DC – I am Batman

She found him on the balcony after dinner.

The bruise on his ribs had gone from purple to a greenish brown in three days. Too fast. He'd stopped looking at it. The cut above his ear had closed. His forearms were still tender but the swelling was down and he could wrap his hands without wincing. His body kept fixing itself faster than anyone kept hitting it.

The valley was blue in the dusk. Cold air coming up from below, carrying the sound of a stream running over rocks. Stars appearing in stages, the bright ones first, the rest filling in. He could see his breath.

Talia stopped beside him at the railing. Armor off. The green robe from her chambers, the one she wore when she wasn't being anyone's soldier or anyone's daughter. Braid loose. Jasmine.

She didn't say anything for a while. They stood there. The valley got darker.

"The League has resources," she said. "Infrastructure. Networks on four continents. Three hundred years of institutional knowledge. An army."

She was looking at the valley.

"My father is building toward an offer. I'd prefer you hear it from me first."

"What's the offer."

"Stay." She turned to face him. The robe had shifted and the corridor light behind them caught the line of her collarbone and the scar she'd shown him in the dark. "Lead this beside me. When the time comes."

Her eyes were steady. Her mouth set. She'd rehearsed this. The presentation, at least. The composure. The stillness of her hands on the railing. She'd decided what this moment would look like and she was performing it and the performance was nearly perfect except that her left hand was gripping the stone hard enough that the tendons showed.

She was twenty-three and she'd been raised to think this was how you kept someone. Resources. Power. An army and a dynasty and her standing next to him.

He put his hand on her face. Thumb on her cheekbone, fingers along her jaw. The same hold she'd put on his wrist the first night to check his pulse, except this was his hand on her skin and he was touching her while he said no.

"I can't stay."

Her eyes closed. When they opened they were wet and she was furious about the wet and her jaw worked under his hand.

"That doesn't mean I don't want to."

The stream below the mountain. The last of the light going out of the valley. Cold air on his arms.

She grabbed his shirt. Both fists. Pulled.

Her chambers. Door locked. The hairpins falling on the stone floor as they moved from the corridor to the bed, one and then another, the braid coming apart. She was pulling his shirt over his head before they reached the mattress.

She kissed him hard. Teeth. Her tongue in his mouth and her hands flat on his chest pushing him backward and her hands were shaking. The jasmine and underneath it her skin and underneath that the heat of her and his cock was hard already, had been since the balcony, since her eyes opened wet and her jaw worked under his hand.

She got him on the bed. Climbed on top. Grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head, thumbs on the inside where the tendons ran. Proper leverage. Trained-strong. She was looking down at him and her hair was falling around her face, dark and loose, and her mouth was a hard line and her eyes were bright and the robe was open and her breasts were bare and she was grinding against him through his pants and feeling how hard he was and her breath caught.

"Stay," she said.

He broke her grip. His wrists came free and her hands went wide and her eyes went wide because she'd measured him, logged the density, and the density had changed. His hands were on her hips and he sat up and flipped them. Her back hit the mattress and his weight was on her and she gasped, the air knocked out with the surprise of it, and her hair spread on the pillow and her robe fell open and her legs opened under him.

His mouth against her ear. His lips on the skin.

"I'm leaving. Not leaving you."

She pulled at his pants. He pulled at her robe. The fabric went and then skin on skin and her legs opening wider and she was wet, had been since the balcony, and when he reached between them and positioned himself and pushed in fast she screamed.

Raw. Loud. The sound hit the stone walls and came back. She didn't cover her mouth.

He pulled back. Drove in again. Hard. Her back arched off the bed and her hands found his shoulders and her nails sank in.

"Don't- ah- don't you dare-"

He thrust again. Deep. The wet grip of her tight around him on every stroke and the heat of her inside, hotter than the first time, her body clenching harder with every push.

"Ah- Bruce- ah-"

He set a pace. His hips snapping against hers. The sound of it filling the room, skin on skin, the wet squelch of her getting louder. Her voice cracking on every impact.

"You can't- nn- just-"

She couldn't finish it. He didn't want her to.

Her pussy gripping him on every stroke, the squeeze of it involuntary. Her legs wrapped around his hips pulling him deeper and her nails were in his shoulders and the sting was specific, four lines being scored into his back, and the green robe was bunched under her and the brazier was low and the room smelled like jasmine and sex and he was fucking her and the sounds she was making had nothing to do with anger anymore.

"Ah- ah- right there- right- ah-"

Her thighs shaking. Her stomach flexing under him. Her skin slick with sweat now, both of them, the sheen of it catching the low light. The wet sounds between them getting louder, wetter, and her face going red because she could hear it.

He pushed up on his arms. Looked down at her. Her hair dark against the white pillow and her mouth open and her eyes screwed shut and tears running sideways into her hair and her breasts rocking with every thrust and her stomach flexing and her hands sliding from his shoulders to his back.

