John wants to start taking steps towards resuming his duties as Nightwing and getting back to that place in his life before he was injured, when everything he had was more than enough. But Bruce won't let him due to several things: setbacks in physical therapy, crime stats still looking good, and some problematic photos.
The first photos that show up are hilariously tame, in retrospect. Bruce in swim trunks, Bruce on a yacht, Bruce diving into the ocean - (He's not as jacked as he was when he was Batman, but for a man in his 40s with serious long-term damage to his body - hell, for any man - he still has an impressive physique. John would know firsthand - all these years as Nightwing, and Bruce can still hand him his ass on a platter when they go hand-to-hand.) - Bruce's bare ass as he fucks a tall, slim woman, whose face is hidden behind chic sunglasses and in shadows because of the woven straw sun hat on her head.
Bruce looks confused when John shows him the Gotham Enquirer in his office.
"I don't understand," he says, flipping through several pages of photos of him and the woman in various titillating positions. He flips back to the cover and reads the headline: Bruce Wayne, Philanthropist Philanderer.
"This is clearly Selina," he continues.
"I know," says John.
"They just cropped her head out or used different angles to hide her face."
"I know."
"A guy on vacation with his wife is suddenly tabloid fodder?"
"Clearly not, since you're a scumbag cheating husband now."
Bruce opens the tabloid again and studies a full spread photo of Selina stretched out on the bow of the ship, her face tilted away from the camera, her breasts covered by a poppy orange string bikini top, Bruce's face buried between her thighs.
"Pretty good shot, actually."
John tilts his head to get a better view.
"It is," he agrees.
Bruce closes the tabloid and leans back in his chair.
"So the good news is that you're so boring that they have to fabricate stories about you," says John. "The bad news is -"
"They shouldn't have been able to get these shots," finishes Bruce.
"Yeah." John runs his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "I checked with security. You were miles off shore. There was no other boats around. The sky was clear. They swept the boat for bugs before you got on it. A diver wouldn't have been able to get these shots from the water. So how did they do it?"
"Guess you're going to find out," says Bruce. "Right now, it's not a big deal. I'm kind of amused. But next time, they might be publishing photos of the girls. Blake, handle this."
Bruce's phone intercom buzzes.
"Mr. Wayne, your three o'clock is on the line," says his secretary.
Bruce tosses the tabloid into a drawer.
"If, in the course of your investigation, you happen to come across the originals…"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get them for you."
He heads toward the door.
"You're a perv, Bruce. You know that, right?"
Bruce ignores him and picks up the phone, but he swears he sees a slight upwards tilt to Bruce's lips.
Selina is far less amused than Bruce by the invasion of her privacy, and it doesn't take much to set her off. She's giving a press conference related to her shelter, when a reporter decides to ask about the photos.
"That's me in the photos, we were in Mallorca, Bruce works out, he's an animal in the sack, and we fuck a lot. Any other questions?" she snarls.
It's a popular clip circulating online within hours. Selina and the director of Wayne Enterprises' PR team are having a screaming match about how Selina needs to hold her tongue, and John can pretty much guarantee that the director is going to be fired by the end of the day once Bruce hears that someone other than himself tried to tell his wife what to do.
John's still chuckling over the clip as he makes his way to the publisher of the Gotham Enquirer.
He doesn't bother scheduling a meeting.
"Bruce Wayne sent me," is all he says to the receptionist, who immediately gets flustered and starts making frantic calls. Five minutes later, and he's being ushered into the publisher's office. Davis Packer is new to the Gotham Enquirer; the old publisher knew better than to fuck around with Bruce. Packer looks young - way too young to be in this position. John thinks someone bought the paper and gave it to their kid to run.
John sits down without waiting to be asked. He doesn't introduce himself. Either Packer has done his homework and knows who he is or he's bad at his job.
"And you are?" says Packer.
It's the latter then. John ignores him.
"Your predecessor and Mr. Wayne had an understanding - the Enquirer stuck to public appearances and, let's call it, amusing stories."
John had particularly enjoyed the one about Bruce having Elvis perform at a secret board meeting in Fiji. Bruce in a photoshopped Hawaiian shirt was priceless.
"Your latest issue was neither public nor amusing. Care to explain?"
"I don't," says Packer. "If there's anything to discuss, you can talk to the lawyers."
Most people would be shaking in their boots at this point, but Packer seems stupid. John sighs. This is not the first time Bruce has sent him to a publisher to explain things.
