Take Your Finger Off The Trigger

by Skalidra

Red Hood is Jason Todd, a mercenary bent on taking down any and all operations run by his two former allies, Owlman and Nightingale. Finally, one of his jobs lands him back in Gotham, where he comes face to face with both of them. The reunion isn't pretty, but it also isn't what he expects. - Earth-3 universe, pairing is Bruce/Jason/Dick.

1. Chapter 1

Welcome! So, this is a story that was (big shocker here) originally meant to be a small oneshot. This behemoth later, I had the first chapter. I've finished three chapters; I'm working on the fourth and final one now. Yes, all of them are this big. Like I said, behemoth. XD This does take place in the Earth-3 universe (role-swapped characters) but it's not part of my connected one; this is a stand-alone piece.

Warnings for this chapter are : threesome M/M/M, restraints/bondage, sadism, punishment, breath play, impact play, a panic attack, referenced canon character death, and dubious consent.

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"Do you know why I'm upset with you, Jason?" Bruce asks, his teeth sharp and bright in the faint light as he speaks, helmet missing and blue eyes bared to the world. To me.

I swallow blood, breathing shallowly against the bruised ribs and the burning twist of my left shoulder as I shudder and give a harsh bark of laughter. God I don't feel it, but appearances are everything in here. "Thought it might have something to do with leaving, dying, not staying dead, not coming back, fighting y—"

Bruce smiles, and my words slam back into my throat so hard I almost choke. I twist my hands and wrists against the cuffs on them — pulled so tight that the edges bite and tear at my skin; designed that way, I know — and Dick jerks hard on my hair as punishment, his fingers digging into my burning shoulder hard enough to make me shudder and groan through my teeth.

"Easy, little wing," Dick says with a smile in his voice, even if I can't see it. His fingers leave my shoulder and trace up over my arched throat, pulling with the hand in my hair in just the right way to make me arch up against the touch that lingers dangerously against the jut of my Adam's apple, and his fingers flutter up and then down with it as I swallow. "Don't make yourself bleed, that's our right."

"Fuck you," I spit up at him, and he laughs. Bright and unaffected, too damn cheerful for the mass murdering psychopath he is. He shoves my head back down, hand lingering in my hair but not pulling or grasping anymore, just sitting. His other hand drifts back from my throat and slips beneath the collar of my jacket to grip the junction of my neck and shoulder.

Bruce's smile is thin, matching fucking perfectly with that look that's always in the back of his eyes, that never goes away. Studying, tearing me apart from the inside out because he knows me better than I know myself and I've always hated that. Feared it, but hated it. He's amused, but the layer of blatant expression on his face — the fake layer — is disappointment. Even knowing he's forcing it to be there it makes me twitch and fight not to drop my head all the way to the floor and ask for his forgiveness.

It's never that easy.

"That's not right," Bruce corrects, reaching forward from where he's sitting in his chair in front of me and I'm kneeling half between his legs, held down by Dick's hand on my shoulder and his weight at my back. I can't pull away from him, can't even try because I'm trained too damn well to respond to his voice and his touch and it doesn't matter how long I've been gone; that never goes away.

His fingers touch my cheek and my eyes shutter closed at the slight drag of clawed fingertips against my skin, the cool metal of the gauntlet covering his hand as it soothes over my face. It feels natural, feels like home, and I bite my tongue to hold back the sound that wants to leave me. I don't know if it would be a whimper or a snarl or some ungodly mix of the two, and I don't want to find out. His thumb catches against my lower lip, pulling it slightly away from my teeth, and I hold perfectly, utterly still even though I want to shout and bite and fucking claw his eyes from his skull.

Because I couldn't. I could never hurt Bruce, not even if Dick wasn't pressing against my back and my bound hands like a second skin. I could open my mouth, I could snarl and make a show of it, but bite? Never. I'm all bark and Bruce knows it. Uses it to damn me to hell over and over again because he knows I'll always, always, fold.

The claw of his gauntleted thumb bumps against my teeth, hooking between them with practiced ease, and I shiver as Dick's hand moves, stroking through my hair like I'm something precious, like he didn't just beat me to the ground and drag me back here by the scruff of my neck. Dick always manages to do that, somehow. To make you feel like everything he does is completely impersonal and unconnected, but at the same time so damn intimate that it's like he's your closest lover or your shadow.

"Jason," Bruce commands, not needing to say the words for me to know what's expected of me. His voice slides across my shoulders like the slither of a cape, familiar and promising safety in the way it hides me, but it's not who I am, not anymore. It's not and I— God, I…

I let my jaw relax, and Dick croons a sound of approval above me and gives the slightest tug at my hair. Rewarding this time, not punishing, because Dick likes the idea of a carrot almost as much as a stick, but his idea of which is which isn't always right. Bruce's thumb — covered in metal and leather, and it's sick that the taste is a familiar one on my tongue — slips deeper into my mouth, pushing through my teeth, and I shiver again and try not to react as the tip of the claw drags over my tongue. Sharp enough to sting, to raise the faintest taste of blood, but not really enough to hurt.

Bruce makes a small sound of approval that shouldn't make me relax into his hand, but it does. Because I am sick and wrong, and no matter how deep in cover I try and hide Bruce is burrowed so deeply beneath my skin that I'll never get him out. His thumb slips back out, scratching a bit more purposefully, and allows me to close my mouth again as his hand pulls back away.

"I'm not angry that you left, Jason," Bruce says softly, and I pry my eyes open and look up at him, at the faint disappointment still on his face. All the parts of me still loyal to Bruce — every part of me — holds its breath and focuses on him, waiting and watching to see what I've done wrong and how I can fix it. "You needed to learn to fly on your own, I understood. Dick did the same thing, and I always knew you would come back to me."

Now, I know he's right. I was so sure then, when I ran from Bruce's shadow and the burden of always being Talon, that I was never going back. But all the nights I've shuddered awake with his name on my lips, or the phantom feeling of Dick's hands against my back, have taught me otherwise. I was always going to come back here, I wouldn't have been able to stand staying away.

"Your death was… unfortunate, and your resurrection at that hero's hands more so," my heart dips, some part of me cringing away at the implication that the fact I'm alive is 'unfortunate,' "but I cannot regret the outcome of it all. However long your absence you are home again, Jason, and whatever you did while away from my care it makes no difference. You're home."

"Not by choice," I manage, and Bruce gives a low chuckle that Dick echoes with a bright laugh. I almost get a snarl to my lips, almost, before the hand in my hair pulls steadily back, and Dick leans down next to my ear.

"Leave playing hard to get to the masters, little wing," he hisses, his teeth nipping at the side of my neck in a way that makes my pulse jump in something that isn't really fear. I don't doubt that Dick would tear my throat out with his teeth if he wanted to, but it wouldn't be this easy, things are never that easy in this place. I don't have to fear death, not yet.

If Bruce wanted me dead — it wouldn't matter if Dick did, because Dick is more Bruce's than even I am — it would be long, and painful, and I would beg for him to end things long before he let Dick rip my throat out. I'm not screaming, so whatever it is Bruce is going to pry out of me before he even thinks of letting me go, it isn't my life.

Dick's hand slides around the front of my throat, settling easily across my skin and pressing in just hard enough to make my breath catch on every inhalation, to make me feel his presence. Bruce watches with a predatory look, one I'm more used to reading through the large, white eyes of his Owlman helmet. Seeing the slightly narrowed eyes to match the slight smirk is a little unnerving. Bruce is always most dangerous in this half-and-half state. Where he's not Owlman, but he's not pretending to be Mr. Wayne either. Just Bruce, free of anything to hold him down and free to do anything he wants.

"You came to Gotham, Jason," Bruce reminds me. "If you wanted to stay away from us you would never have stepped foot in my city again. You wanted to be back here."

"No—" I protest, and Dick's hand closes tight around my throat, cutting me off so Bruce can continue.

"Wanted to be back under our hands," Bruce says, and I give as much of a shake of my head as I can; I get another yank to my hair for my trouble, "and wanted to be one of the fold again." He reaches forward, tracing his fingers along my cheek again. "It's alright, Jason. You don't need to pretend here. You're an Owl, you're one of us, and you will always be safe under this roof. Give in, and the two of us will remind you what it's like to be accepted, to be loved."

It's a nasty keyword trick, and I twitch and choke under Dick's grip, but that doesn't make it work any less. I know what Bruce wants from me, and I know I'll give it, but just a minute more, just a few seconds, god just a second more before I have to. My wrists twist against the handcuffs, shoulders jerking back against Dick in a way that's more instinctive struggle than any real attempt at fighting. It's dumb to be here at all, but it would be even worse to try fighting Dick at a disadvantage like this. I know better than that.

Dick's fingers tighten, clamping down in just the right way to keep me at the edge of gasping, getting barely enough air to pull me slowly towards suffocation. It's so much worse than the sudden, sharp panic of strangulation. Dick is a master at giving you just enough air that it's not enough. Prolonged death, and it barely even leaves much of a bruise when he's finished with you.

He could keep me right on the edge of blacking out for hours, if he really wanted to, and maybe it makes me a coward but I know this feeling and it scares me to death. I'd rather put my life in their hands willingly than have the option taken from me like this.

I push my head back against the warmth of Dick's chest — a furnace even through the layers of reinforced fabric and armor pads — and force myself into perfect stillness. I stop struggling, stop breathing, lean back, bare my throat, and surrender to the hold of my older brother-in-arms. There's a purr of approval next to my ear and Dick's grip loosens enough to let me breathe, but I don't, as I was taught. The hardest thing I ever learned.

How to surrender. How to relax in a grip that's killing you and give everything you are to someone else, to hand another person control over anything they want. To give Bruce control over what I did, to not even breathe without his command. It was so hard, but I learned. They made sure I learned.

"Inhale," Bruce demands, and I obey because I don't have another option. Dragging in air past the pressure of Dick's hand until my lungs are full of it and they start to burn, and when my instincts tell me I should let it go I hold it in. Twitching under the strain but never breathing out because Bruce knows my limits, always has, and right as it's too much and I can't keep the air in any longer he speaks.

"Exhale."

The rush of it back out makes me feel ragged, empty. My eyes slide shut again, and Dick's hand strokes over my throat, the padded fingertips of his gloves — the only one of the three of us who didn't choose to have claws because Dick likes to grab and twist and stroke — slipping easily across my skin. His other hand loosens in my hair and then slips back and down to tangle in the shorter hairs at the base of my skull.

"Inhale."

It's totally impossible to relax with the strain of keeping air out or keeping air in, of not doing what my body insists is what I have to, but I ease into it anyway. Dick's fingertips gently stroking at the base of my skull, his other hand petting along the front of my throat, dipping down and beneath the front of my shirt a few inches, become my world. My eyes stay closed, my head tilted back against my brother's chest, and I let myself fade away to nothing but the easy commands of Bruce.

In, and out, and in again. It's frighteningly easy, and familiar. Everything I am reduced to being still, waiting for the word of my… not my father, to command me, to tell me if I get to breathe for a moment longer.

"Good, Jason," Bruce says quietly, praising, and I shove the angry, violent, scared bits of me away to let that praise sink into my bones and warm my chest. "You may breathe as you wish."

I remember gasping when I was new, when he would release me from that kind of a surrender, but now I only draw in a shallow, controlled breath, letting my eyes stay closed. It hurts to take in anything deeper, and I'm not the masochistic fuck most people seem to think I am, and not a big fan of causing myself pain. I didn't come back to Gotham for Bruce, I didn't, and I definitely didn't come back to get my ass kicked by Dick, so why the hell does it feel like I did? Why do I feel like I'm right where I belong for the first time in months and years, and right back where I should be?

I do not belong kneeling in front of my not-father with my not-brother at my back, but damn if it doesn't feel like I do. The tight, itchy pain of the cuffs around my wrists is new, but the rest of this is sickeningly familiar. It feels natural to be on my knees for Bruce and waiting for his word or his command, Dick pressing against my back and waiting equally as fervently, like Bruce is a damn god and we're both waiting for him to hand down the ten commandments.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

I let my head hang, bowing under the gentle touch of Dick's hand and the weight of Bruce's stare, easing into the position they've put me in like— god, like I never even left. This is so dangerous. I didn't come back to Gotham for them — I've been denying the loyal parts of me for years and I didn't suddenly cave to them just like that — but I could forget that. I could shatter all over again like Bruce wants me to, slip back into being Talon as easily as I can shrug into my jacket, like I never took the costume off to start with. It would be so easy, and I could have a home again and not just a place I sleep; I could let Bruce and Dick have me, body and soul, and never look over my shoulder for a knife at my back again. With them watching, I wouldn't have to.

But I spent a long time dragging myself back from the edge of the pit-madness, making myself something, anything, that didn't kill on reflex. Trying to forget what Bruce made me, and how much I enjoyed it. How much I enjoyed being in control for once in my life, being the one standing over someone else's broken form and not the one on the ground. Trying to forget the way that Bruce would smile when I did something particularly vicious, or made someone scream. The way Dick would laugh, his head arcing back like he was showing off with every noise, before he'd come up to my back, slip his hands around my waist and around my gloves, every line of his body pressed up against my own, just to feel the blood dampen the fabric of his gloves. Trying to forget that however much I kidded myself that I wasn't a psychopath like Dick or a sociopath like Bruce — manipulative bastard — at my heart I liked the taste of blood on my tongue and the feel of a man's last, desperate struggle under my hands before he died. I always liked it.

