and catches Dick’s fingers with his mouth, flicks his tongue over the tips of them and Dick pushes them right in. Presses down against Tim’s tongue and lets him lick them good and wet.
“You. You are definitely making me think…”
Good, that’s—good. Tim pulls off of Dick’s fingers and at the same time lifts his leg off the bed, wraps it around Dick’s back and twists up.
“You wanted to know what I want, Dick…”
Dick goes still. Completely still. "You want...”
Tim laughs. He feels better than he has in a long time. “Oh, don’t tell me ‘no’ now…”
Dick shakes his head. Relaxes again and smiles. It looks a little rueful. "No. No I really don't think I even can."
He wraps his wet hand around Tim's dick, sweet and slick and moving just enough to be a tease.
"Oh--"
"But I'm not doing it with spit. Do you have anything...?"
“Top-- top drawer,” Tim gasps out, closing his eyes and pushing a little into Dick's hand. The bed shifts as Dick sits back on his heels, and Tim can hear the drawer open, things moving around as Dick searches with one hand. Then... nothing.
Tim opens his eyes.
Dick’s holding the little bottle and staring down at him. He blushes. The exposure is uncomfortable but it doesn't hold up to the feel of Dick's hand on him, the way there's no hesitation in Dick's eyes anymore, just curiosity.
“Dick…”
"What have you been up to, I wonder." He shakes the bottle at Tim and grins as the liquid sloshes against the sides. "Or who, maybe that's a better question?"
"Ah-- no one but myself, Dick, I haven't--"
Dick grins, letting go of Tim's dick to open the bottle. It feels like a moment, just a second, between hearing the snap of the lid and feeling Dick’s slick finger press against him.
Inside him. "Oh-- oh god--" Tim gasps-- he's done this before, but that was his own hand, his own fingers and they're-- he needs smaller gloves because Dick's hands are larger enough for it to make a difference. Tim can certainly feel it.
"Are-- are you okay? Is it too much? We don't have to--" Tim moans at that and pushes up against him, takes him in a little deeper.
Dick's other hand on his abdomen feels like he's trying to hold him down.
"No, it's not--" he takes a breath and tries again. "I just-- I didn't realize my hands were so much smaller-- fuck--"
Movement, hot little twist and Tim's arching up again, into it. Dick is staring down at him, and he looks a little dazed.
"God I want to see that."
And he really totally can, just not right now because this is more important.
"I'm going to add another finger, okay?"
Tim nods, because that's really all he can do right now. Dick pulls out all the way and then there's pressure, blunt and moving. Tim does his best to open up and breathe through it.
Once he relaxes it's not so bad, at all. He has done this before, so it’s not an entirely new sensation. It’s just that it's Dick's fingers, spreading him open and ready instead of his own, and unsurprisingly that makes a world of difference. He can’t-- he doesn’t think he can take much more of this.
"Please," he moans, rocking back on Dick's fingers and trying to get them deeper. "Oh please."
"Tim..."
"Please, Dick, don't make me wait. I've waited..." he arches up, fucking himself back on Dick's fingers with a little more force. "I've waited so long..."
"God. God, Tim anything you want. I can't..." Tim's eyes are closed, but he doesn't have to be able to see his face to know that Dick's eyes are wide and searching him for any sign that this isn’t exactly what he wants. There’s nothing to find; Tim’s not hiding anything right now.
Dick pulls out of him again, and there's another slick sound and then he's pressing Tim's leg up, hand under his knee and pushing. The stretch of it just makes it sweeter, more and better when he starts to push in. So much, and impossibly hard, and it's still a shock, even after all of that. Tim can feel his body wanting to panic a little but he doesn't let it. Just breathes deeply and listens to Dick's own breathing stutter and slip, concentrates on the feeling until it's just a low throb echoing through him.
He opens his eyes in time to see Dick’s close.
The light coming through the windows is growing stronger, catching Dick's face in a wonderful kind of contrast. Making him look-- he's just so beautiful, and Tim has to reach up and touch him, cup his cheek and watch his eyes open.
Watch him lean into his hand and kiss his palm. Tim wants that kiss, wants it desperately to be on his lips.
"Kiss me," he whispers, and Dick does, almost before he's done saying the words.
This time the kiss is slow and almost gentle, and it’s filling Tim up with a kind of warmth that, if he’s totally honest, he hasn’t let himself feel in a long time.
Now he can feel himself flushing with it, and there’s still a part of him that wants to hide but he can’t.
Can’t do anything but push his hand into Dick’s hair and feel like he’s laying himself bare, open and exposed under Dick’s body and the light of the early morning sun.
Tim bites back a whimper at that, catches Dick’s lower lip with his teeth and that makes Dick shudder, makes him move.
The first real thrust burns through him, catches his breath and breaks him a little, remakes him. By the third he’s starting to feel like something that was meant for this.
For sex, and the push and pull of their bodies moving together, the stretch in his thighs and the sweat breaking out over both of them.
The intensity on Dick’s face when he pulls back to look at him.
“God you feel--“ Dick stops, shaking his head.
Tim didn’t think it would be like this. He’s not sure exactly what he thought it would be like, but this-- the shock of someone moving inside him, the press of another body against his own-- he’s overloading quickly, can’t think past anything but yes and more--
“--so, so good. Fuck.”
Dick’s intense eyes and bitten lips, and he looks almost angry, glaring down at Tim. He can’t do anything but stare back, meet his gaze and every thrust. Watch Dick’s eyes go a little wild with this.
