Title: What they have never clasped (Reference) (8000 words) Fandom: DCU (The era when red Kryptonite was everywhere) Summary: Robin waves off the astonished onlookers and picks Superman up in a fireman's carry, then fires his grapple and makes it back up to the roof with significantly less grace than normal. Pairing: Bruce/Dick/Clark Rating: Adult, as are the participants Warning: While writing this story, I invoked Denny O'Neill to justify some of my backstory choices. Thanks: I have had this story in progress for far too long and have lost track of just how many people told me to keep trying. Te and Katarik have been my boon companions in the last stretch, and Betty beta-read most helpfully. Prequel: Gibraltar may tumble by Te, Bruce/Harvey "Careful!" Batman snaps, and Robin backflips backward just in time to avoid the flying debris. "How much longer?" he asks. "If Superman keeps going like this, he's going to take out the whole eastern seaboard." Batman checks the chronometer in his suit. "Assuming that he began having destructive impulses immediately after exposure, half an hour." Robin shoots his grapple when Batman does and shadows him on a few swings down the street. Superman is still punching the ground floor windows of the Kane Museum in great shattering blasts. "Whoa. Then why isn't everything already rubble?" "He was in India when the exposure happened." Robin bites his lip. "And he's here --" Batman shakes his head. "We had a scheduled League meeting. Somehow he must have remembered, and when he got away from Green Lantern, he followed me here." "Oh, that's not good." Robin pats the lead-lined compartment on his belt. "And you haven't hit him with the green Kryptonite yet because --" "Twenty-five minutes," Batman says. Three more panes of glass shatter on the sidewalk. Then Superman falls over backward and lands flat out on the sidewalk. "You sure about that?" Robin asks, and shoots his grapple. "Careful!" Batman says, and Robin holds up the Kryptonite from his belt. It shines a little in the sun as he falls. He can hear Superman's groan from his perch, but Robin isn't flying backward across the street, so chances are good that the time estimate was off. "No," Robin says, "I'm not putting it away." Robin waves off the astonished onlookers and picks Superman up in a fireman's carry, then fires his grapple and makes it back up to the roof with significantly less grace than normal. "If you'd put it away, I could carry you," Superman says rather petulantly. "Mmf. Yes. And if you're suffering secondary effects --" "I'm not." Superman bats feebly at Robin's hand, trying to get him to drop the rock. "I'm fine." Batman shakes his head. "The copter is three buildings away." Robin looks over, spots it, and sighs. Superman says, "This is ludicrous." "There may be aftereffects," Batman says, though none have yet been observed from red Kryptonite.  There is a first time for everything, and Gotham is in smithereens. Detaining him is both prudent and a quiet revenge. "It would be best to keep you under observation for at least a day." "Can you put me down?" Superman says. "Nope." Robin hefts him a little. "Not and ever pick you up again. C'mon." Superman grumbles all the way to the helicopter, and then glares at Batman when he straps him in the back and sets green Kryptonite on his lap. "This is really not necessary." "It'll be fine," Robin says, turning around to grin at him. "I'll keep you company. I don't have to be back at school 'til 3 on Monday. We can play Rummy." "Or you could let me go." "No," Batman says. Superman hits his head against the back wall of the helicopter and says, "Ow!" "Careful," Robin says. "You're more fragile now." "I know that." He kicks Batman's seat. "I'm fine." Robin laughs. "It's a really good thing you don't get sick. Nobody would ever put up with you." When they get back to the Cave, Superman breathes a big sigh of relief when Robin takes the Kryptonite and puts it away. He starts floating until Batman says, "Clark. If you do anything -- anything at all -- untoward, we'll take it out again." He settles back to earth. "I feel fine now that that stuff is gone. No problems here." "We'll see about that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go organize the repairs to the museum. And the park. And my office." Superman has the grace to blush at that. "It'll work out," Robin says. "C'mon. I'll find the cards, but you have to promise not to peek." They settle into a game of cards. At first, Superman is still sulky, but after a little while, he seems to get into it sufficiently. Robin laughs and teases him about his little mistakes in a friendly way that makes Batman wonder just how often he plays cards with the Titans. "Got you!" he says, and Superman chuckles. "You did. Fine, my deal." The whirr of cards moving at superhuman speeds echoes in the cave. Batman shakes his head. "Call if you need anything," he says to Robin, and goes upstairs to make phonecalls. His communicator does not beep. The phonecalls go as smoothly as these things do when Bruce Wayne calls anyone to give them vast amounts of money for a purpose. He keeps looking at the communicator, and it keeps being silent. When he has established a relief fund for affected people in India as well as those in Gotham, he goes back to the Cave. There are cards scattered everywhere. Robin, with no green Kryptonite in evidence, is half on Superman's lap and kissing him exuberantly. "Robin!" Batman snaps. If there's some kind of contagious effect -- there can't possibly be, but the other rational explanations don't allow Batman to be angry about it, and he is. It's much easier to be angry than allow himself to admit he's aroused and painfully jealous. At some future point, he'll