"Lawyers? If you want. See, we can do this one of two ways. The first way is you and me having a good talk, no lawyers. The second way involves lots of lawyers and ends with you bankrupt and blacklisted from the publishing industry. Takes a bit longer, but the results stick. What'll it be?"
Packer seems indecisive.
"Ever heard of Guy Shimon from People Magazine? No? Google him, I'll wait."
Packer squirms but starts typing. John watches him read, looking more and more distressed as he goes through the results.
"So let's talk. How did you get those photos?"
"Editor-in-chief got a package with a USB drive in it."
"From who?"
"Anonymous. Just had a paper that said 'your next story.'"
"Do you still have the package and everything in it?"
"Probably."
"You better hope you do. Get them for me."
Packer makes a call. It takes a few minutes for a runner to bring it up. John makes a point of looking relaxed in his chair.
The runner hands the package to John, who tucks it into his jacket pocket. He gets out of his chair.
John can't resist one last dig.
"You know that was his wife, right?"
Packer looks bamboozled.
"It was?"
"Have you ever seen his wife?"
"Yes, but... why wouldn't he be getting some on the side?"
"Have you seen his wife?"
"Yes, so?"
"You married?"
"Yes."
"You enjoy spending time with her?"
"Not really."
"Well, he does."
He opens the door.
"If I were you, I'd follow your predecessor's lead on the Wayne family. Capisce?"
"Yes," says Packer. He's completely sweat through his jacket at this point.
"Great," says John.
"Not great," says John when Bruce asks him about his investigation. He doesn't have any leads: the package came from a suburb of London; packing material, paper, and USB drive came from China, like everything else these days; no useful digital information on USB drive; address and note printed on a printer primarily sold in North America; no fingerprints.
John researches satellites, drones, radar, and surveillance aircraft; the best forensic photo analysts in the United States examine the photos and don't come up with anything; military contacts and scientists don't have good answers. It's a dead end.
Bruce hassles him to keep looking, but there are no more leads. Hopefully, it's just a one-off from a greedy publisher and an unethical photographer. Bruce goes around muttering something about having an EMP bubble surrounding him whenever he's outside.
He doesn't realize it at first, but the women Bruce pushes towards him now are different. They're not the ones who hit on Bruce, but rather, the ones who don't: deeply intelligent women, who also happen to be highly attractive, in high-powered positions or doing meaningful work; women that a man like Bruce would consider as a life partner rather than just a one night stand. John has to admit Bruce's selections are not that far off from his own taste, although Bruce does lean towards women with an aggressive streak that John finds intimidating.
The first few of this new type of women, he doesn't realize Bruce had a hand in it. They work for NGOs, newspapers, universities; they walk up to him or somehow acquire his cell phone number and ask him out.
He catches on when Bruce tries to set him up with a journalist from CNN. They're at a television studio; Bruce is doing an interview about his latest project. During a commercial break, Bruce chats with the journalist while John stands to the side of the stage on his phone, trying to answer some emails; with Nightwing on hold, Bruce has been pulling him into the business side of things more these days. He's tuning out the noise around him when he hears his name.
" – my assistant, John, is single. I'm just saying," says Bruce, flashing his most charming smile. The journalist, an up-and-coming talent named Jill, looks John up and down. John blushes and stalks over to the stage.
"Can I have a word?" he says and pulls Bruce off the stage without waiting for a response. Jill watches them from the stage.
"What the fuck, Bruce?" he hisses.
"She just moved to Gotham; she's looking for someone to show her around…"
"I don't need you interfering in my love life."
"Interfering… you mean, the way I've been enabling your love life for years? You didn't seem to mind when I sent you women before."
"That was different," snaps John, and then the commercial break is almost up, and Bruce is back on stage.
They're back in Bruce's office at Wayne Tower when Bruce continues that conversation.
"So it's okay if I tell women to sleep with you, but not to date you? Why?"
"It just is."
"That's a shitty answer. Try again."
John doesn't know what to say. The idea of finding a woman of his own is appealing; extremely appealing. Countering that, though, is the pull that he feels towards Bruce - a pull that's only been getting stronger since Nightwing was sidelined. He doesn't know how to reconcile the two urges, or even find the words to discuss it.
"I don't know," he mumbles.
"You don't know," Bruce repeats. He sighs and leans back in his chair.
