Title: Not Quite the Bat...
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together
Rating: PG13-R
Warnings: Gore, language
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...
A/N: Some almost fluff for the holiday season...and i could not help myself after reading your beautiful, lovely, wonderful comments i always feel inspried to incorporate your ideas...however fabulously dirty they may be...
“I could give up everything I am for you…everything I was.” And he would. He lost himself in every moment they spent together but he couldn’t help but wonder, couldn’t help but be tortured. How could this last forever?
The Joker and the Bat were meant to be together but it could never happen- they would have destroyed each other, they could not exist together without dying inside. The Knight could be with Batman…but Batman was so much more. Hard warm flesh pressed against him, muscled and alive, man. Batman was not like him, he had another life, another face, he functioned, and he existed not only in the dimensions of his own mind but here in this world. The man in the Bat. But was there a man in the Knight? Could there be a man the Bat could love? That the man could love? He knew only one thing, if there was a man in him, if he could exist as something…human, as with every part of him it would love every part of the Bat.
They were holding each other in the darkness. He was surrounded in human warmth, arms and chest…he felt safe. He pressed his cheek carefully against his chest, making sure Batman could not feel the scars. He could get surgery, try to fix his mutilated smile, try to be human, he could let someone cut him, torture him all over again and maybe the Bat would be blind to the old scars. Maybe desire would keep him from the truth. Maybe he could tell him, show him, maybe they could be together even like this. Two demi gods- two almost humans- scarred inside and out. Maybe he could show the Bat his face. And maybe it would destroy them both. Maybe they would end up together…locked in a cell in Arkham and the ‘what if’ would no longer haunt him…because his hell would be realized.
Love... He never thought it would touch his life. Bats sure as hell hadn’t, they stumbled through this awkward tumble for the first time together. All he ever knew of love was in stories but the best stories never ended well did they? Love kills. Love maims. Love almost never means happily ever after. How many children were torn between loveless parents? How many husbands beat their wives? How many people let work and drugs mean more than love? How could they be together in a world where even Ken and Barbie were divorced? When love lasted…why couldn’t the people? Why did Romeo have to die? Why did Juliet lay in blood? Why did Anthony fall on his sword and Cleopatra tempt the snake that bit her? Could the bat fall in love with the clown and survive?
He leaned in for another blind kiss and as their lips touched he could not help but wonder…what would their poison be?
Batman was not sure how they got here, how blank darkness became blinding shadows. But he didn’t care, not now, not when warm scarred flesh moved willingly beneath his hands. Batman was flat on his back, more man than Bat, he wore only his cowl now, hiding in the layers of the night but so venerable, muscled flesh laid out all for him… He could see pale white flesh- beautiful- iridescent, as if it glowed in the twilight, composing his entire world. He could see the outline of soft curls but the color was lost in the trick of light and dark, his face still lingered in the shadows.
The Knight leaned over him, their chests brushing, their mouths closing over one another, trust turning into passion and desire. Batman wanted to moan but no sound escaped him, instead he spoke with his body, his hands traveling over naked chest and hips, resting finally on the small of his back, exploring lower, making the Knight arc his body into him. The image seared into his mind, never had he seen his Knight so open to him, arched and needy, his body moving in lines of grace that sparked desire.
He needed more, they both needed more. Batman did not know how to continue, women he understood but men…this man who meant too much to falter on. But the Knight was moving now, gathering Bruce’s hands in his own, twining their fingers and laying them by Bruce’s head so that he had to bend over him, so that when the Knight lowered himself onto Bruce he felt the hot exhale of breathe against his face as he the same moment he was enveloped in tight, wet, heat. Bruce writhed shamelessly, needing to thrust, needing to sheath himself fully in his new lover, but he couldn’t hurt him…wouldn’t hurt him.
But the fingers around his own were twining and untangling with his, and the harsh moist breath on his lips was swallowed in a deep soul wrenching kiss and then the Knight thrust down.
It was so much more than he had ever dreamed, the perfect heat that was almost too pleasurable, the mouth against his, the flat chest that brushed his own, but something was missing. He was thrusting back now, together, working perfect as they always did, he had found the one place he never wanted to leave and then he knew what was missing, as much as they were one person like this, so joined, they were still separated by once necessary layers.
