DC – I am Batman

Her fingers were tracing the scar on his forearm.

The thin one from Kirigi's compound. A training knife that had gone deeper than the exercise called for because the student holding it overcommitted and he'd been too slow to pull clear. Stitched it himself on the floor of the training hall. He'd done a better job than Talia had at fourteen but he wasn't going to tell her that.

The room was dark. The brazier had died and the stone floor held the warmth it always had from the Lazarus depth below. The silk covers were ruined and pushed to the foot of the bed. Neither of them had put clothes on. The sweat from the two rounds had cooled and the room air was settling against his skin and her body against his side was the only warm thing left.

Her head was on his chest. Same spot she always chose, his left side, her ear over his heart. His arm around her shoulders. Her hair was tangled and dark against his skin and her legs were tangled with his and the mess from the sex was on both of them, drying, and neither of them had cleaned up and he didn't want to move because moving would mean getting up and getting up would mean starting the process of leaving.

Her hand had left his stomach to find the scar and her fingertip was following the raised line back and forth. A repetition that had no purpose except her hands needed to be doing something and he was the nearest surface. She'd done this the first night too. Different scar. Same habit.

"I speak seven languages," she said.

He waited.

"I still can't say it."

Her finger stopped on the scar. Pressed once. Continued.

"The letters you get. One of them has drawings."

He didn't tense. Didn't move. Just lay there with her head on his chest and his hand in her hair.

"Rabbits," she said. "On the envelopes. The one who draws rabbits."

"Zatanna."

"How many are there."

She meant women. Her voice was level.

"I don't know. Four. Five, maybe." He paused. "Not the way I care about you."

"That's not a reassurance."

"It wasn't supposed to be."

She didn't say anything for a while. Her finger was still on the scar. The room was quiet enough to hear the stone settling. Tiny shifts in the mountain's weight that you only heard when everything else stopped.

His hand was in her hair. The strands were tangled from the sex and the pillow and his fingers and she hadn't combed them and wasn't going to. He worked a knot loose near the base of her skull and she pressed into his hand.

"I can't own you," she said.

Her jaw was tight. Her voice steady. Her finger had stopped.

"No."

She exhaled. Slow. Her head turned slightly on his chest and her nose pressed against his skin and she breathed in.

"The one who draws rabbits. She loves you."

"Maybe."

"Women know." She'd read it off an envelope she'd never opened. "Is she kind?" Quiet.

"Yeah. She's kind."

The finger on his scar moved again. Once. Twice. Stopped.

"You think I'm not kind."

"I think you could kill everyone in this compound before breakfast and feel nothing."

"That's not what I asked."

"I think you packed my bag for me while I was asleep. Last time. You folded everything."

Her finger pressed on the scar. Hard enough to feel the ridge of the tissue underneath.

"That's not kindness. That's logistics."

"Sure."

She exhaled through her nose. Her breath was warm on his chest and her hand left the scar and her palm pressed flat against his skin, over his heart.

"Beloved."

Steady. Quieter than the corridor, quieter than the dark. His heartbeat under her hand.

"Come back."

"I promise."

The room was quiet after that. Her palm on his chest. His hand in her hair. The mountain settling around them, the tiny shifts in stone that sounded like breathing if you listened wrong.

A moth had gotten into the room. He could hear it hitting the silk over the window, soft taps, looking for the light that wasn't there anymore. Talia's breathing was slowing against his chest. Her finger was on the scar again, the tracing resumed, the same line back and forth. The motion getting slower as her body got heavier against his. Her hand stopped mid-trace and her breathing deepened and she was asleep with her finger still on the scar.

He lay there. His hand in her hair. The moth against the silk.

He didn't remember falling asleep. He remembered the dark and her hand on his chest and the stone settling and her breathing against his skin getting slower and then nothing, and then there was gray light in the room through the silk over the window and the gray was turning warm at the edges and she was moving.

The room was cold. The brazier was dead. The stone floor still held the Lazarus warmth but the air above the bed was mountain air now, cold enough that he could feel it on the skin that wasn't under her.

She climbed on top of him. Eyes closed.

Her hair hanging forward, messy from sleep and sex and not brushed and she didn't care. Her hands found his chest for balance. She settled her weight on his hips and his cock was hard, had been for a while probably, morning and proximity and the smell of her, and she reached between them without opening her eyes and guided him in and sank down.