"It's good to have you back, Jason," Bruce says, and I don't hear him move but then there's a gauntleted hand on my throat and I flick my eyes open and up to look at him, to meet his gaze, and damnit I know I'm showing too much. Bruce can read me like a book anyway, all the time, but I usually like to not make his job any easier.

I hate him, and I fear him, and I would lay down at his feet and be happy there for a long time. I want to curse and scream at him, snarl and snap and run until I can get away from the loyalty burning sharp in my chest. I'd forgotten what this felt like, and it's all so much worse now that I know what it's like outside of Gotham. It's not better, but it's not this.

"I'm sorry," is what comes out of my mouth, a plea more than an apology. Forgive me, please. I don't even know what it's for, not really. For what I've done, what I haven't done, what I'm going to do?

Bruce's fingers press into the faintly tender spots left by Dick's grip, just for a moment, and he glances up at my brother, the man I replaced. "Do you know why I'm upset with you, Jason?" he repeats, focusing down at me again.

"No," I admit, swallowing against the press of his hand and trying really hard not to lean forward into it, just to feel him against me. Just to feel anyone against me.

Bruce had to be angry, to send Dick after me like he did. He sent Dick to take me apart when I'd barely even crossed city limits, and he knows that if he'd showed up in front of me and ordered me home, I would have done it. I hate myself for thinking it, but I know I would have done it. I gave Dick one hell of a chase, there are going to be a lot of headlines tomorrow about our fight — and my really public, brutal defeat at Dick's hands — but I didn't need the beating to know that Bruce was going to have me back home. All I would have needed to hear was his voice, all I would have needed to see was the flash of his cape or the crook of his fingers, and I would have followed him back here even knowing it was a terrible idea. It's screwed up, and it makes me sick to the stomach with anger and fear, but I can never deny that Bruce is everything to me.

He sent Dick after me to hurt me, which means Bruce is angry enough about something I've done that he was willing to ignore his usual abhorrence for media involvement. That's one hell of a concession for Bruce the control freak, who only ever does something when he's at least eighty-five percent sure it's going to go the way he wants.

But what the hell did I do? He said it wasn't leaving, or dying, or coming back, or not coming back to Gotham, or even fighting him over the last few years. I fought him quietly, it's not like I ever dared actually coming after him directly, but I've run a lot of interference outside of Gotham. I helped heroes, for god's sake, and used all that insider knowledge to hit him where it would hurt. If he's not angry about that, what the hell could he be angry about?

There's no way in hell he knows about why I'm really back in Gotham — I'd be so beyond dead if he did — so what? What else have I done that could piss him off enough that he'd want me punished before he'd even seen me again?

Bruce's claws dig into my skin a little bit and I do the dumbest, most anti-survivalist thing on fucking automatic. I push into the touch, into the sting, arching my throat to bare it. The second I realize what I'm doing I shudder, but hold back the urge to pull sharply away. I can cling to the naive, stupid little hope that I'm really not letting myself fall for this shit again, but my best chance of getting out of this in one piece is if they believe I'm sinking back into the role they want me to play. Maybe I can't fool Bruce, but Bruce hasn't seen me in a long time and he doesn't know me like he did. I think I can get away with it.

I'd never have stepped foot in Gotham's limits ever again if I didn't think I had a chance of making it back out. I'm really not suicidal and I've done a lot of stupid shit but I'm not dumb enough to underestimate the kind of things Bruce could do to me. I've seen him torture people, helped him do it, even if he usually lets Dick do those kinds of things. Bruce likes power, it's Dick that loves the blood and the pain.

I hold myself still under his claws, not breaking eye contact and shutting down the instinct to pull away and the desire to press closer. Bruce doesn't appreciate people trying to get away from him, or anyone trying to deny him what he wants. He wants me, and I don't think I know how to give him what that without permanently losing another piece of myself. He has enough bits of me that he's pried away or I've bared to him already, fuck if I'm giving him any more if I can help it.

"Then what are you apologizing for?" Bruce asks, the claws digging in just a little harder, enough that I feel them break skin in a place or two. Not enough to bleed that much, but enough to sting.

I know what he's doing, but it almost works anyway. I have to bite down on my tongue and swallow hard not to spit out everything I've done out of his sight that I knew he'd disapprove of. Somewhere in my messed up head I know I have a mental list that I've been making, as I did things and then thought of what Bruce would say if he saw me doing it, and filed it away in a list of things to feel guilty about. Small things, mostly, with a few larger ones that stick out sharply in my head — mostly not killing people that I could or maybe even should have — but nothing specific that I can think of that would make him angry enough to do this.

"Everything," I settle on saying, and I hate the way my voice comes out pleading. I have no idea what I did, and no idea exactly what my first apology was even about. I don't know and I can't tell him what I don't know.

Bruce's eyes narrow just a little, claws easing back just a bit. "Is that right?"

These guessing games always make me nervous as all hell. When you don't know why someone's mad at you that's bad, but when you don't know why Bruce is mad at you that's a whole other level of dangerous. If I know what it is I can fix it, or defuse, or explain, or just accept whatever punishment he has planned, but until I know I can't do any of that. I'm bad at guessing games, it's pretty much always true that if I didn't know what someone was talking about at the start of a conversation, I'm not going to guess unless they hand out really obvious hints. Social things aren't really my talent.

"I'd really appreciate you just telling me," I manage warily, way more cautiously than I'd speak to even Ra's al Ghul. Dick gives another small tug at the strands of hair curled between his fingers, at the base of my skull. Not enough to really hurt, it's a warning instead of a punishment.

Bruce's hand abruptly leaves my throat, and with anyone else I'd say that's a good thing but Bruce getting distant usually isn't good. That's when he gets nastiest, is when he's disconnected from whatever victim he's picked for the day. In a sick way, Bruce having my throat in his hand is a weird kind of guarantee that he's probably not going to hurt me that badly. It's strange but it's true.

There's a flash of silent communication over my head that I can only read part of without being able to see Dick's face, and Bruce's bits are always harder so all I get is that it's a command.

Dick's hands release their grips and slide down my front as he bends down over me, still pressed firmly against my back and the length of my bound arms, and he makes a very displeased sound in my ear as his lips graze against it and his breath washes over my skin. His hands shove my jacket away from my sides, resting fingers on my ribs as his teeth graze across the top of my ear, and I shudder at the feeling and the way Dick's fingers are prodding into my ribs and mapping out my tiny flinches. I don't think any of my ribs are broken, but there's definitely some nasty bruising going on and Dick is remembering exactly where he hit me to make it happen.

"You've been playing with other people, Jason," Dick hisses into my ear, with a snap of his teeth right next to it to punctuate his accusation. I can't help flinching.

"Talia," Bruce says shortly, sharply, and I get the weirdest mix of reactions.

On one hand I want to laugh, because shit. Everything I've done in direct opposition to Bruce over the last few years, or just how I've not been acting anything like the loyal minion he trained me to be, and he's upset with me because I had sex with some other person? Dick and Bruce are seriously this irritated because I chose to sleep with someone else once during the years I've been gone? That's it? There are so many worse things I could have done, that I have done, that they could be pissed about, but it's this? That's just, that's so petty in the scheme of things. One time, and I was mostly pit-mad at the time and not really in my right mind. It's not like I kept sleeping with her after that, or even like it was really good.

Talia was alright, but I guess I'm just… trained to different things. It wasn't what I wanted, even out of my mind and crazy as I was.

On the other hand, yes. I can absolutely imagine Bruce being displeased not because I fought him, or because I chose not to come back to him, but over the fact that I ever chose to let someone else that close to me. I am his, I know it, and Dick is almost as much of a possessive bastard as Bruce is. Yeah, I can imagine the two of them seeing this as the betrayal, not anything else I've done over the years. That was business, this is… personal? To them.

I wasn't expecting to get out of here without a bunch of bruises, but this could be bad.

"Talia?" I repeat, and then suck in a sharp breath as Dick's fingers go rigid and jab inwards, making me jerk a bit at the sharp pain of my bruised ribs. He makes another low, angry sound in my ear, as my head tilts back a little bit and I squeeze my eyes shut for a second.

Bruce stands. Suddenly, in a whirl of fabric and the click of metal, and my head snaps up to follow him. "Did you forget who you are, Jason?" he asks, with a thin sneer, and this time when his hand lowers to trace claws over my throat and the underside of my jaw it doesn't feel safe anymore. I swallow.

"For a bit, yeah," I answer honestly, tilting my head farther back to bare my throat at the insistent pressure on the underside of my jaw. "Lazarus pit, temporary insanity. That's when that happened." When confronted with a pissed off Bruce, the best policy is always honesty. With Dick it's getting the hell out of the way. I can't do both, but at least Dick won't hurt me too badly without Bruce's permission.

Dick snarls — it sounds wrong on him, and it really clicks into place how angry they are about this — and his fingers push in harder, forcing a strangled groan from me. "You're ours, little wing," Dick says, and I'm pretty sure the nip to the side of my throat breaks the skin because there's a sharp flash of pain where his teeth come together that feels too intense to just be bruising force. I wince.

Bruce jerks my attention back to him by raking his claws under my chin with enough force to at least raise some serious red lines on my skin, if it's not scratching me. "What Dick meant to say is that you are an Owl, and that makes you part of us above everything and everyone else. Did you forget that?" His claws tug a little harder at my skin, and I smother a second wince and try and breathe steadily through the feeling of Dick's fingers prodding and driving into my injured ribs with unerring accuracy. "You are my Talon, Jason, always."

"I'm sorry," I repeat, actually meaning it for something specific this time. Bruce gives a tiny sneer, and the reason he might be pissed clicks inside my head with a thunk that feels like it echoes because damn, I should have noticed that before.

Talia and Bruce had a thing for a while didn't they? Not an actual thing — Ra's al Ghul would murder both of them before that happened, even if he does claim to be a hero — but I remember some definite flirting and messing around. Like Bruce and Catwoman. I wasn't really in my right mind, and the details of that time are a little fuzzy, but I don't think it's really too far to jump to think Talia might have just been using me as a substitute. Not that I care, really, fuck knows I was using her too, but Bruce might not look too kindly on one of his possessions touching another without his permission.

Probably the only reason Dick isn't carving things into my skin, honestly. It should probably scare me more than it does that I'm pretty sure Dick would carve his name into my flesh without a second thought and with a lot of pleasure, if Bruce would let him.

Bruce pulls his hand back — and I catch the wet glint of blood off the end of his claws, which means I'm going to have some interesting scratches later — and nods to Dick, who immediately withdraws his hands and grabs me by the upper arms, dragging me to my feet. I stifle a gasp but still make a pained noise at the pull and awkward twist of my injured left shoulder as my weight is forced through it. Oh, that's not fun. A little more fun than Dick playing 'find the soft spot' with my ribs, but not by much.

"Apologies have no substance, Jason," Bruce reminds me, as Dick's hands tighten painfully around my arms and he purposefully pushes my shoulder up at an angle that makes me grit my teeth, "you know that."

"And you know I don't apologize to just anybody," I manage, in a voice that's half-snarl because damn does my shoulder burn and ache at the angle Dick's holding it. "I honestly can't remember why the hell I even agreed to it, Bruce, alright? I don't even know why she offered."

Shit, except now I do remember why I agreed, though. That happens with the pit-mad memories. They're fuzzy and gone until I actually think about them, and then they snap back into focus and everything is sharp and vivid, like it's happening right now.

When Talia propositioned I said yes because the pit was still really influencing me, and everything felt so much more alive and bright than they had before. I wanted to know if sex was the same and, underneath that damn shallow reason, I wanted to know if things would be different with a woman. I wanted to know if the attraction could stay that, if I could pull through sex with a woman and actually make it or if I was so well trained that it just wouldn't satisfy. And I… I was in so much pain, at that point, I just wanted anything to numb all the feelings out or make them go away just for a little while. I've always dodged moments like that by burying myself in someone else's skin, and Talia's offer felt like the perfect solution.

I got my answers.

"Tell me," Bruce demands, showing off that irritating as all hell ability to know exactly when something's occurred to me just by watching me. Dick lets my shoulder drop back down to a normal height, and I resist the urge to roll it because I know that will hurt like a bitch. I don't think it's dislocated, everything still feels pretty much in place, but I'm sure Dick wrenched it pretty badly while he was busy beating me into the ground.

It's not like there's a point in lying, I guess, or even refusing to answer. If Bruce wants the answer he'll get it out of me, one way or another.

"I was pit-mad," I say shortly, resisting the urge to sink to my knees or back down from Bruce's faint sneer in any way. "It hurt, I didn't have anyone, she offered, and I said yes to make it all go away for a couple hours." Dick's fingers tighten for a moment, and he makes another displeased sound, but they loosen again after the moment is done. "That's all it was and it never happened again."