figure out which of them he's jealous of, or, more accurately, where the ratio falls. There are more pressing concerns. "I'm fine," Robin says, letting Superman go. "He's -- he's fine," Superman says, and he's blushing. Kryptonite has no effect on humans. "I don't know what kind of coercion --" Batman reaches for the only weapon that will work against Superman. He's done nothing wrong on an objective level, but Batman will never look at that chair again without remembering them tangled in each other. He'll replace it as soon as Robin goes back to college, but the new one will hold the same memory and the same pang of -- longing. Robin runs over and stops him from doing anything further with a hand on his wrist. His lips look practically mauled. "It's not the Kryptonite. Or, um. Anything. It's just --" Batman twists his hand free and scowls at him. "It just seemed like a good idea to allow the subject under medical surveillance to seduce you." On the face of it, it's a feeble excuse, but Robin should know better. "Actually," Superman says, "it was mutual." "I'm not interested in your perspective," Batman says through gritted teeth. He avoids looking at Superman, who is probably analyzing the differential tension in his muscle groups and working out precisely how jealous he is feeling. If he grasps the ratio, he may share it out of a sense of sunlight-granted superiority, but at least that would be enlightening. Robin bites his lip. It must already ache. Batman has never offered the inane comfort of 'kiss it and make it better,' but just this once it seems attractive. "I -- I just -- we don't get to talk much anymore, and I -- kind of --" "Seduced him." Batman shakes his head. "Perhaps I should have left you to it." He's perfectly aware that his tone is sardonic, and that it won't do any of them any good. If he can make them leave in embarrassment, though, he won't have to know what sort of things they get up to afterward. "After all, you're in college, now --" after too many arguments. "You can make your own mistakes." "Bruce -- I --" Robin throws his arms around Batman's neck and kisses him with those painfully swollen lips. Robin makes a whimpering noise of desperation when he does it. He tastes disturbingly like Superman smells. Batman does his best not to respond -- if he does, he is not at all sure he can stop himself -- until Robin lets him go to take a breath. The first response he wants to make is wholly irrational -- kissing him again will only encourage him. The second is worse, and would escalate the situation. He goes with the third. "Dick, this is not reasonable behavior." Robin frowns. "And you wonder why I'd rather kiss Clark." He lets Batman go and peels his mask off. "I can't believe you." Batman glowers at Superman, who opens his mouth, and then says nothing. "You wanted to go to college. To -- experience the world." Neither of which are bad things, per se, but the Manor has been echoingly empty without him, and Gotham far more difficult to handle. "Of course I did," Dick says, and with that frown, he's not Robin. "You didn't want me here, not really -- not at all, I --" Of all the ludicrous claims -- "Patently false." Superman coughs once, unsubtly. "It's actually --" "Please, Clark," Dick says, "I --" He shakes his head and gives Bruce a wounded look. "I can go back tonight. And you can go pretend I didn't do that." "Except for how his heartbeat spiked when you did it," Superman says. "In shock," Batman growls, wishing he'd knocked Superman out to begin with. He can be an invaluable ally, but he's been nothing but trouble since the red Kryptonite started affecting him yesterday. Superman laughs and says, "Bruce, arousal isn't that difficult a pattern to recognize." Dick frowns at one of them, then the other. "I --" Batman shakes his head and turns away from them. He knows Superman's capabilities well enough to know that he's not hiding anything like effectively, but if he would observe the human courtesies, perhaps it won't matter. "You're more than welcome to leave at any point." Dick touches his shoulder and ignores Batman when he tries to shrug his hand off. "Bruce --" "You're free to make your own decisions," Batman says, scowling at the wall. "Even if they're poor ones." Kissing Superman is not the best choice for nearly anyone. It may well be one of the better choices Dick has made in recent months, but if Bruce acknowledges that, even in the privacy of his own mind, he has to imagine them kissing each other again, and the jealousy flares up. Dick dodges in front of him and hugs him again with desperate strength. "You don't have to leave. I -- please don't, Bruce." He takes a deep breath, knowing and resenting that Superman is listening and gauging it, rating it like a diagnostician for quality and probable cause. He wants to hug Dick back, but this isn't for him. Neither of them really want him there, even though it's his space. "I've never encouraged you to believe --" Superman touches his shoulder with a too-heavy, too-warm hand, and says, "Why are you still arguing?" Batman shrugs out of Dick's hug and tries to push Superman's hand away unsuccessfully. If they'd only leave, he could start finding some way not to be furious with them for forgetting where they were in the first place. "Don't mistake physical symptoms for emotional ones." Dick lets him go and gets out of his way. "I'm sorry." "How poorly do you think we know you?" Superman asks him, making him turn with an inhuman pressure on his shoulder. "There's nothing to fight here." "It's the aftereffects of the red Kryptonite," Batman says, but if the excuse were that simple, he wouldn't be angry. "It's the side-effects of knowing you, actually," Superman contradicts him, and again