A/N - Our last chapter! I finally tie in the Bruce Wayne Week "Nightmares" prompt.
TW - lemons ahead, read at your own risk.
+ 1 Way They Fanned the Flames
It was near dawn when Steph's nightmares started up like clockwork to torment her.
She felt the drill going through a bone and saw the masked, sadistic eyes laughing in her face - she could feel his hot, stinky breath on her - and she was screaming for B like she always did - screaming and hoarse and begging him to come save her -
"Steph!" she heard. "Steph!"
It was B's voice and he was there, suddenly blocking out Black Mask and shaking her - but shouldn't he be more careful? She'd just been drilled through that arm! But B was gripping her tight, hovering over her, holding her trembling body and shushing the screams that wouldn't stop pouring out of her mouth.
"B," Steph whimpered pathetically, surprised to find herself able to cling to him - hadn't Black Mask tied her up? - Yet here she was, clutching Batman's chest. It felt warm and muscular instead of cold and hard like the Kevlar Batsuit he was wearing, which was totally strange, but he was there. The oddity of the details didn't matter.
"B, you came," she sobbed against him. "Where were you?" she cried into his chest.
"I didn't go anywhere, sweetheart," he said, trying to soothe her. "I've been right here all night."
"No," she protested. "You weren't here. I was alone with him. You weren't here," she repeated in a heartbreakingly fragile voice.
Bruce inhaled sharply, realizing that Steph was still dreaming at the same time that he realized the nature of her nightmare.
"I'm here," he said helplessly, pulling her into his arms and cuddling her against his chest. "I'm here, baby," he rasped, as he held her tight and stroked her back while guilt devoured him and tears flooded his eyes. "You're dreaming, honey," he added, not bothering to tell her that it was just a dream, because that was the problem, wasn't it?
It wasn't just a dream at all. It was a memory. And Batman hadn't been there. Hadn't saved his Robin. His heart shattered for the woman who'd been born out of the girl he'd failed.
"Wake up, Steph," he said, though, rubbing her back a little more firmly as he tried to gently coax her to consciousness. He reached a hand up to massage the back of her neck while murmuring a soothing litany of useless phrases until finally she shuddered and rapidly inhaled. Her arms gripped his chest tight as she suddenly came to.
"B?" Steph whispered in shock, like she could hardly believe he was there.
"You had a nightmare," he said to her, hugging her harder. A shaky sigh fled from her throat.
"I always have nightmares," she mumbled brokenly. His heart lurched. He had dared to hope that it was a rare occurrence for his former Robin.
"Every night?" he asked hesitantly. She nodded. Bruce's tears spilled out of his eyes and onto his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he pointlessly apologized, knowing that the words weren't adequate.
"Not your fault," Steph mumbled against his neck. He choked on a sob, because how the fuck she could say that to him after everything she'd been through, when he'd just heard her screaming for him in her nightmares - hell, that she'd even been the slightest bit interested in dating him - his chest began to shake.
"How can I help?" he gasped out against his amazing girl's hair.
"Fuck me again?" Steph pleaded softly, a wispy vulnerability threading through her request. "I want to feel grounded," she said. "Know I'm really here, safe with you."
"Of course," he answered immediately, despite his tears, relieved to be given a task. He hated feeling helpless. Nothing was worse than being an impotent bystander.
Plus, it wasn't like it would be a chore to make love to his Steph a second time. He was so glad that he'd followed his gut and trusted his detective's intuition that his growing attraction to her wasn't one-sided. He'd proceeded slowly, carefully marking her reactions to each bolder step he took, not wanting to make her uncomfortable if his feelings weren't reciprocated.
So, despite their back and forth teasing, giving Steph the credit card hadtruly been a platonic gesture. As soon as he'd gotten his brain wrapped around being back in the present and the ways that his Bats had changed and grown, he'd ordered the card. Steph had become an adult in his absence, so he knew he could trust her to handle having unlimited funds at her disposal.