"What's really going on, John?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"You miss being Nightwing?"
"No shit."
"Do you think Gotham needs him right now?"
John wants to say yes, but the truth is, the crime stats have been excellent lately, and to say Nightwing is needed would be for his sake, not Gotham's, and that's not okay. Sometimes, he forgets that in an ideal world, Nightwing and Catwoman and Batman are unnecessary, even undesirable. So he says nothing.
"It's hard," says Bruce, "to give up that kind of power and purpose. I don't know what I would have done had I had the opportunity to walk away by choice. Sometimes, I'm glad that I had to."
"I didn't choose to, I broke my arm and leg and then you didn't let me go back."
"I should have left it to you to make that call," says Bruce. "But the timing of it all was fortuitous. And the truth is, you still have that choice. You want to go back out there, I won't stop you."
"So John, what'll it be?"
John isn't able to formulate an answer before the next set of photos is released. Not through the tabloids this time; John had put the fear of god into Packer and he suspects the word got around. They show up in an online only gossip column.
These photos look like they were taken by someone standing outside of John's bedroom window. They're photos of Selina and John this time: Selina shoving John against the wall and kissing him; Selina on her back with John fucking her while holding one of her legs against his shoulder; Selina riding John; Selina on all fours with John eating her out.
Bruce is far less amused this time, but he declines to comment on the photos and Selina manages to keep her mouth shut. With no drama, firings, or divorce filings, the photos fade away quickly as the media pieces together that Bruce probably already knew and approved. Nobody at Wayne Manor is surprised - there have been a few rumors around the years - and they take their cue from Bruce, who clearly does not give a fuck. Nobody dares say anything to his face, except for his cop buddies who rib him about his "duties."
There are even fewer leads than before since everything is digital. After a few letters from Wayne Enterprises attorneys, the gossip column sends along anything they have on the photos, which were submitted anonymously through a throwaway email. The best the analysts could do was trace a trail back to Europe again.
Bruce yells at John and Selina to make sure the window shades are closed next time they think about fucking, but it's more of an expression of his frustration than an actual admonishment. Anyone close enough to take those pictures should have set off the security system or attracted attention.
John can tell Bruce is nervous. Bruce tightens security at the manor and around the girls. Bruce has John keep his Nightwing suit and supplies at a new location in Gotham proper - no more leaving and returning through the Batcave while suited up.
And that's all they can do.
"The worst part," says Bruce, "is that we don't even know why they're doing this."
John reviews what they know. It's not about the money as the source didn't ask for anything. There have been no blackmail demands. The photos have been embarrassing, but not earth shattering revelations. There has been no corresponding activity in the city indicating that the photos are part of a wider attack.
Bruce's biggest concern is that their identities will be revealed. John disagrees; if the source had that information, he thinks it would have been released already instead of a slow ramp up.
The crime stats remain good, and Nightwing remains sidelined. John is starting to accept that maybe this is the new normal. He has a lot more time on his hands now.
Since their conversation, Bruce has backed off recruiting women for John to date. But given how his nights are now open for the foreseeable future, John is slowly warming to the idea of dating on his own terms.
The last time he had a date must have been while he was still a cop. Dating had sucked; gathering the nerve to ask someone out was emotionally draining, he couldn't afford really nice dates, and his apartment was shitty enough that it was embarrassing to bring someone home.
Now, asking women out is easier (although still not easy), and he's financially secure enough to do… actually, anything the hell he wants, come to think of it. He's just never thought to do anything with money before; everything he's ever needed, Alfred took care of it. He even has a family credit card, with no limit or questions asked.
All these years later, and it's still hard to grasp that if he chose to leave Bruce's side, his savings would guarantee that he wouldn't need to worry about money for a long time. Which, now that he thinks about it, was probably Bruce's reasoning for paying him yet still covering everything; so John's decision to stay or leave wouldn't be a financial one.
The problem now is that the photos of him and Selina have given him a reputation that's not conducive to looking for a life partner, especially since he hasn't distanced himself from the Waynes. He finds this out the hard way after he asks someone out for a date the first time.
Shanika is a very pretty new secretary over at the Wayne Foundation whom he's interacted with a few times over funding for St. Swithin's. He likes her attitude and sense of humor, so he decides to take a shot.
Shanika laughs and cracks a joke about not needing to buy her dinner to get the money for the boys. When she realizes he's serious, it gets awkward.
