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The first time Jason bumped into Bruce Wayne, it was an accidental knock of their shoulders. Bruce had his work cap pulled low, his shirt half-tucked, with jeans screaming at the seams tucked into his steel-toed boots.
The second time Jason bumped into Bruce Wayne—who’s also Batman, he had since learned after first seeing him—he was unsheathing the ears of his cowl and lobbing them into the eyes of some unfortunate Party Animal. He hadn’t seen Jason, but the whited-out eyes of his mask do very little to shield the weight of his stare.
To this day Jason’s unsure if he was spotted where he was laid out on a roof not far from the carnage, mostly minding his business, or if the heavy eyes on him belonged to someone else.
Either way it felt like a run-in, so he counts it as one.
Their third, fourth, fifth, and sixth involved Bruce’s civilian identity and one hard, accidental stomp of work boots on top of Jason’s toes while in line at a burger joint. Their seventh and eighth were late at night—a sleepless one for Jason and a demanding one for Bruce, with Bruce swooping out as quickly as he swooped in, chasing some unlucky bastard.
Then there were Jason’s solo escapades.
Batman aside, the second hottest topic throughout Gotham was the professional and underground fight scenes. Waylon Jones, in particular, was a name often mentioned. Jason caught wind he’d be fighting Bibbo Bibbowski, and Bruce Wayne will be Waylon’s trainer.
Bruce being a trainer piqued his interest more than his late-night dressing up did, and to hear Waylon Jones, Bruce Wayne, and Bibbo Bibbowski in the same sentence was bone-chilling.
Jason knows Bruce best as a city worker, and Waylon as a professional fighter. Bibbo Bibbowski is… scary, to say the least, and not someone Jason has ever enjoyed watching. Though rumors say he’s got nothing on Black Mask, Jason still avoids any commotion around Bibbo’s fights like the plague.
Bruce Wayne and Waylon Jones, though?
Jason had to see the training progress unravel. Had to.
Their gym was nothing like some of the underground shitholes Jason has walked past before, but the windows may as well be blacked out with how tinted they are. It was often reserved for Waylon’s training, too, which meant any excuse to get in was met with Waylon himself or an assistant trainer.
On Jason’s fifth sorry, it’s reserved dismissal he started to wonder if all his effort was truly worth it, or if he should just start tracking Batman’s movements as an excuse to see Bruce in action, but then his toes are getting stepped on while waiting for lunch for a second time, and, lo and behold, Bruce is looming in front of him. The way he glares down his nose at Jason is just as weighted as Jason’s first encounter-but-not-really with Batman, though getting the confirmation through Bruce Wayne’s entire weight on his foot is not how he wanted it to go down.
“What do you want with the gym?” Bruce asks quietly, pulling Jason aside, his voice just as deep as Jason thought it to be. “Way’s getting irritated and my other trainers wan’a set up some fuckin’ bouncers to keep you away.”
“Really?”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing, really. Just a big fan of the pro fighting scene.” Jason shrugs, trying not to let his wince show when Bruce keeps his foot planted on his toes. “Seriously, man. I’ve followed Jones for a while and have hated Bibbo even longer.”
“You know too much.”
“No I don’t.” Jason wiggles his toes in his sneakers, hoping, though he doubts it, Bruce can feel it through the sturdy bottoms of his boots. No luck, but given how this conversation is going so far, Bruce is likely ignoring it. “I know as much as everyone else does. The news made front page.”
“Not what I’m talking about. Not all night owls hang around some party animals.” Bruce says, his voice no louder than a whisper. “So, what do you want?”
“My own curiosity satisfied?” Jason shrugs. “I’m not really sure. Is thinking you and Waylon are cool not enough of an answer for you?” Bruce stares, eyes a little more thoughtless than Jason would expect them to be. It seems Bruce is processing Jason’s answers as hard as Jason is trying to think of a sensible one. “With an ego like yours, I would think yes.”
“An ego…?”
“You, uh… you know…” Bruce continues to stare, so Jason sticks his pointer fingers up by his ears and puts on a dramatic scowl. “Got’a be a bit egotistical to go out at night like that, even in Gotham City.”
“Fucking— okay, put your hands down.” Bruce snaps. “So what, blackmail?”
“Blackmail? Dude, no, I just wan’a see how somebody of yours and Waylon Jones’ size trains.” It’s sufficient enough of an answer Bruce’s thought-clouded eyes clear, but Jason doesn’t feel entirely satisfied with it for a reason he can’t yet name. “But if you really want me to fuck off, I will. I get why Jones would be irritated with me. I’d pop my top over the little things if I knew a fight against Bibbo was on my calendar, too.”
“Waylon isn’t worried.”
“No?”
“No.” Bruce shakes his head, nothing but confidence in the one word. “I’ll… shit, I’ll talk to him. If he asks for a sparring partner, though, you did it to yourself.”
“No way!” Jason beams. Bruce’s last words register too late, though, his foot finally lifted from Jason’s and taking his spot in line to order lunch. “Wait, what? Hold on, man. No way!”
—
Jason, frantically digging through his closet not two hours later, turns and comes face-to-face with his roommate.
Underneath his thrown clothes, that is, which is something Jason definitely does not scream at.
“What the fuck, man?”
“What the… no, don’t take my line. You’re making a fucking mess, I should be asking you what the fuck?!” Dick Grayson, Jason’s EMT of a roommate and someone Jason only sometimes has the patience for, checks his watch through the t-shirt over his eyes. “It’s so fucking late, Jay. What are you doing? And why do you have your smelly high school duffel bag out if Gotham U gave you a new one?”
“Can you leave me alone?”
“Uh, no.” Dick gives an aggressive shake of his body to rid the rest of Jason’s clothes from himself. “Your shit is all over our beds. I’m not leaving you alone until you tuck it all back in from where you yanked it out from.” Dick crosses his arms, standing tall in the middle of their bedroom. “When you’re done, I brought home dinner.”
“I’ll take it in here.”
“No you won’t, you’ll get crumbs everywhere. Let’s eat, then you’ll clean up. You, uh…” Dick looks him up and down. “Look like you need it. Did you not grab lunch today?” Jason jumps at the opportunity to ditch his fruitless search for any decent training gear to follow Dick into their kitchenette, a short stack of pizza boxes waiting for them. “Top one is yours.”
“Thanks.”
“No prob’, fatass.” Dick teases, avoiding Jason’s responding kick. “All jokes, Jay, jeeze. After you eat, can you stop ignoring my questions? Like, my what the fuck, or even my extremely caring did you eat today?”
“Bruce invited me to his gym.”
“Oh, okay. Fuck you. Nevermind.”
“What?”
“What?! I hate that guy! He’s more than half the reason I’m always getting called out at fuckin’ three in the morning. The guy you saw him fucking enucleate with his stupid knife-ears? He was in my ambo!”
“Okay, well, not my problem. I answered your questions in one, so let me eat.”
“No. Why are you going to his gym?”
“Pro fighting stuff. He’s letting my curiosity get the best of me. Plus,” Jason shrugs, “who knows. Maybe I’ll get a job there.”
“Yeah, ‘cause another random one is exactly what your resume needs. Jesus, Jason.” Dick sighs. “I mean, whatever. Maybe you can make nice with the guy. Just, you know, don’t ever bring him back here. He’ll fall through our shitty fucking floors.”
—
Jason ended up borrowing clothes from Dick, ultimately unsuccessful in his closet rampage.
Dick has nicer exercise gear, anyway, even if most of it is nearing inappropriate with how tight it fits. Jason’s in no mood to show off, either, and flips Dick off with a sigh when he bitches about borrowing his clothes just to cover them up.
It’s Waylon who opens the gym doors for him, looking just as intimidating as his promotional pictures make him out to be. He’s bald, shirtless, sweating, and there’s a rip on the outer left thigh of his shorts. Jason grins something lopsided at him, the nervous excitement in his stomach unable to decide between making him vomit or forcing out a shrill scream.
“B, your bestie’s here.” Waylon calls over his shoulder. Jason steps inside when he opens the doors wider. “And he’s got a duffel. The fuck did you tell him?”
“That he’s your sparring partner.”
“You’re twisted, man.” Waylon laughs, shaking his head. Jason is surprised to see Bruce smile at him. “Welcome in, kid. Can’t promise you’ll get too much attention while you’re here, but he,” Waylon points a very obnoxious finger in Bruce’s direction, “seems pretty interested in having you here.”
“Way…”
“Just sayin’. Not like I’m disagreeing,” Waylon raises his hands in defense, “I mean, not if you’ve hated Bibbowski for longer than you liked me. It’s the only time I’ll be okay with somebody saying some shit like that.”
Jason laughs, jogging off to quickly set his stuff by a small row of lockers. He takes one arm out of a sweatshirt sleeve, the gym already too warm. Bruce, mid-conversation with Waylon, hands Jason a clipboard with their go-to training regime. He looks it over while they talk, ignoring the few times he’s motioned to or looked at. It’s only when there’s a lapse in their conversation he stops flipping through the routine.
“… what’s up?”
“This big idiot doesn’t know your name.”
“Oh, I’m Jason.”
“How’d you know mine?” Bruce asks, arms crossed.
“You’re a city worker. I’ve seen you in your city worker clothes.” Jason pats the left side of his chest. “Got a name stitched on right here, man.”
“He’s bright, ain’t he?” Waylon pats Jason on the shoulder. “How’s the routine look?”
“Fuckin’ brutal.”
Waylon laughs so Jason laughs and, seemingly full of surprises, Bruce joins with a low chuckle of his own.
“Right, intro’s over. Get to fuckin’ getting, Way.” Bruce taps him in the back, sending him off to where their few machines and weight benches stand in the back corner of the gym. “We’ll be there in a sec.”
“Be nice to him, B.” Bruce gives him something noncommittal in reply.