But frankly, even if she'd wanted to spend it all on Lamborghinis and gold toilets and whatever other crap his rich neighbors bought, he really didn't give a shit. Steph had been tortured and then kidnapped because of his irresponsibility, so if she wanted to fritter millions of his dollars away on useless frivolities, he'd gladly let her, and he'd be damned if she ever wanted for life's necessities again. Not on his watch.
He'd been appalled to discover that his wealth wasn't covering her college tuition. He'd laid into Babs and Lucius and Tim hard the day after he'd learned that ugly truth. Babs, the first person he'd gone to, had been equally as shocked as Alfred to discover that Tim and Lucius hadn't taken care of covering it.
"She never said anything to me!" Babs had protested to a fuming Bruce, who had shown up at her apartment with fire shooting out of his eyes. "Of course I thought we were taking care of it," she'd exclaimed in frustration. "Why hadn't she talked to Tim about it? Or Alfred?"
"She felt awkward," Bruce snapped. "As someone from an impoverished background would in the face of asking her very wealthy friends for what is, to her, an astronomical sum of money. Tim should have offered."
"And you should have checked in to make sure it was taken care of, Barbara!" he'd continued to rant, pacing back and forth in her apartment. "You're her mentor!" he'd barked at her. "And you work at the goddamn school!"
"I'm sorry!" Babs had yelled back at him. "We had a lot on our minds, Bruce, in case you'd forgotten!" she said sharply. "We thought you were dead!" she snapped, but her voice broke on the last word and she started sobbing, covering her mouth with a hand as she tried in vain to hold herself together.
Bruce growled in frustration. Fuck, how he hated dealing with other people's emotions, he'd thought to himself as he plopped down on her couch, burying his head in his hands with his elbows on his knees while she cried.
"I'm sorry," he muttered into the sound of her sobs.
"Yeah, you sound like it," Babs snarked through her tears. Bruce sighed long and hard before raising his head to look at his still sobbing former Batgirl.
"Goddammit," he muttered before standing up and coming over to her, dropping to his knees in front of her wheelchair and smoothing a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry for yelling at you," he said more gently, trying to wipe some of her tears away with his hand, because of course he didn't have a handkerchief on him like Alfred would have.
"Steph's been through so much because of me," he'd tried to explain as he awkwardly patted Barbara's arm before reaching out for one of her hands to hold. "More than I can ever make up to her," he said, squeezing her hand in his, hoping the gesture made up for the feelings that were hard to express.
"It hurt to come home and see that my family had left her on her own and in need," he explained helplessly, running his other hand back through his hair. Babs' tears had slowed while he spoke and she'd progressed to gulping and sniffing and rubbing her nose on her sleeve.
"Will you get me some tissues, please?" she'd muttered.
"Sure," he said guiltily, standing up and crossing the room to pick the box up off of the end table. Babs sighed as she pulled a few out and started wiping her face and blowing her nose.
"We should have taken better care of Steph," she finally admitted with some guilt of her own. "There was just so much on our plates, though, Bruce," she said with what was perhaps justifiable exasperation.
"Damian was a wild child whose preferred method of expressing grief was to act out even more," she began to tick off. "Tim was losing his shit over Dick making Damian Robin," she continued, "and Jason tried to fight Dick at first to become Batman."
"Dick had to move back to Gotham," she continued, "which meant resigning from the Bludhaven police department where he'd built his life and career. He had to take on the Batman mantle, which he'd never wanted," she said in frustration, "plus parent a baby assassin and deal with an angry Tim and a wild Jason."
"Then we had Alfred, who was completely heartbroken," she relentlessly continued, "and Cass, who was the same, who also went behind my back to give Batgirl to Steph, who was not ready to take on that role."
"It was a hell of a lot," Babs glared at him. "But yes, we should have dealt with Steph's tuition," she said shortly. "I'm sorry we didn't." Bruce coughed guiltily.
"Perhaps I came on a little strong about it," he said sheepishly, not wanting to admit to himself all the reasons why that might have been the case. "Although, I do wish it had been taken care of."
"Well, it should have been," Babs had sighed. "You're not wrong about that," she admitted. "Steph's so independent, she doesn't like to let on when she needs help."
"You did a good job training her," Bruce offered like an olive branch. "We went through some katas together last night and her technique is really good." The little smile that Babs gave him was full of pride.