"Aren't you involved with, ah…" her voice trails off. John gives her a quizzical look.
"...Mrs. Wayne?" she whispers.
"No," says John, "that was just, ah, a fling." Fuck, he's stuttering now. "We're just friends."
Shanika doesn't look like she believes him.
"And then she says 'Thanks for asking, but I think we'd be better off staying business associates!'" John tells Bruce. He attacks his punching bag with renewed vigor.
Bruce grunts in commiseration.
Nightwing and Batman may be laid to rest, but John and Bruce don't stop training; both agree that John should stay ready in case Nightwing is needed. Also, over the years, as he improved, John has grown to enjoy their training time, and he knows Bruce does too.
Especially now, John craves Bruce's touch, which has been getting less frequent as there's been less training and less sex. In sparring, at least, there's still some measure of skin-to-skin contact. Even when they were having sex more often, touching was highly limited. Bruce's restrictions were clear; they could touch each other's ass, genitals, and hips. Bruce would touch his hair sometimes. And that was it. John greedily looks on when Selina kisses Bruce, running her hands over his back, or when Bruce likes a skirt or dress that Selina's wearing and he'll reach under it to squeeze her ass. John doesn't know how he would bring up such a thing to Bruce. So he doesn't, and finds himself daydreaming about the feeling of Bruce's arms under his fingertips.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do?" says John. "The entire world has seen those pictures."
"I'm sure some women wouldn't care," says Bruce.
"What, all three of them? Makes finding a needle in a haystack look easy."
"I don't envy you," says Bruce. "I never did do the dating thing."
"You went out with women all the time," John says.
"I wasn't interested in them that way. Selina's the only person I ever," Bruce smiles, "wooed, I guess."
"The one woman who didn't want you."
"Pretty much."
"When did you know you wanted her?"
"The moment I realized she'd successfully robbed me, I had to have her."
"Love at first sight?" says John dryly.
"Yes," says Bruce. He sounds lovestruck, like he's experiencing it again for the first time.
"You must be the only person in the world who gets hard over the thought of being robbed," says John, looking at Bruce's crotch.
Bruce doesn't bother denying it.
"I want that," says John.
"That?" says Bruce, looking down at himself.
Your cock? Yes, John says in his head.
"The way you feel about her," is what he says out loud.
Bruce looks at him.
"To feel that way about someone else, or for me to feel that way about you?"
Damn Bruce and his perceptiveness. That's the million dollar question.
Impulsively, he walks over to Bruce and kisses him. Bruce stiffens. He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't kiss John back either.
His lips are soft and slightly moist from sweat, and they feel so good, but there's nothing more to the kiss. No passion, no heat, not even affection. It's dead and awkward.
John pulls away. Bruce's expression is unreadable.
That didn't go as planned. Not that it had been planned at all. But when he'd thought about it, that hadn't been how he'd hoped it would go.
Bruce just looks at him with blank eyes.
"Sorry," says John, averting his eyes. "I just… sorry."
He gets the hell out of there and avoids Bruce for the next few days.
Before he begins to muster up the courage to face Bruce again, the third set of photos is released, and it's worse than John's worst nightmare, because he hadn't seen this coming, even though he really should have.
They're released in the middle of the night, and by the time John gets up the next morning and checks the news, they've spread like wildfire across the internet before. He has to stop looking at the photos at one point to run to the bathroom and throw up.
Bruce stroking John's bare ass; Bruce unzipping his pants; Bruce fucking John with one hand wrapped around John's cock; Bruce's expression as he comes; Bruce in his office chair with John on his knees; Bruce pressing John against a hotel wall and fucking him from behind; Bruce jerking off onto John's face.
There are so many pictures. John can't stop clicking through them - it's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. The photos make Bruce look like the depraved playboy he used to act like, and these photos are far, far worse than anything that has ever been published about him before. They make John look like the Waynes' personal fuck toy. They make John look like a joke professionally, something he hadn't known he'd cared about until right now. They make the possibility of Bruce fucking him in the future far less likely. They make the chance of finding someone to love him miniscule. They make him feel like his life is over.
On the plus side, these photos provide the lead he's been looking for.
While half of his brain is busy handling the hyperventilation and hysteria he's experiencing, the other half is asking questions.