Batman brought the Knights hands to his chest; still needing them close even if he needed the use of his own hands. One hand threaded into those curls, perfect as a porcelain dolls but wild and full of life, the other to his own masked face. Their thrusts faltered but Batman couldn’t stop, he knew what they needed, what would bring them irrevocably together. He grasped the cowl and ripped it from himself, so that Bruce lay in place of Batman.
‘No’ He felt the word spoken against his lips but still no sound came. Their bodies were flush, Bruce could not be any deeper in the Knight and when their natural rhythm was broken and their bodies stilled neither surrendered the connection. The Knight broke their kiss, hiding his face in Bruce’s neck, his hands alone searching Bruce’s face, combing through his hair and finally tracing across his eyes as if he could not help himself- but never looking. Bruce wanted this, needed this. Gently he pulled The Knight to sit up, to look upon him finally and see the man he was.
Curls in a halo of gold tumbled as he shook his head, Bruce did not need to be able to see into the shadows to know the Knights eyes were closed against this. But he they could be so much more if he would only look, the duel lives they led could afford them anything they ever wanted, they could live a normal life and an remarkable one all at once. Bruce reached to touch the Knights cheek but he was denied and his hand fell once more on only curls as he turned his face away..
‘Love’ Bruce felt the word but did not speak it. Instead he caressed the soft hair between his fingers and slowly pulled that unseen face into the light-
“Batman!” Finally sound, his voice calling out to him but the world was fading.
“Bats!” Bruce felt heavy and warm, he opened his eyes to find worried green looking down at him- he was wearing his mask.
“Are you alright?” A warm hand touched his cheek, drawing his attention back to reality. “One minute you were sleeping fine and the next your heart is racing…I was afraid…Bats?”
Batman blinked and forced a cough from his throat, hoping it would dispel his dream, nothing but a dream. His body was still hot with desire but his mind was racing to catch up, to maintain reality and grasp the fading straws of his dream before they vanished.
“I am fine” Batman wrapped an arm around the Knight and pulled him down, waiting until he lay on top of him to turn them both. They lay face to face on the little cot, legs tangling and hands wandering over clean leather and black cloth. He wanted to be able to look at him- to see whatever he was allowed.
“You’re flushed.” The Knight smiled, his fingertips brushing over the edge of the cowl, the exposed skin of his face coming alive under his ministrations and the rest of him stirring with memories of his dream. “Was it a good dream?”
Batman laughed at the innuendo coloring his friend’s voice, just a short deep chuckle but it had the Knight glowing. “Are you trying to give Alfred nightmares?”
“My god!” The Knights hand flew to his face dramatically, so different than the guarded man in his dreams. “Was that a joke? It was! Maybe we should get Alfred down here after all this might be a once in a lifetime thing…” The Knight was smiling; his voice was tinged with joy and playfulness as he sat up as if to go fetch the older man.
“Better not leave.” Bruce grabbed the other man and roughly pulled him back down; they were so close he could feel the Knight’s laughter. They barely had room between them to fit their hands that entwined naturally against their chests, the other hands having no place to go but around the others waist. It was a silent agreement between them, as long as they did not look at themselves, as long as they did not comment they would not have to analyze their own human actions, have to realize how desperate they were for each other.
“I might make another joke and no one would be here to hear it.” Bruce’s voice was gruff with dissipating sleep as he settled into the mattress.
“Guess I will just have to stay here then.” The Knight moved slightly against him as he too settled in again, his voice going from bubbly to almost intimate with a speed only he could manage.
“How long was I out for?”
“By the time I got dressed you were asleep, it could not have been more than a few hours ago. You should go back to sleep. You are still healing.” His hand pressed over the new wounds, over his heart. “And you have some new ones to heal from.”
“I have had worse.” Batman offered a smirk with the familiar words. “You are hurt too now.” He did not stop his hand from running over the leather where he knew a bandage lay just beneath the surface. The Knight smirked back, calm for the moment.
“I have had worse.”
“So where does this lead us now?”
The smirk left his face and his expression turned somber, his green eyes almost sad when they met blue.
“Can’t we just have this?”
“This?” Batman’s arm slinked low on the Knights hips, pulling their lower bodies closer, the action meant only for comfort brought heat rushing through his body. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the Knight above him, beautiful, wanton… “Where we wear masks in the dark and never come out of our cave?”
