Chapter Text
Jason stared.
Get on your knees and I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking for.
Had Dick really said that? Had Jason really heard those words? The desire that existed as a fucking ache in Jason’s chest said that he had. The roar of his blood rushing in his ears agreed.
He didn’t realize he was moving until he felt his knees hit the floor. His hands were trembling on his thighs. Anticipation and arousal thrummed through his body, his blood coursing electricity through every cell. His slow breaths came between parted lips and his eyes were trained on the man he was hoping would give him the pain that he craved.
Dick still leaned back in his chair, languid and somehow still elegant even wearing borrowed grey sweatpants and a tank top that hung off him. His blue eyes were so dark they seemed almost black.
“So eager…”
Jason clenched his teeth. “Is this another tease? You’re going to start and then pull away and say no?”
“Not at all. I said I’d give you exactly what you were asking for.”
It was easy to forget how dangerous Dick Grayson was. It was easy to forget who he was beneath the Christmas card smile and the corny puns and the Boy Wonder facade of it all. It was easy to forget that beneath all that was one of the most dangerous men in a world full of dangerous men.
Dick rose. Jason couldn’t help but stare at his socked feet as they crossed the polished concrete floor. Dick’s feet didn’t make a fucking sound. It wasn’t easy to do — it took skill and practice to place your feet deliberately like that. But Dick didn’t have the posture of someone concentrating on walking deliberately. He walked like a man on a high wire and moved like a predator.
Not for the first time, Jason thought to himself that Dick Grayson just didn’t make any fucking sense.
“I’ve got some tools you can use on me, if that’s your thing. You can go as hard as you want. Like I said, I don’t give a shit.”
Jason spoke because Dick, for once, wasn’t speaking and he felt a weird need to fill the silence. Or was it that he wanted to remind Dick that even though he was the one on his knees, this was his idea?
Or both?
“No, I prefer to use my hands.”
Dick was behind him now, circling him like a vulture. His feet still made no sound on the floor, so Jason could only identify his location based on the sound of his voice and the soft rustle of his clothes.
If Jason wasn’t Jason, he would start to feel a little panicked now.
“Don’t blame me if you break your knuckles then.” He turned his head to try to catch a glimpse of Dick out of the corner of his eye.
“Eyes forward.”
Dick was standing so close behind Jason that he felt Dick’s socked foot brush against the very edge of his pinkie toe. Even that brief, bare touch made something crackle up and down his nervous system. Jason kept his eyes forward, not because Dick had commanded it, of course, but because he loved the thrill of anticipation. Not knowing what was going to happen next, feeling his nerves ignite and burn while he was forced to wait was part of the fun.
“I’m going to ask one last time because I want to be sure I understand.” Dick’s voice had dropped into a different place, something lower and more deliberate. “You want me to cause you pain. You don’t care how I do it. I can use any method I want. And you don’t want any aftercare at all. Yes?”
“Yes, how many times do I have to fucking tell you?” Jason snapped. He was feeling frayed now, a raw nerve, like kindling just waiting to be touched by a spark. His body was already quivering, taut and aching for the release that Dick’s promise of pain would bring him.
“As you wish, then.”
Jason couldn’t be sure exactly what Dick did. He was aware of a sudden, sharp movement behind him, a touch on his neck. For a fraction of a second, there was nothing. And then it hit him.
Pain arced through Jason’s body like an electrical current. Every nerve felt like it was on fire, every synapse screamed in agony. His body went rigid, his muscles spasming and constricting from the avalanche of agony battering his body. He didn’t even realize he was falling until his shoulder hit the floor and the echoes of even that small impact reverberated through his body like an echo in a cave, the pain compounding as it redoubled back upon itself. His rigid body arched off the floor, then curled upon itself. It was as though he was shielding himself from a beating, even though the pain was internal. His jaw was wrenched open in a silent scream but his chest was too tight too raw for even a lungful of air. Tears leaked from between tightly closed eyes, but he didn’t even notice.
Jason’s mind was blank, a white void filled with a light so sharp and so bright that all other thoughts were burned away. It wasn’t until he heard footsteps on the ground beside his head that he remembered that there was existence beyond the absolute torment taking place in his own body. With effort he forced open his eyes.
Dick was crouched beside him, feet flat on the ground and his knees pressed to his chest. He still looked ridiculous in Jason’s oversized grey sweatpants and Wonder Woman tank top and his black socks, but there was something in his eyes that Jason couldn’t quite recognize, especially not in his current pain-addled state.
