Warnings: slash, smex!

A/N: Sorry it’s so dialogue-heavy – that seems to be my schtick nowadays.

When Dick woke up later in the day (which happened to be a Saturday) he got dressed in his civilian clothes and went uptown, stopping at a deli on the way to buy lunch.

His destination was an apartment in a genteel neighbourhood full of old listed brownstones. He climbed a flight of steps and pressed a buzzer, and a few minutes later he and Tim were sitting side by side on the stoup, basking in the early autumn sunshine and eating over-stuffed sandwiches. After their preliminary greetings they lapsed into a companionable silence, until eventually Tim paused between bites to state: “so, you’re thinking of getting back with Damian.”

Dick scowled. “First of all, Barbara should learn to keep her big trap shut. Second, no I am not getting back with Damian.”

“You’re meeting him today,” Tim pointed out.

“It’s not a reconciliation, ok? It’s a post-mortem. I’m not getting back with him.”

“Yes you are. That’s why you’re here – you want me to talk you out of it. You think maybe if you listen to an hour of me reiterating the many ways in which he’s a jerk it’ll stop you swooning back into his arms when you see him later.”

“Hey - I do not swoon!”

Tim’s lips quirked to one side. “Whatever.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Tell me the many ways in which he’s a jerk.”

“Don’t you know already? He’s an arrogant little dictator with zero interpersonal skills, a heap of insecurities and a daddy complex so huge it’s visible from space.”

Dick smiled to himself. “Yeah, I guess I did know all those things.”

“But...” added Tim, trailing off mysteriously.

“But?”

“Look... he and I didn’t get off to the greatest start –”

“That’s putting it mildly – you tried to kill each other twice.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got to admit he has swooped in and helped me out of bad situations quite a few times in the past few months. He’s not a team player, but he can be counted on in a crisis, I’ll give him that...”

“And?”

“And... he loves you,” it seemed to pain Tim to say it. “That goes some way towards rehabilitating him – in my eyes, at least.”

“How do you know that – that he loves me?”

Tim sighed. “I use my amazing powers of observation. For instance, doesn’t it ever occur to you that you’re the only person who has ever laid a hand on him without getting every bone in it broken?”

“I guess...”

“Look, I’ve got to admit, I was as surprised as anyone when I found out about you two...”

Dick frowned as he tried to remember the circumstances: “when did we tell you?”

“You didn’t exactly announce it...” Tim raised an eyebrow. “Your birthday party? I walked into the kitchen and you had him pinned against a cabinet–”

“–Uh, yeah, sorry about that.” Dick closed his eyes in ignominy. He remembered the scene all too well – Damian had said something about ‘giving him his present now’ and aimed a significant glance towards the double-doors leading to the kitchen. A few moments later he had found himself with his tongue in Damian’s mouth (which tasted like buttercream birthday cake) and squeezing his ass through the warm denim of his jeans while the younger man pulled down Dick’s zipper and rubbed him through his underwear with the palm of one hand – in what Dick had really hoped at the time was an overture to Damian getting down on his knees and sucking him. Then footsteps and a soft gasp of shock – he had turned his head to see a very disapproving-looking Tim Drake.

“Speak to my shrink,” said present-day Tim. “At least you had the decency to look embarrassed – he just smirked at me over your shoulder and gave me a look.”

“What kind of look?” asked Dick, intrigued.

“Well, if I had to put it into words I’d say: ‘that’s right bitch, he’s mine’. You know... that kind of look.”

“What?!”

“Oh yeah, he was really possessive of you. You never noticed?”

“No...” Dick’s eyebrows shot up. “Holy crap!”

“Come on, Dick – you don’t remember that time we had to pull him off Deathstroke when he started on one of those ‘you will always be mine, Nightwing, and by the way I still keep your ponytail in a jar’ creepy arch-nemesis trips? Not that I didn’t enjoy watching the Bat-Brat trying to beat the old bastard’s healing abilities...”