he's subjected to a kiss -- too warm, too slick, too spicy, and impossible to push away from. Even when Superman lets his shoulder go. If he pushes Clark away, they might actually leave, and then there would be nothing in the cave but the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. "Oh god," Dick says softly. Bruce catches himself knotting his fist in Clark's cape and makes himself loosen his fingers. "This is still --" Clark bites his lower lip gently -- for Superman, perhaps -- and saves him from the need to finish the sentence. His mouth will doubtless be swollen tomorrow. "Do you want to take this upstairs?" Past the portrait of his parents. Past Alfred, who indubitably knows anyway but would doubtless appreciate plausible deniability. "No. This is --" Inappropriate. Wonderful. Impossible. All of these things. "It's all right, Bruce," Clark says, and lets him go. The sudden lack of warmth is both a relief and a tragic loss. Dick is grinning at him, looking more comfortable than he has since he first started talking about moving away. "Are you still worrying?" He pulls Bruce's cowl off with practiced fingers and raises his eyebrows. "What's wrong?" They started this with their lack of restraint, but Bruce is responsible for letting it go on. He hasn't come to terms with the thought of what happens next -- not the high probability of intimacy, but the sudden quiet when they both leave again. He shakes his head, pushing the thought away. He has been alone before, and this is a brief reprieve in which he has both permission and encouragement to kiss Dick. It's not a moment he should waste. "I doubt that you've thought of the ramifications of this," he says, and kisses Dick before the conversation can go any more astray. His mouth feels as tender as it looks -- Clark does not kiss gently -- and every tiny movement seems monumental. Bruce shivers and puts his hand on Dick's shoulder. It's not close enough to embracing him and refusing to let go, but it's as close as he dares to let himself come. Dramatic declarations in the heat of the moment will only embarrass them all later. "I can plan just as well as you do," Clark says in his ear. He unfastens Bruce's utility belt for him. Bruce catches himself about to pull Dick closer and breaks the kiss off. "I doubt your followthrough, not your ability." Dick smiles and puts his arms around Bruce's neck. "As long as you know I love you," he says, as though he's not aware of the caliber of the statement, "everything will work out." "That's never enough," Bruce says, and Dick frowns. "Maybe not if that's all you've got, but --" he waves his hand at the cave. "We've got everything else we need." Bruce gives in enough to put an arm around him. It feels too comfortable. "Maybe." "It's all right," Dick says, and kisses him again. There's only so much of this Bruce can take, and he's past the threshold. He can't stop wanting this, and can't hold himself separate from it enough to resist it when it is safe to let himself enjoy it. Part of his mind is still worried about next week, when he will want this again and it will be impossible, but the desire would doubtless be as strong if he didn't let himself enjoy this, now. Perhaps Tennyson was right, after all, though Clark and Dick insist that they will only be absent, not lost. The way Dick's hair feels under his fingers would be enough to occupy him for several minutes if he had the chance to focus. Clark's fingers on his shoulder are squeezing in just the right places to relieve the vestiges of tension that he hasn't yet released consciously, and that, too, bears contemplation. Both things together, with the staggering addition of an increasingly breathtaking kiss, leave him leaning into Clark's grasp with more weight than he would dare give a human. Dick sighs against his mouth, sweet and soft and intimate. Bruce has not been so comfortable in years. He is moderately certain that outright sex will stop his brain from functioning on anything but autonomic levels. "I could easily become addicted to this," he says, and Dick's ready smile is as much a part of the inebriating factor as anything else. "Would that be so bad?" Dick asks. He pats Clark's hand on Bruce's shoulder. "We're not going anywhere." Bruce glances at Clark for confirmation of this and Clark smiles at him, bright and fleeting, and kisses him. It is enough to make him more than a little dizzy. His first impulse is to stop them and let his system go back to normal, but it took long enough to find the -- courage, perhaps, or recklessness -- to do this the first time. If he had to think about it rationally, he might leave them to their own devices. "I could watch you do that all night," Dick says, and then laughs at himself. "Well -- maybe." He tucks his hands under the upper half of Bruce's uniform, pushing under the armoring and the undershirt until his calluses scrape across Bruce's skin. "Maybe for an hour or so, anyway." Bruce breaks the kiss off to take a deep breath. "It might not be survivable for that long." "I'm not that dangerous," Clark says, in the face of all the data. Dick pats Bruce's chest and lets him go. "Let me see." When he kisses Clark, it's almost entirely unlike the scene Bruce walked in on inadvertently, though it's the same in almost every particular. This time, though, he is relaxed enough to see the charm in the tableau as well as the passion that made him too jealous to leave them to it earlier. Dick is slightly flushed and breathing shallowly, and Clark is somehow smiling not only with his eyes but with his posture. It is an immense relief to have permission to kiss them both, though it is also pressure in its way. Bruce takes off his cape and tunic and adjusts his tights