There’s nothing in his mind now but sensation, the feel of their skin sliding together and the smell of their sweat. Every breathy and inarticulate sound that comes out of Dick’s mouth slides over him like a touch.
I love you, he thinks and doesn't say. He can't because if the words are out there in the open air they change things, and he can't take that back. He can't.
It's just that he looks at Dick sometimes and can't help but think of Bruce and how it was to lose him. He doesn't think he could handle it if Dick--
If it happened and he'd never said-- never told him.
But this, this is nothing like the right kind of time.
"I--" His mouth has other ideas, apparently, and he's being steadily driven out of his mind with this, he's losing control--
Every thrust is a new wash of heat breaking out and prickling over his skin, pushing him up higher and higher, trying to pull the words out of his mouth with sheer physical force. He bites his lip and everything turns into a low moan.
"Tim?"
And it would have been a little ridiculous to think that Dick hadn't noticed that, that he would let it go even if he did.
Tim shakes his head and wishes, for the first time, that he was on his knees for this, that he could bury his face in a pillow and hide.
"I can't-- I" He shakes his head again. Watches Dick's eyes narrow. It seems unfair that he should have that sort of control when it's taking everything Tim has not to let his eyes roll back in his head.
"Say it. Whatever it is that you're holding back, Tim, say it.”
Dick braces himself on one arm and wraps his other hand around Tim’s dick. Tim hears himself make a sharp, high noise, and tries to bite it back.
Dick never stops moving, hair hanging in his eyes, his face flushed and Tim thinks he can't possibly keep looking at him like this. It's too much, it's blinding…
Beautiful.
"Please, little brother, please just say it--"
Tim can feel-- he’s just so close. Dick over him and inside of him and around him, and he’s never felt so overwhelmed. It’s making it hard to think, and he’s going to come soon, he’s losing every shred of control. "Oh God…"
Dick’s hand on him is almost brutal, rough and sweet in counterpoint to the drive of his hips. "I want you to tell me, Tim. I want you to say it-- please…"
Tim can’t-- he can’t--
"I love you, Dick, I--"
It feels a little like shattering apart to come like this, all over Dick’s hand and his own stomach, his eyes rolling back in his head and his fingers clenching in Dick’s hair and against his shoulder.
He’s absently aware of Dick’s hand releasing him, of Dick pressing him further into the bed with each short and ragged thrust. His heartbeat is thudding in his ears, louder than anything else, tripping over itself when Dick tilts his head back almost painfully. His teeth press into Tim’s neck as he comes, shuddering and cursing.
Awareness settles itself back over him in pieces; the demanding throb of his body and Dick’s weight pressing him to the mattress, and the light of a new day, warm and washing over them both when he opens his eyes.
Dick is breathing against his neck, warm and damp and heavy, and Tim doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to do anything to end this moment.
He’s not foolish enough to think he’s gotten away with anything, that Dick won’t have some questions that he’ll need answered, but he just wants this one moment. Time to feel the almost euphoric ache of his body, to memorize the freckles on Dick’s shoulder and the smell of his skin.
He runs his hands over Dick’s back, over his shoulders and down his spine and around and across a hundred different scars.
It seems like too short a time before Dick shifts and starts to push himself up by his arms.
“Oh, don’t--“ move, he doesn’t say, just because he’s afraid it might come out of his mouth as go, don’t go, but Dick’s smiling at him and shaking his head and Tim is suddenly at a loss to say anything at all.
Dick kisses his cheek and then his mouth, lips feather-light and almost chaste. “This is going to feel a little weird,” he says, shifting back enough to pull out easily.
It does feel weird, but not in an entirely bad way.
Dick doesn’t really move away, just shifts enough to push his arms under Tim’s back and roll them over onto their sides.
Tim’s thighs are sticky, and he’s covered in sweat, but he doesn’t even complain when Dick manages to maneuver them under the already turned down covers. Just relaxes into Dick’s touch, closes his eyes and waits--
“Confession time, little brother.”
--for the question. Except that it’s a command, and that really shouldn’t surprise him now, considering.
For all of the reasons he may have had, it’s mostly this, the edge of the Bat that never completely leaves his voice now.
Tim knows his smile is a little bitter. He lets it out anyway. Tries to figure out what to say, and then just gives up and goes for something close to the truth.
“I-- you’ve been--“ too much like Bruce, too much like me-- “too tense,” he says instead.
“You suddenly decided to jump me because I’ve been too tense?” Dick laughs, and it’s good to hear the sharp edge just drop away as his hand smooths through Tim’s sweaty hair.
Tim can feel himself blushing. “Well, it wasn’t just that, the suit--“
“The suit made you want me?” Dick asks, confused.
Tim laughs now, presses his forehead to Dick’s. Dick’s hand slides down the back of his head to his neck, fingers wrapping around it almost absently. Tim shivers. “No. You made me want you. It’s-- it’s nothing new, Dick. The suit just made me feel like I could have you,” Tim says, frowning at how ridiculous that sounds. “I’m, uh. I’m probably a little fucked up. At least about some things.”
Dick’s voice is warm, deep and quiet. “About this?”
It catches something in Tim’s throat, hard and almost painful. He thinks about the quiet house, empty in so many ways now.
He knows this doesn’t fix anything, as much as he wishes it would.
Tim presses his lips against Dick’s, feels his hand tighten around his neck like the afterthought of a collar.
“No, never about this,” he whispers.