Slow. Her weight taking him in an inch at a time. The wetness from the night was still there, dried on his thighs and hers, and fresh wet on top of it. She was swollen from two rounds and the first inch had resistance, a tightness that made her exhale through her nose, and then she opened and he sank deeper and the heat of her was softer than the night. Looser from the two rounds but still gripping, the muscles of her walls pulsing in a slow squeeze.

She made a sound when he bottomed out.

"Nn-"

Eyes still closed. Her weight settled. His cock buried in her, everything swollen and wet and used and tender.

She started moving.

Slow. Her hips rocking forward and back. Grinding. The angle found itself. His cock pressing the spot that made her jaw loosen and her mouth open and the "Nn-" came again, softer. He put his hands on her hips. Thumbs on the bones at the front. Her thighs warm and taut against his hips and the predawn light turning the room gold at the edges.

Her breasts moving with each slow rock. The weight shifting, nipples dark in the low light. Her stomach flexing. Lower, where they were connected, the wet mess of the night visible on both of them. His cock disappearing into her on each forward motion, the slick catching the first light from the window. The wet sound in the silent room. Quiet. Rhythmic.

The two rounds had left her sensitive. Her movements were smaller. The grinding concentrated, precise. She found the angle she wanted. Her hips tilted and his cock dragged against the front wall on the pull-back and she inhaled through her teeth and her pussy clenched. The rhythm changed. Tighter.

"Ah-"

Barely a whisper. Her mouth open. Her brow furrowing. Her hips moving and her pussy gripping and the wet sounds were the only sound in the room besides her breathing. His hands on her hips. Watching.

The light was coming in gold now. Her skin was gold. The mess on her thighs catching it. His hands on her hips dark against her. The connection point visible, her pussy stretched around him, wet, the evidence of the night on both of them. He watched her work the angle and his cock ached inside her and his hips wanted to move and he held still because this one was hers.

Her breathing shortened. Her hips slowed. The movements getting smaller, concentrating, her pussy tightening around him in a rhythm that was building. Her hands pressed harder on his chest. Her eyes were still closed. Her mouth was open. The sweat was on her upper lip and her collarbones and between her breasts. The scar moved with her breathing.

He pushed his hips up. A fraction. Enough to press deeper on her next forward rock.

A breath caught in her throat. Her pussy clenched hard and her back arched and she came.

Quiet. Slow. Deep clenching that pulsed around his cock in waves. Her thighs trembling. Her stomach tight. One tear fell from her closed left eye and ran down her cheek and off her jaw onto his chest. Her mouth open.

He held her hips through it. His thumbs on her bones. His cock deep inside her while her orgasm squeezed him in slow contractions and his own building behind hers, the pressure rising.

He came. Warm. Slow. Third time tonight. His hips pressing up and his hands tightening on her hips and his breath leaving and his eyes closing and the warmth of it inside her, adding to the mess, and his cock pulsing in her while she was still clenching around him.

When he opened them she was leaning forward. Her forehead found his chest. Her hair spread across his skin, tangled and damp at the ends. Her breathing was already evening out, deepening, and her hips had stopped and his cock was softening inside her and the wet was on both of them and the silk under them and the room smelled like jasmine and sex and warm stone and the gold light was making slow bars across the floor.

She was asleep.

On his chest. Her hands curled against his ribs. Her breathing slow and even. Her weight on him pressing him into the ruined silk. No door-watching. No knife-hand.

Asleep on his chest without checking the room first.

He put his hand on her back. Warm skin under his palm. The scar's ridge against the heel of his hand. Her ribs expanding under his fingers with each breath.

He started counting.

One. Two. Three. The gold bars on the floor had reached the bed frame. Her left hand twitched against his rib. Four. Five. Slow and deep and even.

Twelve. Thirteen. The gold was on the covers now.

He lost count somewhere around twenty. Didn't matter. He started over.

One. Two. Three.

Her hand twitched again. Her mouth against his chest, slightly open, her breath warm and damp on his skin. The scar was under his hand where his palm rested on her back. His cock had slipped out of her at some point and the wet was cooling on his thigh and neither of them had moved.

Four. Five.

He was leaving in a few hours.

Six.

He kept counting.