“No way... come on Tim. If he was so possessive and into me, why did he just let things slide when I went back to New York?”

Tim nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a good question, and I’ve been considering it. I have two theories,” he took a bite of sandwich and contemplated for a moment as he chewed. “Either he thought you didn’t return his affections and he decided to let you go because it’s what he thought you wanted, or he pushed you away because you got too important to him. He’s a lot like Bruce in some of his negative characteristics... I guess it’s possible he thought his feelings were getting in the way of his mission; that he needs to be closed-off and self-sufficient to be Batman.” He met Dick’s astonished stare and added, by way of a caveat: “I mean, they’re only theories though.”

“So either way I’m a total idiot?”

Tim shrugged. “Hey, those are your words, not mine.”

Dick climbed to his feet and brushed the crumbs off himself. “Great... and now I have to go and look the guy in the face.”

Tim grinned up at him. “Good luck”

Dick shoved his hands into his pockets as he trudged off down the street, his head full of strange possibilities and sharp new regrets.

He wished he could remember more. Should these things have been obvious to him at the time?

It seemed to him that all his other relationships had centred on talking – mainly arguing and second-guessing. With both Kory and Barbara there had been brief moments of passion, but they were always followed by a long and painstaking going over all the reasons why they couldn’t be together.

With Damian nothing needed to be discussed or agonized over, they just were – before Dick even had time to process the idea or get freaked out by it. Sometimes what they were didn’t seem like very much at all – there had been days of falling into the same bed after dawn, too bruised and exhausted for anything but sleep. But there were other times... when Dick would wake to the press of lips against his neck, or fingertips trailing down his belly and narrowed dark blue eyes glinting at him from somewhere among the covers.

After sex they would talk for a while, not usually about anything important – aspects of a case sometimes, or a troublesome new gadget, or one of their vigilante colleagues. Occasionally Damian would ask Dick about what it was like for him growing up – he liked to listen to Dick talk about life in the Flying Graysons, or life as Robin; he also appreciated anecdotes involving Bruce. More rarely, Damian would talk about his own life prior to his arrival in Gotham - stories about arcane rituals, fights for precedence and coming-of-age ordeals. Dick would lie with his arm around the younger man’s shoulders and his nose buried in soft, dark hair, thinking: it’s ok now, now you’re here. You don’t have to prove anything to me.

Why had he never said it out loud? Had he really expected Damian to know how he felt, or was he just afraid that trying to say something meaningful would instantly bring the defences back up and force the return of the aristocratic sneer?

How do you teach someone brought up to despise weakness to let themselves be vulnerable?

As he approached the coffee house he spotted Damian through the plate window, sitting very straight in his chair with his hands laid before him on the table like a prisoner on visiting day. Damian had never cultivated a stable civilian identity, preferring to use aliases and fake IDs if he ever had to interact with the daytime world.

No wonder he hates being out of costume, Dick thought to himself as he pushed open the door. “Hey,” he said as he slipped into the seat opposite Damian, “thanks for coming.”

Damian folded his arms across his chest, looking, as ever, both haughty and uncomfortable. He was dressed in a dark green hooded sweatshirt and a pair of loose jeans, the same kind of well-made but casual and nondescript clothes he had always worn in the daytime; he still wore his dark hair cut quite short. “I ordered you coffee.”

“Thanks. So... um...” Dick ruffled his own (almost shoulder-length) hair, “sorry about last night. How are you? I mean, you look good. You’ve put on some more muscle, I think.”

“Yeah,” Damian glanced down at his own left bicep. “Still need to be stronger though.”

“Thing is, you get heavier, you sacrifice some mobility...”

“Did you really ask me here to discuss my diet and regime?”

“No, I just really suck at opening pleasantries.”

The waitress brought their order, and Dick watched Damian’s brow furrowing as he stared down into his cup, knowing that it was because he hated to drink anything brewed from weak herbal teabags. He idly wondered how many cups of tea he had made for Damian, thinking of the swirling fat sencha leaves that would settle to the bottom of the mug as it brewed; which he would then take and set down next to the younger man’s toolkit as Damian scowled into the depths of a piece of machinery.