slightly. "Oh," Dick says, and the way he smiles at Clark makes Bruce reconsider leaving them alone for a second until he turns and grins with the same nearly palpable force at Bruce. "I thought I heard you doing that." There is something in his expression that is strangely unfamiliar until Bruce recognizes it as attraction. Dick doesn't look at him that way. But he is. "It seemed prudent," Bruce says, and Dick laughs and embraces him again. "Of course. I was just distracted." He tucks his hands down Bruce's tights. "Might as well finish the job." He reaches for the fastenings on Dick's uniform to return the favor and touches Clark's hands, already there. Everything gets rather tangled in more kisses, the rough skin of Dick's palms and Clark's impossibly smooth hands on his thighs. Dick's cape goes some distance away, as do Clark's boots, and at one point Clark puts his arms around Dick, lifts him off the ground, and kisses him until he groans while Bruce unfastens Dick's boots. It looks rather ignominious, but Bruce discovers it doesn't feel half as silly as it looks when Clark embraces him next. The various pieces end up in a muddle that will be easy enough to resolve at some point when Clark does not have his hands on Bruce's hips, and when Dick isn't mouthing his neck affectionately. "Well," Clark says, "what shall we do next?" Bruce winces and kisses him again to forestall the need to answer the question. His experience in this sort of thing is extremely limited. He has sufficient theoretical knowledge to be able to name a wide variety of possibilities, but that's insufficient to know which would be half as intriguing as the simple, decadent act of kissing one of them, then the other until he can hardly stand with wanting -- more, whatever it is. Dick squeezes his hand and breaks off the present kiss with a somewhat hazy smile. "Do I get to make a suggestion?" Whatever practical knowledge Dick has, it's apparently more extensive than Bruce's. The collegiate experience has apparently changed a great deal since Bruce went. "Of course." Dick kneels and Bruce thinks, inappropriately, of all of the times he has surprised couples in the midst of the sort of tryst Dick seems to be proposing. Filthy back-alleys have nothing in common with this, and overpainted prostitutes could not be more dissimilar than Dick's hopeful smile. It still makes his heart clench. Of all the things he might have suggested, this is not one he could have asked for. Offered, perhaps, with the caveat that it would be an exercise in translating theory into mechanics. Clark kisses Bruce's cheek and gives him a smile that is perhaps meant to be reassuring, but which is all too knowing. "Are you all right?" There is no good way to feign experience he doesn't have, and there should be no reason he wants to do it. They can hardly lose respect for him because he lacks this sort of experience. "Yes." He reaches down -- far too far down -- and squeezes Dick's shoulder. "It's all right. Whatever you want -- at least, this is." He looks away from them. "It's just -- new." "Ah," Clark says, and Dick interlaces his fingers with Bruce's. "I didn't realize," he says. "Should I --" Bruce closes his eyes and doesn't attempt to weigh the alternatives. He doesn't have any useful grounds for judgment in this. "Whatever you're comfortable with. I just -- don't want to hurt you." He's almost certain it's a difficult way to hurt anyone, let alone Dick, who is strong enough in his own right to protect himself from all manner of things. "It'll be fine," he says, and squeezes Bruce's hand. "Maybe you should lean on the wall or something." Clark moves sideways such that his chest is warm against Bruce's back. He kisses Bruce's neck. "I'm not going anywhere." Dick laughs. "Of course you're not. All right." He kisses Bruce's palm. "You should open your eyes, maybe." Bruce is half expecting something more sordid than sane, but it's still just Dick -- if the phrase 'just Dick' applies to him on his knees, pink cheeked and smiling. "Better?" "Much." Dick kneels up a little and puts his free hand on Bruce's erection, which is enough to make Bruce stare. If he ever forgets this -- but he could never forget Dick grinning and leaning in to kiss the wet tip of his penis with every sign of enjoyment. It's not an image his imagination could have supplied. To postulate it in the first place would have been disrespectful to Dick. Bruce shivers and watches him with all his attention, hardly daring to blink. Dick's lips are redder than normal, still, from having kissed Clark a great deal. Too much, perhaps, but when it produces such lovely effects, perhaps enough is the better term. His tongue is slightly rough and he's running it along the veins of Bruce's erection. Making a show of this filthy, degrading act. Smiling through it and keeping his eyes on Bruce, and looking not degraded in the slightest. Bruce squeezes his fingers and suppresses the urge to kiss him again. "That's --" he manages to say, but none of the adjectives he can find are complimentary enough. Dick gives him a teasingly close-lipped kiss and sits back a little. "All right?" he asks. Bruce is perfectly aware that this is nowhere near completion. "Let me do this to you," he says, relying on mimicry as the highest form of flattery. Clark chuckles and pets one of Bruce's nipples with dampened fingertips. "It's all right," he says. Dick runs his fingers across a scar on Bruce's hip. "Later, unless you change your mind." He pats Bruce on the thigh. "I'm still having fun." It's patently obvious from his expression, even though that's not an emotion Bruce had thought to connect with this act. He nods and says, "Later," and Clark makes him gasp by biting his ear. It will be a