"I can only take some of the credit," she said, though. "The Birds of Prey helped," she explained. "And Cat, until she left town last year." Bruce grunted.
Not that he had any intention of telling Babs, but he was relieved that Catwoman was no longer around. They'd always been friends with benefits rather than a couple because the wily thief might be alluringly sexy and always up for helping him scratch an itch, but he'd never trusted her.
He'd always withheld his identity from her, even though he half suspected that she would have kept his secret. What he truly didn't trust Cat with were his emotions. The idea of showing her any hint of vulnerability was laughable. She pounced on weakness. Girlfriend material she was not.
Yes, Catwoman's disappearance from Gotham was definitely a good thing, Bruce thought to himself. His time trapped in the past had triggered a deep yearning in his heart for a committed, authentic romance - the kind that he hadn't had since Talia had left him so many years ago.
He'd come back to the present without a clue as to who he might find to fill that role - because whoever it was would have to fit into Batman's life, too, as well as Brucie the Abomination's. But despite his perhaps low chances of finding a worthy partner, he'd decided to no longer use Cat as a sexual stop-gap.
Yes, he was glad she'd left Gotham, taking away the temptation to continue lazily on as he had been, Bruce had thought firmly to himself on that afternoon with Babs.
When he'd first sought Steph out on patrol upon returning to the present, so that Batman and the new Batgirl could reunite in private, he'd been shocked at her transformation from a teenager into a poised adult. He'd been even more shocked at the sudden burst of interest he'd felt when holding her in his arms as they hugged and cried together.
He'd never once considered Steph in a sexual way before. She'd been a child; his Robin and Tim's girlfriend, for fuck's sake. But she'd been trapped in Africa for two years as a late teen, and then he'd barely reunited with her before getting himself trapped in the past.
So to his eyes, Steph seemed to have leapt from child to an adult in a blink. And as for the woman who she'd suddenly become? He'd found himself tumbling hard.
He could barely believe that she was in his bed now, begging him to fuck her into comfort from the nightmares that were the result of his own failures. He did not deserve her, but he was sure as hell going to try to make up for that fact.
Bruce wiped his tears and tried to get himself together while he kept cuddling Steph in his arms, running soothing hands up and down her back and over her butt, and then letting one hand linger to massage her ass in his large palm, making her sigh into his chest and wiggle her hips more firmly over his still soft cock which was just beginning to get the message to wake up.
She was still sniffling and crying into his chest from her nightmares, clinging to him and whimpering softly, so he flipped them over to put her under him, laying most of his weight on top of her like a heavy weighted blanket. She sighed into him and he felt some of her tension begin to seep away.
"Move in with me," he murmured against her lips as he stroked the tears from her eyes and began massaging her scalp.
"B," she gasped.
"I don't want you sleeping alone anymore," he said as he pressed warm kisses into her mouth that made her sigh up into him and curl her toes.
"My mom will be suspicious if I move in so fast," Steph mumbled against him as she draped her arms around his neck and hung on like a drowning woman, breathing in his repeated kisses like desperate mouth to mouth. "You're Bruce Wayne, billionaire, remember?" she grumbled in between his hungry pecks.
He sighed, having momentarily forgotten that particularly relevant detail, as well as the troublesome fact of his girlfriend's mom being, well, a mom.
"She doesn't notice that you patrol every night, though," he said thoughtfully, considering strategies and angles.
"Nah, she has hospital shifts some of the time and since I'm in college now, she doesn't mind if I stay out late. And, um, she started sleeping with earplugs after I came home," Steph added in a slightly embarrassed, tiny voice.
"Why was that?" Bruce asked in a cautious voice, his stomach already clenching with anger at the answer that his detective brain knew was coming.
"Because of my nightmares," Steph said in a matter-of-fact voice that couldn't quite hide her bitterness. "She got real tired real quick of me waking her up every night." He growled low in his throat and held her tighter.
"Then screw her," he said more roughly than he should have. "You need me at night and I want to be here for you," he growled. "As long as you make sure that she sees you at home sometimes during the day, your mom won't know if you're sleeping here," he pointed out. "How often do you cross paths in the mornings?" he asked.
