Holding Back

by Skalidra

After another alien invasion, and almost an entire day spent intermittently battling them back, Black Talon (Tim) finds himself the focus of an unusually angry Kon-El, with no apparent reason for it. As if a silently angry Kryptonian has ever been enough to make him apologize. - Earth-3 connected universe, Tim Drake/Kon-El.

This is part of a larger continuity of stories. Please consult my profile for the master reading list if you want to read them in order.

Alright, I swear I wasn't expecting this to get nearly as long as it is. XD So this is part of my Earth-3 universe, and because anyone paying attention may notice, why yes, this does take place immediately after 'Never Have I Ever'. There are definitely a few scattered references to the Tim/Kon relationship throughout other stories, but this is the first real exploration of it.

Warnings are: References to possessive behavior, hints of non-sexual voyeurism, and... uh... graphic sex? Yeah, the two of them are actually pretty tame. Obviously, this includes Tim Drake/Kon-El, and mentioned/referenced Jason Todd/Roy Harper. Enjoy!

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Kon is staring at me. Now, that's not an unusual occurrence, but this isn't his normal look.

He's not anywhere near subtle, never is, and it's not a particularly rare thing to find him watching me just to watch me, or in obvious attraction, but this is a much less frequent look. He's angry with me, specifically. Even if he didn't practically ooze it into the air around him, the crossed arms, clenched jaw, narrowed eyes, and refusal to actually meet my gaze when I look over are obvious indicators.

If he is expecting an apology with any true feeling behind it — if he really wants one, I suppose I could fake one believable enough to fool him — then he will be waiting a very long time. He should also know by now that this cold shoulder routine is not the way to make me do anything at all. A glare from across a room really has no effect on me, since I've dealt with the cold shoulder from Bruce, who is the real master of it. I am perfectly capable of ignoring him until he gets tired of doing this, and he will.

Eventually, he'll tire of this act and I'll find him stomping — he thinks he's quiet, I haven't disabused him of that notion yet — his way into my room in the middle of the night and sliding in next to me. Kon is touch oriented, so even if he's upset with me he can't stay away for too long, and touch drains anger out of him as efficiently as draining a water jug by putting a knife through the bottom of it. I won't even have to intervene to fix this, he'll work through it on his own.

I take a glance over at where he's shoved himself in a corner, leaning against the wall and rigid from head to toe. I'll have to fix that eventually. Having a Kryptonian at my call is a handy thing, and he is quite the powerhouse and useful instrument, but I'd like to refine him someday. It's not necessary now, but when I am absolutely sure he is mine in every way — I'm already fairly well assured of his loyalty, but not absolutely — I'll take on the task of teaching him to actually fight. Most metahumans with advanced strength don't take the time, but if Kon is going to be mine he'll have to be a touch more dangerous than the average rabble.

After all, he'll have to live up to the name of being mine. I don't tolerate or use just anyone.

Of course Kon doesn't look at me again until I've turned my head back the inch or so, even though I keep watching him from underneath the lenses of my goggles. Lead lined, like every other piece of my suit, so he won't actually be able to tell where my eyes are pointed. I suppose I should be focused on the laptop balanced on my crossed legs, on monitoring the reports coming in from the minor leagues that are wiping up the last of what was technically yesterday's invasion. Or perhaps on the other tab, studying the media's reaction and their various headlines to see if any of them need to be reminded that we did in fact help defend the Earth.

But Bruce is doing all of that as well, and while I may be a useful second pair of eyes this isn't really necessary. My only true responsibility is keeping track of this team, and everyone has already either reported back to the base or retreated to their homes, with the exception of Arsenal and my brother Jason. However, the trackers I have on them had them in a restaurant in Metropolis for a good hour, and now shows them not more than a few minutes away from here. I don't need to contact either of them to make sure; they'll be here.

There are always things that I could be doing — minor things that don't need attention, but could use it — but there isn't anything that I actually have to do at the moment. Nothing is time sensitive, and the projects I do have on the side are all just hobbies. None of it is truly important.

While I know it will fix itself, I don't particularly enjoy having Kon angry with me. I'm not very good at truly fixing emotional problems, especially when the issue is with me, but I could probably manipulate Kon into not being angry with me anymore. Of course, then there is the chance that he'll see through whatever I attempt, or at least recognize what I'm doing, and that will make things even worse. He knows manipulation is really just a part of who I am, but Kon has never appreciated me doing it to him.

I am trying to work on not doing that. For the sake of keeping him loyal to me, naturally.

I could try discussing why, precisely, Kon is angry with me, and what I might be able to do to fix it, but that hasn't worked well in the past. Most of what he gets angry with me about doesn't make much sense to me, and he has this obsession with verbal apologies that seems very strange to me. What does saying 'sorry' actually accomplish, really? The exhale of a breath and the attempt at neutralizing the vocal party's guilt. If I don't feel the guilt, which I don't, then the apology is worthless.

If we talk he'll get frustrated, and then he'll go float up in the sky somewhere and I won't see him for at least several hours. My trackers will still work, but I don't like not having him in the view of a security camera or my actual vision. Knowing where he is, is not the same as knowing what he's doing.

I look back down at my laptop, deciding it's safer not to try the discussion, and go back to paging through the reports. Almost all of the invasion was recalled, or destroyed, but there are some outliers and small groups left that the Crime Syndicate's lower ranks of members are busy tracking down. The heroes are useless when it comes to tracking down the vestiges of alien invasion and eliminating them. If it were up to them to do it, if we didn't take the matter into our own hands, we'd have enough leftover alien soldiers on Earth to form a small country by themselves.

Better that they die quickly, before any can decide to become heroes or join together into a militia that may interfere with business. Sometimes, rarely, we take one or two into our ranks, but only if they're exceptional and they seem to be able to be manipulated into loyalty. There are a rare few that have survived, even made names for themselves, but it is a very small number.

This particular invasion relied primarily on force and numbers more than technology or tactical planning, so the cleanup is going rather remarkably well. They're not much more than targets, and I know Bruce is personally supervising the hunt so they won't last long. By the time we hit midday there shouldn't be any more than a dozen or so left, the lucky ones scattered around the world that have slipped underneath the radar. Of course, that doesn't include the injured or unconscious ones picked up for experimentation, in case this race comes back, or in case they have any useful genetics that could be put to use in any kind of weapon.

A notification pops up in the corner of my screen, and a flick of my eyes to the top left to read it tells me that the main entrance to the base is opening. That must be Jason and Arsenal; I check and confirm the trackers on them just in case, to make absolutely sure.

Actually, of all of us Owls, Jason seems to be the one who's settling most comfortably into life. Which is interesting, and feels like it shouldn't be the case, but somehow that's how things are anyway. He's still involved with Dick, the two of them are as loyal and close as ever, but he's also moved on to what almost seems to be a permanent side relationship with Arsenal; Roy Harper.

There's nothing official between them, but at the least they're friends with benefits — good benefits; the footage I've found proves Jason is quite pleased with Harper's talents in a bed — and at the most, I think they may be much more than that. Harper, for one, seems to have fallen pretty hard for my older brother; though I know Jason hasn't noticed, and Harper may not even know himself. I pay more attention to people's expressions than most others do, and I've catalogued the differences in his expression over the months they've been 'together.'

On the other hand, there aren't many people Jason would allow to be around him when he's asleep, and even less that he would let be at his back in those moments. That list is more or less comprised of Dick, Bruce, and perhaps Talia al Ghul. Somehow, Harper has slid his way onto the list as well. 'Love' is an insubstantial, useless term, but Jason does seem to trust our archer teammate, perhaps even more than he trusts me. There's a softness to Jason's behavior, a lowering of his guard, that I haven't seen evidence of anywhere but when he's alone with Harper, and then only in rare moments.

Originally I watched their first few encounters to make notes on their interaction, as I do with every new pairing that occurs in our base. For the sake of information to add to my always growing folders and profiles on my teammates. After that, however, when the two of them settled into whatever this new semi-permanent relationship can be defined as, my observation became slightly more personal.

Jason is my brother, and if Harper was absolutely anything but healthy and good for him, I would have taken the archer out of play. He's fortunate that Jason is happier and more at ease than I've ever seen him before, and that I believe that Harper may actually be a positive presence in my brother's life. I won't separate Jason from anything or anyone that helps him a bit further from the furious, green-eyed, bitter man that came back to Gotham and nearly killed us all by himself.

Partially because I've come to understand, and accept Jason as family — and that means loyalty, above all else, and helping each other — but also because I'm not entirely positive that I could beat Jason if he ever snapped again, and I have no desire to find out. At best, that would involve a lot of pain on my part, and having to contain one of the most dangerous men I've ever known. At worst… Well, there are many things Jason could do that are unpleasant to even consider. Most of them are fatal, but not all.

There's the step of boots on our concrete floor — must be Harper; Jason doesn't make that much noise even when he's walking normally — and I look up as the two of them come in through the archway that leads from the main hangar where the vehicles are stored. Both of them are clearly fresh from the battlefield, and still coated in a layer of blue alien blood, ash, and grime, but Harper is nearly grinning, and Jason has a tiny quirk to the side of his mouth that's certainly his version of a smile.

Jason's helmet is missing — not surprising; he's held onto designing and manufacturing them himself, and won't let Bruce touch them despite their flaws — and Harper has an obvious gash across his upper left arm as well as what looks like a burn, but both injuries are minor. I assumed they were both fine; they wouldn't have stayed in Metropolis if either of them needed any real medical assistance, and they certainly would have contacted the team somehow. Jason is stubborn about wounds, but Harper is a bit more practical.

Jason's head turns my direction as he and Harper move through the room, then tilts a bit more to glance Kon's way, and he promptly taps Harper's wrist and veers sideways towards me. Harper pauses, taking in the room a bit more slowly than Jason's automatic scan, and I reach up and lower the top of my laptop as Jason heads towards me.

"Don't sit down," I say, heading him off as he moves to do just that, and he snorts and gives me a look that is his way of demanding what the fuck I think I'm doing ordering him around. "You're filthy," I point out, and he glances down at himself.

"Yeah, fair enough," he grunts, hands resting idly on his hips as he looks down at me. "You didn't call to check where we were." It's a statement, and I know he wants a reason but technically it's not actually a question, so— "You put fucking trackers on me again, didn't you?" I pause, considering how to diplomatically answer that in a way that won't absolutely confirm that I did, and he shakes his head and huffs out a breath. "Whatever. I'm way too tired to be pissed right now. I don't even know why I bother thinking you're not going to track me."