challenge to do this properly -- and he can't imagine doing any less after such an affectionate demonstration. He wants to watch every moment, but when Dick starts again, he loses the visual focus too quickly. Half the blame is Clark's, for licking the outside of his ear -- not where he would have imagined an erogenous zone -- and half is Dick's, because he's not teasing anymore and the wet suction of the first solid suck makes Bruce's eyes roll back in his head. "You're fine," Clark says quietly, and he runs his hand down Bruce's thigh, "Step a foot to the left -- there." His fingers are damp again and he runs them between Bruce's buttocks. It's too suggestive of acts that would be far beyond the pale, nothing he's ready to do, and he tenses and opens his eyes. "Don't." Dick lets him go and rolls to his feet. "I'm sorry." Clark hasn't moved an inch. "I won't hurt you," he says, and kisses Bruce's neck again. "I --" He squeezes Bruce's shoulder. "Let me show you." "What?" Bruce asks, grabbing Clark's wrist. It wouldn't be physically possible to stop him from whatever he intends this way, but it's more than enough to make his sentiments on the matter clear. "Oh," Dick says, and kisses Bruce's cheek. "It's all right, really." It's not all right, but it's marginally reassuring that Dick seems to know what's going on and finds it unperturbing. Clark nuzzles the back of Bruce's neck. "One finger," he says, and demonstrates, teasing but not penetrating. "I meant to arouse you, nothing more." It is a pleasant enough feeling when Bruce isn't trying to resist the sensation entirely. "All right?" "Yes." Bruce kisses Dick to hide his embarrassment at overreacting -- and keeps kissing him for the pleasure of it. The faint taste of bitter salt in his mouth is all too familiar, and the concept as much as the reality makes Bruce shiver and suck Dick's lower lip. "I'm sorry," he says, patting Dick on the shoulder when he can bring himself to stop. "What you were doing was -- magnificent." Dick laughs, blushing. "I'm glad you think so. Did you really want me to stop?" Part of Bruce's mind is still comatose at the suggestion that he can have more of this delicious feeling. "Only if you want to." Dick shakes his head. "Not yet, anyway." He kisses Bruce one more time, gently, and kneels again. It takes all of Bruce's willpower to watch him for a few breaths and not thrust into his mouth. He groans and tightens one hand into a fist with the effort of controlling himself. Clark teases him again and it makes everything that much more difficult. "If you clench your jaw any more tightly, you're going to break your teeth," he says in Bruce's ear. "Relax." Bruce punches him in the leg and Clark has both the foresight and the mercy to let his muscles be slack enough so that Bruce doesn't break his fingers. "I can't." Dick lets him go and he bites his lip so as not to protest. "It's all right if you move, really." It's nearly impossible to give himself permission to do it -- the image is so clear, even when he closes his eyes, and even though he can hear and feel Dick hum and squeeze him with one hand, it's obscene to let his hips move, and verging on dangerous to thrust when Dick is sucking him, even though he knows with the fading rational part of his mind that no one and nothing is forcing Dick to do this. This is not a back alley, five dollar abomination, and when Bruce makes himself look to be sure, Dick winks at him and bobs his head a little more deeply. Bruce shudders and leans back on Clark, against his warm, solid strength and the devious tease of his finger. As soon as Bruce closes his eyes again, Clark kisses him. His mouth is strong and hot. Between the way his tongue and teeth feel and the implausibly wonderful sensation of Dick's lips and mouth, Bruce is losing his mind and his control. "I --" He turns his head to break the kiss and Clark fondles his nipple again. "I can't --" Dick squeezes his hip and speeds up, finding a rhythm that makes Bruce's knees turn into water. Clark is smiling at him when he forces his eyes open again. "Let go," he says, and Bruce still hasn't been able to figure out why having someone's tongue in his ear should be so effective, but it makes him shout something desperate and wordless. "You have to -- oh -- please don't stop," he says, and it's not what he needs to say. "That feels -- you have to stop, Dick --" and he'd say it in a command voice if he could find any breath, but Clark kisses him again and he groans into it in protest, because Dick isn't stopping any more than Clark is. It would take more willpower than he possesses to press the point, but it has to be some variety of rude to climax in someone else's mouth. Clark presses his finger in, and Bruce leans against him and shudders, making a noise that's not nearly enough of a negative to dissuade anyone. It pushes him over the edge, one stimulus too much, and he leans on Clark and shouts into his mouth, shaking with the shattering pleasure. He means to apologize as soon as he takes a deep enough breath, but by then Dick is embracing him, sweaty and fervent, and pulling him into a kiss. His mouth is slick, lewd, and wholly beautiful. "That was --" Bruce fumbles for an appropriate word and kisses him again. His knees are still not entirely functional and he's leaning on Clark, still. Clark has pulled his finger out, but he hasn't moved otherwise. Dick chuckles and hugs him a little more tightly. "Was it what you wanted?" Bruce tries to piece together any concept of his expectations, all of which have been handily surpassed. Considering the company, he shouldn't be so surprised. "It would have been, if I'd known what that would be like." It's not the most polished compliment he's ever delivered, but