Bruce's sneer fades, but his head tilts up and he looks down his nose at me. It almost stings more than the scratches in my skin or the minor scrapes I've got all over from the surfaces of streets or walls. "Did it work?" he asks, disappointment, disgust, and something like dismissal all in his voice at once.

It takes me longer then it should to connect the two things together, but then I swallow again. "No," I answer. and Bruce gives a small, slow, smile. Satisfied. In response to the look Dick's grip loosens further, and a mouth presses against the side of my throat, close to where he bit me earlier. Not apologizing — the only time 'sorry' comes near Dick's mouth is when he's being sarcastic or mocking — but soothing.

"Good," my not-brother murmurs against my skin, and I can't help shivering at how familiar the touch feels, but so new at the same time. "No one else knows you like we do, Jason. No one."

That's probably a good thing. I'm not the same kind of crazy that my two 'family' members are, but I'm sure as hell not free, or innocent, or anything. I chose to be Talon, and I liked it. Explaining the kind of shit I've done to anyone else would probably be a quick way to get a legion of heroes called down on me, and even I probably can't take more than about three or four at a time, depending on who they are. I always knew that Bruce and Dick were going to be the only people to ever really know me, even when I faked friends as part of my social front as 'Jason Wayne'. Useless cowards, most of those kids. That fact was only brought into sharper relief after I came back from the dead to a bunch of heroes that wanted me to join them, as if, and I spent months and months watching my tongue so none of them ever figured out that I was still an Owl underneath the role they'd wrapped me in.

"Dick," Bruce intercedes, looking over my shoulder at my not-brother, "get Jason cleaned up, and uncuff him. I imagine he'd like to keep those…" His gaze flicks up and down my frame, lingering on my jeans and then on my jacket. "Rags." I bite my tongue to not complain that this is real leather and everything, because he's Bruce Wayne. He could have a hundred leather coats here in an hour if he wanted them. I bow my head, not really willing to say the 'thank you' that might slip out if I open my mouth. "You'll still need to be punished, Jason," Bruce says flatly.

For once, I'm glad that Dick speaks over me, trampling over what I was going to say before my mouth is even fully open. "I'm sure he'll take whatever we give him." Dick's voice is filled with promise, anticipation, and I really, honestly don't know what he's promising. Pain, pleasure? A lot of both? Knowing him, it's probably the mix. It's hard to get Dick to do much of anything without him hurting someone nearby to keep himself entertained. "Isn't that right, Red Hood?"

The use of my working name, the one I took when I decided I didn't want to be Talon anymore, or just 'Jason', is probably a bad sign. Bruce didn't seem to care that I was 'leaving the nest,' to make an awful pun out of it, but I don't know how Dick felt about me up and running from them. If I had to guess I'd say he was mostly pissed I didn't tell him I was leaving before I actually went.

Bruce watches me as I fumble for words, as I try and find the way to say that no, I'm not going to just sink down at their feet and let them do whatever they want to me. I got away from that, I ran from that. I'm not their toy, and I'm damn well not their plaything anymore. That's what all of this was about, wasn't it? If I wanted to still be Talon, still be theirs, I would have come back to Gotham the second I was free of the pit-madness and dropped myself right back into the thick of things. I didn't. I spent a lot of time proving to myself and anyone else who dared doubting me that I could survive on my own, be something apart from who they wanted me to be. I'm not going to do this anymore, not for them.

I open my mouth to tell them that, muscles tensing under Dick's hands and beneath his teeth, and "Yes," is what comes out of it.

Bruce smiles — razor-thin and knowing — as my heart drops, and I swallow away all the rest of the words that will never, ever leave my head. Dick makes a pleased noise, biting down hard enough to hurt but not enough to make me cringe or pull away. My hands clench, pressed back against one of Dick's hips, as the fight drains out of me. Clearly my head and my heart aren't on speaking terms anymore, because fuck the rest of this I know I can't do anything but take whatever they choose to do to me. There's a part of me that holds its breath in anticipation, and wants it.

Wants the feel of Dick's nails on my skin and the way he'll drag and pull and hurt until I can't remember which way is up or why I bothered resisting in the first place, before he ever lets me come back down. Wants the cool gaze of Bruce's eyes on me as Dick plays, heating until he moves in a way that always feels like some part of him has been stripped away and left raw and aching. Dick will leave the sore muscles and the scratches, but it's Bruce who will leave bruises.

I can't breathe for how much I want that, and how afraid I am to get it.

"Good boy," Bruce says softly, approval obvious in his gaze and his tone. To get through this, to try and be something beyond a nervous wreck of anticipation, I let the tone sink into my chest and let it soothe me. It's like a pat on the head, or a murmured word of praise, but it's enough.

It's Bruce preying on all of my fucked up, attention and touch starved background, and I've read enough about it to know that, but that doesn't mean that it works any less. Knowing what he's doing doesn't mean I can stop him, or that I can stop all the hurting, lonely parts of me from accepting the only signs of praise anyone has ever given.

Bruce turns away, dismissing me and spinning the chair to sit back down in front of his console, and Dick releases his grip on my arms to grab my jacket at the shoulder instead, pulling me from the room and towards the stairs leading up to the manor. I follow without argument, without a word, as he pulls me along with him.

"When was the last time you had a shower?" Dick asks, almost cheerfully, and I find myself answering without thinking about it, falling right back into the easy communication of someone I count as family.

"Before you bruised my ribs, wrenched my shoulder, and dragged me across at least three of Gotham's streets," I say, with a sarcastic edge. My shirt might have been white to start with, but now it's dirty, ripped in a few places to show the armored pads underneath, and maybe a little stained with blood. The jacket took most of the abuse — it's not just a fashion choice, I fight on a lot of rough streets and the leather helps me not get shredded — but Dick knows how to get around any kind of armor. He knows how to target weak points.

I had a helmet, at one point, but he shattered one side of it pretty much right off the bat, which I guess was better than what that same blow would have done to my head. Not that Dick would have hit my face that hard if he wasn't aiming for the helmet; he wanted it off my head. I had a domino mask too — because Gotham is full of nasty fuckers who would love to know who I am, and my helmet doesn't always hold — but he ripped that off my face the second he had me in the car. I guess he didn't appreciate my attempt at being anything but myself.

"It wasn't that bad," Dick says, as we reach the top of the stairs and the metal door clicks aside as we approach.

He, on the other hand, is pretty much pristine. I didn't go down without a fight, and he's definitely got his own collection of bruises, but apart from one long slice along his ribs on the right side from my knife he looks untouched. Dirt doesn't show up on the black costume, and the streaks of blue along it aren't near the areas where he might get slammed up against walls or down against the ground. The slice to his side stretches from about an inch to the side of where I know his navel is and up, diagonally, to a few inches under his armpit. My knife is good, it was a present from Lady Shiva, so the armor underneath his suit didn't stand much more of a chance against it than the fabric itself. The costume is peeled away from the edges of the slice a bit, showing the armoring where it's padded and his skin where it's not, but the black has soaked up any amount of bleeding he might have done. It's a long cut, but it isn't deep.

It shouldn't take more than a few days to heal up, and the bleeding might have been more than it should have because Dick is an acrobat above all else and does not stay still for long, ever, but he probably barely even feels it.

The door into the manor clicks shut behind us, sealing shut so perfectly you'd never know where it was if you didn't already know, and he drags me down the halls without even a pause. Towards Bruce's room, it only takes me a second to figure out. That sounds right, yeah. Bruce's room is usually where we… gathered, and he's got the nicest bathroom in the whole manor so it's where everyone tends to gravitate to when they need to clean up with more than a quick rinse in the showers down in the Roost. It's not like Bruce spends that much time up here, and when he is actually sleeping he never cared if we were in and out of his room.

The manor is pretty much just the way I remember it, except a few missing or added decorations. It's been a couple years, I'm sure there have to have been at least a couple of changes made around here. Alfred doesn't usually let the manor stay precisely the same for very long, and Bruce takes, hides, or uses things often enough that even when I called this place home, things were always changing.

Alfred is the only thing that I completely, totally, missed while I was gone. There's no confliction there, I know that whatever else I might have done or whoever else I chose to hurt, I would have avoided Alfred to my last breath. There's something about having someone always ready to comfort or ply you with food or a warm hand on the shoulder that's amazing, especially when you can be covered in dirt or someone else's blood and all he'll do is click his tongue and help you to somewhere else to clean up. Alfred has put or kept me together more times than Dick and Bruce combined have taken me apart, so I'd protect him till I bled out, if that's what it took.

Because when Bruce does sleep up here he tends to be fairly tired, the door to his rooms is only about a hundred feet to the left of the hidden entrance to the Roost. Dick eases in with familiarity, and I take a glance around to see that Bruce's room is just the way I remember it, with the exception of having black sheets and comforter on the top of the bed instead of the dark blue that I remember from the last time I saw it. Roughly twenty-four hours before I ended up dead in an abandoned warehouse, broken and bleeding at the hands of someone Bruce considers — still — to be nearly an ally.

I don't know how Bruce settled things, behind closed doors, with Ultraman over what he and his little clone-son-thing did to me, but as far as I know the son of a bitch just got away with it. There was never anything in the papers, and none of the heroes I was with told me anything about any confrontations between the two of them. Usually, Crime Syndicate business stays strictly private, so no one knows how much they fight behind the soundproof, locked walls of their headquarters. I hope Bruce hurt him; I'm scared to ask.

Dick nearly shoves me towards the bathroom — the open door on the far right of the large room — and I manage to keep my balance through the mixed effect of lots of training under a bunch of ninjas, and a lot of practice at holding my ground under Dick's usually unbalancing touches. He releases my jacket once we're inside the tiled bathroom, crossing the room to flip on the shower in the far corner. It's easily big enough to fit six or seven people, with sprays coming down from all three walls of it and several racks of various care products. Some for harder scrubbing to get blood from underneath fingernails or out of skin, some for use over the more sensitive kinds of wounds, and the rest a collection that's enough to keep the famous Wayne family looking good enough for the cameras.

It's a weird double life to fight and kill, and then turn around and smile for the cameras and try to hide the bruises. I was always pretty sure that Bruce paid out a lot of bribes to get people to ignore the bruises that Dick and I went out into public with, what makeup and cover-up couldn't hide anyway, or what might show if we twisted the wrong way or our shirts gapped at just the right angle to show the injuries that should be hidden. I'm pretty damn sure that public opinion agrees that Bruce Wayne is an abusive bastard, which isn't that far off the mark.

The water starts up, hitting the tile floor with a faint tinkling noise, and Dick backtracks across the room to me. His fingers slip into one of the pockets hidden almost perfectly inside the black suit, blended in to make it look like part of his frame. I know where they are, I've watched Dick too much to not know, but if you didn't know better you could make the mistake of thinking that Dick didn't have the same tricks up his sleeves or in his belt as Bruce or I do. The key he retrieves is small, silver, and he presses up unnecessarily close to my shoulder to reach around and fit it into the cuffs, unlocking them with a soft click.

I could have picked them — I know how to pick or hack just about every kind of lock that exists — but not without him noticing, and not without getting all of my weapons and tools stripped off me in punishment. Dick doesn't press close just because he's that touch oriented, it's also a damn efficient way for him to keep track of what someone's muscles are doing even if he can't see them beneath their clothes. He's crazy, but anyone who thinks he doesn't know exactly what he's doing is an idiot.

I can't smother the wince and faint cringe as the metal falls away, and the movement reminds me that I'm pretty sure the edges on those are legitimately jagged on purpose, and my wrists are at least bleeding. Dick presses up close against me as I carefully pull my arms forward to a more natural position, gritting my teeth against the pain that comes from rolling my left shoulder forward. I'm not totally sure what Dick did to it, but it'll probably be fine given some time. It doesn't feel like torn muscle, and nothing clicks or grinds in any way that feels unnatural, so it's probably just strained.

I know what's expected of me, and I reach up to shrug out of my jacket before Dick makes a sharply angry noise and his hand snaps up, yanking my wrist away.

"No," he hisses, and then in the whiplash insanity of his normal behavior he's all wide smiles and the roll of hips where he's pressed against me. "Just stay still, little wing… I'll do it."

Which isn't a favor for me in the slightest, even if Dick knows that undressing will probably be pretty painful for me if I'm not careful about the shoulder, and the ribs. This isn't about making things easier for me, not at all. It's about reminding me that he's my superior in this arena, that he's got me under his control, and whatever the hell he wants to do, he will. There's something very vulnerable about being stripped down by someone else, even if you're letting them do it. It's different, almost empowering, stripping in front of someone else while they watch. That makes you feel desired, this makes you feel a bit like a doll. Just standing still while someone else pulls you out of your clothes, and having to stay that way.

With Dick, in particular, it's hard. I've done this before.

He slips around to my back, which makes me a little wary all by itself and totally relaxed at the same time. There's no one I trust more or less at my back than Dick, and there's no way in hell I can figure out which of those thoughts is ruling right now. Am I Talon, Jason, Red Hood, or something totally different?