“My roommate hates you.” Jason says once Waylon is out of earshot. Bruce stares at him—the same down-his-nose glare from previously—quietly judging Jason’s odd choice of a conversation starter. “He wanted me to tell you, and I kind’a owe him in about ten different ways, so telling you is an easy way to pay one favor off.”
“Do I know your roommate, or something?”
“Yeah, you might. Dick Grayson. He’s an EMT, and I think he cleans up, uh…” Jason sticks his fingers up by his ears again. “I think he cleans up a lot of your messes.”
“Fuck off with those.” Bruce’s mouth twists into a frown whereas Jason grins, wiggling his fingers before putting his arms down. “The name is familiar. Must’ve heard it off a cop’s or ambo’s radio. Did he want an apology?”
“No, I don’t think so. Just, y’know… you’re on his shitlist.” Jason says. “He’s more than capable of hunting you down, I think, but since you got your late night hobbies, or whatever, and he’s cleaning them up, he doesn’t have the energy to.” Bruce nods solemnly. “Uh, don’t take him seriously. He loves his job, but he hates you a little more.”
“Right… a lot of people do, I bet.” Bruce nods in Waylon’s direction. Jason walks with him, his steps much quicker than Bruce’s. “What made you interested in Waylon and I?”
“I don’t know about Jones, but I’m not much younger than you, I don’t think. I remember hearing about, y’know, the bats and the dads and whatnot.” Bruce inhales sharply. “I’m not… this isn’t anything targeted. When I was way younger my dad was taken in and I lived with my step-mom for a while. She OD’d a few years ago, and I met Dick at Gotham U through rooming with him, which is how I ended up splitting an apartment with him.”
“And?”
“And… uh, we can talk about it later.” Jason nods in Waylon’s direction, where he’s perked a curious ear.
“Ain’t a place for secrets.”
“We can hold a few.”
“Not the one you’re aiming to hold.” Waylon shoots back, a glare accompanying it.
“Sel and I ditched the idea, Waylon, I fuckin’ told you already. You can kick as much Bibbo ass as you wan’a kick, no dirty money to it.”
“Woah, what?”
“Later.” Bruce and Waylon say in unison, glaring at each other. Jason nods slowly, lips flatlined, moving when Bruce shoos him into a spotter's position.
A majority of his first day, as well as a number of the following days, was spent observing.
For a short while, Waylon couldn’t help his friendly snickers whenever Jason whipped out a pen and paper to write something down. Whether it was an observation, or an addition to Waylon’s training regime, or something himself or Bruce had said to him.
Bruce was occasionally caught flipping through the hastily thrown together notepad—crossing things off, rewriting something, or scribbling his own thoughts wherever they relate to Jason’s—to which Waylon quickly mimes zipping his lips when he’s inevitably caught staring.
Jason never brings them up to Bruce. Not around Waylon, anyway, though he does recognize when Jason graduates from observer to assistant.
A few other training assistants grumble under their breaths about him, but most of them are happy to keep their distance from Bruce—the closer his fight versus Bibbo gets, a similar argument could be made for Waylon. They’re both largely intimidating on a good day, so if it’s Jason taking the brunt of their anxious frustrations? So be it.
Jason is out of the loop to their distancing and their concerns, though. He’s happy to bicker with Bruce should he allow it, and even happier to egg Waylon on when he gets to picking on him.
It’s only when Bruce pulls Jason aside does he seem to simultaneously mellow out and become tensed as all hell. Waylon always says be nice to him, and their conversations are always a cornered murmur, but still—
“Jase,” Bruce tips his head to their gym’s center ring, a small thing for sparring matches, “c’mere.”
It sounds too serious to Jason’s ears, and given where Bruce wants him?
“I can’t spar with you.” He rushes to admit.
“What?”
“I saw your charts. Six-foot-fucking-nine? And what, like, upwards of four hundred pounds? I’m not a heavyweight, man.”
“Just get in the fuckin’ ring. We’re not sparring, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Bruce further urges him to duck under the ropes. “Don’t let Way talk you into thinking I’m actually brainless. He brought me on.”
“What’s up?” Waylon interjects.
“Nothin’, keep running. I want the treadmill wet as a slip ‘n’ slide by the time you’re done.” Bruce waves a dismissive hand in response to the one Waylon shoos at him, though his eyes don’t leave Jason. “Way and I are in a time crunch with the fight closing in so we,” Bruce motions to himself, Jason, and Waylon, “don’t have much free time. And he’ll be running for a while, so…”
“So?” Jason feels no less at ease. Not with Bruce talking softly at him, or with the gentle slouch of his shoulders to be more eye-level.
“So you said this,” this time, Bruce keeps his gesturing between himself and Jason, “isn’t targeted. Tell me what it is.”
“Oh, I…” Jason huffs an awkward laugh. “I was just rambling. First-day jitters. Barely remember what I said.”
“The bats and the dads. You mentioned your own parents, and your roommate who hates me.”
“Right.” Jason fights to hide his surprised inhale. He’s forgotten, in these last few weeks, Bruce is also Batman. Well-versed in detective work and seemingly his own source of information and lines of communication. “Yeah, I… I was sort of just relating myself to you.”
Jason tries to shrug it off, but Bruce gets the same clouded look in his eyes as he processes Jason’s answer. Despite his aversion to it, feeling too delicate a topic for the gym, Jason trudges on.
“I know what it’s like to lose a parent, I mean. I don’t know where you’re at in the city, y’know… who you’re living with, or anything, but the last name Wayne hasn’t made any recent appearances in the Gazette’s obituaries, so.” By the end, Jason is muttering. “God. How fucking morbid, huh?”
Bruce grins a tiny thing at him. “Sort’a, yeah. It’s just… it’s been nagging me.”
“Not surprised. You seem like the paranoid type.”
“Huh,” Bruce chuffs, “uh, I’m sorry about your mother. I should’ve said it way earlier, but… well, but nothing, I guess. You mentioned Dick right away, so I figured she’s…” he pauses, searching for the right words, “she’s a later conversation.”
“I think so too.” Jason appreciates how Bruce doesn’t push. Weeks ago, he’d feel like he would have to spill his guts about it. “Is yours…?”
“No, nah, but she is a politician, so I worry about her a lot. Tough woman, though.”
“Pushing your big ass out, I’m sure she is.”
“Hey.” Bruce warns, but there’s a smile on his lips.
“Since we’re talking about my first day, can I, uh,” Jason steps forward, further into Bruce’s space than he’s ever been, “ask about the dirty money? And who the hell Sel is?”
Bruce leans in further, but it’s Jason who bumps their shoulders together. In a whisper, murmured like a threat, he says: “Not until you meet her.”
“Jeeze,” Jason can feel the pinkening of his cheeks, “nothing is easy with you.”
—
“I thought this place wasn’t open to the public.”
Bruce looks over the frames of his sunglasses to where Jason stands with his hood up and his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt, scanning him head to toe. “It is.”
Jason rolls out his shoulders, feeling warm at the up-down from Bruce.
“So I’m guessing you’re in a working man’s jumpsuit for a reason?” Jason nods to where the top half of it has been tied around Bruce’s waist, leaving him in a plain white tee. “Last time I knew you were in construction, not an electrician.”
“It’s an old uniform, and yes. Them, down there. They’re the reason.” Them is paired with a nod to the venue’s center ring, where Waylon is doing what looks like intense yoga in the same place he’ll be doing his Bibbo beatdown. “Our gym isn’t good enough for her, I guess. Not for this.”
“Her?”
“Yeah, her.” Bruce pats the seat next to him once, urging Jason to sit down. “None of my assistants felt like sneaking in, and she’s always somehow around the fuckin’ corner.”
This unnamed her and Waylon unfold from their brutal downward-dog, raising their heads to the new voice echoing from Bruce and Jason’s bleacher seats. Jason raises a hand in greeting, a greeting returned by Waylon, however—
“What, is he too shy?” The woman calls, hands on her hips. Bruce sighs with a small shake of his head. “C’mon, baby, let him say hi.”
“Baby?”
“It’s all friendly.” Bruce promises easily, begrudgingly standing up to make a slow journey to the center ring. “This is Sel, or Selina Kyle. She’s, uh… feisty. Finicky, y’know. Especially if she doesn’t like you. Warms up to someone pretty quickly, otherwise.”
Jason trots down after Bruce, taking much quicker steps to keep pace. Waylon has been forced into a flat fold by the time they reach the ring, arms stretched to touch his toes with his chest nearly pressed to the canvas. Jason winces for him.
“Hi there, assistant trainer in training.” Selina pokes herself into their space between the ring’s top two ropes. She plants a kiss to Bruce’s cheek, a blush rising to Jason’s when she stretches over to do the same to him.
“He’s more awkward than you were.” Selina directs at Bruce. She’s quick to call a new yoga pose for Waylon, Jason taking over most of her interest. “Where’d you find him?”
“Be nice to him, Sel.”
“Don’t quote Waylon at me.” Selina waves him off with. “I’m Selina Kyle, or Sel, but you don’t need me to tell you.”
“Jason.” He holds a hand out for her to shake. Rather than doing so, she takes it in both of her own. “But I… I’m guessing you don’t need me to tell you, either.”
“No.” Selina agrees. Her hands are warm, the clawed tips of her nails ticklish over his palm and knuckles. “But how gentlemanly of you.” Selina nods her head backwards, motioning towards Waylon. “You plan on joining?”
“No, we’ll be up there,” Bruce sticks a thumb over his shoulder, “back where we were to keep watch for anybody trying to suss us out.”
Jason can only shrug when Selina raises an eyebrow at him. “Boss’s orders. Maybe another time.”
“Don’t flirt with her.”
Bruce nudges him in the shoulder until he turns around, hiking it back up the bleachers quicker than he came down. Jason looks between him and Selina. When all she does is raise her eyebrow higher, Jason mock-salutes and follows Bruce.