It made him think back to the difficult months after Alfred’s death three years back; grieving and trying to run the household on their own, refusing to bring in hired help to replace a trusted family member, stitching up each other’s wounds with shaking, battered hands. He remembered once having to hold him down with a knee on his chest to tweezer out a bullet from his protégé’s shoulder while Damian crunched on a couple of vicodin. Later when the fever set in, Dick tried to bring down his temperature with applications of a cloth soaked in ice-water. Damian drifted into consciousness long enough to call him ‘Florence fucking Nightingale’ before passing out again.

In the depths of his fever dreams, Damian twitched and muttered phrases that sounded like death threats in a rasping, desert language that Dick thought was a dialect of arabic. At one point his eyes flew wide open, unseeing, and he grabbed Dick’s wrist, whispering hoarsely in english: “watch over me, I don’t trust them.”

“It’s ok, you’re safe... I’m watching,” Dick had reassured and the fingers slowly uncurled from around his arm. He had sat there very still on the edge of the bed for a long time, thinking. The pressure on his wrist reminded him of flying on the trapeze - the unfettered flip through empty air before chalk-dusty hands grasped him and pulled him, laughing, into an upswing. He looked at the crease between Damian’s eyebrows, the tense set of his jaw, and wondered what it would be like to live every day as if it was an exam you were always in danger of failing.

Once the waitress had gone, Dick blinked away the memories to attempt conversation again: “so, how have you been?”

“Well, I’m still alive.” Damian rearranged the fold of his arms across his chest. “You can rest easy knowing you did your duty training and knocking the corners off me, Grayson.”

“Tim says you’re good. Helpful even.”

“Drake is singing my praises now? Has hell frozen over?”

“Tim’s always fair.” Dick raised his eyes from the figure of eight pattern his teaspoon made in the cup as he stirred in the sugar. “You know, I was just thinking that I never thanked you.”

“For what?”

“For taking the cowl. And for taking the decision out of my hands. I feel... something like my old self again. Back in the capeless costume, back-flipping here and there making my lame jokes,” he smiled. “Feels good.”

Damian did that strange shrugging motion again. “You’re welcome.”

Dick paused before attempting an awkward segue: “... and what about non-vigilante activities?

“Hmm?” the younger man sipped his tea and then lowered the cup and made a face at it.

“Are you... seeing anyone at the moment?”

“Seeing anyone?” Damian curled his lip and made the expression which Dick had always privately thought of as ‘pissed-off Elvis face’. “You think I have time for idle socialising?”

“So you’re still single?”

“I intend to stay that way.”

“Was I that bad a lover?” Dick raised an eyebrow. “Did I put you off other human beings for life?”

“You weren’t–” Damian stopped himself. “Look, it has nothing to do with you. It’s my choice.”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

Damian looked away. “Why? What difference does it make?”

Dick took a deep breath. “I keep wondering... if it could have been different. If I could have done something, or not done something. I don’t know. I miss you, that’s all.”

As he continued to draw restless spiral patterns in the traces of spilled sugar with a forefinger, he realised his hand was getting close to Damian’s, which now lay uncurled next to his cup. He thought about touching him – brushing the backs of his fingers against the other man’s maybe, or fitting his fingers into Damian’s palm – but really, when had they ever held hands before? It was all backwards... “I’m trying to move on,” he added, “it’s just not going very well.”

“You’ll find someone, Grayson. Or they’ll find you, more likely.”

Dick raised his eyes and tried to sound light-hearted. “Are you saying I’m easy? Hey, just because I let you jump me that first time–”

“Tt. You had it coming,” Damian smirked a little, looking more like his usual self.

The thought suddenly struck Dick: this is what it would have been like if we had ever gone on a date. They could have sat together in restaurants or movie theatres, having similar half-affectionate, half-mocking conversations. It really could have happened.

