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Heroes	By : GobletofFenrir Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2339 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or Nightwing. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 1-Heroes
- 2-Lovers
- 1
- 2
“Come on, big guy, we both know you don’t mean that,” Richard Grayson’s voice taunted cheekily.
Strong, leather covered fingers curled into a fist. “Look, Dick, I’m not joking. You need to leave. It’s not OK. It’s not right, this thing we’re doing. You’re…you’re like a son to me, for Christ’s sake!”
Bruce Wayne’s strong, deep voice resonated in the vast, cavernous space of the batcave. He leaned heavily against the large leather chair before his main computer console. A dangerous vein of frustration was channeling its way down his spine, swirling in his stomach amidst shame, rage, and unadulterated lust. The costumed man forced his fist to open. If he didn’t calm down, he would end up making yet another mistake that he couldn’t ever take back. The thought made his roiling stomach turn even more viciously.
A handsome young face formed a smile behind the small black mask guarding its identity. Nightwing crossed his arms over the well sculpted muscles of his chest, leaning casually against the Batmobile as if it were a desk or a chair.
“If this is all because of that whole messy “adoption” thing, don’t let it get to you. I’m a big boy now. Have been for a while.” The joking quality in Dick’s voice was fitted with a razor sharp edge.
“Stop making this into some kind of joke, Richard!” The Batman’s voice boomed in his underground cavern. “Not everything is funny. Not every conversation is a chance for you to be a smartass.”
Richard let out an exasperated sigh that only served to push Bruce’s buttons even more. “Look, Bruce,” he began gently. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just can’t help it, you know?”
Bruce matched his former protégée’s sigh with his own. “No, of course you can’t. You’re too young. You don’t have any self-control. How could you help it?”
“Excuse me?”
The sharp lilt in the question let Bruce know that he had said just the right thing; he was getting closer to pushing Dick out of the Batcave, out of this mess, and most importantly, out of danger.
“You heard me. You’re too young, too brash. You’ve been this way since the beginning, since you were—” The older man faltered. Even now, years later, the words were hard to say to Dick’s face.
“Go ahead, Bruce, say it! Since I was what, 10? Since I was Robin? Since I first started sneaking into your bed?!”
The ferocity of Richard’s words took him aback. He’s wound so tightly. This won’t take long. Forced iciness, nothing new, but still hard to manage, especially with him, with someone so close, plastered yet another mask onto Bruce Wayne’s face. His emotions swelled within his chest, centering just beneath the bat symbol that rested there.
“That’s not what I was going to say, Dick. I just need this mess to stop. It’s not safe. It’s not right, it’s not going to continue—”
“But how can you just—”
“And it is not up for discussion!”
A forced silence hushed the two men instantly. The sounds of stalactites dripping water and the quiet hum of the large computer steps away were the only sounds for several tense moments. And then footsteps.
Dick was scarcely a foot from the handsome, exhausted face of Bruce Wayne, his bright blue eyes shining up into those of his mentor. Something more than words passed between the two men, something potent and pregnant with intimacy and shared emotion. The look on Dick’s face was enough. It was too much. The weight of it pressed more painfully on Bruce’s chest than the heavy leather and Kevlar that protected him night after night. He let out a soft breath.
Removing his gloves, the Caped Crusader laid a hand to the well-defined cheek of the young man in front of him. He ran a thumb over his high, clear cheekbone. The smoothness of the skin only deepened the pain he felt. With his other hand, Bruce carefully pulled the small, black mask from his ward’s face.
“Richard, I was like you once. I was young and strong, and I thought I could do everything. I was running on hate and darkness, looking for something to destroy. I thought it would help me. I thought I knew what I needed, knew what I was doing and why; I was so sure.” He stroked the young face with his fingers and didn’t flinch when a soft hand rose to cover his own.
“But I was just being selfish. We’ve both seen the evil that can come from selfishness. The pain of broken promises, the pain of loss.” Bruce tried to show the younger man through his pleading brown eyes what he was trying to say.
Dick’s hand lightly touched Batman’s face, seeing the healing bruises on Bruce’s flesh. ”Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself, Bruce. I can take care of myself. You know I can. Haven’t I shown you that in all these years? Stop living in the past. Please. I know you’re tired of being lonely. I know you’re tired of being tired. I can help you. More than I do now as Nightwing,” he smoothed a soft black lock of hair from Bruce’s face. “More than I ever could as Robin.”