“I wasn’t flirting.” Jason says once out of range from Selina and Waylon, who are back to calling out borderline contortionist moves and suffering through them respectively. “Not my thing. Not really my type, either.”
“No?” Bruce gives him another up-down. “Hm. Good for you.”
“… I’m not gon’a ask what you’re thinking, but just know I’m wanting to.” Jason nudges his knee into Bruce’s when he sits.
“Maybe I’ll let you know some other time.”
“You’re good at this, this whole… later conversation thing, huh?” Jason can’t look at Bruce as he says it, but Bruce’s eyes are on him. “So,” Jason starts, clearing his throat, “I met her. What’s the deal with the dirty money?”
“Dropping one later for a different one?”
“Is that not obvious?”
“Was hoping you’d push a little harder, is all.”
“What, you want me to ask if Selina’s your type?”
“She’s not.”
“Waylon?”
“Fuck off.” He swears. Before Jason can test another name, Bruce starts explaining. “You know from watching, or not watching, I guess, how dangerous Bibbo is. I’m confident in Way, you know that too.”
“Yeah, fuckin’ look at him.” Jason brings their attention back to the center ring. “She’s got him scorpion’d.”
“Not his first time, either.” Bruce chuckles. “But the money. I’ve brought Sel on for his training now and then, this seriously isn’t his first time, but we… we were worried. We wanted to buy some guys off so it wouldn’t be, uh, a total humiliation, I guess. Worked out a plan all the way up to betting with Falcone directly. Bibbo’s manager, y’know. Sel and I, we thought he’d…” Bruce heaves a sigh, something laced with nervousness and a lingering disappointment in himself, “he’d die if we didn’t. Bibbo’s brutal.”
“They both sound equally shitty.”
“I know.” Bruce nods. “I know. An assistant overheard Sel and I debating it. The who and the how much, all that shit. We bumped into them on the way out, so I kind’a had to bring the idea to Waylon.”
“Oh yeah?” Jason chuckles. “What’d he do to you?”
“Fired me for a sec.” Bruce humorlessly laughs with him. “I’m back on, though, and that’s what matters. It all ended in him forcing a promise out’a me to train his ass off or he’s taking mine out, so.”
“Not a bad promise.” Jason sticks his fingers up by his ears. “What would we do without you?”
“Jesus, you don’t stop.” Bruce would usually scowl at Jason until he brings his hands down. This time, he puts them down himself. “They know, but who knows what cameras are running here?”
It gets a laugh out of Jason, but it’s a distracted one. He and Bruce have touched hands before, during an exchange of something or accidentally in passing, but Jason doesn’t remember them being so warm. Bruce’s swatting hand was just another playful brush of their fingers, but Jason’s still buzz from the contact.
Bruce had followed Jason’s hands down with his own, too, and, for a clear first time, Jason noticed just how big they are. Bruce sits with it resting on his knee, all casual-like. Jason mimes his sitting position if only to see for a second time how their hands compare.
“This is them all day.” Bruce says after a while. “They’ll wan’a eat soon, or at least Way will. You’re free to join, but don’t let me keep you here. If you want, I’ll have Sel give you this routine info.”
“Depends. What’s for lunch?”
“Boring shit from a diner, probably.” Bruce cracks a small smile at him.
“Yeah, I’ll pass.” Jason grins back. “My roommate came in late last night, anyway. Got’a check and make sure he’s not face-first in a pillow half-dead.”
“Not my fault this time.”
“Wasn’t pointing fingers.” Jason’s grin grows. “But, uh, show me this boring diner some time?”
Bruce gives him the same stare from when Jason walked in—a curious look over his sunglasses, his same full-body scan made obvious from the purposeful peek at his eyes—and nods.
“Fine with me.”
—
Jason’s phone buzzing to life on his bare chest jolts him from his half-asleep state like a low-shock defibrillation.
He squints at the screen, NO CALLER ID flashing back at him. Spam calls in Gotham City can be pretty ridiculous, but Jason would rather entertain one at three in the afternoon, not three in the morning. Pressing the power button to silence it, he goes back to dozing.
A few minutes later it’s buzzing again. It reads Dick’s name this time. With a sigh, Jason answers.
“I have your roommate.” The words feel cold as ice. “Where do you live?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where, Jason?”
“Wh… is this Bruce?”
“Yes. Your location?” Jason rattles off their street name, building, and apartment number. “We’re not far. Get a medkit ready. Nothing serious, but I got nothing on me.”
“Can you use the door? Please?” Jason has no idea which windows unlatch or don’t, and he’s in no state of mind to try and figure it out.
“… Fine.”
Jason hangs up, pocketing his phone. He yawns and scrubs his hands down his face, unlocking their front door before grabbing Dick’s first aid kit from their bathroom. He waits in the kitchen with it sitting on the table, staring tiredly at the red cross on top of the box.
Jason hears Bruce before he sees him, calling out the door’s cracked open the nearer his footsteps get. Bruce walks in seconds later with an unhappy-looking Dick in a bridal carry, hand on his side with Bruce’s on top for added pressure.
“Busy night?” Jason asks conversationally, sliding the first aid out of Bruce’s way as he lays Dick on their table. He briefly wishes he put a shirt on.
“Yes.” Bruce answers.
“No.” Dick says at the same time.
“For me, yes.”
“Please get out of my house.” Dick grumbles. He sits up, pulling his shirt out of the way of his wound. It’s shallow, but was a good strike at where blood never wants to stop flowing. “I don’t like you.”
“I’ve been told.”
“What happened?” Jason stares at Dick’s careful hands as he cares for the injury. If not, he’d—
Well, Bruce is big. Jason’s well aware of this.
But in his uniform? Jason has only seen it from a distance, never wanting to risk a close encounter with The Batman, but he’s up close and personal, now, standing still as a statue in Jason and Dick’s apartment, slouched so the tall, pointed ears of his cowl don’t scrape their ceiling.
And Jason was right about his stare. He can see his eyes this close, even in the yellow lowlight of their kitchen. It’s heavy. As heavy as their first Party Animal run-in. Jason can’t bear to meet it this close, still watching Dick’s hands as they work, but his peripheral is full of Bruce in all his Big Bat glory.
Jason wants to ask about the suit—its design, its material, its hidden compartments—as badly as he wants to ask Bruce how the hell he even fits into it.
There’s a solid chestplate, its edges jagged, and spiked, armored shoulders. The same spikes seem to protect his spine, not as long but just as deadly. From the sound of his footsteps, something similar can be said about his boots.
He’s intimidating in the dark, looming in their small apartment the way he is. Jason’s shoulders are tense, instincts saying these are the things you run away from while his body says touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it—
“Okay, get out now. For real. I’m stitched and bandaged and a professional at doing it, so stop trying to check my work.” Dick says moodily.
“Thanks for bringing him back.”
“He didn’t want to.”
“No I didn’t.” Dick interrupts.
“He’s been through worse.” Jason explains. Bruce doesn’t seem any more settled by it. “When in Gotham, y’know?”
“I guess so.” Bruce agrees. “No work for him tomorrow.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Dick’s hobbling off to his room, clutching his side and a fistful of pain meds. “Thanks for the assist, Batdick. Watch your head on your way out.”
Bruce’s huff of laughter isn’t loud enough for Dick to hear, but Jason does.
“Sorry about him.” Jason says, crossing his arms, again feeling awkward in his shirtlessness.
“Don’t be. I already knew his deal.” Bruce tips his head to watch Jason and Dick’s bedroom door close, removing the cowl once it clicks shut. “Didn’t mean to wake you up, but I wanted him off the streets.”
“He wakes me up all the time.” Jason waves off. “There’s a lot of personality in that guy, and one of them is a huge fan of fast food at unreasonable times in the morning.”
Jason says it all to the small smattering of blood on the kitchen table. It was hard enough having Batman in his residence, but to have him maskless, knowing it’s Bruce, makes eye contact an impossible task. He smells like sweat and the city’s streets, which isn’t exactly pleasant, but his hunkering form and having Bruce talk at him, not The Bat, makes it tolerable.
“Sounds fun.” Bruce jokes lightly. “You gon’a be at the gym tomorrow?”
“I might be.” Jason finally looks up. Bruce’s eyes seem just as gentle as his joking tone. “Waylon’s fight is close. I’m worried he might make good on your sparring partner offer.”
“He’d box me before he boxed you, so.” Bruce shrugs, situating the cowl back over his face. Deep down, Jason is sad to see him go. “We’d give you good notes, if we did.”
“Yeah? Might hold you to it, then.”
Jason walks him to the door. Bruce has to hunch to get through it but, once in the hallway where the ceiling juts up a little higher, he can stand at his full height.
“You got yourself one hell of a suit.” Jason can’t help but say.
The weight of Bruce’s whited-out stare shifts from face, to shoulders, to hips, to feet, and back up.
“You too.” Then he’s off, throwing the window at the end of the hallway open and launching himself out.
“Jesus.” Jason mutters to the building’s ugly carpet.
—
“Is this your fault?”
Selina sits down next to Jason, who’s been mindlessly tapping the eraser’s end of his pencil against his knee as Waylon and Bruce warm up.
“Not entirely.” Jason tries not to tense up from how close she is. “But I think they both need it.”
Selina nods along. She’s wearing a black zip-up, hood pulled over her hair, the cat ears sewed on top bouncing with the shake of her head.
“Well, Bruce is pointing fingers at you.” She winks. “But when is he ever telling the full truth?”
Jason thinks a lot. He thinks of Bruce’s you too, of his don’t flirt with her, of his I’ll talk to him. With no good response in mind, Jason just shrugs and shakes his head at Selina.
“You should record instead of write.” Bruce suggests, leaning out from the gym’s center ring, arms against its top rope. “Unless you got some freaky memory I don’t know about.”
“Notes are fine. Some of Gotham U’s professors talk fast and move through slideshows faster, so I can write without really having to look.”
