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You hear the click, subtle and creaking, when you are still in the throes of half-slumber, on your way to the waking world. It’s a deliberate, careful noise—the sound of something—or someone—who is trying to not draw attention to themselves.
That’s all it takes, the familiar slack-rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins, the chill of fear wracking every stitch of your body as you sit up with a start. Instinctively, your hands fly for the baseball bat that keeps you company every night you sleep alone, the sheets sloughing off of you in waves.
“Hey! Wait—it’s just—”—you hear as you turn to your would-be attacker, already hoisting yourself off the edge of your bed. In the shadowy darkness of your bedroom, you barely make out a silhouette that, in the sleep-addled recesses of your consciousness, brings you pause. You know that mask, you know that R, you know the flash of red that the dappled moonlight through your window catches light upon.
“Tim?” you ask, feeling the fear leach out of you like a sieve, the bat lowering to a downward angle. “What are you doing here?”
“I can’t pay my partner a visit?” He asks defensively, holding up his hands as though he’s not supremely capable of dispatching you. The gesture, that he’s reassuring you of his lack of ill intent towards you, is endearing and reassuring at once.
“That apparently,” He tacks on, “They didn’t feel the need to get dressed up for?”
“What?” you scowl in confusion, focusing your gaze upon yourself. You feel another follow-up of adrenaline from the reserves, coupled with the heat of mortification as you remember your fond habit of sleeping in the buff. “Oh my God! I forgot—”
You snap your eyes back up to Tim, who is red-faced, but not necessarily from the chill that is ghosting through your apartment window—a window you are pointedly avoiding being framed in view of—and take heed of the shit-eating grin on his face.
“I mean, I’m not complaining, but—”—He valiantly argues the point of maintaining your nudity. The bat clatter to the ground as you search for your bedside dresser—anything that might let you retain a morsel of your dignity fleeing out the window.
“Hold on—let me get some clothes on—”—you babble, trying to avoid his gaze as he approaches, arms open and hands outstretched for you.
“Honestly, I don’t mind, the view’s pretty nice—”—he teases, and you shoot him a heady glower over your shoulder.
“Tim—”—you begin and his hands go from palm-up to hoisted out in surrender as he approaches.
“Okay, okay—can’t blame a guy for trying.” He smiles as he wraps his arms around you, the heat of his arms matching the warmth roiling off of you in embarrassment. And regardless of the last few minutes, you can’t help it relax into him as you search through the darkness of the drawer.
His voice tickles in your ear, his chin settling in the junction of your shoulder and neck, voice hopeful. “And hoping maybe I can convince you to keep it off?”
You can’t help but smirk. “I’d like to see you try.”
It appears he’s up for the challenge.
Jason is lithe and silent as he sneaks in through your window—you never do anything to lock it anyways, knowing that you often have your gentleman caller. As if anyone else would be stupid enough to go breaking into the Red Hood’s territory, where his partner sleeps, in their bed, in their bedroom.
The window slides shut behind him noiselessly, the room devoid of sound save for your soft, hushed breath, sleeping in a veritable island of sheets and pillows. There’s something vulnerable about you in sleep, so different from the confident self-sufficiency that you exude during the day, that awakens that needful, protective instinct from the marrow. His—to protect, to have. His.
He watches the slow rise and fall of the sheets over your prone form, sleeping on your back, the suffused moonlight framing details that he has committed to memory time and time again. He’s already at the edge of the bed in a few paces, his broad hand searching under the covers, knowing what he will find.
He makes a low groan in his throat as he feels his palm scrape over the bare, exposed curve of your side—just like he wanted you to be. Just like you shot him a sly smile earlier today, saying that he’d sure have an eyeful to come home to tonight. The way that sent a shock of need through him then, the way it’s making him starved now, when he’s got you where he wants you.
Without moving the sheet off of you, his hand eases down the slope of your waist, down to your hip, squeezing, feeling the ample flesh—he knows the landscape of your body without having to see it. You sigh quietly in your sleep, shifting under his grasp. He doesn’t stop, letting his other hand join, fingers dragging—not painfully, but enough to be noticeable—down your thighs, greedily, slowly, covetously.