it's heartfelt. Dick smiles. "It was pretty close to what I wanted." He's shivering a little and he's still hard against Bruce's thigh, which seems at odds with his air of satisfaction. Clark pats Dick's shoulder. "Pretty close?" he asks. Dick shrugs and glances at Bruce. "Maybe I'll get it right next time." It's a promise as much as a hope, and Bruce acknowledges it with a pat on his hip. "If you get it much more right, I may never recover. Will you let me do that for you now?" "I'm not going to turn that down," Dick says and smiles at him again. He wonders just how long it will be before he can look at Dick and not imagine him on his knees. It's not an unpleasant image, and it is far less disrespectful than he had originally feared it might be. Still, the fairest thing to do would be to return the favor. He regrets not taking this undertaking to a more comfortable setting while they had the chance, but it would be even more embarrassing to explain the whole thing to Alfred now that he has a clearer idea of what it will entail. "On the mats, perhaps," Bruce says, and he ought to have said it when they started. Or more properly, when he was certain he was going to go through with it. Clark kisses his shoulder. "Are you steady yet?" Bruce turns and raises an eyebrow at him. "I haven't been leaning on you for three minutes." "You could be enduring in silence." Clark smiles and kisses him again with a soft noise that makes Bruce belatedly aware that he owes them both a great deal of effort and entertainment. "I wasn't." Bruce kisses his cheek. "What should I be offering you?" He's not expecting Clark to hug him more tightly and kiss him harder, but it's a gratifying feeling. "I'm lucky enough to be here," Clark says, but the slight hitch in his breathing belies his blithe tone. "A necessary but not sufficient variable." Bruce glances toward the mats. "Tell me what you want later." He lets Clark go and crosses the floor, entirely aware of his companions. The open expanse of the mats is peculiarly intimidating. There is enough space here to spar, to dance, to hold an orgy of epic proportions if there were only enough guests. Dick embraces Bruce yet again, and that, at least, gives him a starting place. "This feels so strange," he says, and laughs. "I've thought about doing this so many times, and -- it's real." Bruce is briefly at a loss for an appropriate answer. He can't reply in kind -- it wouldn't be true -- but it seems rude to ignore such an open declaration. "Is this living up to your expectations?" "More than." Dick kisses his cheek. "Did you really want to --" He doesn't want to appear hesitant, although he's not sure that this will be up to anyone's standards. "Of course." It feels even more like a declaration of position to kneel in front of Dick. There are some exercises that require this sort of posture, but they are few. The most obvious meaning is the most likely one, and that, in itself, makes Bruce both more comfortable -- he is clearly going through with what he offered -- and less so -- for the same reason. Clark squeezes Dick's shoulder. "Should I hold you up, too?" he offers, patently teasing. "I can balance just fine." Dick gives him a somewhat distracted smile. "Can you?" Clark nuzzles his ear and Dick shivers. Bruce sympathizes entirely with the tremble in Dick's thighs. "That sounds like a challenge." Dick laughs and shifts his weight. "I'm sure you could make me fall down if you really wanted to." "There's no point in doing it the easy way." Clark kneels behind Dick, who watches him with an incredulous smile. "You really do want to knock me over." Dick shakes his head, looking to Bruce for some sort of support. "And I thought he was my friend." Bruce is certain they're joking, but not to what extent. "Are you all right?" "Sure." Dick gasps and says, "God, Clark, give me half a second -- not literally -- hang on." It takes Bruce a moment more to realize precisely what Clark has in mind -- one of the various things he's only read about, and one that seemed both unsanitary and unpleasant, but Clark has the advantage of being immune to human diseases. He feels moderately ridiculous asking, "Does that really feel good?" but he can't entirely picture it. Dick takes a measured breath. "Extremely." Clark makes a wet noise with this tongue that borders on the ribald and offers, "I'll show you later." The concept of being indebted for that sort of act makes Bruce blush. "That's not necessary." Dick shivers again. "It's -- not about what's necessary. Just what you want, and what you want to give someone else." It's as gentle a reminder as anyone could hope for, considering how entirely Bruce's attention has wandered from his recent promise. "Ah. Of course." It should, perhaps, feel stranger to wrap his hand around Dick's erection than it does -- it is an intimacy that he had not thought he would be allowed, but he is quickly becoming inured to the fact of desire, if not entirely to its intensity. Clark's presence is helpful in that regard, though it would never have occurred to Bruce that such a thing could be made easier with company. Clark and Dick are comfortable with this, with each other, and they make it seem natural and proper for Bruce to enjoy it as well. Dick says, "Oh, god, Bruce," at the first, deliberate lick, and Bruce glances at him. He looks half-drugged at least, and when he reaches down to run his fingers through Bruce's hair, his hand shakes. "I never thought --" It is obscurely reassuring that Bruce is not alone in his surprise. "Is this all right?" he asks. "Yes, keep going." Dick squeezes his shoulder and rocks on his heels. "Clark -- god, that's -- you're going to kill me." Clark laughs -- it's only Bruce's imagination, surely, that