“Right.” Bruce nods. “Right… sure. That’s weirder than a good memory, but okay.”
At his side, Selina takes her phone out. She brings her knees to her chest, situating her phone between them. Leaning into Jason’s side for stability, she opens her camera, swipes to video, and presses record. She laughs at Bruce’s sideways glare.
“Don’t be like that, baby. I’ll send it to you, then you can send it to him.” Which seems to calm him enough to turn his back. “He’s quite the protective one, huh?”
“I mean, all things considered…” Jason trails off. Selina laughs again, quieter, a sound just for them.
There’s another short while before Waylon and Bruce are squaring up. Jason takes the time to date his notes and write down their physical stats. Selina watches him, one of her fabric cat ears poking him in the neck where she’s resting her head.
“Bruce weighs four-twenty-one.”
Jason looks at the estimated 400 he has written.
“Goddamn…” he mumbles, drawing a two-one over the two zeroes.
“This is probably gon’a turn into them practicing takedowns than a real fight, by the way.” Selina warns. “Bruce takes any chance he can to train Waylon, and this is a great one.”
“That’s fine.” Jason says. “I’ve seen them both fight, just not each other.”
“Even Bruce?” At Selina’s eyebrow raise, Jason quickly sketches a bat with a question mark next to it in his notebook. “Figures. He’s not too subtle.”
“Nah,” Jason laughs at the obvious sigh in her voice, “no he isn’t. He brought my roommate home in a bridal carry earlier this week. Barely fit in our place, and I’m surprised I didn’t get a call asking what fuckin’ entity was at my door.”
“He brought you your roommate?”
“Yeah.” Jason nods. “He hates him, too. My roommate does. He’s an EMT.”
“Ah. Hm…” Selina hums, thinking something over. She keeps it from Jason for now. “How nice of him. Usually he leaves them for the medics, but, I guess, since your roommate is a medic…”
Jason chuckles. Selina nudges in a little closer to his side, getting cozy for the inevitable sparring-turned-training match.
“If this was for real,” Jason starts, flipping from where he’s been mindlessly doodling for a fresh page just as Waylon and Bruce get serious, “who would you bet on?”
“Waylon.” Selina answers without hesitation. Jason jots down her response. “Bruce is good in high-stress situations like the ones he puts himself in at night,” she explains herself slow enough for Jason to write clearly, “but Waylon’s loved easy roughhousing, you know, play fights, and stuff, for as long as I’ve known him.”
Waylon’s first point of contact comes with a resounding thud, a sharp drive of his fist into Bruce’s side. He tanks the hit and tries for the jaw, blocked by Waylon’s close guard to his face and upper body.
“They’re both good at what they do.” Selina continues. “It’s how they go about it where Waylon comes out on top.”
Jason would argue, seeing as how, quite literally, Bruce is atop Waylon in an unforgiving pin. Waylon braces himself under Bruce’s weight with ease, though, and uses his loosely pinned legs to his advantage.
“Bruce isn’t a pro fighter, either. He depends a lot on his size.” Selina says. “Like you just saw. But Bruce has about a hundred different pin moves in his head, so he’ll be putting Waylon through as many as he can until he realizes they’re not actually sparring.”
There’s no definitive beginnings or ends to their rounds, and Selina is right. Each go-around, Bruce tests Waylon’s ability to escape a variety of holds.
Jason has switched from note-taking to sketching the action lines of their movements.
Bruce is a heavy hitter—Jason knew this already, both from Bruce’s earlier warming up and from seeing him work as Batman—but Waylon’s hits are just as effective. There’s a focused power in his shoulder and in his legs, a power put there from years of experience.
It puts quick-forming bruises on Bruce’s body. Unlike Waylon, who’s been put down more than he’s been hit. There’s a frown in his eyebrows saying he’s catching on to what Bruce is doing, but makes no effort to put a stop to it.
“He appreciates it.” Selina mumbles. “Things like this is why Way brought him back on for training after he got fired.”
“... I didn’t think he’d tell you about telling me.”
“He didn’t.”
“Oh.” Jason answers, unable to keep the surprise out of his tone.
“Don’t freak out.” Selina nudges him, purposefully screwing the sketch Jason was etching out. “My hearing’s as good as Bruce’s, is all.”
“Oh.” Jason says again, way more relaxed.
“Hm, look at that.” Selina tips her head towards the ring. Waylon has managed to trap Bruce in an arm bar, laughing at Bruce’s low grunting as he tries and fails to free himself. “Another example of Bruce’s incompetence.”
“Fuck off!” He swears, tapping out against Waylon’s calf.
“How many more in that head of yours?” Selina calls back.
“Uh,” Bruce squeezes one eye shut to think, “fuck, I don’t know. We got through over half, though.”
“Bibbo’s got shit flexibility,” Jason pipes up, “and half the stuff you put Way in requires too much of it. What were the rest like?”
“Flexible.” Bruce replies.
“Shit,” Selina swears quietly next to him, “my phone died. They cuddled too long.”
“Don’t call it cuddling.”
“Look at how you’re laying together.” Selina taps her phone against her hand as if it’d turn it back on. Waylon hasn’t moved from his arm bar hold, leaving his legs laid over Bruce’s side with Bruce’s arm still situated between his thighs. “Should I get you a blanket? Some privacy?”
Jason shrugs, smiling, when Bruce looks to him for his opinion.
“Part of why I keep you around is so you side with me, fucker.” Bruce mutters. Louder, he says, “Waylon, get off me.”
“You’re on me.” Waylon smacks Bruce’s hand in a stinging high-five to make his point. “Get your hand out from between my legs.”
“Fuck you.” Bruce drives a purposeful elbow into his groin before getting up. “Whatever, I’m calling lunch. Jason, c’mon.”
“What?” All three—Selina, Waylon, and Jason himself—ask.
“There’s nothin’ here for us!” Waylon complains. “Why just the kid?”
“Uh, get your own food from somewhere. Or there’s stuff in the fridge for sandwiches, I don’t give a fuck.” Bruce pulls a hoodie on, shockingly oversized on him, and urges Jason to stand. “Sel, there’s stuff for you too. Make sure Way eats right, don’t need him throwing up in game two.”
“You got it, B.”
Jason hands Selina his notebook, figuring it's safest with her, and follows Bruce out the front door of the gym. Bruce walks slow for his sake, not seeming to be in a rush anyway, wordlessly leading Jason to wherever he has in mind.
“Hope you’re alright with boring diner food.” Bruce speaks up, holding the door to the diner open for Jason. “The gym gets stuffy, figured you’d wan’a step out for a little.”
“I’d be fine either way, but this sounds better than a sandwich made from whatever you keep in a gym fridge.”
“You fuckin’ bet it does.” Bruce agrees with a chuckle.
They snag an open booth. It’s impossible not to knock knees under the table, as annoying as it is. Jason rests his against Bruce’s, keeping them there when he makes no complaints, and ignores the fluttering warmth in his stomach over it. He stares out the window for a short while as Jason looks over the menu.
“What do you get here?”
“Their menu’s massive and I’m indecisive, so whatever the waitress feels like putting in, I eat.”
“... Weird answer.” Jason laughs. Bruce swings one of the knees Jason’s resting against, grinning something small. “What do they usually give you, then? Since I got’a work to get a straight answer.”
“Can never go wrong with a burger.”
“Damn right.” Jason agrees, closing the menu. “Hmm, what’s your favorite food?”
“Really?”
“What else am I supposed to ask you?” Jason says incredulously. “I know how your day’s been, we’ve been together for most of it. Same with your week and, like, the most recent quarter of your life.”
Bruce’s answer is interrupted by their waitress. She’s quick to take their order—Jason goes first, and Bruce gets the same thing—gone as quick as she came.
“There’s somethin’ my mom used to make, lobster thermidor. I have no idea how she even knew about it, but she’d make it around the holidays every year. I’m not home much, so she doesn’t anymore, but if I manage a good enough heads-up, she’ll make it for me.” Bruce slouches in his booth seat, a faint pink on his cheeks. “You?”
“I’ll eat anything.”
“Oh, come on.” Bruce sighs. “Nothing your step-mom used to make?”
“Nah, she…” Jason understands, now, why Bruce felt like shrinking in on himself. “Well, my dad was in and out of jail a lot, and she was an addict. Not much of an appetite for food.” Bruce sits silently, waiting for more. With a deep inhale, Jason continues. “I’d be the one cooking, honestly. She’d hand me money and send me shopping, so I was always trying new recipes. She loved it, but could never eat much.”
“Bet she loved watching you, though. She sounds sweet.” Bruce says, his voice too soft for the big emotions Jason’s feeling.
“I guess so. She always told me to keep the leftovers. Not for my dad, or anything, just for us.”
“Sorry to bring her up all of the sudden, I wasn’t… I don’t know.”
“It’s okay.” Jason reassures. “I’m not bothered. I like talking about her more than I do my dad.”
“What was her name?”
“Catherine.” Jason smiles. “I know yours, but if you wan’a tell me anyway, go ahead.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Bruce grins back. “You’ll have to meet her outside a TV screen, one day. She has a soft spot for…” Bruce pauses, “for kids like us, I guess. One or no parents.”
“I’m not looking to get adopted.” Jason says quickly, still smiling.
“I think Dick has you covered with that.” Bruce jokes in return.
Their food comes soon after. They eat mostly in silence, stealing fries and knocking knees. Jason grabs for his wallet just as the waitress is coming by, unable to get to it before Bruce is paying for it all. Jason shoots him a look, to which he raises an eyebrow, saying as if I’d let you.
“I owe you, then.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do.” Jason argues. “For bringing Dick home and for the food.”
“If you’re counting everything I’ve done for you, direct or indirect, you’d owe me a minimum of a million.” Bruce sticks his fingers up by his ears for context. Jason’s shocked to see him do it to the point he starts laughing, out loud and unabashed. “So don’t keep any tabs. I seriously don’t mind.”