"It's mainly for your benefit," I defend, and he snorts.

"Yeah right. We both know damn well that you put trackers on me so you can track me, T. It's for your reasons, and the fact that you occasionally use it to actually help is totally coincidental." He's certainly not wrong. Jason lowers his voice a bit as Harper heads towards us, following his accusation up by flatly asking, "So are you two fighting?"

I can see Kon stiffen a bit more out of the side of my vision, and I glance at him briefly before answering Jason. I choose my words carefully, taking my Kryptonian's super-hearing into consideration. "Kon is displeased with me," is what I settle on.

Apparently a bad choice of words, because Kon makes a noise of strangled frustration from across the room and shoves off the wall. His arms uncross, and he makes some kind of gesture that I think is a comment on how he'd like to strangle me; Jason turns halfway around to watch, as Harper comes to a stop next to my brother.

"Displeased?" Kon snarls, blue eyes bright with anger and jaw clenched tight enough he has to spit the words through his teeth. "You jumped off a skyscraper without a cord! You could have died."

Ah, that's why he's angry with me. That seems like a very minor thing to be upset about, honestly. The chances that I'd die from something so simple are remarkably low compared to anything else I did in this invasion. Going toe to toe with the aliens had a much higher chance of casualty than jumping off that building.

"I knew you'd catch me," I point out, with a small shrug that I take from Damian's collection.

"And if I didn't?!" Kon snaps. "What if I was busy, or pinned down, or couldn't get to you in time?! You didn't even warn me!"

I truly don't understand why he's this upset. True, my grapnel got yanked out of my hands pretty early in the fight and I didn't get the chance to reclaim it, but I had old fashioned emergency wires. More importantly, I knew Kon would catch me when I called him to, and if he for some reason hadn't there were plenty of other members of our team on the street below. I could have called for M'gann, or Koriand'r, or for Wally to create a whirlwind to catch me.

"Then I would have used my emergency wires, or called one of our other teammates to catch me instead. You weren't my only option, Kon, just the most convenient." He halfway lunges at me — Jason tenses just a bit, hand falling inside his jacket as his eyes narrow — but stops short about eight feet away, coming out of the faint blur of advanced speed.

"You are so—" a frustrated noise, hands making another of those grasping, choking motions. "Don't you ever do that to me again, Tal!"

I still, letting my mouth flatten into a line as I watch Kon. "I don't take orders." I say, softly and with background threat, in one of Bruce's very rare tones. Normally Bruce is outwardly aggressive, or aggressive with a smirk — like Dick's smiles — but every once in a while he gets quiet and dangerous instead. I've heard it just enough to memorize the tone, but I've never had occasion to use it before now.

Kon's hands clench to fists, and we stare at each other as his teeth grind together, the muscles in his neck standing out from the tension in his shoulders.

"Okay," Harper breaks in, with a slightly nervous laugh, and heads for Kon. "You and I are going to go talk, over here." He takes Kon's arm and pulls, and my Kryptonian resists for just a second but then turns his back and lets Harper lead him away. Out of the room.

Jason turns back to me, and when I lower my head a bit to return to my work he reaches forward and shoves the top of my laptop down until it clicks shut, forcing me to look back up. "What?" I ask flatly.

Jason's arms cross, and he arches one eyebrow underneath the domino mask still on his face. "Alright, listen up, T. I get that you don't really understand most normal human interactions, just mimic them, but you're being a dick." I think I actually feel a bit offended, but I keep my face blank and my mouth shut, watching Jason instead of commenting. Waiting for him to expand on that comment. "Kon-El isn't an Owl, T. It might have seemed natural to you, but imagine if I jumped off a building expecting you to catch me, without warning and no apparent backup plan."

"Then I'd catch you," I say, arching an eyebrow back at him. Mine, however, is far more effective; I adopted it from Alfred. "Kon is half Kryptonian, he's perfectly capable of catching me. Theoretically more capable than either of us could."

One hand rises like Jason's going to scrub a hand over his forehead, but then he seems to see the crusted blood on his glove and reconsider. "Bad example. Okay, the point is, just because you don't understand why he's angry doesn't mean it's not legitimate. Just keep that in mind, and try to be a little less dismissive, alright?" He snorts and shakes his head again, resettling both hands on his hips. "And as a general rule, don't call the guy you're sleeping with 'convenient.' It's mean."

I narrow my eyes a bit, considering the way Jason is looking at me. Is this meant to be something to do with sex? "It wasn't meant in a sexual way," I clarify, just in case. "M'gann, Koriand'r, and Lightning were all on the street below me. Kon happened to already be in the air, that was more convenient than anyone else. It was only for that situation."

"Doesn't matter if it's true, T, and it doesn't matter what context you used it in. Just trust me, bad word to use."

I tilt my head a bit to the side, still attempting to figure out what Jason is doing, or why he's doing it. Jason doesn't usually give out advice without a reason, for free, or before being asked. I'm also fairly sure that even if his advice is genuine and not something designed to mess with me — I'm fairly sure Jason is being sincere — that he's probably not a good person to be taking advice on relationships from. Perhaps he's pleased with Harper, and the archer hasn't been murdered by any of us yet, but maintaining a permanent sexual relationship with Dick while pursuing something completely different but still very sexual with Harper doesn't seem healthy, especially for Harper.

"I don't believe I should be taking relationship advice from you," I point out.

He straight out scoffs, and I'm absolutely sure the look on his face is disbelief. "T, if anyone in our fucked up family is qualified to give relationship advice it's me." Then his mouth curls in a smirk and his head tilts. "Besides, I thought you told me a while back that you and Kon-El weren't 'together,' he was just 'yours.' "

"Yes, and?" I assume Jason has a point, but sometimes he is remarkably difficult to read or understand. I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at.

"You used the word 'relationship,' not me. If Kon-El is just a possession to you then it's not really a relationship is it?" Jason is giving me a look that feels smug, like he's proving something, and I close my eyes for just a moment to control the nearly automatic 'really?' look that I want to give him, the one I actually took from Jason's expressions. He usually doesn't appreciate me mirroring his own expressions back at him. No one does, in fact.

"You clearly don't understand the actual definition of that word," I start, dryly, and Jason grins and gives a sharp bark of laughter.

"Sure I don't, and you can stay in denial as long as you want to, T. If he really didn't mean more to you than being useful then you wouldn't give a shit that he's mad, and you do."

I narrow my eyes, automatically, at the not completely untrue statement. Jason isn't wrong, exactly, he's merely misunderstanding. Kon may be a useful tool, but unfortunately he is a tool that requires maintenance. If I make him work through his emotions on his own too many times, I'll lose what hold I have. I have to seem to care, if I intend to keep him. The fact that Jason can't see the difference is his fault, not an implication that I am actually starting to truly care for Kon.

Like I would consider allowing myself to do something that permanent and involved with a Kryptonian. Kon can never be more than a tool to me, not considering who his father is. Clark may not be able to do anything obvious, but antagonizing him with something like me dating his 'son' is still not a good idea. The world knowing that Kon is wrapped around my fingers is still less of a blow to the Kryptonian's pride than the two of us really being 'together' would be. I'd have to consult Bruce on the blowback before even considering it, and I am not considering it.

"You're misunderst—"

"Liar." I flash one of Dick's nastier smiles at Jason, showing teeth and conveying threat at him, but he doesn't even react. He's had too much practice weathering Dick's expressions for me to intimidate him with them. "So where is everyone, T?" he asks, swapping topics and basically ensuring that he gets the last word, and I keep the smile because that is just a bit frustrating.

Kon is a tool. I do not care about his mental state for any reason other than how it affects his usefulness. If he's upset than he's less likely to obey my orders without a modicum of hesitation, and, at worst, I don't want him questioning if being mine is still worth it. I have a secure hold on him at the moment, and it is simply in my best interest to keep Kon happy so that hold doesn't degenerate. There is absolutely no other reason.

I mentally bite my tongue, deciding to go along with Jason's subject switch instead of ignoring it. "Everyone checked back but you and Arsenal. Most are sleeping here, the others returned home. It's a moment of rest, everyone should be back up and running by tomorrow. The metahumans, earlier." I have no interest in arguing with my brother; it's rarely a successful endeavor, and always a frustrating one.

Jason nods, shifts, and winces. My gaze flicks from the brief tense of the muscles in his neck along the line of his shoulders, and then to the fall of his chest as he lets the shallow breath go. There aren't any obvious holes in his armor, or jacket, and I don't see any normal human blood on him except in a barely even worth noticing scrape across the right side of his jaw. Internal injury then, or perhaps just more severe bruising.

"Are you injured?" I ask, and he shakes his head and raises his left hand off his hip for a moment to flick up at his side.

"Rib," he says dismissively, "I'll be fine."

"Would you like me to tape it?"

Harper and Kon reemerge from the archway across the room, and I look past Jason at the two of them. Harper is his normal cheerful self — there might be a hint of smug in there — and Kon still looks tense, but he's significantly less furious looking. Whatever the archer said to him must have worked; Harper does tend to be remarkably good at talking people down. Though, to be fair, most times he's the one that riled them up in the first place. I suppose it's a skill he needed to develop for his own survival.

Jason looks back, and then waits for Harper to come up beside him instead of answering my offer. Kon hangs back a bit, still not quite meeting my gaze, but it almost looks guilty instead of angry. I'm actually fairly curious what Harper said to my Kryptonian; I'll have to look up the footage from the security cameras later. Of course, if Kon was paying even the slightest bit of attention then he heard the entirety of my conversation with Jason. It's possible that he wasn't, but extremely unlikely. I've at least trained him to always listen, mostly subconsciously, for my voice.

Jason loops his left arm around Harper's waist — who looks surprised, but pleased — and then aims half a shrug and a small smirk at me. "I'll get Arsenal to do it; you two work yourselves out."

Harper makes a face as Jason starts pulling him from the room, and then asks, "Do what? What am I doing, Jason? Well, all kinds of things but what are you talking about?" They fade out of hearing as they leave the room, Harper still chattering on about something. I wonder if Jason has developed the capability to tune out everything that isn't important from Harper's speech, or if he actually enjoys listening to the archer.

