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Bruce’s face flickered in the Batcomputer’s polished chrome, a phantom of guilty heat superimposed over neon-green schematics of the witch’s dead language. Behind him, Dick—still Dick, he reminded himself—stood ten paces away, spine cracking as he stretched after hours slouched over dusty grimoires. The hiss and rustle of that borrowed black leotard pulling up one smooth juicy thigh scraped at Bruce’s nerves like a violin bow drawn across raw sinew. He clenched his jaw so tight a molar ground against its neighbor, the sound audible.
Jason’s snort cracked through the tension in the cave. He lounged cross-legged on a battered cot, one steel toed boot tapping out a lazy rhythm up onto the steel frame. “Look at him—her—whatever. That right there is pure Wayne–spankbank material. Legs for days, waist you could choke with one hand, tits bigger than your hopes and dreams and tragic-ex eye color to boot.”
Bruce's eyebrow twitched; his voice emerged as flat gravel. “Jason, be quiet.”
Dick’s laugh fluttered bright, oblivious. “You guys are disgusting. I’m not some walking collage of Bruce’s—” His borrowed soprano cracked. “—his hobbies.”
Damian’s cape snapped as he wheeled around, nostrils flaring like a cat sniffing vinegar. “You resemble my mother in anatomically exaggerated ways, Grayson. Cease breathing near me.”
Jason flopped backward onto the cot, dust motes swirling in the dim glow. “It’s the breathing that gets you, huh? Not that dear old dad over there keeps doing inventory checks every time Big Sis bends over?”
Bruce felt his pulse hammering at the base of his skull. He pivoted, cowl lenses narrowing, but Jason’s grin only widened—sharklike, merciless.
Dick planted his hands on those impossibly flared hips, fingertips pressing the spandex into little dimples. “I swear, if one more person implies I’m… ugh, I can’t even say it. Ew.”
At the holographic console, Tim’s fingers staccatoed across glowing keys. “Statistically, the resemblance is eighty-seven percent when you weight facial symmetry, height differential, and ocular hue. The only difference being the dramatic bust and buttock size—”
Dick exhaled through clenched teeth, his cheeks paling. “Great, even Timbert’s perving on me.”
Bruce’s gaze betrayed him again, trailing the black fabric as it perfectly cupped and and bounced each time Dick pivoted toward the screen. The cowl felt suddenly like a burial shroud; oxygen thinned around his lungs. He forced his stare onto a looping digital glyph, anything safer than the curve of that tantalizing back.
A boot jabbed his calf. Jason’s voice was a lazy drawl. “Earth to Gotham’s most repressed loser. You gonna keep mentally undressing Goldilocks, or help us undo evil Tinker Bell’s handiwork?”
Heat roared under Bruce’s Kevlar like a blast furnace. He told himself it was anger—just anger—and activated the Batcomputer’s next translation layer. Ancient Dacian text unfurled in calibri script across the monitors.
Dick leaned so close that his breasts brushed Bruce’s armored forearm, and Bruce’s heart skipped a beat. A wave of clean citrus scented shampoo hit him—Alfred’s guest-brand shampoo, now freighted with disastrous context.
“Got something?” Dick’s tone was curious, almost hopeful as he looked up at Bruce, blue eyes glimmering in the dark.
Bruce managed only a grunt, shuffling sideways like a crab to break contact. Decades of discipline were supposed to be weaponized against impulses like this. One hour of enchanted curves shouldn’t dismantle that. Yet each nerve in his body screamed traitor.
From the far corner came Damian’s hiss: “Someone restrain the harlot before I proceed to vomit.”
Jason cocked his head, cackling. “You mean before you accidentally call him Mommy?”
Steel scraped as Damian drew his katana halfway. Bruce snapped, “Enough.” His voice cut the room like snapped rebar.
The only sound left was the low hum of servers and the wet thud of blood in his ears.
He jabbed a finger at the glowing words on the screen. “We infiltrate the witch’s den at dawn, when the lunar angle matches the moment of transformation. Until then, nobody antagonizes anybody. Clear?”
Jason saluted with his middle finger. Damian glowered, sword still half drawn. Tim’s fingers never paused their tinkering. Dick crossed his arms under that impossible chest, lips quirking with a smirk that almost softened. “Sure thing, Bruce. Dawn. No antagonizing. Thanks for… you know, not making this weirder than it already is.”
Bruce’s throat tightened. He offered a curt nod and slipped into the weapons locker under the pretense of inventory checks. Inside that narrow alcove, he pressed his forehead to cold metal racks, eyes closed, cataloguing his sins. Behind his eyelids he still saw those curves, heard laughter that might have been Selina’s—or Talia’s, or Zatanna’s—but was undeniably Dick’s, which made it all the more unbearable for reasons he could never confront.
He inhaled once, twice, steadying breaths that did nothing to cool the fire in his chest. When he opened his eyes, Jason was leaning in the doorway, smirk gone, cool brown eyes sharp.
“For what it’s worth,” Jason murmured, voice low, “I get it. But if you don’t stop eye-fucking him, I’m gonna kick you in the balls—and I’d really prefer not to have make contact with your saggy geriatric ballsack.”
Bruce answered with a silent angry glare. Jason shrugged and melted back into the dark.
Alone, Bruce allowed himself one ragged exhale, then straightened, clicking utility compartments into place with mechanical precision. Dawn would come. The spell would break. Order would reassert itself. Until then, he would endure—and pray Alfred never discovered the wrinkled, ruined pair of boxers he’d had to dispose of after Dick, stranded by the Batmobile’s cramped backseat, was forced to sit on his lap for the ride back to the cave.