These photos were not taken outside or through uncovered windows - Bruce has always been careful about that sort of thing with him. All these photos had been taken inside; hotel rooms, Wayne Tower, Wayne Manor. But why weren't these photos taken in more sensitive locations? Say, like Bruce's plane or the Batcave? Plenty of sex happening in those places, but no images. What was the difference between these two places and all the others?
He switches his brain into investigation mode, because there's actually something he can do instead of sitting around and crying. Doing always makes him feel better, and John wants to believe if he can get to the bottom of this, it can fix everything.
He stays in his rooms the entire day. He turns off his phone and locks the doors. At several points, he distantly hears someone knocking at the door and calling his name, but he ignores that. He thinks he hears a door open at some point, but no one bothers him and when he turns around again, it's closed.
He's not moving until he cracks this case.
Hours later, he realizes that the one crucial difference is that the plane and Batcave have heavily filtered air. If there's a tiny camera floating around, it would have been plucked out of the air by the filters. He's never heard of a camera this small, but this answer feels right.
He turns his phone back on to make a call. Big mistake; the number of texts, voicemails, missed calls, and emails is overwhelming and sends a wave of panic through him.
He pushes past the panic and calls the R&D division of Wayne Enterprises. Whoever picks up the phone doesn't give him any shit, just takes down his directions and promises to let him know the minute they find anything.
John waits. Thankfully, this much later in the day, people have stopped trying to reach out, so there's silence while he sits. He thinks about praying, but it feels disingenuous if he doesn't believe, which he hasn't for decades. So he meditates instead. It doesn't work the way he wants - instead of clearing his mind, it sends him into a surreal, murky haze where all he can hear is the pound of his heart while half formed, blurry images dance underneath his eyelids and random words float through his mind… it goes on and on until the ring of his phone breaks him out of it.
John pounces on his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he realizes it's nearly 4am. It's R&D on the line, and once he realizes what time it is, he's shocked that they've worked on this all night. His voice quavers a little when he thanks them.
R&D pulled a few strings, traded in some favors, and found three tech companies specializing in spyware, specifically in cameras. So far, the smallest thing any of them has on the market is the size of a very large fly, but those in the know are claiming that cameras the size of small mosquitos are in development.
John turns on his laptop and starts combing through the company websites. If nothing useful comes up there, his next step will be requesting full personnel lists and… wait a second. One company based out of London has a page describing charitable work done in conjunction with a company called Ravenshead, Ltd. The name sounds familiar. He logs into Wayne Enterprises' remote database and runs a search. "Ravenshead" comes up as a company that Wayne Enterprises contracted with several years ago for a one-time project that Bruce had ended up nixing for one reason or another. It's not much of a connection, but John will take it.
By the next day, he's dug up enough of a trail to tenuously link board member Rance Howerton, Sr. to the London company. He doesn't know most of the board members well, but he especially doesn't know Howerton. Howerton is an old dude who was appointed before Wayne Enterprises went public and Bruce bought out the company. Bruce had found him competent and thus had left him in place.
But in the past few years, according to meeting minutes and email correspondence, Howerton had been expressing misgivings over the direction Wayne Enterprises had been taking, especially the social entrepreneurship work. John finds several articles under a pseudonym detailing his criticisms in business journals. As he researches Howerton and builds an image of the guy in his head based on his limited interactions with him, a picture starts to emerge of an old-school, politically and socially conservative guy who has a bone to pick with Bruce over decreased shareholder profits. The kind of guy who knows how to play with numbers, but isn't that tech savvy or politically clever.
Maybe he's barking up the wrong tree, but John compiles his evidence and emails it to Bruce. And then, realizing it's been two days since he last ate and it's nearly 2am, he creeps out of his rooms to raid the kitchen.
Now all he can do is wait for Bruce's investigation. He has nothing to distract him from some of the most overwhelming emotional pain he's dealt with in his life. The death of his parents is the only thing that comes close to this. He's heard humiliation described as a fate worse than death, and now living through it, he wholeheartedly agrees.
He has no one. He doesn't want to show his face in public so people can point at him on the street. He can imagine what his cop friends must think of him; if John was looking at this from the outside, he too would assume that some rich guy made his boy toy his assistant, and his primary duty was to get his boss off. Going back to work at Wayne Enterprises, he thinks people will have a more favorable impression of him as they've actually worked with him, but the thought of all those eyes on him is terrifying.