You sigh again, arching into his touch even in sleep, arching into him, and this awakens something prideful, all-consuming. He makes another noise through his teeth, and finds the corner of the sheet, tearing it off—admiring the way that you shrink away from the air, the way that goosebumps raise up on your skin in the spots he likes to tease kisses into and work moans out of you.
His. You make that clear every night, much as you made it clear for this night—his to do with. His hands find the junction of your thighs and begin to push them apart, the give of your legs slow yet willing, even in sleep. You twitch at his coaxing, another soft, pleasurable noise escaping you; he watches as you shift, a hand swiping at your eyes as you return back from the cover of sleep.
“Jason?” You ask, confused as you reconcile the sight of him between your legs. But there’s a sly note in your voice when you ask him in follow-up, “What’re you doing down there?”
He lets himself smile as he lowers himself down—you make a breathy, delighted exhale—with a simple, “Glad you could join the party, sweetheart.”
You were already restless, fitful as you drifted in and out of sleep—so when you heard the click of the latch in the window, you were already blinking away the veil. You looked blearily out to the smiling face that waved from the other side of the window.
“Miss me, honey?” Dick grins as he slides into your room.
“‘Course I did, baby,” you smile as you watch that casual flex of muscle as he shunts the window back down, making no move to help him as you stretch out languidly on the bed.
From the way his eyes have seemed to fixate upon you since his manifestation in the window, it’s clear that he’s interested in taking a look at what’s under the sheet that’s draped over you. He’s already shucking the uniform with each step he takes towards the bed; you prop yourself up on an elbow, looking up to him—as he looks to the way the sheet falls past your shoulder.
“No kiss for me?” He asks teasingly—you roll your eyes.
“Come here and get it,” you smile up at him—he obliges, leaning down to press his mouth over you, hot, insistent. His hands slide from your shoulder further down as he makes pointed campaign to nip at your bottom lip between his teeth. The gasp you make prompts a low chuckle from him that hums through you—and gives him opportunity to tease the rest of the blanket off of you, the air cool on your exposed body.
Mission accomplished, he pulls away—reluctantly—and takes ample time to drink in the view of you naked before him, all for the taking. “You got undressed just for me? You shouldn’t have.”
“Thought you might like the pick-me-up,” you arch an eyebrow at him, and from the ecstatic look on his face, it’s clear that he certainly does. His hands are already making dedicated exploration to see what he can rediscover, as you shudder happily under his eager touch.
“You just spoil me with the best gifts,” Dick grins before he claims his first of many kisses for the night.
Bruce doesn’t need to come in through the window when he has a key to your place. A key that, based on how worn it is, the paint chipped off on certain ridges and grooves, that bears faded plating from where his fingers hold it, is well-loved, and well-used. He visits you often, though neither of you make mention of it, the tether that he has in this city that he is wont to admit he does. All it takes is a simple turn of the wrist, the echoing thud of the lock in the jamb, and then he enters the place that is so solely important because of the precious cargo it carries.
The door closes behind him with a breath of air, the lock turning back, marking you safe and secured once more. The key that grants him access to you is placed on a hook that you’ve hung up solely for him. It’s a short journey to your room—he would know the layout of your apartment were he bound and blind.
As he travels the distance to you, he unsheathes himself of the uniform he has brought, turning back from protector to partner, from berserker to beloved. From the city’s Batman—to your Bruce. Yours.
The door to your bedroom whispers open, the open window casting soft, heavenly relief upon all that lies within. His eyes slide over the fragmented aspects that are the puzzle pieces to you, but the only thing his sharp eyes truly seek out is you, swaddled under your blankets.
He allows himself a moment to watch you from the entrance, as though he sullies your room with his presence, and this is him enjoying one final honeyed instance of peace before he disrupts it. But you’re good with assuaging him of these worries—which is why he crosses over to your bedside with alacrity.
Bruce looks down at your sleeping form, grazing a gentle finger over the curve of your cheek, letting you know that he’s returned. Your eyes flutter, blinking away the dreams of the night, a sleepy smile breaking across your face as you see him.
“Welcome home, honey,” your voice is hoarse with sleep but the intention is clear. “Come and join me.”
It’s a command that he happily obeys, his muscular frame sliding under the blanket with ease, the heat of your naked body a brand against him that he happily accepts. A perfect fit against him, as you melt against the plane of his chest, returning back to slumber. It’s only then, with you in his arms, that he’s able to find his way to sleep as well.