He didn't know if this was allowed, he only knew that he wanted it. Impulsiveness had always been more of an enemy than a friend to him, but he believed in keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. Much closer.
Bruce without his cowl always made him stare because it was half of everything and the closest thing to right.
More than that, the legend became approachable like this. So he took a step closer. And then another. Bruce's mind was elsewhere—a case, a memory, who knew? Distraction: just another enemy.
Sliding in and around, cape against his knuckles and cords of muscles pressing in and ahhhh...Yes.
Nothing ever feels the way you imagined it. He knew that well enough from hundreds of bruises that weren't supposed to be so bad; dozens of sparing matches that weren't supposed to feel so good. Still, he hadn't expected this.
Bruce wasn't warm or particularly easy to hold (which would have been a plus, but wrong). He was too big and uncomfortable (not in his own skin, just near yours). Rigid as any of the hard metal tools he kept on his person. Inflexible in so many ways.
But he smelled like synthetic fibers and sweat and a fair amount of blood (mostly belonging to others), which is exactly what Jason smelled like himself after patrol. So nothing wrong with that. Nothing new about that. Only now the smell was more intense because he was where he wanted to be instead of where Bruce wanted to put him.
Just a little closer and his head came to rest somewhere south of Bruce's heart. His own was too loud to hear any sound Bruce's might be making (if it was there to make a sound at all). And maybe Bruce was speaking just under the din, but impulsiveness, his old, old friend (or was that enemy?), was telling him that the man himself didn't even know what he wanted so it was best just not to listen.
He pulled him closer, told him to shut up. Was only partly surprised when he did.
This wasn't familiar ground for Bruce and arguing with him when he was this close was probably no easy task (what do you do with an armful of Boy Wonder?). Pushing him away would be even harder.
Which meant that, for once in this frustrating 'partnership,' he'd won. Because Bruce dropped his hands onto his shoulders—not pulling or pushing, just testing how it felt—and sighed. And even that sound was different from how he'd imagined it because what it sounded like was a thousand trumpets of long-awaited surrender. Not stoic resignation or exhausted indifference. Surrender. So, yeah, this was half right, too.
Dammit, he'd won. He'd won.