#he keeps pushin it. he goes on for months and i just ignore him.

[lloyds-department-archive]

I made someone cry today /srs

[thebigbadbatswife]

Pushin’ Me Away

Summary - Y/N and Bruce Wayne have been dating for a year now, but recently he’s started pushing her away. Convinced he’s cheating on her, she goes to Wayne Manor to confront him, but ends up discovering more than she bargained for.

Warning(s) - Please only read if you are 18+, angst, smut, dirty talk, rough sex, fingering, batsuit kink, fluffy ending

Word Count - 2.7k

You and Bruce had been going out for the past year and it had been great. He was sweet and kind and caring. Nothing like the tabloids that had led you to believe. Constantly surprising you with flowers and gifts, taking you out on dates and the sex. Oh god the sex. It was absolutely phenomenal. Until recently that was.

In the past couple of months he only seemed interested in shoving you away. He was always busy. Late nights at the office, he claimed, but the last couple of times you hadn’t been able to reach his cell and called the office, you found out that he wasn’t actually there. Every question was deflected, he was no longer taking you out or surprising you and the sex had completely stopped. Every time you had tried to initiate it, he pulled away, said he was tired and that he needed to be up early.

At first all of it had confused you. Had you done something to cause him to push you away? And if so, why wouldn’t he just talk to you about it? After a lot of thinking, you eventually came to a conclusion. It wasn’t you that had done anything wrong, it was Bruce. He had to be cheating on you. It was the only thing that made sense. Not that you were surprised. You were so mundane compared to the other women he dated, it was only a matter of time before he got bored. It turned out he was exactly like the tabloids had described him. And it broke your heart.

You felt so stupid. You had actually fallen for him and thought you two could have a future. Everyone around you that had warned you about him had been right. He didn’t give two fucks about you and probably never did.

You had spent the entire night crying after your realisation. Curled up on the sofa under a blanket, eating a tub of ice cream and watching bad comedy films. As the credit started to roll on the third movie and you hit the bottom of your second tub you decided that you weren’t going to sit around and feel sorry for yourself. You were going to confront the bastard before walking out of his life for good.

Sure it was nearly three in the morning, but you didn’t care anymore. He thought he could cheat on you and get away with it? He had another thing coming! You set the empty tub aside and got up from the sofa. You headed toward your bedroom, got dressed and left your apartment.

As you pulled up to the Manor, you saw a couple of lights on through the windows. At least you knew he was home. You got out of your car and walked up the front steps. You were about to hit the doorbell when you noticed the door slightly ajar. You gently pushed it open and entered the Manor. You walked around the place to find it completely empty. No sign of Bruce or his butler, Alfred. Maybe this had been a mistake.

You were about to leave when you noticed the time on the broken grandfather clock in the hall had changed. Curious you walked over to it. Every time you had come to the Manor, the clock had always been stuck on the same time, midnight. Now it read 10:47pm. Upon further examination, you discovered a gap between the clock and the wall. You could feel a cold breeze coming from the gap. You went to move the clock when you got the feeling that you shouldn’t be there and that you should leave. If you had been anyone else, maybe you would have. Instead you shook the feeling away and continued to move the clock.

The clock moved surprisingly easily and you were now standing in front of a dark staircase that led down. The feeling from a few minutes ago came back even stronger, but you continued to ignore it as you took a deep breath and started your way down.

A million different thoughts ran through your head as you carefully followed the staircase down into the Earth. Was Bruce a serial killer? The documentaries you had watched on killers came to mind and it was almost always the good looking, charismatic ones. Or maybe this was one of those creepy sex dungeons that rich people supposedly kept. You’d find out soon enough

It wasn’t long before you started to hear voices. It was Alfred and Bruce and they were discussing… You?

  “Master Bruce, I really think you should tell her. If you keep this up I fear you might lose her.” Alfred said as he set the tray he was carrying onto the desk. On the tray was a cup of piping hot tea and a plate of cookies.

“If it keeps her safe, is that really such a bad thing?” he asked as he took one of the cookies.

“I just think you’ll regret it sir.”

“What makes you say that Alfred?” Alfred took a deep breath.

“I’ve just never seen anyone make you happy quite like she does.”

Not that he would say it out loud, but Bruce knew Alfred was right about that. It was no secret that he had been with his fair share of women, but none of them had made him feel the way he did with you. With you he didn’t need fake smiles and to pretend he was someone else. Nor did he need his flashy cars and expensive jewels. He could just be himself around you… or as much as possible without actually revealing the mask he wore most nights.