“Fine, fine.” Jason submits.
Bruce nods, his expression happy. At the very least, he lets Jason leave a cash tip.
It’s as quiet of a walk back to the gym as it was to the diner, but it’s comfortable, and Bruce is still walking in stride with Jason. He holds the doors, out of the diner and into the gym, and ushers Jason away from where Selina and Waylon sit eating once they’re inside. There’s more mindless small talk between them while the other two finish lunch, one conversation being Jason asking if the burger might make Bruce sick during sparring, to which Jason elbows him in the stomach as proof of his no.
He might’ve well have jammed the brick they lean against. Bruce is all solid where he needs to be, despite the few bruises Waylon has given him. Jason silently freaks out, rubbing the tingliness from his elbow at Bruce’s allowed contact. His knees tickle with the same lingering feeling, nevermind how warm and sturdy Bruce feels at his side.
“Did we give you good notes today?” Bruce asks suddenly, nodding at the notebook Selina left where her and Jason were originally sitting.
“Most of them ended up as sketches. Easier than describing the motion, especially with how quick you move.” From the other end of the gym, Waylon and Selina are approaching the center ring. “I’ll show you later.”
“Oh, you’re handing out a later, now?” Bruce raises a brow.
“I guess so, yeah,” Jason huffs, taking the offered hand to be pulled to his feet, “I definitely owe you one of those.”
“Man, I’d hate to be around you and Dick for too long. I’d lose my mind at all the attitude.”
Jason kicks him in the thigh, grumbling a whatever at him. He takes his seat next to Selina, who cuddles in next to him just as she did before. There’s a quiet smile on her face, one Jason is too fluttery inside to ask about.
—
“Have you always smoked?”
Jason makes it as obvious as possible he did not jump at the voice behind him. “Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?” Bruce repeats. “Is it a stress thing?”
“It’s always a stress thing.” He tries to keep the smoke out of Bruce’s face, but the wind at the side of the building he’s ducked around works against him. “Yes I smoke, no I don’t do it all the time. I’ve had this pack for a couple months.”
“Well if there’s any right day to catch you…” Bruce trails off. “Bibbowski thinks he’s too good to make it on time.”
“To no one’s shock.” Still, Jason shakes his head. “And when he does get here?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just get your cheerleader voice ready.” Bruce nabs his cigarette and stomps it out. He and Jason, now with nothing to do but follow him, head inside.
Selina waits with Waylon, her dressed to the nines and him shaking out his wrists every ten seconds.
“Good to see you.” Selina says to Jason. Her heels make it so she can easily kiss his cheek in greeting, and, despite her added height, Bruce has to tip forward to receive his own. “Did you hear about Bibbo?”
“Yeah. Heard on our way in he’s ten minutes out, though.” Bruce informs. “Way, how are you feeling?”
“Don’t talk to me.”
“I’m gon’a have to later.”
“Later, then.”
“I’m not in the mood to talk you down, Way. I need you to tell me how you’re feeling.”
Selina elbows Jason in the arm, tipping her head in the direction of the door. They leave Bruce and Waylon alone, though Jason only leaves with her after knowing Waylon, in his own words, is just fucking fine!
They linger by the door, not yet able to take their seats near the ring. Selina stands silent, leaning into Jason’s side. Her arms are crossed, fingers drumming a nonsensical beat where they rest. Jason can feel her uneasiness, her anxieties—the worry she has for a friend, a long-time companion—pressing up against his own.
“He’s got it, Sel.” Jason says quietly and with confidence.
“I know he does.” She tells him, reaching for his hand. She squeezes it tightly, an easy way to release her built up nerves. “But they’re never easy to watch. Not when it’s someone you love.”
“Well,” Jason lifts their hands, “squeeze me if you need me, yeah?”
She nods, smiling something sincere, and rests against Jason until Bruce and Waylon’s voices dim in volume. There’s a casualness to their hand-in-hand he hopes Bruce picks up on, he and Waylon both quite riled, worried about how Bruce might react if he doesn’t pick up on it.
But when they turn to Jason and Selina they’re smiling, pumped up and ready to go. Waylon takes Selina’s other hand, and Bruce takes Jason’s. Waylon cheers loudly for himself, humming an offbeat walk-out song Jason recognizes as one of his old firsts. Selina head bops to it, and Bruce is smiling wide. Jason dares to interlink his and Bruce’s fingers, just as his and Selina’s are, warming all throughout when it only makes Bruce drag him in closer.
“We got this?” He asks.
“We got this.” Jason replies.
“We got it!” Waylon whoops. “Sel, say we got this.”
“We got this.” She drags Waylon in for a hug, shaking her hand free from Jason’s to do so. “You got this.”
Jason’s left holding Bruce’s hand. There’s enough nervous energy warring in his body to not think too hard about it, but, still, it’s what’s at the front of his mind. Bruce notices too, if the minute tension suddenly in his fingers is anything to go by, but he’s not letting go.
“He’s totally got this.” Jason says again. Bruce looks over at him and, without hesitating, Jason meets his stare. “With a hard-assed coach like you? We shouldn’t be the ones sweating.”
It calms him—Bruce, but also Jason—as much as it settles Selina and Waylon.
It’s hard to let go of Bruce’s hand, but he’ll be the only one walking out with Waylon. There’s pre-fight press waiting for them, also, and Jason and Selina have been given permission to set up by the ring. Jason takes Selina’s hand again, a relieved breath leaving him knowing she’ll be at his side for this.
It seems like an eternity waiting for the fight to begin. Seats fill up quick, TV channels hosting the broadcast file in, and Bibbo’s team of assistants sit opposite of the ring without saying hello.
The announcers aren’t nearly as loud in Jason’s ears as an anxious ringing is, Selina’s hand in his only doing so much. For the first time, Bruce feels like too big of a presence at his side when he sits down, still restless from walking out with Waylon. Even so, his arm around both Jason and Selina feels like a safety net, an anchor for their nerves—his wordless way of saying I’m stressed, too.
“He’s ugly, huh?” Selina leans in to whisper just as Waylon and Bibbo are squaring up. The beginning of round one is called when Selina says: “Docking hype points for that.”
“You had a point system for him?”
“Of course I did.”
“Got one for me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Tell me about it some time?”
“No fun in that.”
Selina says it in response to Jason, but the duck of her head signals she means it about being ring-side, too.
Jason expected each round to feel like the longest three minutes of his life as each one rolled by, but actually being in the moment is not only slow as molasses, but suffocating.
Bibbo is solid. Jason suspects he’s at the max weight for his and Waylon’s class, but to never watch a fight of his through a television screen to being front row has his palms sweating. He mumbles an apology to Selina about it, who tells him not to worry—the worst of it may actually be from her.
Round one ends in Bibbo’s favor.
Bruce rushes into Waylon’s corner. Jason watches their interaction closely, looking for any signs in Waylon’s body language or mouth movement saying this might go south, happy to see there’s none.
The ding to start their second round is just as bone-chilling, just as slow, just as nerve-wracking.
Bruce is muttering at Jason’s side, a mix of praise and swears and full, incomprehensible sentences. He’s bouncing his knee, leaning forward to rest his elbows on them, watching each and every move.
Round two goes to Waylon with something akin to a celebratory growl coming from the man himself. Where Jason should be watching him and Bruce hype the win is instead wasted with his eyes on Bibbo and his coach, speaking too hushed for his liking. Selina taps her thumb to the back of his hand, dragging his eyes back to where they should be.
“No bullshit here.” Selina promises. “No gym clownery, no dirty refs. Whatever happens, it’s because Way was under- or overqualified.”
“No such thing as overqualified.” Jason replies.
Still, Bibbo takes the next round.
“Jase, it’s you.” Bruce shoves him to his feet by the shoulder. “Don’t ask, go.”
Jason moves in a frenzy, by the ring quicker than he can blink. Waylon looks happy to see him, all things considered, ducking his head to take the spritz of water Jason offers while he catches his breath.
“Sweat rag? Pep talk?”
“Nah, just a new face. Tell Selina to smile for me?”
“You got it.” Jason promises just as the ref calls time on Waylon’s minute rest.
“Fuckin’ hate these your turn, my turn sort’a rounds.” Bruce is saying as Jason is sitting back down. “But it’s too basic, too scheme-y for Falcone to come up with, so I think we got ‘em shook.”
Jason nods along, managing a smile at Bruce’s heaving sigh once the bell for round four rings.
“Waylon wants a smile.” Jason tells Selina in a gentle tone.
She gives him something brief when he circles Bibbo just right to see her. Waylon grins back through his mouthguard, quick to draw his arms up when Bibbo aims a hook in an attempt to knock it clean off.
Jason can’t hear their shit-talk but he can see spit flying, quickly replaced by fists and feet, by elbows and knees.
Waylon’s defensiveness—for Selina’s smile, Jason would act the same—fuels him into the fourth round’s win. It’s by a hairs-breadth margin, but it’s his. The rest period is Bruce’s again, a pang of worry running through Jason when there’s less enthusiasm to Waylon’s actions than before.
“Bibbo’s warmed up.” Selina warns. “Buckle in.”
“Bibbo’s all revved.” Bruce says in the same manner when he returns. “Whatever you feel, don’t let it show. It’s the last thing Waylon needs.”
Theirs and Jason’s anxieties come to life in the form of Bibbo taking round five and six. Jason replaces Bruce by the ring for the sixth, more than happy to provide Waylon with a fresh face. He cuffs Jason around the neck when he offers him water, drinking some then shaking his head through the rest.
“I like you in my corner.” Waylon says breathlessly. “More than Bruce. Let him know.”
“Absolutely.” Their minute is called. “We got this, you hear me? Don’t fuckin’ forget it.”
