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When Bruce wakes, the sheets are still warm.
The room has a tell-tale chill to it, though. The gentle swishing sound of the curtains shuffling in the breeze and the hint of menthol cigarettes on the air tells him before he sits up that the balcony doors will be open.
He reaches for his robe and finds it missing.
Maybe he needs to be naked for this. Exposed.
Everything between them finally laid bare.
Bruce breathes deep, steeling himself, and pads to the door.
Jason leans casually against the stone balustrade, surveying the grounds like a prince surveying his kingdom. In the thin light of early morning - with Bruce’s robe draped over his body, one sleeve artfully slipping from his strong shoulder, and wisps of thin smoke billowing around his soft, mussed curls - he could be the centerfold of a high-class art magazine.
He’s beautiful.
Bruce wants to press himself against the expanse of Jason’s back, wants to kiss the delicate creases of skin behind his ear, wants to curl his arms around Jason’s waist and ask him to stay.
He slides up beside him instead, keeping a solid two feet between them.
“Oh no,” Jason intones, the tense line of his shoulders an unmistakable challenge beneath gossamer black silk. “Daddy caught me smoking. Gonna spank me?”
The pushback isn’t unexpected. Not after how vulnerable Jason made himself last night.
“If you like,” Bruce offers, keeping his tone purposefully bland.
Jason snorts, flicks ash at him. He stubs the cigarette out, leaving a dark smear across the gray stone. Then he fishes out a pack of cigarettes from Bruce’s robe and lights up another one.
“I thought you’d quit.”
“Smoking?” Jason says, blowing a puff of fragrant smoke from the side of his mouth. “Or fucking old men?”
A targeted hit. Bruce feels it land sharply in his chest.
He presses his palms to the balustrade, subtly grounding himself with the cool scratch of stone.
Jason catches the intent anyway, of course. Nudges Bruce’s shoulder with his own. Apologetic, maybe.
“I didn’t mean that,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth,” Bruce says to the expanse of lawn below.
“It’s not,” Jason insists. “Trust me.”
The silk of his stolen robe rubs ticklish against Bruce’s bare thigh as Jason steps into his space. He plasters himself to Bruce’s side, lifts Bruce’s arm and loops it around his waist.
“Relax, B. You’re nothing like those men were.”
Bruce feels the heat of Jason’s skin, remembers it painted in a gorgeous full-body flush just a few scant hours ago. Thinks of the things he would do to see his boy laid out like that again, blushing from his cheeks to his navel, and isn’t so sure.
Jason stubs out the second cigarette, presses menthol scented kisses up Bruce’s jaw to his ear.
Whispers, deadly sweet, “You didn’t even pay me.”
Bruce turns to meet him, licks the taste from his tongue. Jason kisses with the same fervor as last night, so deep and focused it’s almost like he’s trying to crawl inside Bruce’s skin.
He hops up to perch on the balustrade, hooking his ankles around Bruce’s thighs, sliding his arms around his neck, and pulling him in impossibly closer.
An exquisite trap.
Bruce lets himself be captured.
Jason nips at his mouth, then trails teasing bites down his neck where they’ll blossom into bruises Bruce’s collar won’t cover.
“I could,” Bruce offers. “If it would help.”
“I’m not as cheap as I used to be, you know.” Jason sucks one last, deep mark into Bruce’s throat, leans back to admire his work. “What are you offering, Old Man?”
“What do you want?”
Jason’s mouth is a thin smirk, as sharp and biting as any blade.
“Anything?”
“No,” Bruce says, though they both already know. “Not that.”
“You’re no fun.”
Bruce slides his hands higher up Jason’s magnificent thighs, digs his fingertips into strong muscle and feels Jason twitch against him.
“Anything else.”
“Hm,” Jason muses, licking his teeth. “What if I asked for your company?”
“You already bought out part of my company.”
Jason’s smile widens. He presses his thumb to the blooming bruise he’s made, fingers curling around Bruce’s throat. Bruce tilts his head to allow him better access.
“The cowl?”
“You’ve had that too.”
“Not for me.” Jason squeezes his fingers tight enough for Bruce to feel the drag of his own breath in his throat. “Would you do it, if I asked? Retire the cowl? Give up the Bat for me?”
“I don’t think you really want that,” Bruce tells him through the burn. “You like the chase too much.”
Jason hums, argument or agreement. He releases his grip on Bruce's neck, drags his nails lightly across the back of Bruce’s scalp instead.
“The manor? The grounds?”
“Already yours,” Bruce says, bringing his own hand up to trace the delicate skin below Jason’s eye.
Last night they had shone a deep metallic gray in the dark. Now in the light of morning, Bruce can make out flecks of green and gold in the blue.
He thinks he’d let himself drown in them to have this again.
“You just have to come home.”
Their bodies don’t move, but the distance between them is suddenly palpable.
“What happened doesn’t change anything, Bruce.”
It does. It changes everything, because Bruce didn’t know. For all the tension, all of Jason’s goading, and all of Bruce’s deep, indescribable longing…
He didn’t know.
Now he does.
“It could.”
Jason pulls back, moving Bruce’s hands away from him and slipping out from his perch.
“No, B,” he says, and he sounds remorseful even as he steps away from Bruce’s embrace. “It can’t. It’s not the same. I’m not that kid anymore.”
You are, Bruce thinks. In all the ways that matter, you are.
“Jay,” he says, catching Jason’s hand before he disappears out of reach again. “Lad. Please?”
Jason flexes his fingers against Bruce’s grip, not breaking the hold but testing the commitment. The robe billows around him in the breeze. Bruce never wants to let him go again.
“You don’t ask me to stay.”
“What?”
“That’s my price,” Jason says. His eyes search Bruce’s face for a reaction. “You can have me until sundown, and you don’t ask me to stay.”
It’s not enough time.
It’s more than Bruce ever thought he’d have.
“Alright,” Bruce agrees, stepping close and pulling Jason to him again. “I won’t ask.”
There are other ways to be convincing, after all.