supplies the wet quality to his voice -- and says, "As long as you don't fall down, you're fine." "God --" Dick braces himself on Bruce's shoulder and holds himself still for a moment, or at least as still as he can be when he's shaking. The way he tastes keeps startling Bruce; it should be at least somewhat repulsive, and it is nothing of the sort. Instead, it seems only natural to take Dick in his mouth and feel him shiver, to lick him and make him groan -- and to monitor the timing of every movement both to keep it in rhythm and to ascertain whether Bruce has done something pleasurable, or if that particular catch in Dick's breathing is Clark's doing. It seems like a overly simple thing to do for someone, that the flick of a tongue could not possibly make Dick bite his lip and groan, let alone push haltingly into Bruce's mouth and then stop himself, saying, "I'm sorry, you just -- you feel so good." Dick is always so aware of his body and what it does that seeing him, feeling him move in an unguarded way is as compelling as anything else thus far. Bruce lets him go just long enough to say, "Don't apologize, it's all right," and Dick whimpers when he starts again. "I -- that's -- amazing." His breathing is uneven and his voice is hoarse, coming ragged like the thrusts of his hips. "I can't stand up, I --" "I won't let you fall," Clark says, and Dick shouts and bucks convulsively at whatever he does immediately afterward, nearly choking Bruce. "Clark -- oh please, I can't --" he taps Bruce's shoulder urgently. "Stop it's -- I --" Bruce is almost entirely sure that Dick doesn't mean "stop" at all, but he won't risk the chance that he does. He stands and embraces Dick, who's shuddering harder now. "Better?" Dick groans and kisses him, thrusting against Bruce's hip. "Don't stop touching me, please, god, kiss me --" Bruce kisses him and wraps his hand around Dick's erection again, giving him a counterbalance and something to push against. Dick tangles his fingers in Bruce's hair and holds him there for the kiss as though he could ever want to pull away from it. He goes still suddenly and climaxes in Bruce's hand, gasping against his mouth. "I'm sorry," Bruce says when he's started breathing more quietly. Dick blinks at him. "What for? I --" He leans on Bruce, sweaty, sticky, and altogether beautiful. "That was great." Bruce readjusts his posture slightly so that he can stand more comfortably. "I shouldn't have stopped when I did." Clark stands and puts his arms around both of them. "There's no one right way to do this," he says, and smiles at Bruce. He looks unfairly tidy considering the debaucheries he's been committing. "Everything's fine." Dick gets his feet under himself more firmly and sighs. "More than fine. A lot more than fine." "If you're sure." Bruce kisses his cheek. "You look very relaxed." Dick laughs and leans on Clark. "I feel relaxed." He reaches back and squeezes Clark's thigh, then turns to grin at him. "And what can we do for you?" Clark kisses him and Bruce winces, calculating the relative lifespans of various microorganisms. "What you were doing earlier seems like a good idea." Dick looks at Bruce and winks. "I'm up for it if you are." He runs one hand down Bruce's back and rocks against him slightly. "Dick," Bruce says, trying to frown and wishing he had a stronger impulse to keep his hands off of Dick's hips. "I don't think --" There has to be a boundary between affection and libertinage, and they're skating perilously close to the latter. Clark laughs. "I wouldn't mind watching if that was what you had in mind, but --" "Oh, I see." Dick shimmies his hips -- it's enough to make Bruce's eyes cross -- and pulls away from him to embrace Clark again. "I think something can be arranged." He wraps one leg around Clark's thigh. "Maybe you should lie down, though. Clark picks him up with the effortlessness of far too much strength and lies down on the mat, setting Dick gently down next to him. "There." Bruce hesitates. For all they've been pleased enough to include him thus far, this was something between them, and -- "I could go," he says, trying to keep the reluctance out of his voice. "No, don't." Dick gets up again with a fluid movement that doesn't hide the tension in his expression. "Please don't." "It's all right," Clark says, and Bruce is tired of hearing that phrase without any explanation of why it's true. "If you wanted to finish what I interrupted --" he says, but Dick kisses him, brushing aside this protest. "I want you to stay right where you are." He puts his arm around Bruce's waist, then glances back at Clark. "Well. Almost right where you are." He takes Bruce's hand and leads him over so that he's standing next to Clark, then goes back to kneeling. "Sit down, okay?" Bruce kneels and raises his eyebrows at Clark. "You're sure you want me here?" Clark sits up and kisses him hard enough that even if Bruce were inclined to forget the truth of whose hands are in his hair, he would not be able to escape the fact that Superman's tongue is in his mouth, forceful and filthy. "Yes," Clark says, but by that point it's unnecessary and Bruce is both convinced and breathless. Dick sighs and touches Clark's shoulder. "That's really distracting, you know." "Ah, I'm sorry." Clark kisses Bruce lightly and sits back on his elbows. "I didn't mean to distract you." Dick runs his thumb over Bruce's lower lip. "This is going to really cement your rakish reputation," he says, grinning. "You look like you've been making out all night." "That will be useful," Bruce says, or means to say, but Dick is kissing him in the middle of the word. "You're getting distracted again," Clark says mildly. "Mm." Dick sits back and licks his lips. Sorry." He bends and licks