Kon pushes out a breath that's too forceful to be a sigh, and I give him my attention as he moves forward to stand over me. He pauses a second, hesitating, and then comes to some kind of decision and reaches down, carefully lifting my laptop off my knees and shifting it onto the couch beside me. I watch him do it, ready to move in at a second's notice, but he's appropriately gentle and almost handles it gingerly. I suppose he knows I would break him before allowing him to break my laptop; that's a very important piece of hardware that would take me at least a week of work to properly replace.

He sinks to his knees in front of me, reaching forward and gently touching each of my calves as he leans his head forward into my knees. Tempting as it is, I resist the urge to part my legs and coax him closer between them. This doesn't feel sexual, and it doesn't feel at all threatening just yet. I should at least give Kon a chance to do whatever Harper coaxed him into, before I distract or derail him with sex. Though sex does sound good at the moment.

It was a long fight, and the chance to relieve some of that built up tension with physical pleasure is a very tempting one. Perhaps later, depending on what Kon is doing, and how things between us end up.

He lets another breath out and then looks up just enough to meet my gaze, the lower half of his face still behind my knees. "Sorry," he grumbles, and squeezes my calves just enough for me to feel it through the layer of armor. "I still think I'm right, but I shouldn't have come at you like that. Should know better." He looks somewhere between frustrated and miserable, and I find myself reaching forward to touch him before I realize what I'm doing.

My left hand — still in the gauntlet, but my claws won't do any damage to skin like his — touches his temple, and when he shifts into the touch I slip it back into his short black hair and along his scalp. He sighs, eyes closing as he presses into my hand, and I have to repress an urge to pull him up onto my lap for a kiss, or to turn this sexual in one of a dozen ways that I could.

It nearly concerns me how hard it is to keep control.

"Can I talk without getting kryptonite shoved in my face?" he asks, opening his eyes again.

I don't quite know what to do with my mouth or face — Kon isn't usually this... passive — so I leave my expression blank, stroking across his scalp again instead. "Of course, Kon."

He nods, giving a very quiet pleased rumble and pushing up into my hand again. I always forget how intensely physical Kon is, and how easy it is to please or calm him with simple, gentle, touches. Even just the casual touch of fingers is enough to get his full, undivided attention. The physical deprivation of the lab he was created in gave him that glaring weakness, and as long as he's mine I will make sure no one else takes advantage of that but me. No one else gets to manipulate Kon, especially not physically.

"Tal, you scare the crap out of me sometimes." I blink behind my goggles, and he lifts his head enough for me to see the slight part of his lips and the angry fear in his expression. "Not 'cause you're an Owl, or 'cause you scare me, but it feels like you don't think, Tal."

"What do you mean?" He shakes his head, jaw clenching for a moment, hands tightening on my calves until I click my tongue and he immediately releases his grip. Another thing I trained into him; Kon doesn't always remember his own strength when he's distracted, and I prefer not to be bruised if I can help it.

He sits there for a moment, looking vaguely startled, then bows his head forward into my knees again. "You'll be pissed at me if I say it," he grumbles into my armor, and I clench the hand in his hair to get a grip before pulling upward to make him look at me. He doesn't move, completely ignoring the request, and I stop pulling and just let my hand rest in his hair.

"Kon, look at me." Slowly, cautiously, he raises his head enough that I can see his eyes. "I'll listen," I promise him, stroking his scalp with my hand, "and I won't use kryptonite no matter what you say, alright?" Now, if he gets violent of course I will, but I doubt there's anything he could say that would drive me to cripple him. If there is something that drastic, then lying to him isn't that big of a deal in comparison.

He nods, and then brings both arms up and crosses them over my knees, resting his head on top and looking up at me. He doesn't look as frustrated now, he just looks exceedingly unhappy and maybe wary as well. That's fair. I haven't ever hurt him without a reason inspired by his behavior — his initial, aggressive kiss comes to mind as an example — but those times I have hurt him I didn't hold back much, and he knows that I'm capable of a lot more than I've ever done to him. The most I've done is back him off. I've never used pain as a way of controlling him, only as a way to tell him that he'd crossed a line and would not be doing it again. As far as I know, none of us Owls have gone after him any more than that.

Partially because we are all aware that Clark would take any injury to Kon as a personal insult, but also because for the most part my Kryptonian has more or less behaved himself.

I think after the time that Kon first met Dick and tried touching him without permission, got bruised and dosed with kryptonite for daring, and then Ultraman turned around and slapped Dick hard enough to break his zygomatic arch in reprisal, all of us silently agreed to a sort of stalemate. We didn't hurt Kon — though by all rights, Kon should have gotten the same bloody welcome as Harper did when the archer started his more permanent fling with Jason — he didn't mess with any of us, and if he did do something idiotic enough for one of us to hurt him then we all mutually stayed silent about it. For the sake of all of our healths, and the shaky truce between Clark and Bruce.

Still, I don't like the way he's looking at me. Him being wary is fine, if he really believes he's about to say something that will irritate me, but I don't like seeing him this upset. Maybe I'll have to alter my behavior around him to stop this, if I can figure out precisely what to alter to ensure this doesn't occur again. The anger I have no problem ignoring, but seeing Kon unhappy is something else.

I slip my hand away from his hair, pulling it back to trace over the skin of Kon's cheek and temple instead. Physical reassurance, to get him to speak, and it works as intended. He shifts into my touch, closing his eyes for a second, and then meets my gaze again as he opens his mouth. "You keep doing this to me, Tal," he says quietly, sounding miserable. "You call, and you expect me to catch you, or cover your back, or do something, but you never warn me and you just expect me to do it." He gives a tiny shudder and shifts to bury his head in his arms and avoid my gaze again. "And what if I'm not fast enough? What if I miss you, or I can't do what you want, or I don't know what you want? It feels like you don't even consider that I'll fail and that terrifies me, Tal. What if I do?"

I reach forward with my other hand, cradling his head between my palms, but he shakes his head and refuses to raise it. He must have more to say, and that's the only thing that stops me trying to force him to look at me.

"You're human," he says, sounding like it hurts, and I try my best not to go completely and utterly still. If he dares looking down on me because I'm human— "You're talented, and skilled, and you've got all these amazing tools, and you're so much smarter than anyone else I know, and I respect you, Tal. More than anyone. But you're human. If you fall from even fifty feet…" He shudders again, stronger this time, and I try and process what he's telling me as he continues. "If I get it wrong just once then you die, and that's—"

"Look at me," I demand, with the sharp command of Bruce's tone for dealing with other Crime Syndicate members, and Kon flinches and jerks his head up. His eyes are wide, startled, and I slip my left hand down to his jaw, to stop him lowering his head again unless he wants to crush my hand between his arms and face. He won't.

I study him as his expression shifts from surprised, to guilty, to miserable, then to just a hint of frustration, before he just looks scared. Not of me, but what could happen to me. Well, at least it's good to know that my more subtle conditioning of him has worked. He's definitely loyal, obviously even cares for me a fair amount.

I lean down and kiss him. I couldn't say why, but the tiny sound he makes into my mouth and the jerking shake of his shoulders before he eases up into me convince me, belatedly, that it's a good idea. It's gentle, chaste, and I let it last for a few moments before pulling back. He starts to blindly follow me up, then swallows thickly and settles back down, eyes flicking open. I consider my words, stroking the side of his face with my right hand idly, automatically, as I put together my response in my head.

"Listen to me," I order him, though without the snap of any of my usual tones. This one is Dick's, the coaxing one he gives to people already under his power when he wants something from them. Admittedly, usually that's an interrogation victim and they're already so broken that the hint of kindness is more than enough to get them to spill anything he wants. I don't think he's ever used it sincerely, like I am. "I want you to let me speak without interrupting, alright?"

He stares up at me for a moment, then nods.

"I don't take chances like that, Kon," is where I start. "I had at least four separate alternatives earlier, if you hadn't come, and there has never been a time where I called and you were my only option." He looks like he wants to argue, I can see the edge of anger in his eyes again, but I borrow one of Jason's smaller, gentler smirks — I doubt even Jason would recognize it, considering how rarely he uses it — to stall him. "I always consider the chance that something will go wrong and you won't get to me in time, and I always plan for that chance before I do anything. The only reason you've never seen the proof that I have backup plans is because you're my first choice, Kon, and you've never disappointed me."

He blinks, anger fading into surprise, and I keep Jason's smirk but combine it with Alfred's raised eyebrow. Kon might miss it, he's not as attuned to expression and trained for perception as my brothers, so to make sure the effect gets across I add a touch of the old man's dry sarcasm to my voice.

"I've been an Owl longer than you've been alive, Kon," I point out, and that's a definite flush of embarrassment that rises on his cheeks. "I survived before you, and you might make things easier for me but I don't take your presence for granted, or anyone else's. When it comes down to the base of my plans, the backup at the end of everything, I always make sure it doesn't rely on anything but my own skill, Kon." He opens his mouth, and I make one of Dick's sharply displeased noises that gets him to immediately snap it shut again. "The fact that I'm human is only a weakness in your eyes." He winces, and I give a small nod at his obvious recognition that his thoughts are very nearly an insult. He's Kryptonian, and aliens seem to have a natural disposition for looking down on humans. "For me, being human is nothing more than a fact. I am not skilled in spite of that, and I compensate for the fact that I am physically more vulnerable than most of our teammates. It is what I was trained to do."

I let both hands slip back into his hair, scratching my claws across his scalp, my right falling to the back of his neck. Going against my own values, I softly let myself say, "I apologize for not explaining that to you sooner. I never meant to make you feel that kind of pressure."

Kon hesitates a second, and then sighs and lays his head down on his arms and relaxes into my touch. "But you're going to keep doing it?"

I consider him, his blue eyes still staring up at me even from the different angle, and then make a mental concession as I give a small nod in answer to his question. "I will do my best to remember to warn you ahead of time if I have the opportunity, but I won't always be able to. If I can, I will."

He looks up at me, consideration obvious in his expression — eventually I'm going to have to teach him how to hide his emotions, as well — and then some of the misery seeps out of him and he turns his head to press his face into my left hand, eyes closing. "Thanks, Tal."