When your relationship had started to get serious, he thought of telling you. He got the feeling that he could tell you anything and you would accept him. At the same time though, he thought of the enemies he had made and if any one of them found out about you, the untold danger it would put you in. So he didn’t. He kept silent and hoped that you wouldn’t leave. But in recent months crime rates in Gotham had skyrocketed and his promise to the city, to his parents, had meant he had neglected your relationship quite a bit.

He wanted to take you out on dates and shower you in attention, but with his long nights, no sleep and long days at Wayne ENT, he didn’t have the energy. And he wanted to have sex with you. Why wouldn’t he? You were gorgeous and it was mind blowing, but he couldn’t risk you seeing the bruises across his body. If you saw them then he would have to come clean about his nightly activities and he couldn’t put you in danger like that. He wouldn’t put you in danger like that.

At the same time, he also knew there was only so much you could take. If things kept going the way they were, you were going to leave. He knew Alfred was right about that. Bruce was about to reply to him when he noticed his butler staring at something. He followed his gaze and felt himself froze when he saw what, or rather who, had caught Alfred’s attention. It was you. You had found the cave.

Before he had a chance to say anything, you had already taken off back up the stairs. One look at his butler told him everything he needed to know. Alfred had left the cave’s entrance open, on purpose. Bruce took off after you, but thanks to the injuries he had sustained that night he was slower than he would have been. By the time he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear your car already leaving the Manor’s grounds.

He stormed back down into the cave, grabbed his cowl off the desk and headed for the batmobile. He had no idea what he was going to say to you, only that he needed to catch up to you.

Okay so Bruce wasn’t cheating on you. That was a relief. At the same time though, what he was actually doing was somehow so much worse. Being cheated on, you at least knew how to deal with that. Him being Batman? You had no idea what to do with that information. It was times like this you really wished Bruce came with a manual.

You opened the door to your apartment and as you locked it, out of the corner of your eye, you saw something move. Of course he had followed you, why wouldn’t he? But you didn’t want to see him, not right now. You needed to digest what you had seen, to decide what you wanted now that you knew his secret. You went to unlock the door and leave when a gloved hand on your arm stopped you.

You immediately escaped his grasp and backed away from him. He was still in his batsuit and he held his cowl in his other hand. He went to walk toward you, but when you backed away further he stopped. Neither of you knew what to say so you stood there in silence, just staring at each other. Eventually the words came to you.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I wanted to, but how could I put you in danger like that?” You scoffed.

“Danger? Did you ever stop to think that dating Gotham’s wealthiest man has already put me in danger?!” It was the truth. Ever since your relationship had become public, the amount of death threats from jealous women, and men, had been ridiculous. And with the amount of psychos out in the world anyone of them could act on their threats. The silence that came from Bruce told you that he knew you were right.

You two stood there in silence again. As much as you wanted to stay angry at him, you couldn’t. You actually loved the thought that he had been trying to protect you. It was more than anyone else had ever done for you in your life. Sighing, you started to walk over to him. You stopped once you were right before him.

Bruce watched you warily as your fingers gently traced the symbol on his chest. Your fingers slowly moved away from the symbol and to his face. They ghosted over his black eye and moved down to his split lip. He looked like an absolute mess, but he was your mess.

You stepped back from him. There was something you wanted to see.

“I want to see you with your cowl on.” He looked at you for a moment before putting it on. Despite knowing he would never hurt you, you couldn’t help, but feel a little bit of the fear that the criminals he faced must feel. The fear factor aside, you couldn’t deny that he looked rather sexy in that suit. Especially with how it clung to all the right places on him.

You stepped forward. With your hands on his chest, you leaned up and kissed him. He kissed you back fervently, his hands coming up to rest on your waist. After a minute, you broke the kiss and pulled away from his embrace, before headed for your bedroom. When you realised he wasn’t following, you stopped at the doorway and looked back over at him.

“Aren’t you coming, Batman?” you asked in your sultriest voice. After months of him lying to you, you figured he owed you this much.

By the time Bruce… Batman had reached your bedroom, you were already in the process of removing your clothes. Your shoes, coat and top were already on the floor and you were about to start on your jeans when you felt his strong muscular arms wrap around you. He started by kissing your jawline, slowly moving down to your neck. As he kissed you, his hands roamed your body. While one of his hands moved up to your breasts, the other one found its way in between your legs. You gasped and your hips bucked involuntary as he rubbed you through your jeans.

He chuckled darkly before moving his hand away. You whined at the loss, but you didn’t have to complain for long as he spun you around and pushed you onto the bed. You sat up on your elbows as you watched in him stalk over to you, not unlike a predator would do to its prey. He removed your bra and made quick work of your jeans and panties.

After discarding his gauntlets, Batman leaned over you and pinned your hands above your head. He groaned against your neck as his free hand slipped between your legs and he discovered how wet you already were.