"Bruce-"

His name in a voice he hadn't heard from her before. Her pussy clenching harder, the rhythm of it speeding up, her hips rocking up to meet him without pattern. Her left hand fisted in the sheet beside her head and the tendons in her wrist showed the same way they'd showed on the balcony railing. Her jaw open. Her breathing ragged.

He lowered himself. Kissed her. Mouth over hers. Her scream went into him. Her back arched and her legs locked around his waist and her pussy clenched around his cock in hard spasms, pulsing, and she was coming into his mouth and her fists were against his back and the sound was muffled and raw and he swallowed it.

He kept moving through it. Slower. Her body twitching under him, oversensitive, her legs loosening. He thrust twice more and came inside her with his forehead against her temple and his breath ragged against her ear and his hips stuttering to a stop buried in her.

Breathing. Both of them. The room quiet except for that.

She held him. Both arms around his back. His weight still on her, still inside her. Her face turned into his neck and her breathing slowing.

He didn't try to move. His arms braced on either side of her head. His ribs aching from the fight three days ago. His shoulders stinging where she'd scored them. Her heartbeat against his chest, fast, slowing.

The brazier crackled. The silk hanging over the window moved in a draft. Outside, the valley was dark.

He kissed her temple. Salt on his lips where the tears had dried.

She loosened her grip. An inch.

He pulled out. Slow. She made a sound, small, and bit her bottom lip. He lay down beside her. Her hand found his stomach, flat, palm down. The same spot as always.

He rolled onto his side. She was on her back, eyes on the ceiling, hair spread on the pillow. The robe was on the floor. The room was warm and the sweat was cooling on both of them and her chest was rising and falling and the scar was visible. The thin line from below her left breast along the bottom of her ribcage.

He leaned down and kissed it. Slow. Mouth on the raised line.

She inhaled. Her hand pressed on his stomach.

He kissed along the scar's length. The same path from the first night. Her ribs expanding under his lips. At the midpoint she made the sound.

"Nn-"

He came back up. She was looking at him. Her eyes dark and open. Her jaw loose.

He settled between her thighs. His cock was hard again. The wetness from the first round was on both of them, slick between her thighs, and when he pushed the head of his cock against her she was swollen and hot and she flinched when he pushed in. Sensitivity from the first time. Then she opened and he slid in slowly and her mouth fell open and the sound that came out was quiet and raw.

"Stay here."

His mouth close to hers. His hips flush against hers, all the way in, not moving. Her breath warm on his lips.

Her eyes on his.

He pulled back. Slow. Pushed in. Slow. The wet slide of it loud in the quiet room. Her breath catching at the bottom of the stroke. Her hands on his back, palms flat.

"Stay here."

She held his gaze. Her face open, younger. Her legs came up around him. Holding.

He kept the pace slow. Watching her face. Each thrust deep and full and her body receiving him with no resistance, just the grip of her tightening in slow waves. The sweat cooling on his back. The jasmine fading under the smell of sex and salt.

"Stay here."

Third time. Her eyes were wet. She nodded. Small.

He kissed her. Slow. His hips still moving. Her mouth soft under his. Her hands sliding up his back to his shoulders, holding. The wet sounds between them and her breathing through her nose because her mouth was on his and she was making sounds into the kiss, soft and broken.

"Ah- nn-"

He slowed further. Almost stopping at the bottom of each stroke. Holding deep inside her. Her pussy gripping him in slow waves and her thighs trembling against his sides and her stomach flexing against his.

"Beloved."

The word cracked. Be-loved. Her voice raw from the screaming and this barely a whisper and it broke in the middle and her eyes were open and wet and looking at him.

He moved. Slow. Deep. Her body clenching around him. Her mouth open. Tears falling sideways.

"Bruce-"

His name. Whispered. Her eyes open.

He pushed deep. Held. Her left hand gripped his shoulder and the tendons showed. Her legs tightened and her pussy clenched and she came looking at him. Quiet. No scream. Her mouth open on nothing, her back arching an inch, her eyes open and wet and locked on his, the clenching pulsing around him in slow deep waves.

He pressed his forehead to hers. Stayed deep. Her orgasm pulling him over. He came inside her, slow, his hips pressed to hers, and his breath left him and for a few seconds there was nothing except her around him and under him and the warmth.

Still inside her. Forehead to hers. Her hands on his back.

He started to pull out. Her legs tightened. Her heels on his lower back, pulling, keeping.

"Don't."

He didn't.

His weight on her. Still inside her. Her hands flat on his back. Forehead to forehead. The brazier almost out. The jasmine and the sex and the sweat cooling and the silk ruined underneath them.

Her eyes closed. The tears had dried on her temples. Her breathing evening out, dropping toward sleep. She was still holding him inside her, her legs loose now but still wrapped. Her hand on his back heavy and warm and relaxing.

He lay there. Inside her. Her breath against his mouth.

He wasn't leaving her. Just the mountain.