Round seven begins. There’s zero hesitation behind Bibbo’s first attack, pure aggression from the get-go. Waylon guards where he can and strikes when he’s able, but the rev of Bibbo’s engine just roars louder and louder.
When Bibbo takes Waylon down—the pin he’s held in not one he and Bruce practiced—Bruce is on his feet and the ring’s barricade quicker than Jason can put a stop to him.
Jason’s only seen a rear choke when fights go longer than a fifth round, but to see one up close is sickening. It’s no better than a glorified headlock from a piggybacking position, but it’s hardly an easy thing to get out of. Bruce is banging at the barricade, voice drowned out by the crowd and Jason’s pounding heart.
“He’s telling Waylon to get his feet under him.” Selina explains. “It’s the only way.”
“No tap out?”
“For Waylon?”
“Right, r…” cheers erupt around them, “right. Fuckin’ look at that.”
Waylon’s holding Bibbo on his back in a kneel, one foot planted and working on getting his other underneath him. Bruce is yelling a clear fuck yes at him, over and over and over, only backing up from the barricade once Waylon’s on both feet.
“Flip!” Bruce is saying. “Use those fuckin’ legs, Waylon Jones, and flip!”
Sparing his instruction the slightest bit of thought, Waylon centers his and Bibbo’s weight before he’s launching himself backwards. The move looks sloppy but it’s done with the exact amount of precision needed to get Bruce celebrating early.
The flip sets Bibbo on his head, crashing down hard, Waylon’s upper back smacking him from the other side. Quick to slither into an arm bar, Waylon and the referee both wait for the tap-out.
“What’s up with him?!” Jason stands with Bruce, who’s shaking with excitement. The referee calls the end of the round and waves for the medics. “Bruce?”
A second later, Bibbo Bibbowski is pronounced unconscious.
“Waylon Jones, winner!”
Bruce, Jason, and Selina rush to the ring. Waylon stands tall on the barricade, arms waving to raise more cheers. Bruce snags one of the hands to pull him all the way to the floor and into a hug.
Waylon drags Jason and Selina in, too, before he and Bruce are forced into handshakes and quick post-fight press.
Though they’re getting pulled in one direction and yanked in another, Bruce still finds the time to rock Jason’s world with a winning kiss.
Jason kisses back without thinking, knowing Bruce’s lips are pressed to more teeth than anything from the way he’s smiling. In the corner of his eye, Selina and Waylon share a fist bump.
“Later?” Bruce asks, dragged off by Waylon around the wrist. “Later, okay?!”
All Jason can offer is a small salute, but it leaves Bruce smiling. Selina’s grinning at his side, too.
“Waylon Jones, winner! Jason Todd, winner!”
“Whatever.” Jason laughs off her teasing. “I saw you guys fist bump.”
—
Waylon Jones, winner!
“You’ve watched every clip, by this point.”
“Just wait until news articles drop.” Selina says. “I’ll stop by the gym just to recite them.”
“Shouldn’t we be with them?” Jason points at Bruce and Waylon.
Waylon, no longer having to worry about a weigh-in, has been shoveling whatever food into his mouth he can get his hands on. Bruce hangs behind but still close, no doubt feeling protective given the circumstances, wanting to keep as close of an eye on Waylon as he can.
“We wouldn’t be true Gothamites if we didn’t stay in the thick of it.” Selina teases, motioning to the growing crowd of celebrating Gotham citizens.
“Oh, how disappointing.” Jason says sarcastically.
“Where’s your pride?” Selina jokes back, taking Jason’s offered hand. She walks through the swarm of people with him, straying no further than an inch from his side. “Aren’t you the one always saying when in Gotham?”
“My pride is right here.” Jason claps Waylon on the back, nose wrinkled in his smile when Waylon beams at him with a mouthful of food. Seeing him and Selina join Waylon, Bruce stops hovering to complete their circle. “What a fuckin’ move, man!”
“Fuckin’ happy Bruce never tried it in training!” Waylon laughs. “No way I could flip his big ass!”
“Nah? Where’s the confidence, Way? You do Bibbo in, you could do anybody in.” Jason replies. Bruce’s stare is warm where he’s looking at him. Jason sticks his fingers up by his ears, saying, “I think you could even do the big, scary ones in.”
It gets a full-body laugh from Waylon, Selina unable to stop herself from giggling along. Bruce is shaking his head and rolling his eyes but, since the end of the fight, he hasn’t stopped smiling.
“And who knows?” Jason sidles up next to Bruce, feeling playful but not wanting to come on too strongly. “Maybe he’d let you.”
“There’s no half-assing in Croc’s Gym. Right?” Bruce sets an arm over Jason’s shoulders. “Or have you changed the name?”
“You’re opening a gym for real?” Selina gasps. “Waylon! Oh my— wow, God, no wonder you were so secretive about your plans with the winnings.”
“Shit, really? Congrats!” Jason smiles. He has to tamp down how wide he lets it stretch, what with how Bruce keeps dragging him into his side inch by inch. “Same place, or a new one?”
“You just got’a wait and see, kid.” Waylon teases. “But look out for Croc’s Gym in the news, yeah?”
“Fuck yeah, yes, of course.”
Jason accepts the side hug Waylon wrangles him into. Selina takes the seat he abandoned to do so, and they make a very comical show of Waylon grumbling about it, then sitting on Selina’s lap when she refuses to move. They eventually settle with Selina on Waylon’s—a much more sensible arrangement, all things considered—while Jason and Bruce stand, still chatting about plans for Croc’s, with Jason leaning into Bruce.
An odd inward sigh from Jason brings a question of concern from Bruce, only half-listening to Selina’s design plans while Waylon picks through the last of his food in front of him.
“I’m fine, yeah. It’s the stress thing.” Jason assures. “There’s a giant comedown from something like this, so my fingers…” Jason balls his hands into fists to stop the way they twitch, “it’s just annoying.”
“We can step out if you want.” Bruce offers. “Day’s not over yet, so I won’t grill you about smoking.”
“Sure, okay.” Jason turns to Selina to let her know they’ll be outside, but she’s already looking at him. “Uh, we’ll be… we won’t be gone long.”
All she gives in response is a wink.
Jason’s fingers twitch with a new kind of excitement once they’re outside. With a cigarette between his lips and lighter in hand, taking a few too many flicks to get it burning, he inhales nicotine and the humid night air in one big, nervous breath.
He sits on the front stairs of the venue, Bruce following him down, enough space to have their own bubbles yet choosing to intrude on Jason’s anyway.
Jason’s halfway through his smoke, content in their mutual silence, when Bruce asks: “So, what’s your type?”
“Um, I usually go with Spirits.” Jason starts to pat his front pockets for the carton. “Or— hold on, you…” Bruce gives him a look. “Okay, right.”
“You said it’s not Selina.” Bruce reminds him. “Which doesn’t give me too much to work with, unless I wan’a call you crazy.”
“Why, is she your type?”
“Once upon a time.” Bruce shrugs. “Stop avoiding my question.”
“Have you ever considered not being so direct?” Jason laughs lightly, struggling to keep their eye contact. “It’s not very charming.”
“Neither is smoking, but here we are.”
“Low blow.” Jason watches how his inhale sizzles out the last of his cigarette, crushing the butt of it to the bottom of his shoe. “She could be my type. I think she likes me.”
“So does Waylon. You’re still not answering.”
“Do I really have to?” Jason leans into the already minimal space between them. “You were kissing my teeth about an hour ago, and I’ve yet to say anything bad about it.”
“A good detective always double or triple checks his conclusions.”
“Uh huh… and how good of a detective are you?” Jason tips his head up to ask, resting his chin against Bruce’s arm. “What’s your behind the scenes process like? Or is stepping on my toes in a lunch line one week then paying for it another a sort of, um, special case?”
Bruce bends to meet Jason’s tipped up grin, kissing the smug question right off of him.
Jason straightens to better kiss him, forcing less of a curve into Bruce’s shoulders, but, even with him upright, Bruce has to hunch. Jason crawls onto his knees, then, the unforgiving dig of the concrete stairs the last thing on his mind when Bruce’s hands grab his waist to steady him. They’re as big and as warm as the rest of him, and he’s making these soft noises into their kiss, and Jason’s halfway into his lap before Bruce is pulling away.
“Hm,” Jason hums, licking over his bottom lip, “what was it you said about triple checking?”
“It’s done somewhere private, normally.” Bruce is no longer kissing him, but his hands stay planted on Jason’s hips. “And very carefully. I spread it all out on a table so I know each and every last detail.” Jason presses his body into Bruce’s, melting when the baritone of his voice rumbles straight down to the bone. “Flip it this way and that so I don’t miss anything.”
“Sounds intense.” Jason says it against Bruce’s lips. “You think you can handle triple checking me?”
—
“Oh, you… good fucking God, Jason!”
Dick is on his way out of his and Jason’s apartment just as Jason and Bruce are on their way in.
At Bruce’s reassurance Selina and Waylon will be fine with a see you later text, they had done their damnedest to rush to Jason’s apartment. Bruce knew the route from the arena to the building better than Jason, which comes as no surprise but, with how keyed up he feels, is sexier than it has any right to be.
“Sorry, sorry! We’re… I’m sorry!” Jason tries to explain himself, but Bruce is ushering him inside with the patience of a man starved. “Hey, I’ll make you your favorite breakfast, okay?!”
“Just keep my bed out of it!” Dick slams the door behind him. It never ends well for Jason when he goes into work already disgruntled. It’s as if Bruce is pulling those thoughts right from his head, though, pulling Jason’s clothes away with them.
“He’s really gon’a hate you now.” Jason jokes.
“As long as you don’t.”
When he pairs the words with a sweet kiss to Jason’s throat, hauling him into his arms with dizzying ease, how could anyone?
“You tell me.” Jason locks his ankles together at the small of Bruce’s back, arching into the hands feeling him up, consequently pressing his hard cock to Bruce’s sternum. “Does it feel like I do?”