It was all too much. The emotions, the fatigue, the daily draining of his will to survive, the antagonizing loneliness. He had tried to push Dick away, had tried to scare him off, had tried everything but the one thing that the young hero had begged from him. It hurt to see the genuine sadness in such usually bright and lively eyes. Sadness for him, tortured Bruce Wayne, and sadness for lonely, aching Batman. In a far too rare show of true emotion, Bruce brought Richard’s face closer to his with a gentle pull. Theirs noses were nearly brushing. He could feel the heat of the other’s breath.
“Just be Dick Grayson. That’s all I ever wanted for you. I thought I could help you by making you into Robin, into a symbol like me. I thought I could push you, mold you into my image and give you focus and a purpose. But I destroyed you. I failed you.”
He heard Dick’s breath hitch. The slight movement of his lips brushed their mouths together in a shadow of a kiss.
“I tried to show you that being with me was nothing to want. That I was nothing you deserved. I wanted you to be happy and free in all the ways I’m not and can never be. I care too much for you to let you become a pawn in the dangerous game I live. I couldn’t bear the pain of losing another Robin.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t live with myself if I lost you too.”
The sudden emotional onslaught left Bruce feeling naked, empty, and weak, despite the cape fluttering at his heels and the pounds of armor still strapped to his bruised body. A quivering void had formed in his gut where all of his silent, festering fears had been building before the moment had rent them from him. For all his anguish, though, he couldn’t bring his eyes from those of the young man’s before him, not even as a single tear beaded within them and slowly slid from one cerulean eye down onto his thumb.
“Please, Bruce,”
The voice that parted Richard’s lips was tremulous and moist with unshed tears. It wasn’t the voice of Nightwing, the voice of Robin, or the voice of the witty, cocky Dick Grayson that Bruce and Alfred had amusedly endured over the years. It was the voice of a man on the edge, and it was all too familiar.
“Just give me a chance. A real, solid chance. I don’t want to crawl into bed with you in the dead of night or watch you from the rooftops, not anymore. Let me be there for you. Let me carry some of the burden that weighs you down. Give me the option of being your partner, not your sidekick or your backup. I want to be with you. I want Gotham’s billionaire playboy and mysterious masked protector. I want to be to you what no one else has gotten to be.
“I want to be yours. Don’t you think I understand? We both lost everything to this city and you’ve taught me that in it somewhere, deep under the grime and the evil, there was something about Gotham that was worth saving. Something worth the capes and the bruises and the near death experiences. Can’t it be this? Can’t it be us?!”
Bruce winced at the intensity of the outburst. It shook in his teeth from their closeness and in his bones from its sheer rawness. His hands tightened on Dick’s face, pulling him close enough to plant his lips gently, barely, on the plump, soft mouth scant inches below his own. The kiss was the type that made the soul ache. Too short, too potent, too sweet, too everything, all at once before Bruce pulled away. His hands dropped from the supple skin of Nightwing’s face. Not seconds after his palms fell away, soft fingers were grasping them, replacing them on a lithe, costumed form. Bruce’s fingers flexed around Dick’s hips for a moment before pushing him back several steps.
“Is that how you’re saying no this time?”
The words pained the Batman to a deeper extent than he’d imagined they would, but he’d expected them. He turned his head from Richard, unable to stand the eyes that he knew would share the same heartbreaking incredulity of his voice. He let his own eyes slide shut for just a moment as he attempted to quickly gather his racing thoughts. A stark moment passed before he turned bodily and leapt from the platform on which they had been standing into a seemingly deeper recess of the Batcave. The older man thought he heard a shout behind him, but ignored it as he fell.
Passing the ancient wet rock, a sudden type of calmness suddenly settled over Bruce not seconds before his booted feet found purchase against the base of a cut stone staircase. He began to walk forward and had not gotten more than two steps before a second pair of feet landed just behind him.
“I’m not letting you run away.” Dick’s voice was stern and deep, not a single vestige of the earlier all-encompassing emotion clinging to it.
Bruce continued up the stairs, never once halting to acknowledge the presence behind him. “I never said you couldn’t follow me.”
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Heroes