Now I finally let the background urge to part my legs actually happen, pulling his head back towards me and taking hold of his jaw to pull him into the empty space left behind, as I let my legs slide open wide enough to fit his broader chest. He gives an instant, though too small, grin and obeys the silent request, rising to a high kneel as he shifts inside my guard and reaching up to touch my jaw, cheek, and then finally back to take a very gentle grip on the hair at my temple. He pulls down, and I let him draw me into a kiss.

A real one, this time, where he coaxes my lips apart and slips both hands into my hair, tongue making very shallow thrusts inside the part of my teeth. He took my initial rejection of the 'shove his tongue down my throat' method to heart, and when he did eventually earn a second chance with me he was far less aggressive about it. Not better, really, but every fault was a chance to teach him to do things the way I enjoy them. I taught him to kiss, I taught him to fuck, and I taught him all the right ways to touch and hold. I am literally his only reference, apart from what he's seen between other members of our team, and there's something about that fact that makes the guarded parts of me slip a little, and gives me a warm glow in the center of my chest that I don't fully understand.

I do know that whatever it is, I enjoy it.

I tighten my grip on the back of his neck and clench my thighs in to grip his sides, and I can feel the shiver that makes him tremble for just a moment. He draws back a little, just enough that our mouths aren't touching, and breathes out, "Tal, I want—"

"I know," I answer, allowing my voice to come out as softly as his. "Back up, and we'll head to my room. Alright?" He nods in my grip and, with a reluctance I can feel in every inch of his muscle, let's go of me and shifts back and out of the space between my legs.

I reach over and collect my laptop, angling my hands so I keep my claws away from the metal with the ease of long practice. Kon stands at the same time as I do, stepping back to give me the room I need, and I tuck the laptop underneath my arm, covered by the fall of my cape as it settles around me. He follows as I take the same path that Jason and Harper did — around the back of the couch and to the right, through the open arch that's the fastest route to the private rooms of our team — practically stepping on my heels. Still though, quieter than normal. Quieter than I like, honestly.

If patterns hold true, after the physical contact and reassurance of a night in my bed Kon should be back to normal. I'll certainly be more at ease when he's behaving as he should. He's loyal, I know, but he's too powerful for me to be comfortable with him not acting within his normal behavioral patterns. Anything outside of those is theoretically a threat, and having to guard against Kon means always being ready to retrieve the kryptonite in my belt at a moment's notice. It's mentally, if not physically, exhaustive.

When I can be around Kon without having to actively consider that course of action — it's always in the back of my head, just in case — it will be much easier. I don't truly believe he'll hurt me like this, and if I did then I wouldn't even consider sex, let alone actually sleeping next to him.

I lead the way to my room — because after moving mostly permanently into the base I had it refitted to be soundproof — and key in my particular combination to unlock the door. It's not a particularly useful piece of security, but it's better than nothing and, more importantly, the deactivation of it with the right code makes a sharp beep of a noise. Even if someone knows my combination — at least, Kon, Dick, and M'gann do — the noise will still be enough to warn me that someone is entering. That's all the advantage that I need.

It opens, and Kon reaches around me to hold the door open. It's almost sweet, but completely unnecessary.

I move to set my laptop down on my desk, listening to the sound of the door sealing shut behind the two of us. Kon pulls in a deep, slow breath, and lets it out as a long sigh. When I turn around a moment later he's still standing in front of the door, head tilted back and eyes closed. That's a reaction that I never quite fully understand the intensity of, and probably never will, but the blissful ease of it is something that always brings a slight warmth to the back of my mind.

Kon is half Kryptonian, and along with all his other powers comes super-hearing. That isn't something he can turn off, it's just how he hears things. He's described being shut inside my room, and its extreme soundproofing, as if the rest of the world is falling away and he doesn't have to be aware of it anymore. I imagine, for him, it must be quite the relief to only hear what exists inside this room. Specifically himself, and me. After hours at a time of hearing everything within, complete minimum, the entire base, this must feel like silence.

I move over to him — he doesn't do anything but breathe, slow and steady — and reach out to touch his shoulders and then lower my hands to loop around his back as I press up close to him and lower my head to rest on his shoulder. I can feel him relax into me, echoing my movement as he drops his head down against my shoulder in turn. It's not the same, there's my cape and armor in the way, but he never seems to mind. It's probably different when you can hear someone's heartbeat without being anywhere near them; skin to skin contact probably isn't as important.

I let my hands find the bottom of his shirt, resisting the urge to just take my claws to the fabric instead of actually undressing him — it's not like he'd get hurt, I'm not nearly powerful enough to hurt him without kryptonite — and slide them up his back instead. Even feeling the muscle of his back through the barrier of my gauntlets is nice enough, and I can allow myself to feel a bit of anticipation for when I'll be able to feel it with my bare hands. Kon very faintly shivers, and his hands touch my waist, large enough to securely hold me and powerful enough that if he wanted to he could crush me just like this. A part of me plans for that, of course, but Kon is mine. He wouldn't hurt me on purpose.

"What do you want?" he asks, lifting his head off my shoulder.

I consider, stroking over the skin of his back mostly idly. "Simplicity," I answer after a few moments. Sometimes I experiment, or I enjoy the slightly rougher end of things — not that much; Kon is too capable of injuring me by accident — or there are times when I want sex certain ways or with certain acts, but for the moment all I want is the touch. Something in me is… incomplete, incorrect, and I don't want to put more of myself out there than I absolutely have to. Not until I have the time to figure out what this feeling is, and how to fix or control it.

I can feel his muscles shifts in what's required for a nod, and I pull my head away from his shoulder and my hands away from his back to lightly grasp his wrists for a moment. "Undress me," I order, meeting his bright blue eyes.

It's not an order I can give to anyone else, and I wouldn't trust anyone else to strip me out of my armor anyway. Not only would they activate my suit's self defense mechanisms and be knocked into brief unconsciousness by the electrical blast — which, actually, might be a decent way to incapacitate someone; I file it away in the back of my mind — but unless I am almost positive that I have control over someone I would never allow them to be around me when I'm that vulnerable. Without my armor or my tools I am still dangerous, more so than even most of my supposed allies are when they are armed, but a fair amount of my advantage disappears.

Kon, however, won't be affected by a blast — I'll disable the security beforehand anyway, to not send off any alarms to the other Owls — and he is under my control. I can allow him to be around me when I'm not in my uniform, I can even let him be the one to strip me out of it without feeling any sense of unease.

His hands slide up my waist, to the fastening of my cape at my shoulders, and then he pauses. "Your mask?" Right.

I nod, and step away from him, turning my back to cross the room. I can hear him follow me over to the small bedside table, and feel his head bury down against the back of my shoulder as I open the drawer on it. The domino mask looking up at me almost feels damning, but I shove the thought away and down with everything else, pulling both it and the small bottle of adhesive beside it out to sit on top of the table. Kon is warm at my back — running hotter than an average human — even through my suit, and his head is pressed firmly against my back because he has always respected this part of our nights.

I apply the adhesive to the edges of the mask, tucking the bottle away and shutting the drawer, and then raise the domino mask to my face as I reach up with my other hand and pull my goggles up on top of my head. I press the mask into place, careful of the tips of my claws, and smooth the edges down to hold it for a moment until it's securely in place.

Kon doesn't know who I am, and maybe he never will. That's a secret that's very important, and doesn't just endanger me but everyone in my family if it gets out to the wrong person. I'm fairly sure Kon wouldn't tell anyone who I am if he knew, not even his supposed 'father,' Clark, but since I can't absolutely guarantee that, Kon can't know who I am. Not yet.

He respects that, and has never once even asked about it. He took my application of the domino mask the first time this happened in stride, and never said anything about it.

I could have just kept my goggles on, but honestly they get in the way with any kind of intimate sexual act, and a domino will keep my identity protected just as well, but without any extension past my face, and without the minor, nearly impossible, chance of the strap for the goggles getting snapped or otherwise pulled to get them off of my face. A mask is slightly harder to remove if you don't know how, don't have nails, or simply don't have any experience doing it. It requires a certain force, and then a certain precision to get nails precisely underneath the edges of it.

Before giving Kon the all clear to look back up, I lower my hands to disable the security in my suit. At my belt, the clasp of each gauntlet around my lower arm, and high on my neck near the fastening of my cape. Lastly, I pull the goggles fully from my head and deposit them on the table. The slight click of the metal against the wood is Kon's cue to look back up, as I turn around to face him again.

As always, his gaze lingers on my mask for a few moments, and then he gives a small quirk of his mouth and sinks down to his knees in front of me. His gaze falls to my legs, and I reach forward with my left hand to run my claws over his scalp and get a decent grip on a handful of his hair as his hands rise to my left knee and find the catches to my boots. I probably should never have taught him how to get me out of my suit — they are, after all, designed to be difficult for anyone without the correct knowledge — but there's something dangerously addictive and satisfying about having an alien of Kon's kind of power doing something as theoretically subservient as taking my boots off. It's not real, but it is true that I have a lot of control over him.

I've been with my fair share of people, and I've played both sides of sexual encounters — I've even played both roles with Kon; sometimes he's in certain moods — but most of the time Kon may be under my control, and obedient, but he is certainly not submissive. He isn't doing this because I demanded that he do it, in spite of generally playing the role of a top, but because it's something he likes doing. The fact that I happen to like it too isn't all that involved; I doubt I could actually get him to do much that he doesn't enjoy without a decent struggle and a fair amount of effort. Sticking to the things we both like is far easier.

He wraps his right hand under the back of my knee, and I let him lift and support my leg as he pulls my boot off with his other hand. I'm perfectly capable of balancing on a single leg, but the pressure and strength at the back of my knee is satisfying to me. It's an expression of the power of my chosen tool, and his attendance to my comfort, and I enjoy it.

Kon sets my foot back down — everything from my ankle upwards is still covered by a barrier of reinforced fabric that's the bottom layer of my uniform — and puts my boot aside, next to the bed beside us, before repeating this with my other leg. Then he shifts off his knees, getting back to his feet, and pauses just a moment before he leans in and kisses me. One of his hands circles around the back of my skull to hold me, and the other touches my chest at the left side of my clavicle, where one of the fastenings for my cape is. It has three, two minor ones at the far end of each side of my clavicle, securing it around my shoulders and distributing the weight, and the main hook just below the hollow of my throat that keeps it together.