“Pain. Just pain. No intimacy, no touching, no emotions, no ritual, no preparation, no nothing. That’s what you wanted, right?” He asked in a voice so calm as to seem almost emotionless. Under normal circumstances, hearing Dick speak in such a way would have creeped Jason out. But he didn’t have the cognitive capacity to do anything other than try not to piss himself as his body twitched and convulsed as though he was still attached to an electric current.
“Y-yes,” he managed. He had intended to spit the words, but they came out as a whimper.
Jason couldn’t be sure, but he thought perhaps he saw something flicker in Dick’s eyes. It was a flash, a split-second. It was probably nothing, because Dick’s expression was unchanged as he rose and straightened again.
“Then I guess my work here is done.”
He gathered up his discarded uniform and closed the pizza box with several slices of pizza still inside. The pizza he left on the kitchen table, but the clothes he carried to the door that led back down to the garage. He paused at the door as he pulled his cop boots back on. It looked ridiculous with Jason’s sweatpants and the oversized Wonder Woman tank, but Dick somehow made it work.
Jason, still twitching on the floor, could only follow him with his eyes.
“What… fuck… Where…?” He managed to pant out from between clenched teeth.
“Call me when you’re ready for another hit.”
And then Dick was gone.
Jason stared at the door for a long moment, not quite believing it. Had he told Dick that he wanted nothing but simple pain? Yes.
Had he thought that the motherfucker would hit him with some kind of nerve attack and then leave him incapacitated on the floor? No.
This is all I need him for. This is all I want him for.
Like all the best liars, Jason almost always told the truth. He had lived by the truth. He had died by the truth.
Like all the best liars, the person Jason was best at lying to was himself.
He had wanted nothing but pain, and now he was alone with it. The abyss inside him yawned and he sank into it. He sank into the pain, into every screaming nerve ending. He shuddered again as it washed over him, familiar and comfortable in its discomfort, an agony he embraced. He was on his side, face and shoulder and hip pressed into the cold concrete. A thin string of drool tricked out the corner of his mouth and across his cheek, but he didn’t care. He was both in his body and outside it, he was trapped by the pain, and he was the pain.
He was the gun and the target, but now he was the bullet too.
He was complete.
And he was a liar.
It took forty-eight hours for the effects of the nerve attack to completely wear off. His legs had felt so weak that he’d had to sit down on the floor of the shower like some kind of fucking invalid while the water washed the stink of pain-sweat off his trembling body. The tremor in his hands had been the worst though. He had been forced to eschew patrol for the night. Using guns when your hands won’t stop shaking was a hair too reckless even for the reckless Red Hood.
But it did wear off eventually. When Jason inspected his naked body in the bathroom mirror, he couldn’t find any traces of what Dick had done to him. Not a scratch, not a scar, not even a bruise from where Dick had had him by the throat.
Jason had to admit that, deep down, he was a little disappointed by that. Other doms left marks on Jason from whatever they’d done to him — burns, cuts, bruises… Even if they weren’t enough for him and the initial pain they gave him was disappointing, Jason had gotten to enjoy seeing the evidence of their work on his body for days after.
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t the evidence of their work, it was the evidence of his endurance. His resilience. His survival . No matter what they had done to him — and he had always goaded them into doing their worst — he had endured it. And even if they hadn’t been enough for him, at least he could still press his fingertips to the dark bruises he carried like a prize and feel a shadow of the pain he had conquered.
But now he had nothing… no marks to act as a memento. Even though the pain that Dick had given him had been the most pure, the most exhilarating, the most transcendent… He was still a little disappointed.
Jason rubbed the back of his neck, then slid his hand across his shoulder and collarbone. His fingertips brushed his throat and he stopped, remembering yet again the feeling of Dick’s slim, cool fingers wrapped around his throat. He mimicked the act, curling his own fingers around his own neck, pressing his own fingertips into his own soft flesh.
He squeezed a little.
He imagined Dick’s eyes and the strength in his fingers and his midnight voice.
He squeezed harder.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror. Half-choking himself, chin tilted up and lips parted like some… pain-hungry slut. He loosened his grip and shook his head.
“That’s fucked up. You’re fucked up,” he told his reflection severely. “Shit like this is why we can’t have nice things.”
Jason’s reflection declined to comment.
It was the better part of a week before Jason contacted Dick again. He had thought about doing it sooner, but the innate contrariness of his character once again prevented him from making anything easy on himself. In a similar spirit, he made his way over to Blüdhaven and knocked on Dick’s door on a random Saturday evening instead of calling.
“Hey. You said to drop by whenever.” Jason looked at Dick, taking in the collared shirt and the fact that he had product in his hair. “Unless this is a bad time?”