“Feels like you couldn’t give a fuck if your roommate hates me right now, or not.” Bruce slides both hands into the back of his briefs, crushing Jason harder against him. Nodding at the beds, he asks: “Which one is yours?”
“Left.”
“You sleep by the window?” Bruce lays them down in a large swathe of moonlight shining through it, the bed creaking from their combined weight.
“I didn’t used to.” Jason admits, one eyebrow raised, waiting for Bruce to catch on.
“Nasty…” Bruce presses a biting smirk to Jason’s playful one when he does.
Jason hums something like an agreement, angling his head to move his lips from Bruce’s mouth to his throat. Bruce pulls his briefs down and off, careful to toss them opposite of Dick’s bed.
“You’ve been hiding from me.” Bruce runs his hands up Jason’s legs and over his torso, Jason now completely exposed beneath him. “Damn, look at you, Jase. What the hell were you scared of, not wanting to spar with Waylon?”
“Oh, c’mon.” Jason kicks him lightly in the thigh, a faint pink blush spilling over his cheeks and down his chest. Bruce runs his lips over it, from his belly button to dusky brown nipples. “Yeah, stick to doin’ that.”
“You can handle shitty detective sex talk but not praise?” Bruce questions, laughter in his tone.
“From you? Fuck yeah.” Jason answers honestly.
“You’re fit as fuck, though.” Bruce compliments if only to see Jason’s blush darken.
Jason groans, loud and exaggerated, Bruce taking advantage of the dramatic way he’s thrown his head backwards to kiss marks onto his neck. His skin is warm against Bruce’s lips, heated from his blush and from perspiration. Jason laughs quietly, pleased little noises joining in whenever Bruce nips at him.
His breath quickens the lower Bruce’s kisses go, blush-warm all the way down his torso.
The width of Bruce’s body puts a growing ache in his groin, Bruce taking both legs over his shoulders to ease the wince in Jason’s expression, mouth to his inner thighs, creeping closer and closer to where he’s been incessantly throbbing since he’s snuffed out his cigarette.
“Fuck…” Jason swears under his breath. When Bruce’s hands envelop the thighs at either side of his head Jason grabs one and tugs, pulling it up until he can grope a pec. “Fuck, please.”
“Too easy.” Bruce smirks, earning a squeeze to his skull. Jason’s embarrassed, but he’s not wrong.
Bruce sinks his mouth over his cock in time with the increasing pressure of his groping fingers, eyes locked with Jason’s all the while.
It’s Jason who breaks eye contact, head thrown back with a breathless groan, hips digging into his mattress and back arching, unsure if he wants to move into or away from the overwhelming warmth of Bruce’s throat.
“Jesus, who the fuck goes all the way down first try!?” It comes out as more of an outcry than a question, delving into nothing but noise when Bruce starts bobbing his mouth. “Try hard, hard ass— fuck, seriously…!”
Jason grabs tight to the wrist of the hand laid to his chest, his other reaching behind his head to grip the edge of his mattress.
He shoves his face into his bicep, setting his teeth to the muscle there in a failed attempt to control his volume. He lets loose something like a whine when Bruce shakes his wrist free, shifting to cup the back of Jason’s knee rather than his pec. With the new grip on him he can hike a leg higher, adjusting the angle of his body to fit with Jason’s.
It puts his nose right to Jason’s lower belly. Deep, controlled breaths puff against the sensitive skin there, Jason nearly crushing him with the way he curls inward at Bruce swallowing him even further.
“I’m…!” Jason starts and stops, gasping when Bruce pulls off.
“You’re what?” His cheeks are red, voice thick with spit, lips wet with it. He fits a loose fist around Jason’s slicked cock, pleasurable but incomparable to the feel of his throat. “Hm?”
“Fuck you.” Jason huffs, sweating and breathing hard. “Fuck. God… you’re fuckin’ awful. And stupidly good at that.”
“I’ll blow you right another time.” Bruce promises.
“Another later.”
“It’s a good later.”
Bruce rolls carefully onto his side and then onto his back, taking Jason along with him. Jason drops his full weight onto Bruce once they’re settled, his hips restless where they lay, Bruce’s shirt a much rougher friction than the velvety feel of his mouth.
Jason feels him up, aiming to undress him, as an excuse to lift his hips. Bruce looks good in his bed—arms out to make stripping him easy, moving wherever Jason needs him until he’s down to his boxer-briefs—surprisingly pliant and easygoing.
“Christ.” Jason says it directly to Bruce’s crotch.
“You don’t—” Bruce is cut short by the meanest glare Jason can manage. To his shock, it’s nearly venomous. “Okay. Nevermind.”
Jason has to steal lube from Dick, something he’ll later refuse to acknowledge, but once in hand, he glues himself to Bruce’s front, keeping his mouth busy with Bruce’s own, while Bruce warms the bottle in one fisted hand.
Bruce smoothes a hand up his spine when he deems the slick warm enough, palm laid to Jason’s nape and squeezing when he sits upright. His knees tuck into Bruce’s ribs, the width of him between Jason’s thighs more than enough to keep him spread open.
“You do this part.” Bruce instructs, dripping lube down Jason’s asscrack all the while, biting back a smirk when he shivers. “If I do it, I’ll just wan’a make you come.”
Jason’s entire body twitches at the admission.
“Charming.” He mumbles, propped up by one hand to Bruce’s wide chest as his other slots behind him. “You can’t get pissed if I rush it, though.”
“Jase…”
“I’m gon’a rush it,” Jason says, leaving little room for argument, “and I’m not sorry. I think I’ll come if I don’t, and if I don’t have all of this headache you’re packing, what’s the fucking point?”
“Please, just…”
“Shh, watch…” Jason whispers, slotting the full length of his middle finger into himself with one go.
Bruce stabilizes his full-body shudder, hands immediately starting to roam when Jason proves he doesn’t need the added help.
He uses them to shift Jason higher, petting up his spine until he bends for him, lips closing around a nipple and groaning in response to Jason’s sensitive whine.
Jason’s again left clawing at the edge of his mattress, rushing to fit a second finger in with the first. He scissors them, avoiding his prostate for now, struggling to stay relaxed with Bruce mouthing at his chest.
“You have to s… stop,” Jason tells him, attempting to sit up, collapsing to his forearm when Bruce wraps both arms around him, “Bruce, please, I can’t—”
“Don’t rush it, then.” Bruce says stubbornly, going so far as to pull his head back enough to shoot Jason a proud grin, right before he snaps his teeth around Jason’s other nipple.
“Jackass.” Jason swears, submitting to the heavy arms hugging him tight to Bruce’s torso.
Bruce gives him more lube when he asks for it, using his own fingers to smear it over his hole, shallowly dipping in when Jason edges his out. His hips try to follow when Bruce pulls his hand away, another quiet swear leaving him when he’s, again, held in place.
Jason sends him another glare, eyes rolling when Bruce just flashes him the same dumb smirk.
Still, he appeases Bruce.
Does so by adding a third finger and letting Bruce squeeze his arms around him like a snake, shuddering with every graze of his teeth over gradually swelling nipples.
Jason works himself open for Bruce until his wrist aches and Bruce’s lips are just as red, plump, and wet as the nipples he’s teasing.
He rushes to correspond with Bruce’s sit back for me, wiping his fingers on Bruce’s stomach and ignoring the mess of precome it mixes with. Bruce doesn’t do so much as roll his eyes, all his attention drawn to freeing his cock. Jason helps where he can, though the most he needs to do is lift his hips so Bruce can kick his underwear away.
“Christ.” Jason says again, his next breath a stuttered one. Bruce is too hefty to stand upright, his cock laid heavily over his lower stomach. “I’d love to see you in a pair of those fighting shorts. Could you even fit?”
“Talking about the shorts, or about you?”
“The shorts.” Jason reiterates. He’s yet to even out his breathing, made harder with Bruce’s petting hands over his waist and thighs. “I wasn’t just wasting your time before this, I can take you.”
“Show me?”
“You’re done triple checking?” Jason jokes.
An attempt at one, at least, but it’s one Bruce takes seriously. His roaming hands stop, laid over Jason’s ass, fingers digging in to lift him up.
“Take me in hand.”
“Here we go.”
Jason grins, reaching for Bruce’s cock with a trembling hand. Bruce yanks his hips back to his abdomen when Jason slots his cock between his cheeks, loosely jerking him off, purposefully making it so Jason’s cock slips against the slick mess coating his stomach.
Bruce is the one to rock him forward until the tip of his cock catches Jason’s hole, but lets Jason be responsible for pressing him inside. His hands rush to steady himself on Bruce’s chest, fingers kneading the muscle the deeper Bruce stretches him open.
His hands act as a guide, as gentle and massaging as they are urgent to get the entirety of his cock into Jason. They each grow increasingly breathless with every inch, sweating from exertion, Jason’s eyes squeezed shut and Bruce’s head dug into the mattress by the time he’s fully inside.
Jason’s kneading fingers have turned to claws, red lines raked over Bruce’s pectorals. He gives a low whimper when Bruce bends his knees, planting both feet on Jason’s mattress, consequently rocking himself deeper.
“You know how much sexier this would be if I had those stupid fuckin’ ears of yours to grab onto?”
“Seems like you’re holding onto me just fine.” Bruce nods to the nails jammed into his chest.
“I’m fucking dying.” Jason moans, daring the first lift of his hips as he speaks. Bruce gasps, rushing to hold Jason around the waist. “What, you too? You’re the one with the goddamn monster.”
“To borrow your words,” Bruce huffs, looking just as close to losing it as Jason feels, “who the fuck goes all the way down on the first try?”
“We’re even, then.” Jason sits back, ass colliding with Bruce’s thighs in a muted smack, rocking himself into a slow but steady lift-drop of his hips. “You’ll keep fuckin’ me when I get tired?”