I raise both my hands to trace over the skin showing at the bottom of his shirt, before the line of his jeans, and I can feel his abdomen clench and shake a little under my touch. It's enough to pull a smirk out onto my face, one of my more automatic expressions taken from Bruce's repertoire. He disconnects the fastening by touch, and then the one at the other side of my clavicle, and then quickly — because he knows I dislike having the weight of the reinforced cape hanging only by the main connection, around my throat — unhooks the last fastening holding the cape up and pulled against my neck. It slides free, puddling to the ground around my feet, and that's always an interesting moment that shakes me a little.

Being part of the shadows, being hidden, has always been my main role. Talon is designed to play either backup or the front ambush, depending, and I didn't have the same natural talent for combat or acrobatics that my predecessors did, so I focused on the stealth aspect to make up for it. If I could learn everything about someone — how they fought, how they moved, how they behaved in every waking moment — before I ever had to confront them, then I could find the moment to take them out before they ever even knew I was there. I designed my Black Talon suit to maximize that skill, and my cape has always been the biggest part of it.

I'm the smallest of my family — Damian of course excluded — and the cape makes me look bigger, gives me an imposing or mysterious air depending on how I use it that I otherwise don't naturally have. It makes me something frightening, instead of a thin younger man that happens to be able to take them apart. The cape lets me blend into shadows, and it gives me that certain otherworldly feeling that I take advantage of to match up with the rest of my family. It's well known that I'm tech inclined, and intelligence inclined, as opposed to Dick's acrobatic perfection as Nightingale or Jason's raw strength and combat skill as Red Hood. Obviously, no one measures me up against Bruce himself. To be taken as seriously as them I had to look the part, as well as proving beyond a doubt that I could handle whatever was thrown at me.

Without my cape everyone can see that I'm not the muscular equivalent of the rest of my family, and it's a foolish, completely psychological fact, but most people lose some of their fear and respect for me when they realize that. I am just as dangerous as the rest of my brothers, in my own way, but people who haven't seen me in action don't know that.

It's mildly frustrating, so I do my best to never lose that first tactical advantage that my appearance gives me. Except, in these moments, where I let Kon reduce me to nothing more than just me. There's always a moment the locked down, irrational part of me rebels, throwing out the idea that eventually Kon is going to realize what's obvious once I'm outside of my cape. That I'm thin, and human, and not nearly as invulnerable to damage as he is.

Kryptonians have an ingrained condescension for humans, and though I know my tactics have been effective, I still don't know precisely why Kon was interested in me in the first place. I did not create his initial attraction, and before he kissed me I hadn't considered twisting him to be one of my weapons. Not knowing bothers me.

Kon pulls back just enough that he can look down at me, gaze sweeping over the revealed angles of my body and lingering a long time for someone capable of moving faster than a human. I can see the want in his eyes, and feel it hitch the pattern of his breath in the hands I still have against his waist, and I couldn't care less what most people think of me, but it's still gratifying to know that the person I have chosen to share my body with likes it so much. Just me in my suit, too. Kon may be capable of x-ray vision, but every piece of my suit — including my cape and goggles — is lined with lead to prevent his sight. That look is just for this, it's not because he can see beneath my suit to my skin.

That makes very little sense to me, but then most of Kon's mental processes tend to bypass any sort of rational thinking that I can understand. He's not stupidly vicious in the same way as Clark — I thank the other half of his DNA, Lex Luthor, for that — but he's certainly not equal to my level of intelligence either, and he's ruled mostly by instinct and emotion. Neither of those are things that I've let control me for a very long time, and I lack the ability to truly understand them anymore.

A weakness, maybe, but I can usually predict behavioral patterns, and the theoretical reward of getting back in touch with my emotions to any real extent isn't worth the effort, or the risk. I have better projects I could be attending to and filling my time with. Ones with guaranteed rewards.

His hand leaves my hair, reluctantly, and he lowers both between us to find and unclip the connection for my belt. Strangely enough, the removal of most of my weaponry still registers in my mind, at least subconsciously, as less important than the loss of my cape. The belt, and the condensed staff hanging from the right side of it, clink together as Kon leans into me to reach around and set it on the nightstand next to my goggles. He's taller than I am, just a bit, and much thicker. He may not be Jason's height, or even Dick's, but he's bigger than both of them in terms of muscle and how thick his frame is. I enjoy it.

I can feel a faint shudder transfer from his body to mine, and he pauses for a second pressed up against me, head turned sideways into my hair. A breath washes over my ear, down my neck, and then Kon pulls back, and one of his hands slides down my left arm to lightly grip my wrist. I let him pull my hand up, between us, and his eyes turn down towards it. His hands are big, and my gauntlets are designed for much smaller fingers, but he's got the practice to hook his fingertips into the catches and ease them loose.

Kon does, of course, have his TTK, and he could use that to do this a lot more efficiently, but he never does. I asked, once, and he admitted — flushed red and not meeting my eyes — that he's usually too distracted by undressing me to concentrate hard enough to do something that delicate. The larger sweeps of pressure, or keeping both of us airborne the few times I experimented, is easier for him and sometimes even mostly automatic, but manipulating the field to unlatch the small clasps, hooks, and catches of my uniform is significantly harder.

I wonder if I could use that as a training exercise; he could use some fine tuning in his ability to perform more delicate or complex tasks with his TTK while distracted. I am not above using myself as either a reward, or that distraction.

My gauntlets join my boots on the floor, and I flex my bare hands and stand still to let Kon carefully disconnect the bands of weaponry on my arms and legs. The ones around my wrists are connected to the gauntlets, and come off with them, but that still leaves ones around each of my upper arms, just below my knees, and on my upper left thigh (the way my staff hangs from the right side of my belt interferes with having one on my right thigh as well). What's on them varies, but unless I'm headed out for something specific it's a combination of various poisons, drugs, smaller weaponry including blades and tasers, and miscellaneous pieces of equipment. I lack the same level of strength as my brothers, so I make up for it by being prepared for anything.

Jason has his cache of weaponry, but most if it is fairly basic. Dick, on the other hand, is the least well-armed of us. What he does have is hidden within his suit, so most people don't think he carries anything around with him at all but the two knives displayed prominently on his thighs. In reality he's still very well armed, with most of his gadgetry built directly into his suit, though he doesn't have the same plethora as me, or even the variety of Jason's arsenal.

Or, Jason's Arsenal.

Kon pauses for just a second before sliding his hands around my waist and up my back, and I dip my head into his shoulder to give him a clear view as he finds the catch holding the harness and circular Owlman symbol on my chest. There's more weaponry — small blades, exclusively — on the front of the two straps that loop low on my ribcage and then back, and those fall forward as Kon carefully keeps hold of the other two straps — the ones that secure over my shoulders — and lifts the whole thing off the front of me. He sets it down among the rest of my gear, carefully, and I take in a shallow breath.

That leaves me in just my layer of armor, and the underlayer that doesn't actually look all that different from Dick's skintight uniform, and yes, I have a few more weapons hidden inside the armor but none that are very impressive. Last resorts, mostly. This is always the moment, even more so than my cape, that I feel the most vulnerable in front of Kon. Kon, who could wrap his hands around my throat and right now, at this moment, there's nothing I could do about it.

There's a certain power in being naked — especially with my mask still in place — and there's a much greater power in being geared and armed, but in the middle is a strange state of weakness. It's not enough to force me to give any true response, the feelings are easily ignored and shut away, and besides, I could use practice in situations I'm not totally at ease in. This happens to be one of them.

Kon doesn't ask me to turn my back to him, just steps close up against me and wraps his arms around my chest, one hand resting on my low back and the other sliding up to the back of my neck. It brushes through my hair, and I duck my head back down to let his fingers find the slight irregular feeling of the hidden zipper holding what remains of my suit on. He starts to pull it down, I press my lips against the side of his neck, and I can feel him shudder again. The hand on my low back is firm, holding me close but not forcing me to be — a delicate balance that I was very careful to make sure he knew — and I can feel his breathing pick up a notch in pace as I graze my teeth over his skin and the suit comes apart down the line of my spine.

The teeth are pointless except for sensation — I'd break my jaw and my teeth before I managed to actually leave a mark on his skin with them — but he happens to like that particular sensation, so I indulge it. I could demand that he pull his TTK back within his skin, so I could leave marks, but I don't feel the need to visibly claim him the same way that Dick does to his partners. To Jason, specifically.

Kon knows he's mine, everyone else knows he's mine, and I don't need to leave a visible claim to make everyone aware of that. I'm aware I'm possessive of him, but apart from the single time with M'gann's flirting, and his lack of an immediate refusal, there haven't been any clashes over it. Kon, I've noticed, is also fairly possessive of me, and doesn't much appreciate Dick's eternally flirting attitude, or his attempts to convince me to sleep with him. However, he knows better than to confront Dick over anything, especially something so relatively harmless. He learned that lesson.

The hand on my back does have to move when he gets the zipper near the bottom of its track, and he shifts his grip just enough to the side that he can finish pulling it all the way down. He shoves out a breath — he's holding himself back, I know that noise intimately — and then his hand slides up my spine, and his lips press very gently to the skin at the side of my neck. His touch feels good, warmer than a human and just firm enough to be pleasant, and I close my eyes for a moment to focus on it. I keep them closed, my head against Kon's shoulder and his neck, as his hands rise high enough up to catch the top of my suit and ease it down over my shoulders.

I do move to give him space and the right angle to pull it off my arms, but that doesn't require separating myself from the pleasant comfort of resting against him. The suit falls to my waist once it's off my arms, hanging, and Kon tenses a little bit and gives a shallow groan through his teeth. One of Dick's smirks twists my mouth, and I open my eyes to pick a spot high on his neck, below his ear, to drag my teeth across. He twitches, shoulders jerking inwards a touch, and his hands lightly touch either side of my waist.

"Tal," he breathes out, head tilting back, and I take the open invitation to move my mouth over to the front of his throat. My teeth find the jut of his trachea, his Adam's apple, and then settle high beneath his chin, and he sucks in a sharp breath and shivers. Somehow, he manages to be remarkably sensitive for someone with pseudo-invulnerability. "Tal."

He says my name like it's a prayer.