I guess, right now, all I am is his.

His hands wander more than anyone would think is necessary, but that doesn't surprise me at all. Dick has always liked to touch, even without purpose. Even before I was allowed to participate in — or was dragged into, really — the later activities with the two of them, Dick was always pressing against me or finding excuses to touch or stroke. It's just part of who he is. His hands run up my arms and over my shoulders before hooking into the collar of my jacket and pulling back. My shoulders draw back automatically, as he strips the brown leather off of me, and I spare a glance to the side to see where he throws it once it's off my arms.

I actually like that jacket. It's something that's uniquely mine, something I got myself with my own resources and invested enough time into to give it all the hidden pockets and spaces that I wanted in it. It's one of the only things I own that wasn't given to me, or that I didn't pick up in some corner of the world off someone's corpse. It's mine in a way that not much else is.

It lands on the countertop stretching along the wall to our right, and Dick catches my gaze in the mirror above it. His mouth curves into a grin, teeth flashing as he leans his head into the back of my neck, hands pressing firmly but not painfully, yet, against my hips.

"Don't worry about it," he croons into my skin, hands slipping to intertwine with mine and squeeze once, hard. "I only touch what's mine, little wing, you remember that."

"That's a bad nickname," I manage, holding his gaze and trying not to look at my own reflection in the mirror. Mirrors don't hold much more than nightmares for me now, ever since the pit. I shiver when Dick's teeth close on the skin over one of the knobs of my spine, biting down hard enough to ache, sting, leave an imprint of his teeth, but not to break my skin.

"Why's that?" Dick asks, his breath warm over the bitten flesh and his lips still touching it. His head turns sideways, meeting my look more squarely, lips curving in a smirk even though his eyes are still covered by the domino mask lying across his face and framing his cheeks into something that's not quite human looking anymore. Almost ethereal, which fits right in with how he moves.

"I'm bigger than you are," I point out, easily resisting the urge to pull my hands away from his because the larger part of me likes the touch. "I haven't been 'little' in a long time."

He shrugs, smirk growing just a little wider. "You'll always be my little brother, Jason," he says in what's practically a purr, his hands clenching down on mine again. I can't help glaring at him, tensing a little bit.

"You know I hate it when you call me that," I snap, and he laughs, loud and clear beside my ear. I shudder. Him calling me 'brother' has never sat well with me. Not when I was younger, and barely felt like he was even family, and definitely not once Bruce and Dick pulled me into their games. We might be 'family', but nothing about what we do except the loyalty feels anything like it. I'm… I'm theirs, but I'm not Dick's brother and I'm definitely not Bruce's son. Not by blood and not by anything else, either.

He releases my hands, touching my hips and deftly sliding his fingers up underneath the mess of my once-white shirt. The feel of his gloves against my bare skin speeds my pulse in a way I can't hope to control, and I swallow and yank my gaze away from his.

"Relax, Jason," Dick whispers in my ear, fingertips lingering for several long moments before he hooks them around the bottom of my shirt and pulls up. The second of panic where it slides over my head, blinding me for a moment, is a familiar feeling, and almost enough to block out the sharp pain of having to raise my arms to let him pull it completely off. He drops that on the floor without any sort of care, which I guess is fine; it's not like it's salvageable anyway.

His hands might stroke in ways that are completely useless, but his fingers are deft and practiced as he disengages the straps and clips holding my armored padding in place and pulls it off of me in a way that almost feels like mercy; off my uninjured shoulder instead of the hurting one. That joins my jacket on the countertop, and I fight the desire to shiver as the air — tainted warm and damp by the steam rising from the shower — rushes around my bare skin, and Dick gives a pleased hum as he leans against me. The feel of his costume against my back is another familiar feeling, the only variation the strip of armor and then skin from the slice along his ribs.

I tilt my head back a bit and try to keep my breathing even as his hands explore along the front of my chest, tracing scars and the natural lines of my muscles, and areas that I'm pretty sure are bruised but damn I don't know if I can stay still or vaguely in control if I watch him touch me, so I haven't looked.

Dick's mouth settles against the back of my right shoulder, teeth grazing just a little bit, before his hands slide down my ribs to the edge of my black jeans and the belt holding them up. My breath hitches when his thumbs slip under the rough fabric, pressing down into the hollows of my hips and Christ, I'd forgotten what this was like. I'd forgotten how much I could want Dick's touch even when I don't want it, and how damn good he is at building stress and anticipation until his victim snaps. It's Dick's favorite game.

My eyes slide closed, a tiny shudder shaking me as his fingers slide a little further in and he bites down on my shoulder with a roll of his hips against my back and ass, and I give a strangled little sound that I will deny till the end of the world was a whimper, and then he's gone.

My eyes snap open as he abruptly pulls sharply away, and viciously swallow down another sound that wants to leave me. I'm scared it will come out wanting and desperate, and fuck no I'm not doing that. Not until I have to or he makes me, whichever happens first. I jerk my head to the side, finding him in the mirror and watching him casually walk over to the bathroom door, shutting it and turning back to me with a smile that's too damn innocent for him to not know exactly what he's doing to me. Dick always knows what he's doing to other people, especially when he's making them desperate in any sense of the word.

His hips twist with each step in a motion that's just a little exaggerated, and he circles to stand in front of me. I swallow back the urge to step back as he gets uncomfortably close, and then a second urge to get closer and feel him up against me. I won't do this, I won't make the first step or betray just how much I want him, how much I've missed this feeling.

Fuck, I stopped wanting to be Talon, I stopped wanting to call this place home a long time ago, but this is what I wanted when I came out of the pit. This is what Talia couldn't do for or to me. She couldn't make me want the way that Dick can, that even Bruce can in a very different way. She was pretty, and soft to the touch, and yielded under my touch with the most perfect arches, and none of that was what I wanted. In the back of my head I imagined hands at my sides and a body pressed flush against my back, teeth in my shoulder and the hard grasp of a hand at my throat or on my thigh.

I wanted Bruce, I wanted Dick, I wanted to feel like I was really wanted, and I wanted to want equally as strongly in return.

It was this.

Dick gives me a sharp, knowing smile. Not Bruce's cooler one, but one that takes the knowledge and flings it back in your face with a laugh. His hands hook into the front of my jeans, tugging me forward half a step to close the distance, and I try not to let my breathing change any more than it already has as he lays the length of his frame up against my thicker one and smirks. Not that it matters, he can feel my pulse and that's damn telling all on its own, but I can try for at least a little bit of control. I don't have to give into him that quickly.

He makes a little sound in the back of his throat, a small wanting noise that's totally at odds with the bright wickedness of his smirk, and all my effort crumbles into the ground. My breath stops for a moment and Christ, that must be a new trick because I have never heard Dick make a noise like that before, not even under Bruce's hands. When did that become a thing?

I reach for him, desperately, and suddenly his hand is digging sharply into my ribs and I suck in a short breath and nearly choke. I fold over onto him with a pained noise and he clicks his tongue in disapproval.

"Ah-ah," he mocks, fingers easing back over my ribs as I shudder and pant through the sudden swap from desire to pain. "You haven't been punished yet, little wing," he says softly, into my ear where my head is collapsed forwards onto his shoulder, "so you don't get to touch."

I should have figured that. Dick's favorite game, after all. Seeing how far he can push before someone snaps. He wins, I lose; fuck that hurts.

Dick's lips press briefly against the side of my face, and then he's rolling his shoulder to force me up and away from him, and mostly out of fear of another jab at my injured ribs, I pull back. Straightening up is hard, and my breathing patterns are a mess, but I manage it. I really shouldn't have even been surprised, but I guess it's been long enough since I've dealt with Dick that I'd forgotten the way he plays.

"There," he murmurs, "that's better."

He waits a moment, one hand lingering against my ribs and the other still tucked partially inside my jeans, before withdrawing both and sinking to his knees in front of me. Even with the aftershocks of pain twitching through me, that sight's nearly enough to make me forget all about it. It definitely makes me have to catch my breath again, as he smirks up at me, fingers trailing down my legs. They slide all the way down to my combat boots, but his gaze stays fixed on mine as he undoes the laces entirely by touch and pulls them loose. I swallow thickly as he leans forward to press his face in against my thigh, giving a pleased hum as his hands slide down my calf in a strong grip and pull the boot from my right foot, hooking the sock underneath with it.

I bite down on my tongue until I taste blood, because I'm pretty sure anything that might come out of my mouth right now will be something I don't want to to say. Like begging, or just inarticulate noises that will all translate out to 'oh god, please.'

He repeats the process on my left leg, lifting my foot just enough to get the boot off me, and then leans into me and makes another pleased noise, and I almost choke on my own damn tongue even with it still between my teeth as he turns his head in towards my leg and mouths at my jeans. Fuck I can feel his teeth even through the denim, and the warm wetness of his tongue as it presses against me. I… I… Fuck.

Dick pulls back and slides up my leg, smoothly graceful in all the ways I can't be right now because he's so damn attractive and distracting, his hands sliding up my leg as he straightens a little farther up. My breath catches and I have to choke back a moan as the hand on my inner thigh presses firmly against it and then instantly trails off into a feather-light ghost across the fabric covering my crotch. Poorly covering, straining forward and I'm so hard it fucking hurts.

If this whole denial thing is my punishment — I wish that was true, but I'm not that naively optimistic — than I give them serious props. This is torture, and that's coming from a guy who got beaten and tortured to death by an alien and his clone over quite a few hours. They'd never stand a ghost of a chance against Dick's kind of skills, and this is just what my psychopathic older not-brother does for fun. This is playing, not business.

I shove a breath out through my teeth, clenching my hands to keep from trying to touch him again, and he laughs, his hips pressing in against mine and rolling in a way I've never seen anyone but fucking strippers do with that kind of skill.

"Didn't I tell you to relax, Jason?" he purrs, his hands sliding down to dip beneath my jeans again, and I choke back another cross between a whimper and a moan, my head arching back a bit.

"Fuck you," I manage to get out, even if it is breathy and not at all the snarled insult that I wanted it to be. I'm kind of proud that I managed to get anything out of my mouth that wasn't just a moan or an incoherent plea.

Dick's laugh is sharp and bright, and his smirk is the best embodiment of sin that I've ever seen. "Maybe later," he whispers like he's telling me a secret, and I swear to god I stop breathing for a few seconds before I jerk, shudder, and make one of those wordless, whimpering pleas through my gritted teeth that I promised myself I wasn't going to make.

His hands slip inwards, palming firmly over my crotch, and I can feel myself trembling with trying to hold myself back as another choked sound makes it past my teeth. The zipper feels like it comes down one tooth at a time, as Dick flicks the button through it's accompanying hole as easily as he might put a blade in somebody's side. The pressure isn't quite as intense once the zipper hits bottom, and Dick's hands rise to my belt. The tug of it through the loops is smooth, barely any yank to it, and Dick makes a thoughtful, amused sound.

I flinch and startle when his hand wraps around the back of my neck, pulling my head down to meet his and then dragging me to a stop when we're just a fraction of an inch apart. When his lips are so close I can fucking imagine the taste of them, and all I want to do is pull that last little bit forward but I can't. I hate the whimper that slips out of my mouth, but I can't help it. His hand clenches down, holding me right where I am, and his hips roll forward into me again. I choke.

"Beg me," his says into the fraction of space between our lips, "and I'll make this easier on you."

I can't even pretend to not be completely at his whim.

"Please," I answer, shuddering and trying not to reach forward and touch him because I know he won't appreciate or tolerate it.

He makes a small, pleased noise, and presses a little tighter into me. "More, Jason. Beg." His voice is a little darker, demanding and ordering instead of asking, and fuck if it doesn't drive me even farther towards the point of no return.

"God, fuck, please Dick. Please." I don't even know what I'm begging for, I have no idea what he meant, but I don't even care. Dick can do anything he damn well wants to me right now and I won't stop him, I'll welcome it. "Anything, Dick. Please."

The noise Dick makes is a sharp little inhale, and for once I know it isn't faked because I can feel the hard press of his cock throb against my hip, and it drives an answering whimper from my throat.

"Of course, Jason," he whispers, voice heavy and thick with lust and something more. "Since you asked so nicely."

I don't know what I'm expecting, but I'm not expecting him to let go of my neck and grab my wrists, dragging them behind my back as he leans forward into my shoulder. I feel the loop of my belt around them, and stifle the hysterical laugh that bubbles up sharply and suddenly in my chest and up my throat as Dick pulls the belt tight and ties my hands behind me. The belt won't hold me if I fight it, but I can let it keep me tied and not pull as hard as I'm capable of.

Make it easier. No touching. Fuck did I fall right into that one. I think… I think I'm almost grateful.

"There," Dick whispers into my throat, teeth nipping before closing down and biting hard, drawing the skin between his teeth and rolling it. It hurts, but everything with Dick hurts. "Isn't that better, little wing?" he says when he pulls back, and I can only offer a choked little plea in answer. Dick makes a crooning, sympathetic, soothing noise against my throat and presses a gentle kiss to the skin just underneath the right side of my jaw, with only the faintest hint of teeth to it. "It's alright, Jason, I have you."