"Not often," Steph said as she chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Her shifts and my classes don't usually work out that way."
Maybe she would take B up on his offer, she slowly decided as he continued to cuddle her. Because she couldn't deny that she wanted to be in his bed every night, even though their romantic relationship was hardly ready for that level of intimacy.
But her frazzled REM cycle was definitely ready to have Batman as a constant sleep companion to ward off her nightmares, and it wasn't like she hadn't had to adapt other areas of her life to work around her PTSD. True, It would be an unconventionally fast progression of their relationship if B had been a normal boyfriend, but he was so much more to her than that. So why worry about what would be a huge benefit to her overall wellbeing?
"Ok," Steph finally said in relief, her decision made. "But we can't let it get weird between us, with me being here so much so soon," she sternly cautioned him.
"It won't get weird," B immediately promised her. "Especially not if you spend daytime hours at your mom's. I'll buy you extra clothes," he added with a grin, "and whatever else you need so you're not lugging things back and forth, making her suspicious."
"But you're not my sugar daddy," Steph teased, smiling up at him as she slowly stretched out long against his muscular body and welcomed the feel of his now rock hard cock against her pelvis. His low chuckle was dark and sexy against her belly.
"We can renegotiate that," B said in a deep gravel that made her pussy clench with need.
"Mm, ok, then, Daddy," she said with glee as she arched up to kiss him again, grinding against his erection. "Show me what you got."
"For you, baby girl?" he said. "I've got everything." And they were teasing each other with the sugar daddy bit, Steph knew that - but damn, did it make her squeeze her thighs together anyway. If B wanted to take care of her and soothe all her nightmares away, then she had to be honest - she wanted that, even if it did make her a little, teensy bit of a sugar baby.
B slipped his fingers down into her slit and his sharp, approving, intake of breath when he found her already sopping wet was exhilarating, although revealing.
"Steph," he growled over her lips. "Do you like being my baby girl?" he asked her with a knowing smile, as he easily slid his fingers through her slippery folds. Her gasp and moan and the way her pussy clutched at his fingers was as much of an answer as he needed, but she answered him anyway.
"God, yes," she mumbled, hissing in delight as he slid two fingers inside of her sopping, slick channel, not even needing to open her up slowly, as wet as she was and as stretched out from their first round.
Bruce thought that he'd never heard a more beautiful sound than Steph's breathy moans as he finger-fucked her hard, slipping a third finger into her rapidly relaxing cunt that made her cry out even louder.
"Good girl," he praised her, making her wail with pleasure at his words.
"Fuck, you're incredible," he muttered, caressing his other fingers over her mouth as his right hand kept up its relentless pace inside of her.
Steph's tongue reached out for his fingertips so Bruce slid two into her mouth. Without hesitation, she grabbed his hand and pushed the entire length of his digits in so she could suck on them, surprising him into almost losing his load.
"Baby girl," Bruce breathed out as Steph whined and moaned around his fingers, pushing and pulling on them until he figured out what she wanted and began stroking her tongue in a slow, soothing gesture as he pumped her pussy at the same time.
Steph's whines became a gurgle of pleasure as her cunt began to squelch from how turned on she was and how close she was getting to her orgasm. God, she was going to fall apart and Bruce couldn't wait to see it and then to nail her hard, because his cock was getting so tight that it was almost painful.
He reached for her clit with his thumb and within a few rubs, Steph spasmed and keened around his two hands filling up either end of her. He kept up a steady pace as she writhed and bucked against him, moaning out her climax into his eager ears around his fingers in her mouth that she was happily drooling over.
His hands were both dripping wet when he pulled them out, and he slathered her juices over his cock before sliding into her, hard and sure. Steph snuggled herself closer against him as she locked her ankles around his butt.
"Fuck me hard, B. Please," she begged him, and that was all it took for him to lose his mind, thrusting into her with such a powerful, fast pace that he could hear his balls slapping against her in time with the headboard's rhythm on the wall, syncopated by her shrieks of pleasure every time he snapped his hips up into her g-spot.