“I’m just getting ready to go out to dinner with Babs, but c’mon in.” Dick opened the door wider and gestured Jason inside.
“Are you two back together?” Jason tried to sound nonchalant. No, dammit, he was nonchalant. It didn’t make any difference to him if Dick and Babs were dating or fucking or whatever. It didn’t have anything to do with him.
“Nah, we’re just going out as friends. She’s my wine and dine buddy.”
Jason wondered how common this was among the Bat diaspora, this “hanging out as friends” thing. It wasn’t surprising that Dick and Babs did, seeing as they had been an item off and on for so long. He knew that Dick and Tim were also close so no surprises there. Cass and Steph also seemed to spend quite a bit of time together. But maybe all of them hung out socially together and Jason was just unaware of it.
The idea made an uncomfortable tension start to creep into the pit of Jason’s stomach. He shoved it back, hard. What the rest of them did or didn’t do that he wasn’t invited to wasn’t any of his business. Or his problem.
“Sounds cute,” he smirked. “So you’re basically gal pals?”
“Basically,” agreed Dick with unaffected amiability. He grabbed his phone and tapped out a quick message to someone, then hopped up on the counter and looked at Jason. “So what’s up?”
The truth was that Jason had come over hoping that he could provoke Dick into hurting him again, but now the mood was off. Previously they agreed on a day and time in advance, but Jason had thought that maybe if he’d disregarded the unwritten “rules” he could make Dick annoyed enough to do something else. And, if he came to Dick’s place, Dick couldn’t just leave him writhing on the floor.
…Not that he minded that, he was quick to tell himself. All he wanted was the pain, and that’s what Dick gave him. But he wanted something more this time.
But now he had caught Dick about to leave and there was no chance of getting what he wanted tonight. So instead he shrugged.
“Just in the neighborhood checking on some stuff. Figured I’d ask you about tomorrow, unless you’ve got another gal pal date planned.”
Dick’s eyebrows quirked in a way that suggested both amusement and confusion.
“Um, I’m busy tomorrow and so are you.”
Jason frowned as he started flipping through his mental database of what could be happening tomorrow. No major holidays, so it was unlikely that Calendar Man would be making a move. It wasn’t the second of the month, nor a date with double numbers, so not Two-Face. It wasn’t the anniversary of any kind of major Gotham or Blüdhaven event…
The confusion must have been obvious on his face because Dick laughed.
“It’s the first Sunday of the month. Alfred’s making Sunday roast.”
“...Fuck, I forgot.”
“You were trying to think of what holiday or date it was so that you could prepare for Calendar Man or Two-Face, weren’t you?”
“Of course I was.” Jason made a face. “Can’t have a special day in Gotham without some psycho deciding it’s a good excuse for planting — I don’t know — Leprechaun bombs or some shit all over the place.”
“Hah! At least your birthday isn’t November 11th. Eleven-eleven? I haven’t had an actual birthday in like a decade because Two-Face can’t resist. Although one year he did give me a birthday cake while he was holding me hostage. And made the goons sing to me.” Dick smiled a little bit. “That was actually one of my better birthdays.”
Jason stared at him, mouth slightly agape. Sometimes he wasn’t sure whose childhood had been more fucked up, his own or Dick’s.
Dick laughed once before his face settled into a smirk.
“So no, sorry. I can’t play with you tomorrow because I’m going to go be a good boy and hang out with the rest of the family. And so will you.”
That, of course, made Jason bristle.
“The fuck I will. I have no interest in going and playing Brady Bunch just so Bruce can pretend he’s some kind of patriarch. Besides, nobody actually wants me to show up at these things. Everyone prefers it when I stay away.”
“I don’t. I just asked you to come.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “You don’t fucking count. You actually believe all that ‘One big happy Bat-family’ bullshit. Nobody else wants me at these things.”
Dick gave him a pointed look. “Alfred does.”
It was a low blow. Below-the-belt low. Not even below the belt, it was low enough that Jason felt like he’d slammed his bare toes into a brick wall. He glared at Dick.
“If he wants me to come so bad, he could call me and tell me himself.”
“Jason, you never answer the phone. And you responding to texts is a momentous enough occasion that the family group chat freaks the fuck out when it happens.”
“The family has a— No, you know what, I don’t want to know.” Jason threw up his hands. “Of course I’m not in the family group chat.”
Dick rolled his eyes and made a sound that was half exasperated sigh and half annoyed snarl.
“Do you not remember this? You were invited to the family group chat and you told Tim, and I quote “I don’t wanna hear from any of you people unless I get to shoot at something.” Sound familiar?”
It did sound a little familiar. A little trickle of guilt ran down Jason’s spine like a drop of ice water, but he shoved that back, just as he had shoved back the discomfort he had felt at the idea of them hanging out together and not inviting him.
Jason shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay fine. Point is you’re busy tomorrow. I’ll let you know when I’m free next week then.”
Dick raised both his eyebrows. “Oh no you won’t. Unless you come to dinner tomorrow, I’m not touching you.”
“What the fuck?” Jason dropped his arms and glowered at Dick. “What the fuck does me coming to dinner have to do with—” He stopped, weirdly unwilling to say it out loud.
“With what we do?” Supplied Dick with infuriating calm.
“Shut up. What does it have to do with anything?”
“You want me to hurt you, I want you to come to family dinner. Think of it as payment for services rendered.”
Jason pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You said that you had your own reasons for wanting to do this, that it wasn’t just for me. So don’t act like you’re only in this to do me some big favor, because I never asked you to do any of this shit.”
“But you are asking me to do it. You came here tonight to ask me to hurt you.” Dick leveled his gaze at Jason, and once again Jason was struck by just how piercing those eyes were.
“Didn’t you?” Dick asked, when Jason didn’t say anything for several long moments.
“Okay, fine! Yes!” Jason exploded at him. He threw a hand up in the air. “I was in the neighborhood and thought maybe I could get a hit from you. Big fucking mistake, obviously.”
“A hit?” Dick tilted his head ever so slightly. “Like I’m cocaine? That’s flattering.”
“You know what the fuck I mean,” Jason growled. “Besides, that’s what you said the first time — call me if you need another hit. I’m here. Consider this a call.”
Dick glanced at his watch. “If you really want, I can do it quickly before I leave. But you can’t just stay drooling on my kitchen floor all evening because Babs and I might come back here for a nightcap. Oh, we could go into my guest bedroom and you can at least be on the bed. Babs won’t even know you here that way and then you can leave whenever you’re recovered enough to walk again.”
The casual way he said it, as though he were offering to squeeze Jason in for a business meeting, was enraging. Jason hated how accommodating Dick was, how thoughtful it was of him to offer his spare room for Jason to twitch and spasm in for a few hours. Jason hated how practical and convenient it was. He didn’t want to be something that Dick could take care of quickly before dinner. He wanted to be something that Dick was forced to take his time with. He wanted to wreck plans and demand Dick’s full, undivided attention. He didn’t want Dick to be considerate. He wanted Dick to hurt him, and mean it.
“No, that’s not what I’m after tonight. I want you to actually touch me, not just do the fucking nerve thing.”
Dick’s eyebrows raised fractionally. “Oh? I thought all you wanted was pain. That’s what that is. I thought that was the deal.”
“It was, but it’s not enough now.” Jason felt himself skid dangerously close to the edge of admitting something that he wouldn’t - couldn’t - admit. Not to Dick. Not even to himself. He changed his tone to one of accusation to cover the lapse, “Besides, it’s fucking lazy. I don’t even think you even really can hurt me the real way, not just using the Vulcan nerve pinch or whatever.”
“Mmhmm. I see.” Dick’s demeanor was still one of infuriating amiability. “Well, I can’t tonight. If you want more, you have to give me time. My house isn’t masochist McDonald’s. There’s no drive-thru fast food pain.”
“Fine. Tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow,” agreed Dick. He raised one finger. “If you come to family dinner.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Jason glared daggers at him, absolutely disgusted. “What kind of messed up coercion is that? Come to family dinner and as a reward I’ll choke you out? Do you have any idea how messed up that is? And that’s coming from me.”
“Firstly, I don’t choke anyone out. We’ve discussed that. Secondly, you like pain and discomfort. This is going to be uncomfortable. Think of it as one long exercise in masochism.” Dick smiled like a game show host, showing every one of his perfect gleaming teeth. “You suffer through dinner and if you’re a good boy, I’ll make you suffer after. Slowly. With my hands.”
Jason didn’t even realize that his fists were clenched at his sides or that his shoulders were tense until he relaxed them.
“That a promise?” He asked.
“Bat’s honor.” Dick held up one hand and put the other over his heart, as if he were swearing an oath.
Jason regarded him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. Dick was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. If he made a promise, he kept it. Jason had no reason to believe otherwise, even for circumstances like this. Finally, he turned away and started striding for the door. He spoke without looking over his shoulder,
“Fine. But you’d better do it right.”
The answer came from closer than he expected, Dick’s voice sounding like he was whispering the words into the back of Jason’s neck,
“Baby, I don’t know how to do it any other way.”