His hands slip back around to my front, dipping between our bodies — which, thank god but curse the bastard too, makes him pull a little bit away from me — and falling to the front of my jeans. I can't hold my head up even with how tense the rest of me is, and I lean forward into Dick expecting a jab to my ribs. He makes another mockingly sympathetic noise, but doesn't hurt me even when I tuck my head down against his shoulder, my jaw clenching tight as his hand sinks into my jeans with the ease of practice, wrapping around my length.

I make another choked noise into the solid warmth of his shoulder, and I can feel him smirk against my throat as his other hand pushes down on my jeans, pushing them off my hips as he rubs at me and I try not to shake and tremble under his touch. My jeans fall to my ankles, and he releases me to peel my boxers down as well. I'd swear to the fucking world that I didn't make the desperate whimpering whine that claws itself out of my throat.

"Shhh," Dick whispers, his hands returning to stroke up my ribs and then across my back and down to the bare flesh of my hips. I'm not crazy or far gone enough to buck forward for some kind of contact, but it's a close thing and his hands at my hips are a reminder not to. "Come on, Jason," he murmurs, stepping back and taking my arm, leading me firmly towards the back of the room and the shower.

My legs aren't particularly steady under me, and fuck if I can really concentrate on anything but the rush of air over the more sensitive, aching bits of me, but I manage to keep my feet. Ninja training. It comes in handy even during the most ridiculous of times.

Dick turns and pushes me up against the tile next to the open entrance of the shower, and I cringe away from the cold wall with a small gasp. Dick holds me there by pressing down on my injured shoulder, lifting his other hand to his mouth and biting down on the tip of one finger, pulling his hand out of the glove inch by inch. I forget about the coldness of the wall entirely, and the noise that drags out of my throat isn't even enough to be called a whimper. It's just a exhalation of breath that might have some kind of higher pitch to it. God, fuck, Dick has me completely in his sway and under his control, and I can't even start to pretend otherwise.

It's true, I'm his, and I swore to myself that I wouldn't let my not-brother do this to me again but fuck, here I am. Why did I ever even try to stop him? Fighting Dick only ever makes him more persistent and determined to win and make you kneel at his feet.

I would, gladly, if it meant he'd give me anything.

The glove drops to the floor, released from between Dick's teeth, and he reaches around the corner with his now bare hand, into the water to test its temperature. He's not even looking at me, and the hand on my shoulder feels incidental more than the purposeful I know it is.

There's nothing crueler than Dick ignoring you once he's got you worked up. Fucking nothing.

The door opens, and my head snaps around. Dick's turns, slowly.

Bruce steps inside, one eyebrow arched high over the accompanying eye. His gaze drags slowly, like a physical caress, down my frame, lingering for a moment before drawing back up equally as slowly. He closes the door behind him, and reaches down to flick the lock on it with deliberate intent.

"My business is done with for now," he says smoothly, turning back to both of us, "so I thought I might join you." He's in the nearly skintight black tank top that he wears underneath his suit, and the pair of equally black slacks that he keeps down in the Roost so he has something he can change into when he comes out of the Owlman suit. It's about the most casual that Bruce ever gets, unless you catch him in the early morning when he's in boxers and nothing else. Those are rare moments though. He approaches, and out of the side of my vision I can see Dick give a slow smile and then a wicked grin.

He pushes down on my shoulder, forcing me down to my knees on the tile with a small grunt of pain, as Bruce comes closer, and then leaves his hand resting lightly there as a silent order to not get back up.

Bruce's hand is gentle as he reaches out and skims it across Dick's cheek, and Dick leans into the touch with a smile and what I'm pretty sure are closed eyes, even if I can't actually see them. I swallow as Bruce steps up directly next to my not-brother, lining against the edge of him, and Dick arches up in the most fucking teasing, poised way I think is possible, mouth parting just a little bit. Bruce starts to lean down, and then catches my gaze and gives a small smirk, his other hand rising to touch the center of Dick's chest and then laying flat against it.

"I don't think he deserves it," Bruce says softly, and after a moment of arched anticipation Dick's mouth curves in a wide grin and he relaxes a bit, turning to look down at me.

"Mmm, you're right, Bruce. Not till he's been punished." I admit, I've got no clue what they're talking about. Don't deserve what? Them? The two of them? I don't understand and I have not got enough of a brain left to try and figure it out.

Bruce's hand drops to the pocket of his slacks, and emerges with a dark red piece of cloth wound around his knuckles that he dangles up in the air between the two of them. Dick makes a sound that is viciously pleased, teeth showing in a wide grin as he presses up against Bruce. Oh, oh no. No way.

Bruce disengages from Dick and leans down, his fingers dragging my jaw upwards with the other hand. "Until you're punished, Jason, you don't deserve to see what the two of us have to offer. You'll have to settle with imagining it I suppose, until we've forgiven you." I jerk a little bit as he winds the cloth around my head, over my eyes, breathing sharply in. As if I wasn't fucking vulnerable enough already.

My pulse picks up as Bruce's hands fall away, and adrenaline feeds itself into my veins. I'm not a big fan of blindfolds, I'm not really a big fan of not being able to see period, even though I can fight without my sight just fine. It… I feel… I was at their mercy enough already, wasn't I? Except that this isn't about being vulnerable, it's about control. It's always about control. About how much Dick can twist me around his fingers, and about how much Bruce can stand over both of us and be our god.

I force my breathing to even out, twisting my wrists briefly against the belt around them — which makes the wounds torn into them sting and burn a bit — before easing into surrender. It doesn't matter what they do, I have no control here and that's the point. I can't do anything and I am completely at the mercy of their whims. There's no point in fighting it. It's not any different than letting Bruce control my breathing.

"That's good," Bruce says softly, and his fingers — thicker than Dick's more nimble hands — trace over my cheek and briefly to my throat before pulling away. "Stand, Jason." I test my balance for a second before slipping back to my heels and pushing to my feet, using the wall at my back as a measure and a point of stability as I unfold. I get rewarded with another touch to my neck when I'm straight again, a gentle stroke. "Stay."

I can hear something that sounds like cloth, and then a pleased sound that's undoubtedly Dick's voice followed by a quiet chuckle from Bruce, and I clench my hands together to not try and do anything stupid. Not my scene, not my choice, let it go.

It's sick, and not surprising at all to me, how much this arouses me. I have no idea if this kind of surrender was always what made me feel this way, but it has been for a long time. It's what Dick and Bruce taught me to do, what I was trained to do. It's what I enjoy in a way that makes me tremble and shake and wonder what's wrong with my head sometimes. What isn't wrong? Better question.

Dick's bare hand closes around my upper arm and pulls me — firmly but slowly, so I don't fall — around the edge of the tile and into the shower. I flinch when the spray hits me, but the water is hot and feels good after the initial surprise, even as it stings in the wounds at my wrists and the scratches under my chin that I'd completely forgotten about. I try not to think about the almost completely guaranteed possibility that both Bruce and Dick are in here, also naked.

It doesn't work very well, especially not after Bruce's hand slides across and over my shoulder, and I can feel the wet press of a body that's too thick to be Dick's press against my side. Bare skin slides against mine, and I swallow and hold back a choked noise when Bruce's lips press down against my shoulder and the vibration of a low, satisfied rumble slips through my body. My neck arches back a little bit, my teeth clenching as Bruce's lips twist in a smile that I can feel against my skin.

God.

His hand closes around the front of my throat, and I can only step backwards and let it happen when he pushes me back and up against a wall that's warm from the water and the steam, pinning me there for a moment before releasing my throat.

"Kneel," he demands, in the low growl of his Owlman voice, and I swallow and obey without even a fraction of a second of hesitation. I sink to my knees on the wet tile, the water coming down on my back and my head, and when Bruce's fingers cup my jaw and his thumb slips forward to press against my lips I open my mouth with a desire that I don't fully understand but can't even consider fighting. His thumb pushes inside my mouth, and unlike earlier — where I tolerated it, tried not to think about it — I give a low moan of want and move forward just a little, sucking on the digit as though it's a thicker, warmer piece of Bruce.

"I'd forgotten what that looks like," I hear Dick say, in a half-breathless voice, and warm pride burns bright in my chest. I made him sound that way. Me.

I let my teeth graze just slightly over Bruce's thumb, the slightest hint of pressure, before flattening my tongue down under it and giving another low moan from the bottom of my chest. Because I want to, because everything in me was created by this man and I am his above anything else. Everything I am is for his pleasure, always.

Bruce pulls his thumb back, and then lips are on mine and I recognize the aggressive style as my not-father's, his tongue replacing his thumb and his fingers tightening on my jaw. Owning me in the way that he always has, and god it makes me tremble and arch as much as I can. I can't meet him — I can be that aggressive with Dick, but Bruce always manages to leech it out of me — but I don't back down until his hand slips around the back of my head and pulls on my hair, hard, and I have to pause and still completely for a second as my breath catches in my throat and I make a helpless noise into his mouth that's nearly lost between us and under the sound of the water. He pulls back a little, in a way that almost feels reluctant.

"When your punishment is done," Bruce promises, breathing against my lips, "we'll finish this."

He releases me, and I bow forward because fuck I can't stay up straight right now, not after that. I'd forgotten so much of what this was really like. I dreamed about it of course, fantasized in the moments I could bring myself to, but fantasies are nothing like the reality. I didn't remember what it felt like to have Bruce pressed against me, to have Dick twist me and taunt me like he does, to be back home. This is everything I need, right here. Why did I ever think I needed anything else?

A few moments pass, and then I can hear Dick give a laugh that's equally as breathless as his voice was. I can hear the click of a cap over the sound of the water against the tile, and then two hands — Dick's, I decide almost instantly — slip into my wet hair, massaging against my scalp, and the sharp scent of whatever he's using reaches my nose after a moment. I stay still, fighting the urge to arch under his touch and crane up into it.

The water washes down face, and I snap my mouth shut all the way when the tainted taste of the parts of it infected with shampoo reach my lips. I keep my head carefully at an angle where I can breathe through my nose without inhaling water with it, and sink into the enjoyment of Dick's hands. They skim around the tie of the blindfold, pulling some of my hair out from under it in a way that almost feels gentle, nails scratching just hard enough over my scalp to feel good without hurting.

They leave me for a moment, and then return after the snap of another cap, rubbing down over my shoulders and back, following the lines of my body. I grit my teeth to not make any noise and fight to not move, swallowing and twitching under the sure, firm, rub of hands. Some of the places where he rubs sting, sharply, and in the back of my head I know I'm cataloguing where the scrapes in my skin are, and how bad each one is. But it's background, something automatic to keep the combative, honed killer part of me contained and quiet. I don't need it right now.

I drag in a shallow breath when Dick's hands dip shamelessly down, sliding over my ass and down to cup first my balls and then my cock. It's not necessary, but he gives it several long strokes — driving a rush of air between my teeth — before letting go. I don't know if he moves away, or stands, or if he was ever even kneeling, but I clench my hands and swallow thickly again, trying to get back some kind of control.

Lost cause, but I can't help trying.

I flinch when there's the thud of flesh hitting tile, semi-drowned out by the water but loud enough for me to hear it and hard enough for me to feel the impact in the vibration of the floor beneath me. What the hell? Dick gives another breathless laugh — this one edged in something dangerous — that cuts sharply off with a gasp I can just barely hear.

Instinct screams to turn my head and push the blindfold off with my shoulder, but I don't because I'm too well trained. Rationally I know that the chances of anything happening inside Wayne manor to the two scariest men I know, without me being affected or also attacked, is unlikely verging on impossible. There would be some other clue. This is just… this is something between them. By the sound, the laugh… I'd guess Bruce has Dick up against the wall doing… Doing whatever the hell Bruce wants to do to him.

God I want to see. This does not make the urge to pull my blindfold off any weaker. The only thing holding me back is that fuck, the two of them are going to hurt me badly enough as it is, and I'm so not down to add any more to that. I've got no delusions about how irritated Bruce would be if I pulled the blindfold off, or I slipped the belt around my wrists. Dick wouldn't mind, me being bad only means he gets to hurt me more and he'll love that, but Bruce prefers it when his playthings never step out of line at all. Pain, power.

I'm not a masochist. That I know for certain.

Dick gives a cry that bounces off the tiles, high-pitched and almost pained, and I nearly fucking seize. I have to bite down on my own tongue to keep from moaning, and that all goes to hell when he gives another noise over the sound of the water and my world twists and warps around me, my senses focusing in on the location of the noise and nothing else. Damn the water, damn the feeling of the tile on my knees or the pain of the leather belt around my torn wrists, nothing but Dick's voice matters. My breath catches and stutters at the bright, startled sound Dick makes next, and I squeeze my eyes shut under the blindfold.

If I think hard enough, to before all of the shit that led to me dying, back when I was still at home here, I can match together the sounds Dick is making with what Bruce is doing to him.