“What?” Damian asked, apparently observing the note of wonder in Dick’s expression.

“Nothing. I was just thinking that this is probably the longest non-work related conversation we’ve had in years.” He frowned. “Doesn’t it bother you that we never talked about anything?”

“No. Why, is there something we should’ve been agonizing about?”

“No, but... I mean, for instance we never even talked about our sex life.”

“Should we have?”

Dick shrugged. “Maybe. It was kind of basic.”

“‘Basic’?”

“Yeah, I mean, most of the time it was just you either pulling me on top of you and muttering ‘now, Grayson, now!’ or climbing over to straddle me. Sometimes I wanted to tell you that some foreplay might be nice.”

Damian shot him a startled, angry look and got to his feet, the chair scraping loudly as he pushed it back.

Dick put up both his hands in surrender. “Ok, so that was completely the wrong thing to say... forget it–”

“I’m not going to sit around and listen to you insult me. I’ve killed people for less impertinent remarks than what you just said.”

“Yeah, but not recently.” Dick smiled in a manner that he hoped was ‘winning’ and therefore meant Damian would not toss him through the window.

Damian planted his palms on the table and leaned down to address him in a furious whisper: “what do you want from me, really? You want to know why it ended? It ended because you went away, and that seemed like a pretty clear indication that you were no longer interested. I got over it. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m fine on my own – better than fine. Because you know what – it’s easier. I don’t have to consult you, or look for your approval – I just do what I want. So screw you Grayson, and to hell with all your stupid questions.”

As Dick helplessly watched Damian striding out the door with an air of finality, the cellphone buzzed in his pocket to announce an SMS. He didn’t look at it – he knew it would be Barbara, wanting to know how it went.

He paid the check and got to his feet, feeling tired and burned-out all of a sudden. He looked at his watch and groaned – it was almost time for patrol.

It was a bad night in Gotham.

It was one of those nights where several villains concocted elaborate and nefarious plans simultaneously, and every two-bit pusher and pimp decided to try their luck while the batfamily, their extended circle, the GCPD and the fire service was kept occupied.

A harassed Oracle cut in to inform Nightwing that Batman was out to the north-west of the city dealing with one of Boss Loveless’ schemes. He almost kicked his bike into gear to go and join the fray, but then someone drove an ambulance through the gates off New Arkham–

A little after four Dick once again stepped out of the elevator into Damian’s basement. The younger man was sitting on the second from bottom step with the cowl twisted between his hands and his coat half undone.

“You reprogrammed the locks,” Dick said.

“And yet, here you are.”

“Yeah, well... I had to get Barbara to help me hack in.” Dick descended the stairs and threw himself down next to him. “Rough night?”

“Megalomaniacal dwarf drug lords. The usual.”

“How’d you get the cut?”

“Hmm?” Damian raised his hand and touched his cheek, looking at the blood on his fingertips with mild surprise. “Oh, henchmen... stiletto blades.”

“Yeah, is it my imagination or are they getting more of those? Back in the day it was just two guys with themed names on their sweaters...” Dick sighed and glanced around the room, the bluish low lighting glancing off the chrome fittings of the custom vehicles and the batarangs laid out on benches. “So... this is really what you want, huh? Just you and the gadgets and a tower full of minimalist furniture you never use?”

“I’m thinking of getting a cat.” Damian continued to stare at the floor and neither of them spoke for a long moment, then the younger man let out a shaky sigh and asked: “how do you do it?”

Dick shrugged. “I don’t try to do it alone. I have people to lean on... when I need to.”

The younger man’s voice came out haltingly and uncharacteristically quiet as he said: “how can it be... that this is what I was created for, what I trained for all my life... but I’m still not good enough?”

“Damian, of course you’re good enough. Just don’t try to be him. He was him, you know?”

The younger man smiled faintly. “‘He was him’?”