The Knight moved closer, until their bodies aligned and Batman’s entire world became melancholy green eyes and lips he longed to touch. “I don’t need anything else.” Batman could feel the heat coming off of him, he watched as the Knight wet his lips, now glistening red, moving again, smiling. “Our cave.” And then he couldn’t see them anymore, only green as his mouth was devoured, freed only when a smile tore their kiss. “Haven’t even been on a date and we live together.” His voice was low and amused and it felt like his dream all over again, it made him burn.
“I would take you anywhere. If-”
“If we were normal?”
“If we were more than just this, if we could be together as men and not just…icons.”
The Knight was leaning in again, tempting him, his lips ghosting over his but felt with ever nerve. “Even as men we could not be normal. If we walked down the street could I hold you? Touch you? Two men like that in the streets of Gotham?”
“You are trying to distract me.” The ghosting motion became a firm pressure and Batman felt all the neurons in his brain melt as a tiny almost imperceptible whimper broke from the Knight.
“Trying to scare me into forgetting- moving in together- but this is how I want things, you kept close, the only option we have for now. A date, a shot at normalcy we could never have…I could never have. Those lips…” Bruce swallowed as the Knight closed the inch distance between them but he bit the plush red lip, sucking it into his mouth and drawing another searing moan from the man. “and I could almost understand those things, almost believe you meant them, but Gotham…my city shunning us…you wouldn’t care at all. And with you by my side neither would I.”
“But those things matter.” His voice was as broken as his argument, soft but filled with longing for the man pressed against him.
“Not to us. Not enough.” Batman shifted so his arm held the Knight’s back, a half embrace, he refused to be distracted, his dream haunted him. “I don’t know anything about you- about your past.” He closed his eyes for a moment and he could see those curls, how his face lingered in the shadows. “I don’t even know what you look like.”
The Knight shook his head and when their eyes met again they were filled with fire and an ancient sorrow. “The past means nothing. We are the sum of our histories; we are not every individual event we are the people who survived it. Maybe if you knew my past you could put it
together and try to approximate who I am but you know who I am!” He was past pleading; he needed understanding, his hand pressed against Batman’s heart. ‘This is real. Why try to know what made me when you can just have me?”
The Knight was shaking with adrenalin, with passion and ferocity and Batman matched him. He cupped the back of the Knights head and crushed them together, feeling all of that passion diverted to their mouths in a desperate clash of teeth and tongue, of wet heat. Batman’s heart was pounding and his blood was rushing and he felt more alive than he ever had, he could feel the Knights desperation to dissuade him, he could almost taste the fear in him and it was that sincere fear that finally gave him pause. He wanted to protect the Knight from this, from any pain; he had to remember that the creature in his arms was just as damaged as himself, just as unique. The Knight was pressing against him, grabbing him, clutching him, and their legs slid together and their hips arched. Perfect. Right.
“Your right.” Batman panted. “I do know you and for now that is enough.”
The Knight looked at him as if amazed he would talk now, like this, but it was so- Batman. He smiled; his words came out a breathy laugh.
“So- what now?”
Batman’s smirk was unrepressed and almost…feral; the Knight couldn’t help himself, he wanted more from this beautiful victory, this repressed part of his Bat, he replied with a smirk of his own as he ground against him . Blue eyes widened in surprise.
“Well-” Batman’s voice was low and husky, it took him a minute to clear it enough to talk and still every syllable made the Knight grow needier. “We live together and we have already worked together so we might as well make it official…”
The Knights mouth dropped open and stayed there. That he could be here like this and Batman was saying those words…
“Will you be my partner?” Batman swallowed, the words were hot and deep, spoken with a tinge of humor but even as their bodies burned for each other his mind was numb with baited horror.
“Partner?” The Knight finally closed his mouth; he simply had no words to say. “as in..”
“Fighting. In Gotham.”
Pressed together in the middle of the night and harder than he had ever been in his life and Batman asks this. He kissed Batman’s frozen lips and watch the trepidation melt in his ice blue eyes, he didn’t bother to stop his giggle. “Yes. I will. I do.”
Bruce’s smile was a hundred watts, a smile that he had not felt since the day his parents died.
“We should go train.”
“Um no. We should-” The Knight nipped at Batman swollen lips and thrust shallowly against him “do something else…”
Batman’s eyes fluttered closed and in a flash they were twisting, Batman’s hard body pressing the Knight into the bed. But when his eyes opened again they held that mischievous twinkle that meant only Batman would be happy with what was coming.
“I settled for a ‘for now’ tonight and you will have to suffer with me. After all…you know me- I am a gentleman and we have not even been on our first date.”
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7