I pull back, raising my left hand to rake back through his hair and drag him down for a kiss. He gladly lets me, giving a low groan into my mouth and wrapping his right arm around my waist to pull me up against him. I let him, for a few moments, before tugging once at his hair and releasing my grip, pushing him back with my other hand to the center of his chest. He's reluctant, but he obeys my silent command and steps away. I can see the restraint evident in the tension of his shoulders and his slightly parted lips, and the sight flicks one of Dick's more sly smiles across my face.

Kon is mine, and obedient to me.

"Take your shirt off," I command, as I step back and to the side, sitting down at the edge of my bed.

He gives a small grin, moving just a little faster than a human is actually capable of while he does what I've told him to. He grabs his shirt by the back of the collar with both his hands, dragging it up and over his back, off his arms, and then pretty much flinging it to the side. I can see him start to move, and the shift of muscle as he automatically starts forward, but he remembers himself before he's even fully taken the first step. He swallows instead, standing still with visible — to me, anyway — effort to let me look at him.

I've seen Kon shirtless, or naked, quite a few times — two-hundred and thirty-six, to be precise, though not all of that has been sexual — but the sight doesn't get old. I spend a few moments running my gaze around the outlined muscle and his naturally tanned, completely flawless thanks to his enhanced healing, skin, before raising my gaze back to the bright blue eyes. I can see him shiver, and let a small smile twist my lips for a second, one of Dick's visibly kinder ones.

"Come here."

His response, and forward momentum, is instant, and he takes the few steps necessary to put him in front of me, sinking to his knees without me even asking. Good. I reach forward and pull him into a kiss as a reward, and give an approving noise when his hands come up and stroke up my thighs, to my hips. His fingers curl around the top of where my suit is hanging low on my waist, and after a moment of pause — giving me time to stop him if I'm going to, which I'm not — he starts to slowly pull it down and off of me. I lift my hips, briefly, to let him pull it down to my thighs, and then resettle as he peels it completely off of me. He doesn't pull away from the kiss to do it, and that prompts another small smile of satisfaction.

After a moment his hands return to my hips, pausing for another moment before hooking under the band of the last piece of clothing on me — a pair of tight black briefs, for the sake of a barrier between me and the suit — and sliding that off me as well. He's beyond careful, and I reward that by pressing harder into the kiss and lightly raking my teeth over his tongue.

It's a long road, but Kon is a decent study and I am training him to precisely what I want. There are only small things now, tiny changes I want to make or things I want to perfect, along with whatever I may choose to experiment with as time passes. I'll be keeping Kon as long as I possibly can; I've put too much time into him to let him be taken from me now. Whatever I have to do to ensure that he'll stay loyal, I will.

His hands are just slightly shaky when they return to my skin, stroking up my calves firmly enough to feel like a massage, and I rake my nails across his scalp hard enough to break skin, if he'd been human. To him, it doesn't feel like much more than a comfortable scratch, and he makes a sound into my mouth that's soft and wanting. The flash of heat in my chest and stomach isn't entirely arousal, and it isn't entirely the pride and satisfaction of having a Kryptonian kneeling in front of me, but it's close enough. It feels good in a way I can't precisely identify.

I pull back, and watch as he breathes through the part of his lips and his eyes flicker open. The desire in them is obvious, but apart from another stroke of his hands up my calves he doesn't act on it.

I release his head, letting my fingers trail over his jaw on the way down. "Jeans."

He shifts back, to his feet, as I move the opposite direction and back onto the bed. He bends over to loosen the laces on his dark brown boots — heavy and lined with steel, to withstand the strength he's capable of — and I keep my gaze on him as I arrange myself more comfortably on the bed. My head on the pillow, right arm pulled up and behind my head and my right leg drawn up. Part of it is also a display, but I can blame and thank Dick for that habit. I copied most of the ways I lie from him, since Jason's much less artful about it and Bruce looks like the dead when he sleeps.

Kon's movement stutters for a second when he glances back up at me, after he finishes divesting himself of his boots and socks, but he recovers pretty quickly. I watch his hands unbuckle his belt, pull down the zipper of the jeans, and then shove them down his hips. There are ways to get out of pants pooled at your ankles without looking like a horny college student, but Kon doesn't know them and I almost enjoy the moments of clumsiness it forces. I'm sure I'll teach him how eventually. When he has stumbled out of them he pauses, looking back up at me with a question in his eyes, right hand making a vague gesture at the pair of black and red boxers clinging to his hips.

I let my gaze linger on them for a second, make him wait while I study the obvious tent formed by his arousal, and the start of the v-shaped form his iliac furrows make before they disappear behind the fabric. Being a Kryptonian comes with a certain level of automatic fitness, and he doesn't like to talk about it but I know that what he was put through in Luthor's lab gave him the rest of the muscle. He trains, and keeps in shape, but it doesn't require much to keep the definition, not for someone of his particular… race.

Finally I nod, answering his question, and there's no hesitation in the way he pushes the elastic band down his hips to drop to the floor, and then steps out of it and towards me. This time, as he knows, he doesn't have to wait for my permission to approach. He climbs onto the bed, very gently easing my legs open to fit between them, and when he's settled, hips to mine, I press my legs back in to either side of him, tightly. I don't bother holding back the strength in them, he's told me he likes the feeling and it's not like I'm capable of hurting him.

True to form, his head tilts back for a second and his chest rises in a deeper breath, hands stroking down over my thighs to squeeze my hips. Not hard, not nearly enough to bruise, and even then he loosens almost immediately. He leans down over me, fingers stroking up my sides, his right hand looping underneath me to press flat between my shoulder blades and hold me up off the bed a little, and I trust my weight to him. At worst, he lets me fall a few inches to the soft mattress.

I shift, retrieving the small bottle beneath the pillow and pressing it into his free hand. He swallows, has to control himself for a second, but then leans into me and kisses me. I can hear the snap of the cap, and if I looked I know I'd see the bottle floating beside us, as he tilts it with his TTK field to coat his fingers. That, at least, isn't delicate enough that he's incapable of concentrating enough to do it while with me. He shifts, twisting his body to the side, to make room for the hand that slides down between my legs.

Sometimes I'm not in the mood for the preparation required for this, or the investment of time — because Kon is not by any means small, and to do this right you also have to do it slow — and we make do with simpler things, but this isn't one of those times. Right now, I want the connection afforded by the more intimate act, and I'm content to take things slow and steady until then. This, more than anything else, will reaffirm in Kon's mind that I value him. Not just anyone is allowed to fuck me, and he knows that.

Kon slides a finger inside me — thick, easily the equal of two of mine when I do this myself — and I shift to draw my right leg completely off the bed and up against his back, to give him a better angle and more room. I can feel the flex of his muscle underneath my calf and my ankle, and raise my hands to his torso. I don't touch with the intention to arouse, but just to feel and enjoy the planes of hard muscle and the pattern to his breathing.

At this point he doesn't need to consult me anymore — he's had enough experience working me open that he can feel the changes and my reactions himself — so the only times he pulls away from my mouth are to bury his face against the crook of my neck and breath, controlling himself. It's a lot less than he was doing it even a few months ago, but I know by the feel of him, and the twitches and throbs of his arousal where it's lying against my hip — hard, heavy, and enough to make me remember how satisfying it feels inside me — that that's not a case of decreased passion, but an increase of his ability to control himself. My training, working as intended.

Eventually, between the wandering of my hands over his skin and the increasingly hard edge to our kisses, he works me wide enough to fit him without any kind of pain. His hand keeps moving, rolling and thrusting his fingers in the way I taught him I enjoy, but he pulls back from the kiss to look at me.

He's flushed, hazy with lust, but aware enough to speak. "Condom, Tal?" His voice comes out low and rough, drenched in desire, and my breathing — faster than it should be, to match the increased pace of my heart — hitches just a bit. I know he can hear it, and he gives a thick shudder in reaction and sinks his own teeth into his lower lip in restraint.

I shift and pull my left hand off his back to reach for the nightstand, snagging one of the wrappers on the top. He carefully lowers me all the way back to the bed, so he can pull his right hand from its place between my shoulder blades and take the condom from me. His fingers pull out of me, and my leg tightens around his back in automatic reaction at the feeling, which makes him pause and groan for a moment. I raise my hands to his neck, wrapping one around the back of it and letting the other trace higher, into his hair. It's slightly damp, Kryptonians do sweat like us humans, but I have touched much nastier things and the sound he makes when my nails rake over his scalp is absolutely worth it.

"God, Tal." There is nothing quite like how Kon sounds when he's holding back. Because of me, for me. I taught him how to do that, I taught him everything he knows about this, and he's here to please me. It's a rush.

I tighten my leg around his back, pulling his head down — because he lets me — so his forehead is against my shoulder, holding him close. I don't say anything, but he knows that the touch of my hand in his hair and the other against his back is reassurance and permission enough. I can feel the shove of a deep breath being let out against my skin, and then the crinkle of plastic as he tears the wrapper of the condom open. It's a few moments, enough for him to slide it down over himself — his shoulders jerk a little bit — and then to retrieve the bottle of lube from beside us and slick some down over the condom.

He pulls back then, enough that he can meet my eyes and watch my face. One of his hands slides down, wrapping around my hip and lifting me just a little bit, and I feel the blunt press of him outside of me before he slowly eases inside. With the preparation, and the lube, it's an easy slide. I can feel him shudder, tense, head dropping back down against my shoulder as he breathes through his teeth, and I let my own reaction to the feeling — it's good, satisfying, even though I try my best not to let physical sensation rule me — out by arching my back a little bit and digging my nails into his skin.

He pauses for a moment, shifting to reestablish the arm between my shoulder blades and his other at my right hip, holding me steady. I lean up into him to grip him tighter, press my left leg against the outside of his hip, graze my teeth across the flesh of the shoulder in front of me. All silent ways to tell him I'm alright, and that he can move. He understands.

Kon shifts, drawing his hips back and then pushing forward. Slow, deliberate, and the slide of him is enough to make my back arch a little farther. I tilt my head back against the bed, letting my eyes close and trusting my other senses to keep track of Kon, so I can focus on the feelings.

There's never a time that my mind stops working — even if it's just in the background, dissecting strategies and plans — but this comes close to making it happen. I've had sex with other people before, but Kon is different. He's Kryptonian, everything about this is restraint and control, and it's all my control over him. Even now, if for any or no reason I wanted him away from me, all I'd have to do is click my tongue and he would immediately release me and back off. I wouldn't do it — commands like that tend to lose their power if you abuse them — but I could, and that is beyond satisfying.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Kon is attractive, and that everything he does I tailored to be precisely what I like, and that he's well equipped for it too.