Not precisely, and god there's no part of me that doesn't wish right now that I'd never left and that I deserved to watch the two of them together, because it doesn't matter what I can imagine it just doesn't add up to the real thing. Adding on the picture of Dick arching against tile and Bruce's form, one hand pinned by his head and the other clenched against his own thigh while he twists and makes that perfect little shaking cry, Bruce's hand wrapped around him, is not the same as seeing it. My memory is good, but not good enough to catch the feeling of seeing that. Of what's happening maybe four feet to my left, of what I'm not allowed to see because they're still upset with me and fuck now I really am sorry.

I'd take all of it back right now if it meant they'd let me join in, and there's enough of me that thinks it's a good idea that I have to clench my hands hard until my dull nails bite into my own flesh to not try and move.

Regretful or not, I did do what they're excluding me for, and nothing I can do will convince them to change their minds until they're ready to. I know better than to think that pretty words will change Bruce's mind when it's made up, or that Dick will give up the option and intention to hurt me for my mistakes so easily. Nothing but taking it out on me will satisfy the two of them.

I'd guess that this is unintentional, that it really was just supposed to be a shower and a way to get the grime of Gotham off of me and Dick before things moved on. But Dick being who he is, turning everything into an intimate scene like he's about to fuck you where you're standing — if he doesn't slice you apart with his bare hands first — is something not even Bruce can always deny. I definitely can't. What they're doing is probably just a way to work off the tension, get them both relaxed and patient enough to do whatever they're going to do to me without the distraction of being so heavily aroused. Of course I'm not going to get that same consideration, me being painfully, stupidly hard is just bonus as far as they're concerned. I know that too.

There's another slam against the wall — quieter this time, a hand on a wrist, maybe? — and Dick gives another of his breathless laughs, the edge to it sharp and desperate. I can't breathe for a second, and right when I can Dick gives a stilted, shaking cry that steals it right back out of me and somehow dries my throat even though I'm surrounded by water. I've heard that cry dozens of times, torn and ripped out of his throat in one single situation. When he's coming apart, trembling and arching and for one amazing second letting someone else undo him in the same way that he takes apart everyone else.

There's silence for a long time, past the water I can't hear anything loud enough to give me a clue of exactly what's happening, and I clench my jaw tight and try not to think about what's probably happening. I do anyways.

When the two of them aren't actually fucking, when it's mouths and hands and teeth, Bruce brings Dick off first. Then, usually, Dick sinks to his knees and plays worshipper, hands gentle on Bruce's thighs in a way he only ever is with the two of us — and only me when I can't fight him, when I'm exhausted and hurt and he can touch me whatever way he wants — and his mouth a perfect, warm circle. Bruce's hands will thread through his hair, touching and owning, but not stopping him or holding him still. Accepting the touch and the worship with half-lidded eyes and a slightly open mouth that curls into a baring of teeth when he's closer. If Dick is doing a particularly good job he might tilt his head back or shiver.

And when he's done he'll spill down Dick's throat and Dick will swallow with that pleased little grin and the most amazing purr of noise because Dick loves little else more than being used by Bruce.

Fuck, why did I do all that stupid shit and make them mad at me?

A hand fists in my hair — I startle — and drags me up, and lips come down over my own. I suck in a sharp breath, a tongue dipping between my teeth and holy fuck not only is it Dick but he tastes like Bruce and I can't help the whimpering moan that I voice into Dick's mouth as I shudder and fold underneath his attention.

Whatever they want, anything. I will promise anything and mean it if they just let me be part of this, let me be one of them again. Why did I try and lie to myself and say I didn't want this?

The water shuts off, and Dick pulls back and away from me. "Feel what you've missed, little wing?" he asks, whispering and then biting down on the curve of my ear. Not hard enough to even sting, but I give a gasping whine anyway.

"Please," I beg, my voice a rasping mess of want and need and god please anything you want.

Dick gives a little laugh into my ear, and releases my hair as he pulls away. "I think he's ready, Bruce," he says, into the air of the room and aimed away from me, and I can hear the faint sounds of Bruce walking across the wet tile to me. Not loud, because even though Dick is the silent one of the three of us Bruce is still better at stealth than I am and he just walks that way by nature.

Fingers pull my chin up, I swallow heavily, and Bruce makes a pleased sound that shoots straight to my cock. Not that it actually needed any more of that. "Yes, it looks like he is." The fingers let go of me, and I can hear him moving away. "Dry him off and bring him out, Dick, I'll set what we'll need up."

The rough touch of the towel almost feels painful to my far too sensitive skin, and I do my best to hold still as Dick drags me up and — with apparently no regard for the fact that I'm hard as all hell and aching — dries the water off me with fairly rough scrubbing. It must be purposeful because the towels up here are so damn soft you'd have to try to make one feel rough, I know from experience.

The blindfold doesn't come off, neither does the belt, and the second I'm dry Dick takes me by the elbow of my uninjured right arm and pulls me forward. I can only let him lead me across the room and — I count steps in the back of my head — out into Bruce's bedroom, beyond. The change of air from the steam of the bathroom to the faintly cold outside, makes me shiver and pause for just a second. I end up stumbling, because Dick makes no allowance for me adjusting to temperature changes. He shoves me to my knees some ways across the room — I don't remember the dimensions of Bruce's room well enough to know precisely where I am in it — and his hand curls into my damp hair and pulls down and back to arch my throat.

My breath catches, and I give a soft keening noise that I can't believe I'm even capable of. First time for everything, I guess. Fuck do the two of them know how to push every damn button that I have. Repeatedly. Until they stick.

"I'm going to untie you, little wing," Dick murmurs into my ear — when the hell he got down on my level I don't know — in a mockery of a lover's whisper, "and you're going to stay very still and not move unless we make you, understand?"

"Yes," I choke out, and he makes a pleased noise. His other hand touches my wrists, and the belt slides loosely enough to fall off my hands in just a moment. I lace my fingers together to keep them there, and his teeth settle against my throat as the hand in my hair slides upward to the knot of the blindfold. That comes away just as easily, and though I can see the increase of light through my eyelids I don't open them. Not unless they tell me to, that's the rule.

A soft cloth runs over my face — and I can feel both of Dick's hands so it must be Bruce holding it — to remove the last of the moisture from where the wet blindfold sat, and then it falls away to be replaced with lips against my forehead.

"That's good, Jason," he says quietly, and I swallow and resist leaning up to try and follow his mouth when it pulls back.

Another piece of cloth touches my face and loops back around my head, a dry blindfold to replace the wet one, and Dick ties it at the base of my skull with a single hand. He takes my wrists in his hand and pulls them apart, pushing my hands forward past my body and into the air in front of me, where Bruce's larger hands circle them and Dick lets go. Dick presses against my back, arms circling my waist, as Bruce lays both my hands on what feels like… upholstery? A cushion, chair? It's hard to say and I don't have the brain to run through my memories of all the different things I've touched to figure it out.

Leather — real leather, and much thicker than my belt — loops around my right wrist, pulling firmly closed but not tight enough to be uncomfortable, and I hear the click and rattle of what sounds like chains. The left wrist gets the same treatment, another… cuff. They're cuffs, and I'm chained to… something.

I swallow, pulling just a little bit to test the restraints, and Dick grips me a little tighter. "Relax," he orders, "you'll be pulling plenty later, little wing. They'll hold, I guarantee it." That doesn't make me feel any better about this.

The playing is done. These are quality, built to last, cuffs by the feel of them, and I know Bruce's chains are always sturdy. Whatever punishment they have in mind they expect me to fight, to struggle, to lose control over how hard I pull. These are built to keep me exactly where they want me, no matter how hard I fight them. But Dick and Bruce know how good my control is, how well they trained me to be, and yeah maybe I'm not showing my best face with how easily Dick played me, but that's not… That's Dick's skill, not my failing.

Bruce's hands touch my face, cupping my jaw and my cheeks, and he makes another of his small, pleased sounds. "Your tools are on the bed, Dick," he says, over my head, and pulls me forward a bit. Dick releases me and pulls away, and I do an awkward shuffle forward on my knees, until my arms are bent a bit and not outstretched like they were before. Warmth and the feeling of cloth — silk, I'm pretty sure — presses in against my shoulders; my left one twinges and flinches in protest at the touch. It takes me a second, as Bruce strokes his fingers against my skin and up through the fringes of my hair, to realize that the silk-covered warmth is legs. Whatever I'm chained to, Bruce is sitting on it with his legs spread to either side of me, and my wrists are attached… below it, I think?

It's really not doing me any good trying to think of relative positions while everything else is going on and there's so much distraction. I don't know this room well enough to know what I could be attached to, and I have no idea if Bruce might have brought something else in especially for this. It's actually fairly likely, since I'm pretty sure there's not much in his room that could be used as a stability point for chains, against someone with my kind of strength and instinctive training.

Wait… scratch that. There definitely are — Dick is fucking gorgeous with his hands bound above his head, which is why I know that — but I can't think of any off the top of my head that would be this low to the floor, and that Bruce could sit on top of while I was chained to it.

The snap of something in the air makes me jerk, cutting off all my thoughts of what I'm chained to, and Bruce's hands tighten and hold my head in place against everything that says I should turn and try to figure out what the hell that was. It snaps again, adrenaline mixing into my veins and making my breathing and my pulse pick up, and one of Bruce's hand rubs down my neck to my shoulder.

"Easy, Jason. You'll live," his tone is almost dismissive, and I grit my teeth as it clicks that Bruce is getting distant again and fuck he's not going to rein Dick in at all. Dick is dangerous all on his own, but this is permission for my not-brother to be as mean as he wants and that's just bad. 'Living' isn't exactly a nice promise, it just means I'll survive. 'Nothing permanent' would be better, but Bruce didn't say that so for all I know Dick could take a knife to my skin and lay me open to bone and Bruce wouldn't stop him.

The whatever the fuck it is snaps right next to my ear — I can feel the rush of air — and I jerk hard against the restraints and Bruce's hands. Fuck this not-moving thing. The restraints hold without even a creak of protest from the metal, the leather, or whatever I'm attached to, and I shudder and then instantly still while my mind shifts over into what I fondly like to call 'killer-mode.' The cool front of my training slips into place over the rest of my emotions and sharpens my focus, blanking out feeling in favor of what needs to and must be done, equally ready to kill or run as my mind takes a step back from my situation and surveys it critically.

Unfortunately, even as my world condenses and narrows into facts and figures, my mind offering up possibilities of escape or retribution, the grim fact I come up with is that with Bruce at my front and Dick at my back, I'm just plain screwed. I'm not going anywhere if they don't want me to.

With a mental resigned sigh and shrug I ease into Bruce's touch. Not in the mindless, wanting way of earlier, but the easy stillness of someone waiting for an opening or a weakness. Panic, anger, and desire fade away, and I twist my wrists against the restraints and wait. I'm patient when I need to be, and even if I never get a chance to get away this shutdown of non-essential emotions, the fall back on logic, training, and patience will make all of this — whatever the fuck this is — easier to handle. Whatever Dick is going to do to me, this way I can keep together until he breaks me, because I know his skills and I know that if he wants me to break, I will.

I'm pretty damn sure that he's going to take me apart piece by piece until there's nothing left of me and I'm not much more than flesh and blood and tears. I'm pretty sure Bruce is going to let him.

Bruce chuckles, Dick laughs, and I feel the warmth of skin against my back as Dick layers himself over me and his teeth find purchase in the skin of my throat again. Only for a second, but it's another mark to add to the pattern I'm going to have when I get out of this insanity. One of his hands slides over my ribs on the left side, wrapping up to lie flat against my chest, and he makes a noise into my skin that's somewhere between amused and anticipating.

"I'm going to beat you, Jason," Dick says softly, like it's a fucking promise shared between lovers and not this sick threat between whatever the fuck we are, "and you're going to break for me." His hand claws down my chest, raking nails down almost to my hips and I jerk back into him but stifle the grunt of pain that wants to leave me, clenching my jaw shut. His hand slips sideways and digs sharply into the muscle over the bone of my hip, and I clench my jaw a little harder to not give him the noises he wants. "Maybe we can leave something permanent to remind you what you are, hm?" I can feel him smile against my skin. "Can I, Bruce?" His voice is the perfect, strangest, mix of innocent and sinful, and my breath catches.

I am not alright with Dick leaving whatever the hell he's thinking of on me. If he's going to carve, brand, or scar anything into me—

"I'll tear your fucking throat out with my teeth first," I snarl, over my shoulder at him. Bruce's fingers contract on my face and my opposite shoulder hard enough to hurt, but Dick only gives another laugh into my flesh.

"You'd have to catch me," he hisses, and bites down, hard. A groan drags itself out of my throat, I can feel his teeth sinking through my skin, and then he abruptly pulls them away. "Bruce?" he asks again, with the faintest hint of pleading but I'd bet a lot of money that he's grinning, high on sadism and probably a bit of that orgasm from earlier in the shower.

"We'll see," Bruce says, and I tense. Fuck, that's not a no. His fingers loosen. "If Jason is pleasing enough, there's no real need, is there?"

Oh, that's not fucking fair.