“Yeah. Bruce was... eaten up by guilt. He wanted to save everyone because he couldn’t save them, his parents. He wanted to control everything, so it wouldn’t happen again... and he didn’t want anyone to get too close to him just in case it did. You’re not like that, you don’t have that baggage. All you have to do is be the best damn bat you can possibly be, Ok? Don’t get yourself killed chasing his demons.”

Damian seemed to think about this for a while. Eventually, he asked: “Grayson, why are you here? I’m guessing it isn’t just to give me a pep talk.”

“Well, I guess I have one more question for you to answer... before I can leave you alone.”

“What?”

“Do you think... we could try it again?”

Damian frowned, still staring at the floor. “The same as we were before, you mean?”

“Yeah. Same as before except maybe we should talk about things sometimes. Not all the time, or anything – maybe once every six months or so we could just sit down and make sure we’re both on the same page with the whole wanting to be ‘together’ thing... and maybe even occasionally we should go on an actual date just so we know what’s what... and maybe you shouldn’t call me by my surname in bed and–”

“Babbling, Grayson.”

“Well,” Dick blinked at him and hesitated. “What do you think?”

Damian ran his hands back through his hair and raised his eyes to the ceiling, then sighed again. “Honestly? I think it’s a terrible plan,” he turned his head and met Dick’s anxious stare, then he smiled.

Dick leaned in and kissed him and found that it was just like before – eager and a little bit clumsy. He buried his hands in the other man’s damp, flattened down hair and groaned softly when Damian sucked on his tongue.

It was perfect.

“Come on, stop teasing, now Grayson–”

Dick grinned and then closed his teeth over Damian’s nipple, biting gently and making him gasp. “What did I tell you?”

He felt rather than heard the huff of a frustrated exhalation against his neck. “–Dick.”

Dick pushed his fingers in deeper and felt the strain in his lover’s thighs where they pressed against the outsides of his shoulders. Damian’s cock twitched, leaving a spot of wetness on Dick’s belly.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked, pulling out and squeezing around the base with his slippery hand. “Just... from this?”

Damian made a strange noise that sounded like it wanted to signal annoyance, except it came out quavery. Dick leaned up for another deep, wet kiss and then smiled against his lips. “Is this why you skimp on foreplay – afraid you won’t last?”

“A year,” Damian turned his face to hiss in Dick’s ear, arching up against him; his short, blunt fingernails digging into the smooth flesh of the older man’s back. “It’s been a fucking year.”

“Mm-hm...” Dick sat up and swirled his fingertips across the taut muscles of Damian’s abdomen, “... and how, exactly, were you planning on surviving the rest of your life of celibacy?”

“You talk too much,” he narrowed his dark blue eyes in the way that let Dick know that he had better make his move or he would find himself pinned down and being ridden into the mattress by a well-toned and very sexually frustrated twenty year old. He gripped his lover by the narrowest point of his waist and pulled him down the bed, tilting his hips. Damian made an eager sound and let his thighs fall apart, hands finding the older man’s broad shoulders as Dick angled his hips and pushed in.

The shock of sensation buzzed down his spine; Dick trembled and panted. His arms tensed with strain as he rested his weight on them; moving his hips in a slow, almost circular rhythm, the way he knew Damian used to like it – and yes, oh fuck yes, he thought, watching Damian wet his bottom lip and turn his head to the side, eyes squeezed closed, throat working as a low, rumbling moan emanated from his chest. I’m the only one who gets to see him like this.

He took control of the pace (Damian seeming to want to let him), varying the rhythm, sometimes almost stopping or pulling out completely, working with what he could stand without losing control. Damian lay with his eyes squeezed closed, one perspiring hand pressed flat to Dick’s back, the other gripping one of the bars of the bedstead. Dick blew a strand of damp hair out of his face and leaned down to give Damian another lingering kiss, pushing in with more surety now, gradually working faster.

“Wait, wait,” Damian said, suddenly sitting up and pushing at his chest. Dick sat back and watched the younger man, who kissed him again once, hard enough to push his head back, tongue flickering slowly against Dick’s own. Then Damian turned to kneel with his back to him, stretching his arms out along the mattress and leaning down so all the muscles in his back flexed, looking strangely like he was performing a phase of Surya Namaskara – and maybe, Dick thought, recalling again what Tim had said about the younger man only allowing him these liberties, it was a sort of offering.