He doesn't dare to go to St. Swithin's for fear of bringing paparazzi attention to them, and what will Father Reilly have to say about his homosexual proclivities that he couldn't even have the decency to satisfy within a loving relationship with a man who didn't have a wife and children?
He looks like shit. He can't go see the girls like this; he doesn't have the energy to plaster a smile on his face. Alfred apparently didn't know this whole time. John is shocked and angered by this revelation. Shocked that Alfred, who knew Bruce best in the world, did not see, or did not care to see, what was going on. Angry at Bruce who did not tell him, but kept John his secret.
What's there to say to Selina? She can't understand the depths of his humiliation. The work she does is public - whatever compromising position she's found in, she at least has the public awareness of the role she plays otherwise. Very few people know the extent of what he does, behind the scenes.
Bruce's security team - he thinks they understand. Especially Ganbaatar, who John has come to know over the years as an incredibly sensitive, understanding person. But he doesn't want them to see him like this: weak, bleary-eyed, and starting to get a little gaunt because his appetite has gone to shit. He just wants to disappear.
A week later, it's hard to tell whether the isolation or the humiliation is worse. People try to come see him, but he refuses to let them in or talk. After Bruce starts threatening to tear down his door with his bare hands, John bails and shacks up in a shitty motel where no one looks at you. He makes sure to ditch anything with a tracking signal in it, and disables the one in his car. He goes out late at night to stretch his legs and wander the city, but otherwise he stays glued to the television and internet, desperately awaiting some kind of vindication.
Vindication comes a few days later with a front page story on Howerton in the Gotham Times. Howerton, increasingly disgruntled with Bruce's style, has been trying to dig up dirt, any kind of dirt, on Bruce for years with the aim showing that Bruce is still the same old playboy idiot who burnt down his home, the logic being that he would be so publically humiliated that he would resign as CEO and let someone else take the reigns. A plan that might have worked back in the 1950s, but to John's understanding, simply wasn't sophisticated enough for today's social mores. That is, until he hit the jackpot by siccing a mosquito-sized camera on Bruce and Wayne Manor.
Bruce throws Howerton off the board in a very public scuffle; makes sure that any company ever thinking of doing business with Wayne Enterprises in the future knows that any connection, however tenuous, with Howerton, will disqualify them; and throws a team of lawyers at him that, even if they don't win their libel, defamation, trespassing, or invasion of privacy cases, will make Howerton's life miserable for the next few years and drain his bank account.
But the damage is done. Prices of Wayne Enterprises stock are in the toilet. Companies in some Arab countries are withdrawing from projects, citing Bruce's homosexual agenda. A rumor is swirling around that John's dedication to St. Swithin's is less about giving back to the place where he'd grown up and more about him helping himself to the boys there. No reputable sources are touching that one, but everytime is comes up in the gossip news results, it stabs him in the heart again.
Kara and Shura, the junior nanny they hired after Tamsin's birth, are accosted on the street with the five Manor kids, as everyone tended to call them, as they were leaving a birthday party for one of Tasmin's friends. John catches the footage of that online; some delusional women ranting that they was there to save the kids from their parents' pervasions, a friend documenting the whole thing on his phone to show the world then rescuing the children. The women launch themselves at Shura, who shoves Elise into Helena's arms and yells at her to run while she tries to hold them off, and Kara, who in a desperate show of strength has managed to scoop up the other three children into her arms and is trying to run too. The girls' security detail arrives and the image cuts off after they're seen tackling the attackers.
The new head of Wayne Enterprises' PR department is furiously attempting to do damage control, but John can tell she stymied by the fact that Bruce, as per usual for these sorts of things, refuses to say anything to the press. Selina nearly gets herself arrested when she attacks a photographer who's getting in her face and refuses to back off. Of course, someone catches that on video as well, along with Selina's accompanying rant where she shouts some surprisingly nice things about John.
The day the exposé on Howerton comes out, he finally decides to go back home. The isolation has won out as the worse of two evils.
It's dinnertime when he lets himself in, which means Bruce, Selina, and the girls should be eating in the small dining room they use for family dinners, with Alfred hovering over everyone until Bruce yells at him to sit down and eat something. John always has an open invite to those dinners, so he goes there.
The girls' backs are to him as he enters the room, so only the adults see him. Bruce reacts first, dropping his silverware so it loudly clangs against his dish.