Kon is vocal, letting loose his expressions through sound in a way he can't physically — I didn't even allow him to touch me until he proved he could control his powers through an orgasm — and I may not be the same, but I enjoy his noises. There's an uncontrolled passion to him — figuratively speaking — that is intoxicating, and his hitched gasps, groans, and other various noises are the most obvious way to read it.

I've been with partners that found my comparative silence unnerving, or frustrating, and turned it into a competition to force me to make noise. Most of them walked back to wherever they considered home with a fair number of bruises and the threat of more permanent damage if they ever came back or tried to convince me to have another round with them. I make just as much noise as I want to, no more or less, and I do not appreciate others trying to make me give any more. Kon, on the other hand, has never fallen to that particular mental trap. I know it's not a case of that he simply doesn't know it isn't standard — after all, most of the other rooms aren't soundproofed, and he can certainly hear anything that goes on in here — but simply that he's never seemed to need to hear me make any kind of vocal satisfaction.

At some point, maybe when this is done, I'll ask him precisely why that is. I consider it a plus, but unknown quantities bother me.

I ease my grip in his hair, scratching my nails across his scalp and then my other hand down the line of his spine. The choked noise I get in response draws a smirk — Jason's, I think? — to my mouth, and I tilt my hips up to meet his next thrust, manually clenching down around him on the slide in. His pattern stutters a little bit, the muscles in his neck standing out as he buries his face a little more securely against my shoulder, and my smirk stays firmly in place. Manipulating a Kryptonian with nothing more than touch is certainly a power rush.

His breath is hot against my skin, betraying the unsteadiness of his inhalations, and I let my hand run back up his back, slowly. Slow enough to linger on each protruding bump of his spine as it bends, to feel the flex of muscle that makes his shoulder blades stand out, and to feel his intended movement a couple of seconds before he draws himself together enough to release the grip he has on my hip. He tilts his waist a bit, making enough space between us that he can reach in and wrap his hand around me. The hot, firm, smooth — Kon doesn't have callouses, unlike pretty much all of the rest of us — grip is sure, and when he starts to stroke in time with his thrusts it's with an expert twist that comes from experience.

I make a small noise in the back of my throat, digging my ankle into his low back as I draw up a bit off the bed and harder against him. It doesn't do anything visible, but I use the proximity to lay sharp, biting nips up and down the side of his neck, and then down onto his shoulder. He doesn't quite taste like a human. If I had to guess, I'd bet that Kal-El tastes even less like one, and that the only reason Kon is similar to what I know is because of his mixed genetics.

He still tastes a bit like sweat, the salt an obvious flavor, but he lacks the usual distinct tang of whatever product people use on themselves. I've watched him use various products, but it doesn't cling to his skin the way that it does to humans. Instead, he seems to shed scent as if it were snake skin, and the only thing that ever stays to add to the slight sour and salt of his sweat is something sharp and tangy, like citrus. I've spent hours considering exactly what it tastes like, but I've never come up with a direct match. Something between the acidity of a tangerine and a brighter, more basic taste, like fresh water. My current working theory is that it's a result of him absorbing sunlight, and that is what it tastes like once it's diluted and part of him.

I could be incorrect, but since there are only currently two known Kryptonians my guess is probably as good as any other. I doubt Kon knows, in fact I'm almost certain of it, and even if Kal-El did know he wouldn't tell me. After all, just the suggestion that I'm sleeping with his 'son' would probably be enough to get me some serious threats, if not an actual beating. He's already not too happy with the fact that Kon snaps to heel for me and follows my orders, and I'm fairly sure the only reason he hasn't tried killing me is that Bruce is keeping him in line.

We Owls are quite good at making Kryptonians behave for us.

I open my eyes, finally, so I can watch Kon instead of just feeling him. The curve of his spine and the shudder of his abdomen, between us, is visible, gratifying proof that he's restraining himself and keeping control even through the pleasure. I tilt my head to the side, grazing my teeth across the high end of his jaw and using the hand in his hair to pull sideways and turn his head. If he didn't want to — or he wasn't so very used to obeying me — of course I wouldn't actually be able to force him to look at me, but he's well trained, and the tug of my hand immediately makes him raise his head a few inches away from my shoulder and twist to look at me.

His eyes are hazy, mouth parted where he's breathing through it, and I watch his gaze focus on my lips for a moment before rising to my mask. The new stimuli doesn't stop his thrusts, or the stroke of his hand — which is raising the beat of my pulse and quickening my breathing, because he knows what I like — and partly out of my own desire and partly to reward him I lean in and drag him close to me.

The meeting of our mouths isn't really a kiss, so much as it's a clash of lips, tongue, and in my case teeth, but that doesn't mean it's any less satisfying. It's messy, and both of us are breathing through it and it's not enough air for me but I don't care. I busy the rest of me with raking nails across his back and tightening my lower body, legs and the rest, around his hips and far more delicate parts. He jerks and makes a fairly high pitched noise into the tiny, intermittent spaces between our mouths, the hand still pressed between my shoulder blades pressing harder for just a second, crushing me up into him. It's not enough to hurt, not enough to even make me wary, and the pressure of his chest against mine is good on a very basic, primal level.

Kon drags himself back an inch or so, far enough to press his lips against the underside of my jaw and gasp out, "You're so damn gorgeous, Tal, all of you. God."

The heat in my chest, the warmth the words inspire, is nothing more than satisfaction at his loyalty, I'm sure of it. His desire for me, his belief that I'm the epitome or at least a very good example of what's attractive, is only further proof that he's wrapped around my fingers. Whatever Jason might have implied, or flat out stated, he's wrong. Kon is useful, and he happens to be what I enjoy because I made him that way. There's nothing more to it.

He comes back to the kiss, just a little harder, and previous experience lets me know that he isn't behaving that way because he's close to the edge himself, but because he knows I am. He gets harder, mimics his own increase of passion, when he knows that I'm approaching an orgasm.

My own control aside, the buildup of preparation and what might be hesitantly labeled foreplay is not something I'm immune to. I'm capable of holding out far longer than Kon is, if I want to, but I have no interest in delaying my own pleasure. Coming to my own peak lets me relax back and ride out the rest of his, with no other focus or distraction than him, and he doesn't mean to but he puts on quite a show. I can enjoy lazy, soft pleasure just as much as this harder rush for completion.

A particularly sharp swell forces an involuntary jerk of my shoulders, Kon echoes it with a shudder, and I can feel him throb inside of me, feel his reaction to my brief loss of control. If he were human, the strength in my grip would be tearing out his hair, leaving bloody furrows in his back, and giving him some serious bruises on his hips and waist. Since he's not, I don't have to concern myself with not hurting him. The hardest I can do, the most pain I could inflict, he'll still enjoy. It's nice to have a partner so invulnerable to damage.

Every thrust of his hips rubs the top of him against my prostate, and while I'm not one of the men more sensitive to it — Kon is, actually — it's still a pleasant sensation, a higher edge to the winding coil in my stomach. Like the spring of one of the Jokester's jack-in-the-box traps, drawing tighter and tighter until it finally snaps open.

My left leg, pressed against the side of Kon's waist, trembles from the sustained exertion, my back arches high enough that it leaves his hand for a moment, and I draw in a sharp breath. "Kon," I say into his mouth, mostly drowned out by the slap of his flesh against mine. But what I can't hear, and only know I've really said by the vibration of my throat, Kon picks up without a problem.

He holds me a little tighter, in every way, and speeds the twist of his hand and the roll of his hips. Not by much, but enough to feel the difference. Enough to draw a soft cry from me, another sound lost to everyone but my chosen partner. I breathe, losing myself for just a moment in the press of his skin, the taste of his tongue, the feel of him inside and around me.

I snap.

Kon holds me as I strain tight, spilling between our abdomens and in his hand, swallowing my breathlessness with his lips. For a few moments I ride high, drawn out by the continued motion of his hand, and the slide of him inside me, until the arch relaxes. I ease into his arms and he slows down, still moving but in slow slides, and the hand around me releases its grip. The thrust of his tongue turns shallow and sensual, and the hand not holding me loosely up against him returns — probably wiped off on the sheets — and traces gently up my ribs, and then back down along my loosening thigh.

My hand contracts in his hair, and then I smooth my fingers back out across his skin, carefully controlling my breathing, calming my heartbeat. I let myself enjoy the feel of him against me, the gentle stroke of his free hand along my side, and relax into the rush of endorphins. After a bit, enough to come off the initial haze, I pull away from the soft kiss, and pull him away with the hand in his hair. I flick my eyes open, studying his face — the open mouth and closed eyes, the pleasure written over his skin — and then sweeping down his neck and along the line of his shoulder. The sight curves one corner of my lips upwards, and I sweep my hand up Kon's back and grip his upper arm for a second.

He nods, dipping his head down to touch his forehead to my skin, and then pauses his movements to draw back away from me. His hand slides out from underneath my back, and I shift to raise both my legs and wrap them around his waist, which gets me a thick shudder and a moment where he arches his head back. When he moves again it's to straighten up, both of his hands curling underneath and around my hips, holding them up and off the bed an inch or so. He opens his eyes, looking down at me, and I offer him one of Jason's softer smirks and stretch out, bringing both of my arms up to loop behind my head. He swallows, hard.

I'm spent, satisfied and eased in the leftover so-called 'glow' of endorphins, but that doesn't mean I can't or don't enjoy watching the flex of his arms and torso as he starts to thrust again. The physical pleasure I get from it is minimal, more an afterthought than anything else, but the mental appreciation of the physique of my chosen partner is more important. Kon seeking his own pleasure is something to watch, and if I have my way no one else will ever get to enjoy it.

The curve of his chest down to his waist, the lines of defined muscle, and the tracks that beads of sweat follows as they find their way down his torso. The way his shoulders round as he fights to keep from folding inwards over me, the press of his fingers around my hips — careful because I told him to be — and the tightness in his jaw that makes the muscle in his neck stand out. All of that is mine.

No one else will ever touch him, or see this. Not without suffering a quick death afterwards, anyway. There are certainly situations where I would be forced to allow it, but they're very unlikely and I will be very sure to hunt down whoever got the privilege and put an end to them. I don't share the things I treasure.