“Already so wet for me? How long have you wanted this baby?” Before you had a chance to respond, he was pushing his fingers into you causing you to cry out. As he relentlessly pumped his fingers in and out of you, he left hickeys all over your body.

As you came down from your third orgasm, he let go of your hands and pulled away. Your body felt far too weak for you to sit up and see what he was up to now. Not that you needed to as you could clearly hear the sounds of him removing his suit.

He leant back over you and you discovered he had removed everything, but his mask. You smiled and wrapped your arms around his neck so you could pull him down for a kiss. As you two kissed, he slowly pushed into you and you gasped against his lips. Once he was fully inside, he stilled and began to gently kiss your neck as you adjusted to his size. After all it had been awhile.

“You’re so tight baby.” he groaned against your neck. Once you had adjusted, you wrapped your legs around his hips and moved your own hips, to let him know you were ready.

Batman slowly pulled out of you before slamming straight back into you. Your nails dug into his back and you moaned loudly as he set a hard and fast pace. Each thrust brought you closer and closer to the edge. Your neighbours were going to kill you for being so loud, but you couldn’t care less. It had been so long since he had last fucked you, you’d be damned if you didn’t relish in it.

He moved one of his hands from its position by the side you of your head and brought it between your legs and started to play with your clitoris.

“Batman!” you cried as he pushed you over the edge. Feeling you tighten around him was more than enough to trigger his own orgasm so you came together.

He gently pulled out of you as you came down from your high. You felt him leave the bed, but before you could mourn his lost he was back with a damp cloth to clean you up with. Once he was done cleaning you up, he discarded the cloth and pulled you up to the pillows, where he pulled the duvet over the both of you and brought you in close to his body. You reached up and he lowered his head so you could remove his cowl.

Now that you were no longer distracted you could see the bruises that covered his torso. Clearly seeing the concern in your eyes, Bruce caressed your face and gently tilted your face upward toward him. “I’m fine.” he said before he leant in and kissed your cheek.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I’ve got you in my arms haven’t I?” You smiled and gave him another kiss. “I love you so much Y/N.”

You pulled away from him as you both realised what he had just said.

“I’m sorry, you what?” you asked.

“I love you, Y/N. I have done for a while now.” A big smile spread across your face as his words sunk in. He loved you. Bruce Wayne loved you!

“I love you too, Bruce.” Because of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Despite the earlier lying and pushing you away, he was amazing in every way. After a couple more kisses, you both fell asleep wrapped up in each others’ arms.

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 25

Table of Contents

The colonial ghoul leaned down to peer at his friend under the stairs.

"Heard I might find ya here."

Geek put a candy wrapper to mark his spot as he closed the Beat book.

"Gave ya some space,” Hancock said, “but I wanted to make sure you were all right after that." He gestured at Geek's leg. "Got into a scrap since we parted company earlier, I see."

No longer oblivious to the injury, the pink ghoul instead ignored it.

"Mind if I join you?” Hancock pulled up a folding chair from nearby. He smiled as he sat, and wagged a vague finger at the holiday ornamentation. “Heh, where'd you even find this thing?"

"Back room. Seemed like a good idea at the time." Geek laid down all the way and glanced up dully at the tree from around the steamer trunk. The bubble lights dazzled his hangover. "Y'can imagine it ain't easy to keep somethin' like this at the vault."

"Imagine not. About the vault..." Hancock slouched with a sigh. "I respect that you're not telling me everything about your folks. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not asking you to. I get it, if there's things you don't want to say, or... can't. What I'm trying to say is, I'm not forcing ya to go out there if you're not ready."

"It makes me sound like an asshole, to say I'm not."

"No, it just makes it clear to me that it’s not just a moral obligation, to take home what you've learned."

"--Here, this book." He sprawled out on his elbows at the foot of the tree, and held open the pages as he thumbed back a few to find an exact part:

" 'An' that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was--I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearin' the hiss a steam outside, and the creak f'the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceilin' and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. Wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.' "

Geek rolled over on his side in the floor, facing away from Hancock, and shut his eye. The hoodlum ghoul picked up the book and eyed the page his friend had had it open to, then shut the wrapper back in it and set it under the tree.

"Damn, is Daisy's taste outright uncanny some days. Goodneighbor is a fine place to find yourself, and separate your you-ness from your ghosts."

Though Geek curled up tighter under the tree, he mentally unclenched when he could tell Hancock had no intention of grilling him.

"Thought I could take my mind off of my problems with the book. But, I can't run from myself any more than you can, I guess. Or anybody. I just. I been up top about a month now. Compare that to how long I stayed in 82. Two centuries, a month feels like two minutes in a day. Two minutes. An' I already gotta go back so soon after I got out? ...Feels like survivor guilt, Hancock. Feels bad. Real bad."

