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The seasons are switched in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the Northern one. It was only November, and yet it was scorching hot.
“Heat endurance,” their master had supplied them with when questioned. “Being able to withstand strong heat is a core part of your training, as you'll soon learn through trial and error. Making sure your body can acclimatise to temperatures as hot as the sun, and as cold as the Antarctic.”
Khoa had huffed, almost rolling his eyes. Bruce had clenched his fists. Gotham was a humid city, and it did get hot in summers— very cold in winters. With near unpredictable weather patterns, he'd grown up with crazy kinds of temperature rise and drops. Any training is good training.
Even in the mountaintops it was hot. They were hiking up a rocky mountain, pushing through sparse bounds of foliage, with little to no gear. A survival challenge, if anything. They were expected to reach the top within the hour, as they'd wasted their first hour bickering and expending all their energy trying to race up the first leg of it.
The bickering is what got them into this mess in the first place. Had they not started a fight in the middle of an important lesson, they would be still on the ground, learning about other important stuff. They are here as punishment.
Now, they were dragging their small packs and still trying to beat one another, sweat trailing down the dirt behind them. Bruce glared at Minhkhoa, who smirked back as if he'd not driven Bruce up a wall on purpose. He seems to love riling him up like that, to get into a fight, no matter the winner or reason.
The sun beating down on them was a testament of their wasted time; a stopwatch they had to beat. They were only about halfway up the mountain, and Bruce would be there by now, if only he recalled his energy preservation instead of trying to get payback on Minhkhoa. The two of them, rivals and friends, were like a bear and a lumberjack trying to get along. One swings an axe into a tree and the bear climbs it. Or, you know, they chase each other around with sharp claws and sharper tools.
“Tired already?” Khoa asked in his taunting voice, a differing one from his monotone sarcasm. Bruce hates it.
He grunted and hauled himself up a rock. “No. You?” As he spoke, he shot him a glance and quickly observed his seemingly effortless pull up onto a rock a few feet from Bruce.
Khoa laughed as though even the thought was absurd to him, but there was a breathy delivery with it. “Never.”
“Then why do you sound out of breath?” Bruce asked, silently praying the rock he grabs onto to get on won't fall beneath him.
He plants his feet successfully and sighs, a small note of relief to it.
The other man lets out a more huffy breath, kicking a loose stone from the mountainside. It tumbles with a few satisfying knocks before rolling off into the bushes.
“I'm not out of breath. You're out of breath.”
He rolls his eyes. “Mature.”
Khoa shoots him a look, and Bruce knows his eye is twitching without even needing to look. He considers that a reward and shoots a forced smile back before continuing to climb, just a little faster.
The rocks toughen his hands, as they've been toughening over the past 4 years. Dirt sneaks beneath his fingernails, accumulating in gross chunks and irritating his comfort. He should be used to it by now, but his senses ticked up in hotter environments.
Falling behind, he hears Khoa grunt in irritation at his pace, and it quickly becomes a race once more.
They scramble over each other as they climb up the steep hills of the mountain to the top. Bruce loves it, the highlight of his training for the past few years. Bringing Minhkhoa along had never been a doubt or regret for Bruce. The company was nice, the competition even more so. It kept him in high spirits, mostly.
He’d thought he’d have to brave the world alone, the masters he’s trained under, the people he’s beat. The marred scars and wounds he’d have to heal, emotional and physical.
And yet here he was. Not alone, not in the slightest. A clean cut smirk, and sharp silver eyes embedded into honey olive skin.
Calloused hands that spoke of danger, but supplied warmth. Bruce did not know if he should compare this man to the sun or the moon. Both fit, really. A myriad of stars and celestial bodies.
Maybe he was thinking too softly. Too fondly. Maybe he should stop paying attention to his heart, as scarred and burnt and hurt as it already was.
Panting breaths hit the dirt and dust at the top of the mountain, hands clawed into the rock. The sun was lowering further; nearing golden hour.
Bruce pulled himself up at last, heaving his final heavy exhale and looking out. His fingers ached and began to cramp up and he began to massage into them, one at a time to loosen up the muscles. Khoa sunk down beside him after stretching, leaning back on his palms with a puff of air.
“I beat you,” is what he says first, tone still breathless but less so, more arrogant.
Bruce scoffed. “No you didn’t. I got up here first.”
“Wrong. I touched it first.”
He turned to glare, mouth downturned in a slight pout. Honestly, he’d never acted so childishly. If not for Minhkhoa, that is. A small cheeky jest and jab between friends never hurt, did it?
Khoa returned the glare with a subtle uptick of his lip. Bruce hated it. He would punch it, if not for the risk of throwing Khoa down the mountain.
“You just don’t know when to admit defeat, huh, Anton?” Bruce grumbled at last, resolving the staring contest and cracking his stiff knuckles. The wind gently brushed over his hair, a soft caress that followed down into the trees and wild life below.
Khoa elbowed him lightly and Bruce returned it. In the distance, he could see a river shimmering with the sun's light. If he turned a little north, he’d see the temple, barricaded behind high walls and heavy vines. The opposite way, a tiny, cozy little village, and further beyond, a city.