Dick makes a noise that sounds exaggeratingly disappointed, and then he's pulling away from my back and returning his hand to rest in my hair. He gives a single sharp pull before letting me go. It occurs to me, as he straightens away from me, that I never felt his other hand. Whatever the hell he's about to hit me with — beating, he said and it snapped, so… a belt, flogger, whip? — must have been held in that one, and he didn't touch me because he doesn't want me to know what it is.

Bruce's hands slide back into my hair, pulling my head down and I do my best not to fight the silent command, swallowing and letting him angle my head downwards so the back of my neck is exposed. I don't like it, but it's not like I have a choice right now. I shift on my knees, taking a second to be glad that the floor of Bruce's room isn't hardwood like a lot of the rest of the manor, and is actually very comfortable carpet instead. My thoughts wander and wonder if he had it replaced when Dick got here and they started this thing between them, and he realized that if someone was going to be spending a lot of time in here on their knees they'd want an easier surface to kneel on.

Dick and I could kneel on hardwood for long periods, if we had to, but it wouldn't be comfortable and we wouldn't appreciate it. Dick, especially might pitch a little bit of a hissy fit, and I might snarl and snap more than usual.

The whistle and sharp impact against my back jerks me out of my thoughts, and I jerk forwards in startled pain with a gasp as the thing cracks down over my skin. It feels like fire, like Dick's wielding some kind of thing made with flame instead of whatever leather it is, and it hurts a lot more than I thought it would. Dick's hit me before, even with some of his arsenal of toys, but never with the intention to hurt. That was always playing, and the buildup was slow so by the time he was hitting me hard there was adrenaline and endorphins in my blood and I couldn't feel it nearly as intensely. It was never my thing, but it made Dick happy and Bruce liked to see me beg so I let them do it once or twice.

But not this.

It cracks down again and I bite back a cry of pain, twisting against the leather cuffs and arching my back sideways in instinctive reaction. Dick makes a sharply displeased noise, and I go briefly rigid when the third strike comes down on my side, flicking across the tender, already bruised skin over my injured ribs. That burns and hurts in a way I'd call agony, and I can't fucking breathe for a second at the intensity of it. Dick's hand closes in my hair, wrenching my head back and away from Bruce's grip, teeth snapping in the air beside my ear.

"You stay still," he demands, "and I won't do that again. Are we clear, Jason?"

Like I can stay still. An impossible mercy isn't a mercy at all, it's just an excuse to hurt someone when they can't do what you want. "Go to hell," I snarl at him, breathlessly because I haven't quite managed to recover. "Don't make deals you know I'll never keep, Dick."

It snaps down onto my lower back, and with my mouth a bit open I can't stop the cry of pain it drags out of me. God, that's… Fuck. I haven't been hurt like this, this purposefully, in a long time, and maybe it was dumb of me to come back without testing my own ability to take pain first but I didn't think things would be this bad. Bruce has never let Dick run this free with me before, he was always called off before things got too bad. I'm not going to get that rescue now.

"Watch your mouth, Jason," Dick answers, pulling my head back a little farther, "or I'll switch to something that will hurt you permanently. Stay still." He shoves my head back forward, and doesn't give me the opportunity to recover before the weapon slashes down once, twice, over my back in rapid succession.

Even as I jerk and try not to twist away, try to hold onto some measure of my pride, I choke and my hands clench into fists. The rest of me, the part still shoved down and in control, critically analyzes the feeling. Multiple impact points, so something with at least four strands, maybe more. Flogger. The snap calls for leather, and the fact that Dick would never use something of inferior quality for things like this, things that he enjoys and is good at. It burns more than stings, so the strips of leather are narrow and probably pointed at the ends, but not tipped or I'd be in a lot more pain than I am.

It's going to hurt like a bitch, but Dick's right, it's not going to cause much permanent damage unless he hits something particularly tender, which he would never do unless that was his intention. Unless, of course, I twist and his strike falls off where he aimed it, which is probably why he's being snippy about me staying still. Dick would probably like me still usable when he's done with me, unless they're going to kill me at the end of this.

Which they're not, so I shouldn't even let the thought enter my mind. This would be a lot more obvious if they were going to kill me. This is exactly what they told me it was going to be. Punishment.

I did something, slept with someone, they didn't appreciate, so Dick is going to break me, no matter how long it takes, until I remember how strong of a hold they have on me and what little control I have under their watch. He's going to rip into me and lay me bare and raw to the air so they can sew me back up and pretend that they were only trying to help me all along, and this was the best way, and I'll let them do it because fuck, I don't have any other option.

I'm stubborn, and I can handle a lot of pain — Bruce made sure of that, growing up with Dick confirmed that training, and my death at Ultraman and his clone's hands gave me a practical example — but I'm not invulnerable, and Dick knows every weak point I have. He knows, intimately, that anyone will crack or break after enough pressure, and he's talented when it comes to applying that pressure inch by inch, straining you towards the edge until you're never quite sure where it was that you finally snapped. He's done it to me before, and I've watched him do it to countless others.

Bruce's hands return to my face, cradling it between his hands and idly stroking, and I try not to pull too hard and to just weather the strikes at my back. It's not really working, I'm showing a lot more than I'd like and he's digging deeper into my really carefully constructed walls than I want to let him, but I can't help that. Eventually the adrenaline and endorphins will kick in and this will get a little easier.

…

Easier in that the pain will fade a bit, if he hasn't beaten me down by then. It will also get harder, because the chemicals will make me lightheaded, make it much harder for me to control what I say and do, and easier for Dick to reach inside and find the soft parts of me to squeeze and tear at until he breaks me. Until I collapse at his feet, bleeding and in too much pain to guard myself, and let him soothe and pretend to put me back together, digging himself further and further into the cracks in my shattering soul until I can't distinguish what was mine from what's his.

I know what this feels like.

Bruce pulls my head sideways to rest against his thigh, pinning me there with one hand while his other slides into my hair and smooths it away from my neck, from the straining muscle trying in total vain to protect me from the pain. My breath comes sharp and shallow, where it isn't interrupted by the noises Dick coaxes from my throat — like a fucking dog being given treats to bark — or the freezes of all my systems when Dick hits something in a particularly painful way and my body ceases to function for a second before it remembers that I need to breathe.

My back burns, a criss cross pattern of sharp lines drawn and snapped into my flesh, and each new strike reminds my skin it's been hurt before and sets it singing again. My throat works uselessly, swallowing down the phantom taste of blood — because no matter how many times I watched Dick do this I could never believe someone could be in that much pain without bleeding — and trying my best to choke back the noises that I can, or at least strangle the ones that do make it out of my mouth.

It feels masterful even through the agony, the way Dick keeps one step ahead of what I expect, even though I try my best to remember what he did to other people and figure out what's coming. I am not other people, and this breaking isn't like the ones he's done to me before. Play, punishment; this is so much different.

The flogger cracks down high on my back, nearly touching my neck, and then immediately slaps back down in a sharp snap to my right side where it curls and smacks into my ribs, and I jerk and keen at the pain of it. Then Dick's hands are in my hair and dragging my head back, and he's pressing tight against me, and I choke and try to rip away from the sudden pressure against my on fire back. He doesn't let me, pressing hard against my abused skin and dragging the nails of one hand down the flesh of my side until I give a shuddering, seizing cry at the agony of his touch.

He gives a bright, smiling laugh into the back of my neck, only the vicious edge to it separating it from the laugh of a child at play. The edge and his nails in my bruising, stinging, burning skin. I wrench against the cuffs and the chains, twisting to try and throw him the hell off me, and his hand flattens between my shoulder blades and slams me to the ground. My arms jerk up above my head, held by the restraints, and he pins me down by putting his knee in the center of my low back. I kick out, thrashing and making a noise somewhere midway between a snarl and a sob, and his hands rub up over my shoulders and then down again.

Knowing why doesn't make it hurt any less.

Touching abused skin sensitizes it, convinces the skin that it's going to be touched gently again and it should stop pumping so many chemicals. Rebalances the system to even out pain tolerance again. Not that Dick is going to let it get that far.

Hands turn to nails and teeth, and I don't know what the fuck my back looks like but it feels like he's tearing gouges into it, dragging furrows in the skin of my shoulder and my back as he works over me. I can feel the warm wetness of tears in my closed eyes, soaking into the blindfold, and I shudder. My hands curl to fists, raking down whatever the hell I'm chained to, and my fingers transition from fabric onto wood after only a moment or two.

If I was in my right mind, if Dick wasn't tearing me to pieces, the feeling probably wouldn't hit me as hard as it does. As it is I go rigid for a moment, the memory digging into my conscious like a knife into flesh, spilling emotion and remembered terror into my mind.

"No," I plead, wrenching against the restraints again and jerking underneath Dick's knee. "Let me go," I nearly shout, pulling and twisting to try and get up just a little bit, get just a little bit of control back.

The situation isn't anything like it was then, but it doesn't matter.

My mouth opens in a heaving breath — and my ribs hurt but I barely even notice — and I pull at the wood underneath my nails, staring blindly into the blackness. The air tastes sour and stale in my mouth, silence weighing on me as I scratch at wood and dig and dirt fills my mouth and I can't fucking breathe.

"Jason!"

Light burns into my eyes and I flinch and cringe, slamming my eyes shut against it and then immediately snapping them open again because behind my eyes is a darkness more terrifying than anything else I have ever known. The light doesn't make much sense to my eyes or to my mind, but I can't face the darkness so I let it burn away at me, curling in on myself as far as I can and jerking my hands away from the wood beneath them. There are hands on my skin and it hurts and I don't care because pain is better than silence and the cold, moist feel of dirt just soaked through with rain.

I choke on my own air and there's a distant voice telling me stop, you're hyperventilating, and I can barely hear it because the silence is so loud in my ears, blood rushing past and pulse pounding away. Training tells me to calm down, even out my breathing and try to slow down my heart before I pass out, but nothing ever prepared me for something like this. Nothing prepared me for waking up inside a coffin and having to claw and push and dig at the wood until it gave way to dirt that choked me, suffocated me and I thought I was going to die before I felt air on my skin again. I thought I was going to die in the earth and no one would ever know, and then maybe I'd wake up again and it would start all over, and I would die a thousand times with the taste of stale air and soil in my mouth and not enough to reach the surface.

The sharp, stinging pain to the side of my face snaps me back to awareness, and, though the terror lingers behind the thinnest barrier of my mind that's ever existed, I swallow and try to focus back in on the world around me. Bruce has my face in his hands, blue eyes narrowed down at me, and Dick is standing behind him, muscles coiled tight and his teeth bared in what looks like a snarl. There's a bright concern to Dick's gaze, like the worry of a child that's broken its toy, and I choke back a hysterical laugh at the thought.

That's all I am to him, right? That's all I am to both of them.

"Jason," Bruce says sharply, and I snap my gaze back down to him. I'm curled, in a ball, but the blindfold is gone and my hands might still be bound but at least they're off the fucking wood. I shudder, and then I realize that I'm trembling and I'm really not sure how to stop. If I can stop.

"Bruce," I manage to get out, choking on the words and the air and dirt that isn't even there.

He looks over his shoulder at Dick, who leans in and down and circles to kneel next to me. "Are you alright?" he demands, and I almost burst into laughter again. I'm sure my eyes are wide, that my chest is heaving, that I look about as mad as the Jokester or the way Dick can look sometimes, but I can't swallow any of it back or make it go away.

All I can think of is that fucking coffin. My breathing picks up another notch and Dick claps his hands together in front of my face, close enough to make me flinch back and cringe, eyes squeezing shut and then snapping open again. Darkness, I can't. I stare at Dick, and he gives a half aborted snarl and leans forward, gathering me into his arms and pulling me out of Bruce's loose grip. His arms are warm and tight around me, clutching like I'm precious, and I can feel the tears burning in my eyes. I don't know if they're from keeping my eyes open or because Dick just doesn't do this and it feels like suddenly I'm actually being cared for, that someone actually is stopping to think of and be concerned about me.

Me, who died and dug his way out of his grave and no one even noticed.

Dick's breath is short and sharp against my neck and my shoulder, and I don't know if that's my shaking or his. "You stupid little bastard," he hisses in my ear. "You tell me what triggers you, you idiot. I can't avoid it if I don't know."

I swallow, and now I'm sure it's the emotions because the tears leave my eyes and slip down my face, and I bury my face into Dick's bare shoulder and let them come. I shouldn't, Bruce despises weakness like this unless he caused it, and Dick is a fucking psychopath who barely manages to even act human, let alone be one, but they're my family. It's a fucked up world where these two crazy bastards are the only people I can even imagine letting my guard down around. The only people who might not eat me alive for it.

Bruce's fingers graze along my wrists and the cuffs fall off under his careful touch, the chains dropping from my wrists, and then he's at my back and fuck, that still hurts but it's enough to have him there. I can take a little pain to make that happen. I can.

"Tell us what happened," Bruce demands, his fingers carding through my hair and Dick does not let go of me, clutching at me like I'm going to shatter into a thousand pieces and he can keep me together if he just holds tight enough. It's not that far from accurate. I'm pretty sure his touch is what's keeping me away from the memories trying to drag me into darkness and terror. That, and Bruce's voice in my ear.