the head of Clark's penis, grinning still. Clark sighs. "I'm reassured." "I wasn't going to forget." Dick sucks him lightly, his mouth stretched wide. Bruce reminds himself and his embarrassed stab of inadequacy that Clark, for all his civility and charm, is not and never will be human. Kryptonian women don't bear contemplation at the moment. Particularly not when Dick sits up again and kisses him sloppily. His mouth tastes distinctly odd -- no more unpleasant than the human equivalent, but strange nevertheless. Clark laughs and pats Bruce's thigh. "Now I'm distracted." "By what?" Bruce asks, looking at him. "You are beautiful enough individually, but together --" Clark waves his hand. "Would you --" Dick seems to grasp the question before Clark articulates it any farther. "Why not?" He lets Bruce go and moves so that he's half lying next to Clark with his head at about waist level. "We can do two things at once, no sweat." Bruce doesn't share his confidence, given how little experience he has at either, but he's not willing to admit his discomfort, so he lies down in the same way. From this angle, Clark's erection is even more impressive, and he has to suppress the urge to calculate volume. "Is this what you meant, then?" Dick touches his shoulder and pulls him into another kiss, then lets him go for a moment to lick Clark again. "Like this, sure." Clark laughs softly. "Where did I ever find such dangerous friends?" Bruce mouths him for a moment -- the strain in his jaw is less than he had feared, though still considerable -- and says, "I'm sure you're not overly surprised." "Exceedingly, though not in an unpleasant way -- oh -- do that again, Dick." Dick sucks him again, making a slurping sound that would be embarrassing in any other situation. "I thought you were enjoying watching," he says, and kisses Bruce again. His mouth is, if anything, even wetter now. "Both, and yet --" Clark pushes Dick's hair away from his forehead when they break the kiss off. "I'm not infinitely patient." Bruce wraps his lips around Clark's penis and applies some suction. Clark groans and rests his hand on the back of Bruce's head, gentle but potentially anything but. Bruce takes a bit more into his mouth, trying to imitate the smoothness of Dick's motions. "Damn," Dick says, and nuzzles his ear. The relentless kisses and the soft, hungry noises Clark is making are arousing Bruce again, though he wouldn't mention it at the moment. Dick's nibble at his earlobe does nothing to calm his nerves. "I had no idea that would be so pretty." Clark shivers. "That's not the word -- nn -- that comes to mind." Bruce reaches the point where he needs a deep breath and lets Clark go. As soon as he does, Dick kisses him and pulls away very slightly, so that he follows. Dick hums against his mouth and says, "We really shouldn't get distracted." It's enough of a warning that when he licks Clark's penis and pulls Bruce in for another kiss right there, it's not as surprising as it would otherwise be, though it is, in itself, distracting. He's torn between the impulse to kiss Dick properly and the nagging guilt that in doing so, they'd be ignoring Clark. Clark is groaning now, though, so it doesn't sound as though he minds. "Don't stop," he says, and he sounds as winded as Bruce as ever heard him. This is a novel and rather overly specific way to subdue Superman, but -- anything that works is notable. Dick pulls away for a second to lick a stripe up his palm and wrap his hand around Clark's erection. "God, Clark," he says, laughing, and Clark thrusts up with some infinitesimal fraction of his strength. It is no easier to tease him effectively when he's moving, though it does provide a sense of rhythm Bruce can use to time himself. Clark's breathing catches, stops -- and Dick kisses Bruce harder, then pushes him away. He sits back and glances at Clark's face. He's staring at Dick, not moving at all, even when Dick sucks him again, pumping his fist up and down and brushing his lips with his knuckles. Bruce feels the ground shake once in a sudden tremor and realizes Clark has slammed his fist into the mat. Dick coughs and sits back, his mouth and chin slick. "God, God, Clark," he says, and moves to hug him again. Clark kisses him very slowly with every sign of tenderness. "Thank you." He reaches for Bruce's hand. "I am so very lucky." Bruce squeezes his hand and fights the urge to cling to him. Clark has far more important places to be -- the time he has spent already has been deeply -- not just self-indulgent, though clearly that as well. "I would say we all are, on occasion." Dick smiles at Bruce and stand stands up, stretching his legs. "We should do this again sometime." Tomorrow night, Clark will be doing whatever he must to keep the world safe. It was an off-chance, a brush with red Kryptonite, that gave him an excuse to take this time. If it happens again, there will be bigger problems than whether or not Bruce would like to kiss him. With any luck, then, Clark will be far away, and Bruce and Dick will be working in Gotham. The night after next, Dick will be back at college. It is not as hard as it could be to patrol alone, especially because Dick does take the opportunity to come home whenever he can, and the uncertainty of whether Robin will be there or not keeps the criminal element guessing. Everyday existence without Dick's company was peaceful for the first three days, then uncomfortably quiet. After this incident, it will be painfully lonely in new dimensions. Bruce knows what Dick would say and how the argument would end, should he bring the subject up again. Better to nod and smile briefly, and say, "Sometime, yes." Against the rule of nature
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