“Wouldn’t stop to save the world.” Bruce promises, end of his sentence lost to a deep moan when Jason picks up the pace.
He wants hard, fast, and dirty, riled up and eager to come, as much as he wants to feel every aching inch of Bruce’s cock fill him every time he thrusts back, struggling to choose between the two. For now he pleases himself with the latter, each time he sinks down feeling like a gut punch, praying he’ll get the fast, hard, and dirty if and when Bruce loses his patience.
Jason just about loses his own when Bruce lays a palm over his stomach, fingers pressing in under his navel, laughing at Jason’s weak moan when the distension from his cock is made obvious.
Even so, Jason ducks his head to watch it disappear and reappear, framed by the vee of Bruce’s fingers.
Jason sputters when Bruce fits the heel of his palm to it when Jason’s fully seated, a new angle forced into his hips making it so when he raises up, Bruce’s cock nails his prostate. Immediately he jolts away from it, no chance of lasting if he doesn’t, shaking his head when Bruce clicks his tongue at him.
“Too much…” he says by way of explanation.
“I just think you’re too easy.”
“Fuck off, just…” Jason sits upright, leaning onto the legs behind him.
The jut of Bruce’s cock in his belly is seen better this way, both of them watching it grow as Jason splits his thighs over a wide waist to take all of him in deep. Using Bruce’s knees as handhelds to move himself up and down, careful of the way he angles himself, he watches his body swell and shrink to accommodate Bruce.
Bruce stares with him, at him, stuttering on his inhales whenever Jason’s cock twitches at the bulging reveal. It takes everything in Bruce and then some to not jam his hips up, to knock him off balance and make him feel instead of see, but—
But then Jason’s fisting his own cock, fully seating himself on Bruce’s, and winding his hips in tight circles to see if Bruce moves with him.
And Bruce was already impatient, wanting to be sweet on Jason given it’s his first time with his cock, tamping down the urge to pin and take while he and his body got familiar.
Bruce pulls out, snaking his hands in and around Jason’s waist, sweating from how he’s been holding himself back as Jason takes what he wants. Something akin to a growl leaves him when Jason collapses into him, arms and legs already prepared to grab hold as he’s flipped to his back.
“Bit of a slut, aren’t you?” Bruce half-teases, failing to hide one of his own when he turns Jason to his stomach and presses his smirk into his sheets.
“Told you when we met I was a big fan, didn’t I?” Jason teases back, making no effort to pull his face from the mattress.
He’s breathing hard, sounding louder with how he’s pinned, but his entire body is a ball of wound-up desperation. Pants harder when Bruce hunkers down on top of him, propped on his hands and knees, easily shielding all of Jason from anything but himself.
Jason braces himself with a fist curled over the edge of his mattress as Bruce nudges his cock back inside, taking nothing more than a slide and a catch to do so, his other hand flying to lay flat over his stomach.
Bruce gives him what he wants in one quick thrust, punching a moan right out of him in the process.
With the way he’s buried his face in Jason can sound off more freely, something he does without hesitation, not shy in letting Bruce know exactly what’s working for him.
Bruce isn’t shocked to learn everything works for him—even the way Bruce crooks his hips and hammers his prostate, unsubtly hinting it’s been found with a muffled yelp—but more so by his determination to keep feeling the heavy hits of Bruce’s cock. Jason’s hand may as well be glued to his stomach, at this point.
“Guessing you never got it this deep before?”
“F-fuck, no.” Jason huffs.
“Might be ruined by the end.” Bruce warns.
“Good,” Jason moans, “fuck, that’s good, it’s great… you promise?”
Bruce manages what he can of a laugh. Rather than saying yes he shows it, nearly smothering Jason to prove he’s serious.
With his reluctance to move his hand Bruce does what any gentleman would do and has the sheets do the dirty work of a handjob, his thrusts and Jason’s cock, slick with pre, granting the friction needed to help get him off.
Jason has to pick his head up for air since Bruce has closed in on top of him, less room to breathe when prone-boned the way he is.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” he whines, squirming under Bruce’s weight, nowhere to go but to be further impaled by his cock, “fuck, God— ohmy… God…!”
“Gon’a come?” Bruce asks, panting from his relentless pace.
Jason’s ass and the backs of his thighs will be sore, if not from Bruce’s cock then, at the very least, from his hard-hitting thrusts, and Bruce burns at the thought of bruises peeking out from the bottom hems of his shorts.
“Huh?” Bruce presses for an answer. “Tell me, Jase, you wan’a come for me?”
“Yes,” Jason hisses through clenched teeth in reply, “yeah, God, make me—!”
A change of pace and set angle to his hips—not slow but steady, with a consistent pressure against his prostate—is all Bruce needs to set Jason over the edge.
“Bruce—!” Jason sobs.
He has to pull his hand from under him and scramble for a better hold, his other already ripping into his mattress. A gasping moan leaves Bruce when Jason decides on his forearm, clawing nails leaving thin tracks of blood in a blurred line of pain and pleasure.
“Ff-fuck, say you’re close, please, please, don’t stop…! I… Bruce, please, are you…?” Jason’s between asking and begging.
He’s writhing under Bruce, unable to help it with the overstimulating feel of Bruce not yet stopping.
“Please…!” Jason cries out, body pulsating with another few weak spurts of his cock. “Come! Fuck, come, I can’t—”
Bruce tenses up all at once, face warmed by how much Jason is pleading for it, vowing to keep Jason’s desperate, indignant whimper when Bruce pulls out to stripe him in white forever in mind.
Jason’s hole clenches when it drips over and down. Bruce can’t help but swipe a finger through his mess and feed it to the greediness of Jason’s body, a second finger joining just to hear the sensitive gasp it brings out of Jason.
“Don’t fake a go-again.” He warns Bruce breathlessly. As badly as he doesn’t want to, Bruce takes his hand away. “Christ, thank you.”
“What, not a two-round type of guy?”
Bruce’s question goes ignored while Jason eases himself onto his hands and knees, urging Bruce to sit up with him. Both of their eyes are drawn to the wet sheets sticking themselves to Jason’s thighs.
“Not a round three type, no.” He belatedly answers. “Which would honestly feel like round four ‘cause you edged me so good with a blowjob earlier I basically came, so…”
“I don’t hear any real complaining.”
“No…” Jason sighs, “nope, nah, this was amazing.”
“You looked amazing.” Bruce admits softly, maneuvering Jason up and away from the damp patch of his mattress. “Sounded amazing, felt amazing…”
“Did I?” Jason raises a playful eyebrow. Bruce’s sincere nod in reply sends his stomach fluttering. “Hm… you too, Bruce.”
“You want anything?”
“You mean besides laying on top of you, making each other feel awkward with sex-related compliments?” Jason asks, again with the intention to joke and again getting an honest response. “A shower, then.”
“… Will we fit?”
“Probably not, but I wouldn’t mind watching.”
“No? Not surprised.” Bruce grins, teasing.
“Wouldn’t mind at all, even if I kind’a want you to soap me down and sex me up in there.”
“Is that right?” Bruce sits them up with a broad, warm hand to Jason’s lower back, keeping it there on their short walk to the bathroom. “Next time, then.”
“Okay,” Jason giddily agrees, “next time.”
—
“You’re limping.”
Jason stands next to the center ring of what’s soon to be Waylon’s old training gym, Selina sitting right behind him.
“No I’m not.” Jason says, arms crossed defensively.
“Going too heavy on your leg days recently? It happens to the best of us, y’know. The real go-getters,” Selina persists, “unless there’s some other too heavy making it so you won’t sit and cuddle with me anymore.”
Jason’s shoulders are hunched to his ears, gone red in embarrassment, redirecting his humiliation at Selina talking so openly into a frowning glare.
“I’m not talking to you about my sex life.”
“Funny. Bruce won’t tell me about his, either.” Selina teases. Jason follows her pointed finger to where folded arms have skewed the compression shirt Jason wears, lifted to show a sliver of his stomach. “Nice bruises, by the way.”
“Back here, too.” Waylon comes up behind him on shockingly silent feet, tapping Jason on the back of his thighs. “Must’a had one hell of a celebration.”
Bruce’s lips are flatlined where he stands next to Waylon, trying not to laugh for Jason’s sake.
“Oh my…” Jason turns his head from Selina, to Waylon, to Bruce all the while pulling at his clothes. “They’ve just… and you—?”
“I thought you knew.” Bruce raises his hands in surrender. “Or it was, y’know, on purpose.”
“You know how hard it is to bench with this fucker at half-chub next to you?” Waylon asks, exasperated. Selina gives a genuine snort of laughter at Jason’s dropped jaw. “It’s fuckin’ hard!”
“Waylon, c’mon…” Bruce nudges him with his elbow. “Jase, you… uh, do us a favor and find some pants?”
“I’m just gon’a quit, I think.” Jason mutters. “This is, like, a down-the-road situation, not… not a…”
“Those are from one time?” Selina says with a curious raise to her eyebrows.
“Damn, kids.” Waylon whistles.
“Okay, that’s on you.” Bruce says. “Seriously, though, find some pants. Waylon will kill me for real if I cut this short ‘cause you’re showing off your bruised thighs.”
“Yes, yeah, just… please stop talking about them.” Jason bends for his duffel bag, digging for his leg compression sleeves, forcing himself to ignore another low whistle from Waylon.
“Damn, how high do they go?”
“Okay,” Bruce finally cuts in, “he… we get it, so just…”
“Ooh, big scary papa bear.” Waylon teases, happy to tussle when Bruce wrangles him into a headlock. “Be nice to him next time, man!”
Jason kicks his shoes off to pull the sleeves over his feet, accepting Selina’s help to properly cover his thighs with a half-hearted warning glare.
“So…” she starts, “on purpose? Not on purpose?”
“Fuck off.” Jason swears, the red tips of his ears enough of an answer for her.