These moments felt unfamiliar to him. They always did. Quiet moments made him think. He liked to think, but not when his thoughts drifted to unwelcome ones. Silence opened the door for something he never liked to face. Survivor’s guilt, maybe. Doing all this, this training, and competing and traveling with his friend made him feel so much guilt. Performing in the name of his parents, of his family, for Alfred and Gotham and the world of injustice, how could he find a grain of happiness for himself if everyone else was suffering?
Others losing their parents in dark, damp alleyways, shot dead by unfair, creeping gunmen?
How could he feel at all? It’d been years since his parents' deaths, and he was well into his life now, in his early 20s. Was it ridiculous to still feel responsible for their justice being rightly served?
Of course he had the right to do it. He had the right to stop everyone else from having to suffer a similar fate as he did. He looked at Minhkhoa, basking in the glorious sunlight, breath not heavy but calm and deep. He looked stunning in the light, Bruce always thought. This is why sunset was his favorite time of day.
He didn’t wear the regret of a surviving son of parents that were murdered. So much about him appeared mysterious and unknown. Maybe that was a part of his charm. His freedom.
It only made Bruce wonder more, though.
And wondering leads to dangerous paths, filled with sharp teeth and growling horrors of his mind. Twisting corridors that lead to no good door.
How much didn’t he know about the man sitting beside him?
But he can see the scars on Khoa’s hands.
He imagines he’s had to suffer shed blood on his shoes the same way that Bruce has.
“You’re staring,” Khoa pointed out, brow raised in a way Bruce could hardly read. He wasn’t an easy man to read, but Bruce could understand his suspicion.
Bruce smiled a little. He’d found it easier these days. “I am, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Khoa agreed. Bruce nodded once.
It was so quiet.
He did not want to fall back into his mind.
Khoa seemed to sense his turmoil, tilting his head. Bruce shook it and turned away, watching the distant scenery once again.
But he felt warm fingertips on his chin, guiding him back to look at Khoa. The man who’d saved him a few years of solitary travel.
Helped him to school his anger issues for a time, too.
Wrapped his busted and bruised knuckles in bandages, laughing about how he’d “missed every punch” and that he should start with less intense training. He’d suggested an elementary school level would’ve been much better suited for Bruce, and they started fighting all over again.
Bruce looked into his pretty eyes, devoid of colour. Up close he’d learnt they have an almost amber sheen. Like the grey was a film he could peel off and see how much Khoa had closed off of himself. But then again, he wondered if he shielded anything at all, with how proud he always was.
Khoa’s brow wasn’t raised. Set back in place where it always should be.
He was good at playing facades and charades. He was always better at playing the part.
Still. Unsure of how real any of this was anymore, Bruce wordlessly nodded, allowing Khoa to tug his chin forward enough to lean in and press a kiss to his wind-bitten lips.
Warmth dusted itself onto his lips, and Bruce had to stop a small moan from escaping him, his shoulders relaxing ever so slightly under the relief.
The first time they’d done this, it’d been late at night. Khoa had snuck into Bruce’s room, acting odd. He thought he looked gorgeous in the twilight as well.
He’d climbed onto Bruce’s bed, ignoring his confusion and kissed him with a question on his lips, clearly having spied the clues before Bruce had even figured it out for himself. He was observant like that.
Sharing discreet little kisses like this became a sort of infrequent, but almost normal occurrence. Before this, Bruce hadn’t even known he’d like a boy like that.
He was never really the playboy type, growing up. After losing his parents, anger had overtaken him and he threw justice around with his fists. That’s how people knew him, some feared him. An angry little boy with so much locked away in refusal of giving it to the world.
And as always, Minhkhoa’s lips were chapped and with dry skin. This kiss was uncomfortable and dry, but Bruce leaned into it anyway. Touch starved, craving the human intimacy and contact. Comforting.
His hand found Khoa’s on his cheek, tilting his head to kiss him better. A hum vibrated against his lips in approval, pushing into the kiss a bit more. A warm tingle raced up Bruce’s spine and echoed in his chest, his heart thudding loudly.
Bruce inhaled as the kiss broke briefly. “Anton,” he said quietly, voice hardly a whisper.
Minhkhoa smiled a little, kissing the corner of Bruce’s mouth and trailing his hand down his chest instead. He noticed a small gasp from Bruce and grinned. “Bruce.”
A shudder joined his warm tingles, and Bruce sighed. Ever since Minhkhoa found his real name from Avery, everytime he used it felt like a fever flooded Bruce’s brain. Hot sweat would seep from his hands without being able to stop it.
“We should–” he paused as Khoa kissed him again, and he tried to fight the urge to keep going. His hand gripped Khoa’s collar and pulled him away, ignoring his scoff of annoyance. “We should head back. We still need to climb down before sunset.” Bruce nodded at the sun that was slowly drifting out of the golden hour.
Khoa followed his nod and sighed, heavy with irritation at their lack of time to be alone. “We still have time.” he murmured, turning back to him. “Let’s sit a while.”
They definitely did not have time. But Bruce really didn’t feel like leaving this moment.
So instead of arguing, he shifted closer and leaned back as well, watching the horizon. “Fine. I’d beat you to the bottom anyway.”
“Would not.”
Their laughter drifted along the wind and got lost in the sky, as they sat and enveloped each other in their presence for just a little while longer.
Just them. Alone on the top of this mountain.
And just for now, Bruce allowed himself to feel.