Treasure? No, that's not right. Kon is useful, and I won't give anyone else the chance to gain his loyalty, so the word is probably… value. Yes, that's more accurate.

Kon's eyes slide closed, pace picking up from the slow ride, and his neck arches back as his fingers contract around my hips. I flex my thighs around his waist, just to see the full-body shudder and hear the half bitten off moan, and he very carefully eases his grip on my hips. Not once did it come close to bruising or even uncomfortable, but it's good he's still thinking about it. His head drops down from the arch, hanging a bit as his teeth visibly clench together.

Somewhere in my head — not really in the back of my mind, but much closer to the front of it — I click into background tasks, running through mental surveillance videos of the invasion. Cataloguing the injuries I know our side sustained, as well as how badly I saw heroes get hurt throughout the course of the fight, and what's been reported so far. It will be good to know precisely how we fared compared to them, and what we might be able to pull off in the territory of currently injured heroes.

Background tasks, however. Something to keep my mind occupied while I allow myself to simply enjoy the sight of Kon. If I tried to actually focus completely on him, chances are good I'd get bored or antsy and interrupt him to get work done. I learned early on in my sexual experiments that no matter how interesting or good looking a partner might be, if I'm not directly involved with whatever the activity is, like now, I will get bored. I won't lose the ability to focus, I have a lot of patience and a lot of practice at stake outs, but I'll cease paying real attention, and then I'll get frustrated that they're not finished and I can't get back to getting things done.

It's easier, and better, if I simply devote most of my mind to reviewing data or figuring out a problem, while I let my conscious mind idly enjoy the sights presented to me. I get work done, and my partner still thinks I'm at least mostly focused on them.

Kon is under no illusion that his presence is enough to keep my full attention, he's been at the receiving end of too many demands to hand me my laptop or a pad of paper. He knows that my mind never really stops working, which is why he's pulled up and away from me, working for his own release. I've told him that I can enjoy the aesthetics, but that most of me is no longer engaged on a conscious level. I'm nearly certain it isn't something that he can really imagine, but the idea seemed to amuse more than it irritated, so at least he understands the futility of attempting to keep my full focus.

That's good. The one other partner that I actually had something vaguely permanent with — that is, that I slept with more than once or twice — never seemed to grasp that he wasn't going to instantly be the focus of my attention whenever he walked in a room. The moment he dared to actually touch my laptop without asking or at least pausing to give me time to stop him, that was done. He didn't particularly appreciate my refusal; I think he might still have scars from my insistence that he leave me alone.

It's not much different, really, from a good movie or a show. Entertaining, pretty to watch, but capable of actually keeping my intellect occupied? No, not really. Not unless something particularly unique, fascinating, or aggravating is occurring.

Jason still finds it hilarious that foreign martial arts movies are capable of frustrating me with their inaccuracies to the point I have to leave the room, or give up on the idea of actually getting work done. I don't understand how Dick and Jason can ignore it — Jason does get irritated, but also amused, by inaccurate gun usage — and enjoy something so horrendously wrong. Bruce never really stops to focus on a movie anyway, unless he's practically falling asleep, and I half believe that Damian pretends enjoyment of films purely to confuse all of us, and rob me of an ally. I can't truly believe that the inaccuracies don't bother him, not with how he was raised.

Then again, Damian has shown a tendency to enjoy very strange, simple things. I theorize it's because of his limited, rather sheltered, upbringing. He may have known a thousand nonlethal ways to render someone out of commission when he came to us, and the correct dosage and antidote for nearly every poison known to mankind, but when it came to actual real world experience he was severely lacking. There are still small things that we take for granted, that he finds completely incomprehensible.

Someday, Damian will actually be able to fit in with normal society. If Bruce won't ensure it, then I will. After all, Bruce has already handed me all but complete control over Wayne Enterprises, and that means I have a public image to uphold in addition to my role as Black Talon.

Damian, will not be the only member of my official family incapable of socializing. I need him fit to put in front of a camera.

Kon is panting, chest heaving, and the pace of both his hips as well as the tremble I can feel in his thighs both tell me that he's not far from his own completion. I take a second to pay a bit more attention to the picture he makes — to admire the result of the choice I made of who to claim as mine — before pulling my right arm from beneath my head and reaching up. From my angle, and with the distance between us, I can only reach his chest, so I run my fingers down that. I dig my nails in on the slide down, because why not?

He drags his eyes open, slowly focusing on me, and I crook my fingers in a silent demand for him to lean down. He obeys of course, bending to layer himself over me and releasing my left hip to brace his lower arm on the bed beside my head.

I may not give him my full attention, but I don't need to. I know everything Kon enjoys, and I'm not, precisely, selfish. My experience was good, so I'll return the favor. Quid pro quo.

The fact that I can enjoy watching Kon fall apart under my touch is only bonus.

I draw my legs a little higher up his back, tightening my thighs around his waist, and he makes a low, strained noise that sharpens into a cry as I clench down around him. His teeth grit together, breath huffing between them, and I reach up and rake my hand through his hair, pulling it up instead of down to — figuratively — force his head to lower down against my shoulder. I unfold my other arm from beneath my head as the arm braced against the bed trembles in exertion, and run my hand up that arm and then underneath it to stroke down his ribs.

He groans through his teeth, and follows it up with an exhalation that I barely hear — "Tal…" — my name in.

There are times I wish that any of the things to say that occur to me in these situations didn't all sound like things from some kind of cheesy, poorly acted, and inaccurate porn 'movie.' Or, in the same vein, like the things that Jason hisses into Roy's ear in their encounters. I don't think either of us have ever understood how Dick manages to sound natural, or at least confident, saying things that by all rights should never have left one of those scripts. At least, I don't.

I settle for just pressing my lips to the skin below his ear, and then taking the lobe of it between my teeth and biting down. Hard, because I want to transfer the most sensation that I can to him. I get my gratification in the form of a jerk of the braced arm, and a brief hesitation of the otherwise steady slam of his hips. I can feel his jaw tighten against my shoulder, the fluctuation in how the muscles of his lower abdomen are clenching, and release the grip of my teeth on his ear.

Long enough, anyway, to murmur, "Now, Kon."

He gives a full-body shiver, arches into me, and I can feel him throb inside of me as his hips stutter and press hard — gentle for him — against me, as far in as he can get. I release his hair, swapping my hands so my left gently cradles the back of his skull, and my right is free to trace patterns and give smooth strokes across what skin of his I can reach. He stays tense for a second or so, but then relaxes down into me, mouth open and breath hot against my skin, sweat making him faintly slippery to the touch, but that's simply a fact of sex.

He's still mostly supported by his arm, but I know his habits, and I know he's half likely to fall asleep right on top of me. Especially after an invasion like the one earlier.

"Kon," I say softly, getting something between a groan and a mumble in answer. "Shift to the side."

It takes him a few seconds to really respond, but then he drags in a deep breath and pulls away from me, his left hand reaching between us to secure the bottom of the condom before he draws out of me. He shudders, eyes squeezing shut for a second, and the brief overwhelm seems to wake him up at least a little bit. He strips the condom off his cock, tying the end and tossing it haphazardly in the direction of where the nearby, small, wastebin is. I track it with my gaze until it lands, nearly miraculously, actually in the trash.

He all but collapses farther into the bed, staying still for just a moment before I watch him crawl his way higher up the bed beside me, pressing up against my side and laying his head halfway onto my shoulder. His arm slips around my waist, palm splaying out flat against my side, and I watch with the smallest edge of disbelief as his right leg hooks between mine so he's pretty much intertwined with me.

"Kon," I start to say, to remind him that I have work and I'll need to get up and retrieve my laptop from across the room, "you—"

"Tal, I—" His jaw works, and then he closes his eyes and turns his head into my shoulder. "Just let me listen? Just for a bit?"

I pause, trying to figure out exactly what it is in the tone of his voice that makes me think this might be important. I do have work, even though there's still none of it that actually demands my attention, or isn't already being done by Bruce. A second opinion is important, but it's not so important that it absolutely has to be done. Bruce will be organizing all of the actual Crime Syndicate members, and all of my team were in the battle itself; they'll need time to recover. I suppose…

I glance sideways, to my laptop, and then back down at Kon. I'm not sure if the way his eyes flick open is something he heard that told him I was looking, or just chance, and I don't think the look in his eyes is intended to be manipulation, but it works anyway.

"There isn't anything time sensitive," I concede, "and I'll have to sleep at some point. I suppose it can be now." His face lights up, mouth curving in a smile, and I nudge his head with the shoulder underneath it. "Move so I can get under the sheets."

When he settles against my back, both of us underneath the covers on the bed — though I know he'll have kicked most of them off by the time he wakes up due to higher Kryptonian temperatures — and buries his face between my shoulder blades, one arm heavy around my waist, it's pleasant and satisfying in a way I don't really understand. By all rights having that much of a heater at my back, and being even pseudo-contained like this, should make me incapable of truly resting. But Kon is mine, and even if I'm stripped down of most of my defenses he's not. He's a living weapon, and he's under my control, loyal to me, and more than capable of holding any attacker off until I can reach whatever I need to defeat them.

So the press of his skin against mine is comforting, like the pattern of exhalations rushing across my back, and it lets me close my eyes and relax. It doesn't stop my mind from running through various menial tasks until sleep finally claims me, but it comes close.

---

So I don't know how this got to 19K, but whatever. It happens. Again, in the continuity of my Earth-3 universe, this happens immediately after 'Never Have I Ever.' You can spot the same injuries on Jason and Roy if you look closely, and by the way yes, I do know what Roy said to Kon. It was pretty much along the lines of: "Black Talon is an Owl and you will never ever get him to do anything by yelling or demanding. Calm down and ask."

Also, isn't in-denial Tim just adorable? Jason can see right through that bullshit. I know (and have started writing) the moment where Tim realizes things. He might kind of mentally break for a minute or so, and Jason might laugh. A lot.

So, next up I'm taking a brief break from posting things that are part of my Earth-3 universe, and posting the first chapter of a story that is Canon!verse Jason getting catapulted into the future of the Batman Beyond universe. Because Terry needs to shape the hell up, and I have my own theories about what happened to split the Bats apart/where the hell Jason is in that universe.

I'll see you guys next weekend!