Bruce doesn't look good. John can tell with a single glance that he's not sleeping, barely eating, and his back is probably hurting him. He has a weeks' worth of stubble, which is unusual for him; usually the only time Bruce's facial hair makes an appearance is on vacation. He looks older than he did just a few weeks ago.
John suddenly decides he'd prefer isolation over looking at what he's done to Bruce, what he's brought upon this family, and he turns to leave.
"Don't you dare," yells Bruce. "John, don't you fucking dare leave."
John speeds up, because he hears Bruce coming after him. Too late - Bruce bodyslams him into the wall.
"Where the fuck have you been?" he yells. Bruce cursing? He's really worked up.
John hears Alfred and Selina trying to calm down the kids. Bruce hears it too, so he shoves John into the closest room and slams the door behind them.
"Around," says John. Bruce's hands are so warm on his exposed forearms, and there is only one thing in the world he can do right now.
He grabs Bruce and kisses him. It's a rougher kiss than last time because both of them have stubble. But Bruce kisses him back this time, long and hard and furious. This is what John has wanted for so long.
Bruce pulls away first this time.
"After all this, and this is still what you want?"
"Yes," says John hoarsely. He pulls Bruce back to him, and puts his mouth on his again.
Bruce pulls away again.
"I can't give you what you need," says Bruce.
John kisses his neck.
"What do I need?"
"Someone who loves you with every fiber of their being, someone who's yours. I love you, John, but not like that. You're my best friend - "
"You fuck all your best friends?" John says, mouthing a tendon in Bruce's neck. God, it feels so good to be able to do this finally.
"Selina has my heart. You know that."
"You're right, and I know," says John, and he feels at peace with it. "But I also know that I'm yours, and I've been yours for a long time." He tastes the skin under Bruce's ear, and Bruce shivers a little. "I wish you would make love to me instead of just fucking me. Look at my face, touch me. I can live with that." He takes a breath.
"I feel like everything is being taken away from me," John whispers. "And this is the one thing I can't lose. The only thing that would make this bearable. It's not enough, but it'll do."
"I'm sorry," says Bruce. "I'm sorry that I put you in this position. I should never have played with you like this. It was inappropriate. I've held you back from finding love, for my own selfish pleasure."
"I don't need apologies. I just need you," says John. He rests his forehead against Bruce's. Bruce puts his arms around John and holds him. They stay like that for a while.
Eventually, the door opens.
"Everything okay, boys?" asks Selina.
"No," says John.
Selina walks over and wraps her arms around John's back, so he's sandwiched between the two of them.
"But it's a start," he concludes.
"We're going to get through this," says Bruce. He kisses the top of John's head and releases him.
"I think dinner is in order first, though," says Selina, and she links her arm through John's and leads him back to the dining room.
Dinner is spent with Helena and Tamsin fighting to sit in his lap, which is only resolved when John has Helena sit in his lap and Tamsin sit in hers. He manages to eat a few mouthfuls, but his hunger is more for holding them and breathing in the smell of their hair rather than eating food. He kisses Elise's pudgy baby cheeks countless times. Alfred shakes his hand and unexpectedly hugs him. Selina and Bruce watch him like a hawk, like they're afraid any sudden move means he's going to make a run for it. He feels guilty for having left, and stupid, because maybe he wouldn't have suffered as much, sheltered in the bosom of the family. After Selina manages to pry the girls off of him and cart then off to bed, Bruce and John talk. Selina comes back, and they talk more. Eventually, John starts nodding off and they send him to bed, but he thinks Bruce and Selina stay up and talk even more.
The next morning, John wakes up in his own bed. He feels better for the first time in weeks - lighter, stronger, calmer. Like maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel. He doesn't get out of bed, preferring to luxuriate in its comforting embrace. He hadn't realized just how shitty the motel bed was until now, or is it that he hadn't realized how spoiled he's become until now? Either way, the bed feels so good.
He lightly dozes until something wakes him up.
"Scoot over, would you?" says Bruce, and he pushes John over and crawls into bed next to him.
John is surprised to see him. Selina's been in his bed, but never Bruce. Bruce is rarely ever in his rooms in general. Bruce is barefoot, freshly shaved, and wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, his standard attire for lounging around the house on a weekend. Except it's not a weekend; it's Tuesday, and Bruce should have been at the office hours ago.
"What are you doing here?" John asks.
"Taking the morning off," says Bruce, and he kisses John.