I cling to Dick's bare chest, clutching him almost as hard as he's clutching at me, my eyes open and staring but my head staying firmly buried against his shoulder. The darkness still hides behind my eyes, and I swallow and shake, trying to calm my breathing down and not able to. Dick makes an unhappy, hissing noise against my neck, hands tightening for just a moment, and Bruce speaks again, sharper this time, a little more commanding.

"Jason, now. What happened?"

"I—" I'm pretty sure I dig my nails into Dick's back. "I died," I manage, and turn just enough to look up at Bruce through the edge of my vision, and Dick adjusts so I'm sideways against his chest, tucked beneath his chin. "The pit didn't bring me back," I admit, and Bruce's eyes narrow sharply.

"What did?" he asks, and I shake my head just a little bit, fighting the desire to close my eyes because I know what waits back there.

"I don't know." I shudder, Bruce's hand smoothes over my back, and I choke on my next words. "I woke up and it… it was pitch black and I was so out of it and I—" The reality closes my throat shut for a second but I spit my words out as soon as I can get them through. "I was in that fucking coffin, you buried me." Dick inhales sharply, and I can see Bruce recoil just a little bit, in a tiny gesture that I doubt anyone has ever seen but the two of us and maybe Alfred. In disgust, and shock, and something that I swear to god looks like guilt, but couldn't be.

"You dug out," Bruce says quietly, I feel Dick shake against me, and I nod. "You should have told us, Jason," he reprimands, eyes narrowed again.

"I didn't know," I admit, clinging to Dick and refusing to let go. I don't care what Bruce wants or doesn't want, right now I just… I can't. I don't know how hard I'll fall if Dick lets me go, or if Bruce makes him. "I dream about it, but I did all sorts of blind training with the heroes and this never happened. I didn't think—" I have to swallow. "I didn't think it could."

Dick gives a sharp laugh over my head, that sounds a bit guilty and wild. "That's what I'm good at," he hisses, leaning around me to bury his face and his lips against the back of my neck. "Shit, little wing, I never meant to do that to you." The frantic, light presses of his lips against the bumps of my spine are like small apologies, all the 'sorrys' Dick will never, ever say.

This feels surreal.

Dick is a psychopath, he's a murdering bastard, and he's only ever treated me like a possession. This feels like more than that, more than just the worry of a kid trying to convince themselves that they'll never come that close to breaking their toy again, reminding themselves it was lucky that glue could put it back together again. This feels like a real apology, like he actually means it to me as a person and not just the next in his line of people he's nearly or completely broken. I… I don't understand.

"Scared to break me?" I ask, instead of any of the more dangerous questions on my tongue, and Dick's arms clamp down around me tightly enough to make me startle and give a gasp of pain. He immediately loosens his grip, turning almost careful, like I'm fragile.

"Scared for someone else to," he corrects, breathing a little shaky against the back of my neck. "It's different if I do it, little wing, you know that. I'm good at what I do, I know how to break you without killing you. Those other idiots," his voice is suddenly a sharp snarl, "don't. They'd break you too far, ruin all of it, I can't let them do that to you." He sounds protective, like an actual brother and not this messed up version of it, like he'd tear apart a thousand heroes or a thousand other criminals before he let one of them at me again. He probably would.

"You care?" I ask slowly, and Dick stiffens and then yanks back, shoving me away and for a second I'm fucking terrified that he's going to throw me to the ground for even daring to think it. That he's going to rip me apart for asking if he'd ever stoop to caring about me, another human and not the god to be worshipped that Bruce is.

Instead his hands clench on my shoulders — which hurts but I grit my teeth and bear it because at least he's still touching me — and he stares at me with an expression that looks incredulous. "Of course I care," he says, clearly shocked, ignoring Bruce at my back until our not-father wraps his arms around my waist and drops his head down to rest on my shoulder.

"Oh, Jason," Bruce says, with what almost sounds like a sad tinge to his voice. But it can't be. Bruce doesn't feel, he doesn't care. We're tools to him and amusing playthings and that's it. The fact that he knows how to manipulate the knowledge that I care doesn't mean any of his words actually mean anything. "Did you really think we didn't?"

I stare at Dick, my jaw working as he stares right back. "I'm a tool to you," I say to Bruce, "and a toy to you," I direct towards Dick. "Why would the two of you care? You don't care about anything."

Dick snarls and glares at me, and then he slaps me, hard enough to snap my head to the side from the impact. I stare in shock, my eyes wide. I don't think Dick has ever slapped me before. Clawed, beat, burnt, punched, kicked, and electrocuted, yes, but slapped? That's such a… a childish thing to do, and sure Dick has the possessive and whiplash tendencies of a child most of the time but he's so much more vicious than a slap can ever be. If he's upset he punches me, and he gets much nastier and inventive when he wants to really hurt me, but this… I…

"We're family, Jason," Dick spits. "We're Owls, you're my brother. Of course I care you stupid little bastard." They… Dick actually…? No, this is some fucked up game or some way to take advantage of the attack and twist me even more firmly around his fingers, like he needs to. Dick presses closer, taking my face between his hands and kissing me, and when I close my eyes on automatic the darkness isn't there waiting like I expect it to be. Dick's touch is possessive, firm, but gentle even if it reeks of restrained frustration. "You idiot," he hisses against my mouth. "I'd never break you beyond fixing, little wing. Never."

Coming from Dick that… that actually means a lot.

Bruce shifts at my back, his lips pressing into my neck and then bowing against my back. "Jason," he starts, and then pauses for several long moments before he continues. "If I didn't care I would have killed you the moment I heard you were working for Ra's al Ghul, by all rights I should have anyway. You know too many secrets, too much information, and I should have slit your throat, but I didn't. I couldn't."

It all clicks together in a horrible pattern that makes too much sense. Everything I did while I was gone, and they were pissed about the fact I slept with Talia. That only made any kind of remote sense if they were precisely as possessive as they are, but Bruce is right. By all rights I should have been dead a long time ago; he should have killed me the moment he knew I was alive, or dragged me back here. One of the two. Instead I stayed alive and free for years before now, and he ignored me even while I screwed with his shipments and undermined his reputation across the world.

That's… Christ, why didn't I see that before? I really should have.

I make some kind of little noise, a desperate thing, and reach forward for Dick. He draws closer, settling in against me, and I ease into the warm pressure of the two of them. Tears drip down my cheeks, and there's a hollow in my chest that feels empty and never-ending but there's a spark of warmth in it. Like someday, it might at least have a bottom, it might heal closed a bit.

"No more of this, Jason," Dick demands. "You don't ever hold anything back from me again, you understand me?" There's a shakiness to his voice, as his head presses down against my shoulder and mine burrows against his chest, that feels out of place on him but I recognize from other people. Hiding concern or fear behind anger and sharp retorts to not betray the weakness, that's what I do.

"I'm sorry," I gasp, into Dick's collarbone, and he shakes his head against my shoulder and presses closer.

"You damn well should be," he snaps. "You don't get to break on my watch, little wing, not to anyone's hand but mine." Bruce backs it up with a short acknowledging sound, and I nearly feel like choking as his arms clench around my waist and Dick pulls closer to me and the two of them are everywhere and I feel safe and surrounded in a way I… I don't think I've ever felt. Maybe in the early morning moments after patrol, when we would all end up in the same bed and I was curled between the two of them, too exhausted to leave for somewhere else, but that was rare and usually more likely to end with all of us trudging back to our own rooms, not a pile in the same bed. I had school, Dick had wherever the fuck he went, and Bruce had meetings earlier than any of us wanted to think about.

The chance that we were all going to end up in the same place, and not mind that we'd get woken up repeatedly by others, was unlikely. I think it happened maybe… three or four times, if that? It only ever felt that way if there wasn't sex involved either, if it was just the three of us together to share warmth and the comfort of another human body, and not because at least one of us wanted to fuck the other two.

This… this feels like those times. I'm even about as injured and bruised as was usually the case.

"Can this just stop here?" I ask quietly, between the two of them, and I can feel both of them shift, probably trading a glance over my bowed head. "Please?" I add, for good measure and right now I don't give a fuck that I'm basically pleading for nothing to happen.

"What do you mean, Jason?" Bruce asks, and I feel Dick's head tilt into my skin in what I'm pretty sure is an angle so he can hear me better.

I swallow and try thinking my words through before I say them, but I don't move. I don't want any of this to move, not ever. "Can this just stop?" I repeat. "Can we just take this and sleep and not deal with the rest of it right now, please? Whatever you want to do to me tomorrow is… it's fine, but for right now can we just—" Dick cuts me off with a press of fingers to my lips, and I get the feeling they're trading glances over my head again. I close my eyes cautiously — expecting the panic-inducing dark and thanking god when it doesn't show up and it's just regular black behind my eyelids — and wait for the two of them to finish.

Finally I can feel Dick nod, and he pulls back from me a little, reaching down and lifting my head as I open my eyes to look at him. "We're done," he tells me, mouth flatter than I've seen it in a long time, brilliantly blue eyes serious and only just barely narrowed. "We're done, little wing, promise."

"It doesn't matter what you've done," Bruce adds, his arms pulling back from my waist a little bit. "From tomorrow on, we're even, and you can do whatever it is that you want to without our interference." The thought of what I came to Gotham to do rises, but I shove it away sharply. I meant what I said, I don't want to have to think about any of this. Not right now, not when I feel so…

Cracked.

Dick folds up, pulling me and Bruce to standing with him, and I make a sharp keening noise and fold back onto Bruce, letting my weight fall nearly completely onto him. I'd forgotten how much Dick hurt me, before this happened. My torso protests being straight violently, and the parts of my back pressed against Bruce ache and burn at the pressure. My left shoulder, in particular, screams at me. I guess it didn't appreciate all of my really strong struggling while I couldn't really feel it behind everything else.

Bruce takes my weight without complaint, actually lifting me into his arms without skipping a beat and moving towards the bed with me curled against his chest. No less painful of a position, but at least I don't have to support my own weight this way. It's not quite right — I got almost as big as Bruce a while ago, and even though he can lift me into his arms without a problem it's not exactly perfect — but it doesn't have to be. Dick follows, one hand on my calf and his body pressed tight to Bruce's side as our not-father carries me to the bed.

Dick moves to pull the covers and thick comforter aside before we get there, and Bruce slides me inside them like they planned all this from the beginning. I guess, in a way, this is what they've always been good at. Taking me places, making sure the way is clear beforehand, and making sure that I don't have the chance to struggle. Working as a team. Dick slips in beside me, on the other side of the bed, as Bruce pulls everything back over the top of me. My not-brother's skin presses warm to mine, and he drags me to his chest and against him without any real care for my injuries, all the aches and burning stripes carved into me by him. Bruce leans over us both, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead and then I think, briefly, to Dick's mouth.

"I have a few more things to settle first," he tells us, his hand sliding through my hair. "I shouldn't be more than a few minutes." Dick nods, still holding me tight to him, and I can very faintly hear Bruce move away from the two of us. I close my eyes against Dick's chest, letting myself sink into the no longer familiar feeling of another warm body curled in and around me while I sleep.

There was a time I wouldn't have been able to sleep without either Dick or Bruce around me, or at least not sleep well, but I grew out of that after the pit. I don't know how long I spent in Gotham after I dug my way out of my own grave, collapsed in a coma and unidentified because some idiot nurse or doctor didn't recognize me as Jason Wayne, but after Talia dumped me in the pit and brought my mind back — at least most of it — I didn't really sleep for weeks. It took me a long time to adjust to the idea that there wasn't going to be anyone there when I woke up, and none of the heroes were going to be sleeping next to the criminal pet they'd brought in. Not that I would have wanted them to.

I wanted Dick, I wanted Bruce. I wanted my family. I wanted to go to sleep, wake up, and have it all be a terrible dream. I still want that.

The light clicks off, and somehow, with Dick's arms wrapped around me and his steady heartbeat under my ear, I manage not to panic. It's a close thing, and Dick must feel the hitch to my breathing and the speed of my heart because he lifts his head.

"Bruce," he calls, "open the curtains."

He holds me until there's the rattling and sliding fabric sounds of a curtain, and then light falls over my close eyelids. It eases me a little, and I open my eyes to moonlight, shining down in through the now open windows. Bruce's silhouette is standing in front of one of them, and then slips away into the blackness of the rest of the room. I could probably track him, but I choose not to. I choose to bury my head a little further into Dick's chest and just breathe, my pulse slowing down and the adrenaline finally draining out of my system,. Dick's hand strokes through my hair, down my back, and the pain almost feels more like home than all the rest of it.

Dick has always hurt me, that's never changed. The only difference is now I know he might actually care and give a damn underneath all of that. I'm pretty sure he does. I think?

This changes everything.

But not right now. Right now I'm going to let the nightmares slip away from my head and bury them under Dick's touch and the warm rush of his breath next to my ear and on top of my head. Right now, nothing else matters.

It's the easiest I've gotten to sleep in years.