As Dick slipped back in, he followed him down, pressing his chest tightly to his lover’s back. As they began to rock together (building and quickening when they realised again how very, uncomfortably, close they both were) Dick placed his mouth against Damian’s shoulder, sucking kisses on his skin and listening for the hitches in his breathing; waiting for the moment when he could just wrap his hand around Damian’s cock and they would both let go, spectacularly...

Dick lay with the warm bulk of Damian’s body pressed against his side, not quite comfortable, despite his bone-deep exhaustion. He shifted, pulling his lover closer with an arm around his shoulders; Damian made a sleepy sound of protest at being moved, then slumped against Dick’s chest with a sigh.

Dick expected him to instantly fall unconscious, but instead he opened his eyes slightly and said: “so, I didn’t bore you too much, did I?”

In response Dick smiled and pressed his lips to the top of his lover’s head, pushing aside soft tufts of dark hair with the tip of his nose. “I never said it was boring. That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“Just... I don’t know,” Dick raised his hand and then returned it to Damian’s shoulder, stroking it lightly. “We never talked about other stuff – I mean, turn-ons, fantasies...”

Damian’s eyebrows lifted. “Kinks?”

“Well, yeah if you have any.”

Blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You first.”

Dick laughed. “Ok... we never... I mean, I always thought it’d be hot if we took a shower or bath together, soaped each other. Or rubbed each other with massage oil. That kind of stuff.”

“Tt. That’s it? Your fantasies are tame, Grayson.”

Dick laughed, squeezing his lover’s hip with one hand. “Well, what do you want?”

Damian raised himself on his elbow, rubbing the centre of Dick’s chest with his palm, fingertips tapping lightly. “I was thinking... discipline.”

“You mean... you want me to like ‘punish’ you or something?” he watched Damian’s mouth twist into a sly grin. “Really?”

“Yes. Just think of all the times I defied you. You can make up for it now.”

“Well... what would it involve?” Dick asked, cautious but faintly intrigued.

“I haven’t really planned it out. Spanking, toys. Restraints maybe, if you can find any I can’t get out of in about ten seconds. Costumes, obviously. Dialogue role-play...”

“Um... ok. Wh–”

Damian folded his arms on Dick’s chest and rested his chin on top, as he asked, “– by the way, would it freak you out if I sometimes called you ‘daddy’ in the heat of the moment?”

Dick couldn’t mask his horror. “Yes it fucking well would!”

Damian snickered, softly at first, but escalating until it was actually laughter. “Oh you are too easy, Grayson!”

“Wait... exactly how much of that were you joking about?””

Damian cocked his head to one side and pressed his thumb against his bottom lip. “Well, how much would you like me to be joking about?”

“I um...” Dick licked his lips, but his answer was interrupted by his phone, which bleeped and buzzed, turning itself in a circle on the bedside table.

Damian made a sound of annoyance and reached over him to grab the device and snap it open. “He’s busy, Gordon.”

Dick prized the phone from his grip just in time to hear Barbara snort in amusement. “Yeah, yeah,” he groaned. “You told me so, I know.”

- Fin

A/N: You know future!Damian is the pushiest bottom who ever lived.

‘Loveless’ is one of the crime-bosses Damian names in his list of fallen enemies in Batman #666. ‘Loveless’ is also the name of a Wild West comic published by DC (which Azzarello – he of the infamous ‘Joker’ Elseworld published earlier this year – wrote for)... aaaand ‘Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless’ is a villainous megalomaniacal dwarf from the ‘60s TV show ‘The Wild Wild West’... so yeah, I’m guessing Morrison will probably will be going for that sort of David Lynchian angle with him.

‘Surya Namaskara’ = salute to the sun, a series of poses in Hatha yoga.