Sometime during that kiss, Bruce climbs on top of John and lies on him. The weight of a Bruce's body feels intoxicating. He feels lightheaded - until Bruce's feet touch his calves, and he yelps.
"Jesus Christ, Bruce, your feet are like icicles."
"Another thing you and Selina can commiserate about," says Bruce, and he deliberately shoves a foot between John's thighs. John yells again and tries to push Bruce off of him, but Bruce uses his weight to keep John pinned down.
"You want me to touch you?" he asks John. John nods. "Then shut up about my feet."
Bruce pulls down John's boxers, and John kicks them off. He's fully naked, and as per usual, Bruce is fully clothed. Apparently, some things never change, but John stops caring once Bruce puts his mouth on his shoulder.
John doesn't know how long he's been lying there moaning while Bruce explores his body with his mouth and hands, when Bruce reaches his penis. Bruce takes his penis into his hand, and John anticipates another mind-blowing handjob, but Bruce surprises him.
Bruce licks the head of his penis. John jerks his hips in surprise.
"I thought you didn't…"
"I don't," says Bruce. "I've never…"
"You've never sucked anyone's dick? Really?"
"And I don't plan to start," Bruce informs him. "You talk too much."
John shuts up. Bruce swipes his tongue around the head of his penis for a while, and even licks off the bead of pre-cum gathering at the tip.
"Interesting," is all Bruce has to say about that before he gets back on top of John.
"Where do you keep - " and before he finishes, John has the nightstand drawer open and the lube out.
Bruce pulls down his pants, and John feels his hard cock against his thigh. Bruce pauses, and then shucks off his pants and shirt entirely. He's not wearing any underwear. John slides his hands down Bruce's chest and enjoys the unfamiliar sensation of Bruce's skin.
Bruce takes the lube from him and lubes up both their penises. He pushes John's legs together, slides his penis between John's thighs, tucks John's penis carefully between their stomachs, lies on him, and starts thrusting. Every thrust stimulates his penis, caught between their two bodies. It's great, but what really gets him going is when Bruce fixes his intense gaze on John's face and keeps it there.
"Come for me, John," says Bruce as he brushes his lips against John's cheek. John gasps his way through his orgasm and struggles to keep his eyes open, to watch Bruce watching him. Bruce keeps thrusting until John's breathing slows down, and then he sits back on his haunches, takes his cock in hand, and roughly jerks himself off onto John's stomach, adding to the sticky mess already there.
He lies down next to John for a few minutes.
"Good?" he asks.
"Very," says John.
Bruce kisses him.
"Go get ready," Bruce says. "We have a board meeting in two hours." He gets out of bed and wipes his stomach and cock off on John's sheets.
"What?" says John.
"You heard me," says Bruce as he pulls on his clothes.
"Bruce, no, I can't." The thought of all the board members judging him...
"You think I'm not embarrassed?"
"You're an eccentric billionaire who's made getting caught in compromising positions with your wife on balconies into an art form. This is standard fare for you."
"Why do we fall, John?"
Bruce loves saying that.
"So that we can learn to pick ourselves up," recites John. Bruce once made him do two hundred push-ups while chanting that line to drive it through his skull.
"This time, you happened to get thrown through a window on the 70th floor, but the principle still holds. Are you going to pick yourself up?"
"I can't get up by myself," says John.
Bruce holds his hand out to John.
"I'll help you," says Bruce.
John takes his hand, and Bruce pulls him out of bed.
Going back to Wayne Enterprises isn't as bad as he thought it would be. With Bruce standing next to him, people are less likely to say anything rude to him. But people surprise him. They don't just refrain from staring and whispering; they actually walk over to him, shake his hand, and sincerely say that it's good to see him.
"You have to keep your faith in people," says Bruce before they head into the boardroom.
John tries to keep that in mind, but it's hard to take it to heart given all the disgusting human beings speculating that he's a pedophile.
"You ready?" asks Bruce.
"Hell, no," says John. He's not ready for the meeting or the new life ahead of him: the one without Nightwing, where he lacks a purpose, dignity, and a good reputation.
"Too bad," says Bruce, and he pushes open the door.
At least he has a family, he tells himself; a loving family that didn't abandon him in his deepest shame. And Bruce specifically, who can't love him back even a tenth as much as he loves Selina, but whatever Bruce does feel for him, it's powerful; John feels it vibrating off of Bruce as they walk into the boardroom, together.
None of it is enough, but for now, John will have to make do.