He sucked a nipple into his mouth and bit down on it before grabbing her waist roughly so that he could get some extra leverage to increase the force of his thrusts.
"God, yes," Steph moaned against him, clutching at his back. "Hold me tighter," she pleaded and Bruce willingly complied, although he moaned in empathy for his broken-down, scarred woman.
"I'm here, Steph," he promised her, staring fiercely into her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Good," she sniffed out, feeling the edges of her night terror start to recede as her second climax built.
He kept up his relentless pace that felt so good the harder he thrust, and her mind slowly went blank against the rhythm of his cock pounding her pussy. When her toes started to curl into the mattress, Steph vaguely realized that she'd started begging B for her orgasm.
"Come for me, Steph," Batman commanded harshly and she exploded against him with a moan and a sob, her pussy spasming around him in a frenzy that made him shout and pump a few times into his own orgasm, coming hard and long while she still sobbed and twitched and whimpered on his cock.
"B," she was mumbling now in-between sniffs. "B, B," she kept repeating as little quivers of aftershocks floated through her core while she clung to his neck.
"Steph," B said back to her, falling back into his full self
from the Bat he'd just inhabited as he pressed a million tiny kisses over her wet cheeks and her hair and her jaw. "Baby," he muttered helplessly as he collapsed onto her. "What you do to me…" he mumbled.
"I need you," Steph whispered in a voice that was absolutely broken.
Bruce felt like he couldn't be prouder of himself, that he was the one who had wrecked her so good, just how she was craving.
"I need you, too," he admitted. "More than you could ever know," he told her, before rolling her over into his arms so he wouldn't be too heavy on her if he fell asleep. Because he might be Batman, but damn. His Batgirl was a force to be reckoned with, and Steph had just wiped every last bit of energy out of him.
He had absolutely no complaints.
Steph woke up inside of a big spoon and sighed with contentment against the safe feel of her Bat against her back and butt, with his arm slung over her waist gripping her tight, and his face nuzzled up to her cheek.
A smile spread across her face as she let lazy fingers begin to trace circles over the back of B's hand, which prompted a tiny growl in her ear.
"I love waking up with you here," he rumbled, turning his head the slightest bit to press a kiss to her ear.
"I can't remember the last time I felt this safe," Steph said quietly, interlacing her fingers now with B's across her stomach, but her admission drug a tiny, pained noise out of the Bat behind her.
"Not your fault, B," she whispered automatically.
"Agree to disagree," he mumbled against her neck before pressing kisses into it. "I can't stand how much you've gone through because of me and I intend to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, sweetheart."
Well, that sounded pretty damn good, Steph had to admit. Even if it really wasn't B's fault.
"I'll probably end up agreeing to the rest of your life part, but never your reasons for it," she said softly, rolling over to face her man. His eyes lit up with hope as his hands gripped her waist tight.
"You think so?" he asked her. She nodded and he pulled her into a tight hug against his chest. "We know the Brucie Wayne part and Tim and the family's reactions will be rocky," he warned her. "I'll always understand if one day it's too much for you to take, and you decide to end things," he promised.
"I've handled worse," she replied honestly. B sighed, but the look that he gave her was tender as his fingers stroked the back of her head, tangling in her hair.
"I am far luckier than I deserve to be," he said.
"Me, too," said Steph. "Just agree with me on that one," she laughed, pressing a fingertip to her boyfriend's about-to-open-in-protest mouth. He wisely kissed the tip of her finger instead of arguing, before wrapping her up in a tighter cuddle.
It wouldn't be easy being with him, Steph knew he was right about that. And their relationship would sure as hell be socially problematic, on every level they could possibly think of. But having Batman by her side to chase her nightmares away?
Yeah. Steph had a feeling it would all be worth it.
The End
A/N - Well, that is FINALLY a wrap on my Bruce Wayne Week 2021 fics! I'm in the midst of BWW 2022, think I'm up to ... 2 1/2 finished. Out of 7. LOL. Not that I have to write them all, but I have ideas for them all so I want to. Well, it's gonna be a Bruce Wayne Year, what can I say.
You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble.