Work Text:
Epiphany
By
annakas
"Tell me what you want from me? Because I really don't understand you anymore." asked Bruce with a tired and sad voice.
Well... damn, it wasn?t my intention to make him sad when I started this whole thing. I just wanted him to notice me, you know, outside of the Nightwing. Notice me- Dick, his friend and constant companion, not Nightwing the sidekick. No not sidekick not anymore. That was when I was Robin, now I am my own man and Robin has been replaced by someone else.
Now he just sounds tired lost and sad. Well... shit maybe it was not one of my brightest ideas to initiate the Great Seduction. But who could blame me? When I left Robin behind and went in search of myself I thought I could leave Gotham and with that Bruce and Batman behind. Well I was wrong. One can not escape from their past because our pasts make us the way we are. In the end I really didn't want to leave all that behind.
The farther I went the more I remembered the good times with Bruce or even Batman, not the bad ones that had seemed to overshadowed everything we had done. I remembered the little things he did for me and never said anything about. Like buying the company that had threatened to close my favorite hang out so I wouldn?t lose it. The time the Bat had hugged me to comfort me in the cave after we had returned from a really bad fight. I remembered and missed Alfred, his presence, or Barbara. It was then that I understood. I already had a home, I had a family of sorts, I had a place where I was always wanted.
So what had disturbed me and caused such dissatisfaction that I had to leave my home, my family and my life behind? It took some time before I understood. On my great sojourn of the world I realized that I didn't want to be a sidekick for Batman and a ward to Bruce. I wanted to be so much more than those two things. I wanted to be his equal. I wanted to be Bruce's mate and Batman's partner.
I understood that if I had stayed he would never have seen me as anything more than his ward and sidekick. I could never have been more. It's funny how I subconsciously knew it when I left Gotham. I gave Bruce and others some excuse about having to find myself. What I ended up finding surprised me the most. I was in love. I hadn't been able to acknowledge this before I had left. When I finally understood it I knew what I had to do.
I had to become my own man. Not Bruce's ward or Batman's sidekick. I had to become an equal on both sides of Bruce's life. And so I grew from the boy I was and became the man I wanted to be. I got my independence, a trial by fire. I could not go running to Bruce or Bat to solve my problems. I had to take care of them by myself. Sometimes making mistakes but learning from all of them. I became Nightwing, a hero in and of himself, not just a shadow of others.
What's really funny is how and when I understood that I was in love with Bruce/Batman and why I had left Gotham. It still makes me twitch that my subconscious finally kicked my conscious mind into taking such drastic measures.
I had given up dating women a couple of months after the start of my journey. They just didn't do it for me and every time one of them wanted to go farther with me it didn't turn me on. I finally just had to accept that women were not for me. I was as gay as they came.
But men, well I definitely liked how they looked. So when Tempus asked me to a date I agreed. I liked how he looked and he was a man with a good heart. We went out a couple of times. I had really liked the guy but something always felt a little off. Like always, I ignored the little voice in my head that said it was wrong. I had ignored it when I dated women, until it kicked my ass, and I ignored it then when I dated Tempus.
And it wasn't like I didn't like the making out with Tempus. So when I was finally about to get my cherry plucked. Me and Tempus were about to get ready to dance the horizontal tango. We both were hot and bothered. He was prepping me for his dick, his lubed fingers in my ass, when the little voice I had previously ignored , kicked me in my gut and screamed to me: "DICK YOU BLOODY IDIOT THIS FEELS WRONG BECAUSE THE WRONG PERSON IS ABOUT TO FUCK YOU!!! YOU WANT BRUCE TO BE THE ONE!!!!!!!"
Well... talk about a mood killer. My hard on just wilted before our eyes and I went all tense. Damn that was embarrassing. I had to explain to Tempus what was wrong. He was worried that he had hurt me and I had to explain that, no he did not hurt me but I just had an epiphany of sorts and sorry for teasing but it seems my dear friend you are the wrong person for me. I still can't look into his eyes when ever we bump into each other.
So I spent the next couple of months trying to come to terms with the fact that I was in love with my former guardian. My umm weird father figure and that Batman's costume bothered me not because it meant I was a sidekick but because I thought all the rubber was very, very fuckable. Rubber nipples are hot. Well shit talk about issues.
It was during these long months that I understood why I had left Gotham, Bruce, Batman, Barbara, Alfred and my mask of Robin behind. It was then that I understood that I'd had to leave. If I hadn't left I never would have become an equal to Batman and would never get the chance to become Bruce's mate.
When I came to terms with all of it I decided that it was time to come back to Gotham and face some angry folks. I had to see if the people I loved had some room for me in their lives and hope they forgave me for abandoning them.
Let me tell you it was not easy. I got the warmest welcome from Alfred. His words to me were "I knew you would come back my boy." Then there was Tim. He was very suspicious and apprehensive about me. He was I afraid that I would try to become Robin again and take his new found place away. After he understood I wasn't a threat to him he became friendly and accepted me back. Barbara was the hard one to face. I had dated her for a while and when I left things between us were unresolved. I had to do a lot of groveling and explaining to her, but we became friends again and she understood why things didn't work out between us.
Ahh and then there is Bruce. Yep still is, not was. He hasn't accepted me back yet. He wasn't hostile towards me when I returned, but he wasn't warm either. I saw just a cold indifference. He is so frigging polite to me all the time now. When I saw the indifference I understood that I had hurt him badly. Bruce always hides behind the mask of indifference when someone he cares about hurts him. It's his self-defense. His automatic reaction. Right then I knew I had to take things very slowly with him. I even didn't know yet if Bruce swung both ways.
So I decided to start my slow seduction. A subtle flirt here and there, some innuendos and a couple of comments about Bruce's looks. All I got was this confused look in his eyes which he quickly covered with indifference. I danced around him for months like that. Slow and careful so that I wouldn't scare him away. Scare you ask? Yeah scare would be the right word here.
Bruce is many things. Killer business man by day, a hero-vigilante-dark-knight by night, and a skilled fighter with an intelligent mind, but he is not an emotional person. He can't handle them well. Emotions scare him because they can hurt and he has no control over them. When I left I had hurt him badly so he was scared to trust me again, to let back in. Can't say I blame him. So I had to go real slow. Act like he was a wounded animal who needed tender and slow care. I had to thaw his feelings out.
All I got for my efforts were these confused, lost and bewildered looks before he covered them up with the indifference. So here we are now. In his office and he just admitted that he doesn't understand me anymore and he wants to know what I want from him.
Here it goes, all or nothing. I am tired of dancing around him and I want to see if I should even continue trying or should I accept that the best place I could get myself in his heart is a friend.
I take a deep breath before answering him and then say "Simple I want you." He only blinks after hearing that. I guess I really surprised him.
"Pardon?" he says in his husky voice, a confused frown marring his face.
"I mean I want you. As a lover, as a mate, as my partner in all things. I am in love with you and I want the things that people in love want to have with the people they are in love with" I said in a rush.
Confusing? Hell yes but that is how I felt about it. There is even more blinking from him and then his face is a blank page again. Shuttered and closed. I can't read a shit from it. Then there is the silence. Scorching smothering silence. Long silence. Oh shit what the hell have I just done? It was too soon. Bruce will kill me. Oh shit oh shit oh shit... Bruce is taking a deep breath. Oh shit here it comes I am about to be a dead man.
"So when is the first date?" he asks quietly in an unsure tone.
What? What did he just ask me? Did he mention a date? A date with me? Yess! Yess! Yess! Dick calm down, just calm down or you will scare him away. You heard the mans? voice. It's unsure. You have to make him feel more secure about this. This is a slow seduction, a very, very, very slow seduction.
So I do the only thing a man in my position can do. I give Bruce my most happy and relived smile and ask him:" How about this Friday?"
-The end-