"Come on now, don't be like that. I get where you're coming from. That kind of trip takes time to stock up and prepare for, either way. And not just physically. Traveling the open road has a profound effect on a fellow." Hancock leaned down and smirked at him. "Besides, isn't this all business we're talking? You're supposed to be taking a break from all this shit."

Geek glanced over his shoulder at Hancock, then at length eyed a low branch of the tree.

"You do know you're under a piece of mistletoe, right."

Hancock turned just enough to inspect a broken glass-blown ornament on the bough he was nearest, and slyly grinned back down to Geek.

"And what might that mean?"

"It might mean I'm bullshitting you for a kiss," Geek mumbled. "Mistletoe goes over your head, not on a tree. And... y'stand under it, hopin'... somebody might take a hint..."

"You trying to tell me, you want me to get down under this dusty relic to lie in the floor with another dusty relic?" Hancock oozed coolly out of the chair to comply. "Suppose I can do that." A moment of thoughtful silence transpired as they each, on his back, glanced up into the guts of the technicolor tree. "So... what are we doing under here? --Man, brother, just imagine being under one of these things riding a hit of Jet!"

Geek’s face fumbled, but he turned onto his left side to draw Hancock by the cheek to face him, to firmly kiss him. Hancock approved of being shut up in such a fashion, and returned the building ardor, the first to part his mouth and let his tongue join in. His hat spilled off and the two broke into chuckling as they adhered to one another in a mess of wandering hands.

Fooling around brought to the pink ghoul’s attention all the sundry of scrapes and bruises his afternoon’s activities had apportioned him. There were more bullet wounds than he remembered; he wondered how many Triggermen he’d exterminated. Yet, rather than complain about it, he got off his battered shoulder and straddled Hancock. A dumb smile crossed his face, and he sniffed to hide a wince as he gazed endearingly at him.

The colonial ghoul’s smile soon melted, his marred features neutral with attention. When Geek didn’t understand, Hancock pursed his lips and licked at them.

“You’re... sweating again. You feel as bad as you look?”

Geek got off of him and sat on his knees in the floor. The gloves came off, producing clammy, crusty palms. He fished out from his coveralls a futile work rag, which first wiped down his face, then wrung over and over between his hands. The rag proved somewhat useless, so he took a testing lap at his fingers. When the saliva seemed to help dispatch the bizarre substance, he spat into his hands and worked the spit and metal salts into the rag.

He hoped his companion hadn’t noticed his trembling all the while.

“Yeah... I... I guess you could say y’got me sweatin’, hah. I... I should, I should get back on the contract I took earlier. Oh-- Only a third a the way done.”

Geek stood. Hancock grabbed his ankle and glared up at him from the floor.

“--Hey. You’re not goin’ anywhere without those injuries seen to. I know you need to get a lot of different things out of your system right now, but you’re pushin’ yourself too hard. Take a tic to breathe, Geek. You might’a just come back from the brink of death, but you’re not bulletproof, my man.”

The tension in Geek’s posture melted into resignation as he met Hancock’s black eyes with hollowness in his own. The ichorous, iridescent sweat continued trickling down his face.

“If I slow down, I can’t keep my brain quiet.”

“...Here...” Hancock kept his grip on Geek, unsure whether his friend might still sprint off, and dug with his free hand in his waistcoat’s inner pocket. He produced a red-ampuole inhaler and offered it up. “You look like you could use this.” Geek looked evenly at it, but didn’t accept the gift. “It’s Jet. Just a laced dose. Hallucinogen, but it works a lot like a downer for me. I’m right here with ya if you’re worried it’ll make things weird.”

The pink ghoul sat down in the floor again, legs crossed, and sighed.

“I never messed with it before the war,” he mumbled, “but I’ve heard lots about it. Sounds like weed, but stronger. This what you been takin’ hits of while we traveled?”

“Yeahhh.” Hancock turned to laze on his side, facing Geek as he propped his head up in one hand. He fidgeted with the chem. “Keeps me mellow when I need mellowing. A great distraction, if you ask me. Laced out, it lasts longer, but it’s not as potent. Might help you better than more liquor.”

Geek took the inhaler from his friend, not wanting him to think he didn’t trust him after what had happened with the Psycho before. When he accepted it, he could read similar worry on Hancock’s bated breath, so he absently patted the delinquent ghoul’s knee.

“You’ll stay here with me, then?” I don’t want to be alone.

“Absolutely.” I don’t want to leave you alone.

The relic thought to himself, I really oughtta figure a better way to shut up my head. But, today’s not the day for it. He laid down beside Hancock again, and shot him a fleeting glance before letting out a breath and mouthing the actuator. He depressed the canister and took in the murky, bitter vapor. And with a slow, reeling exhale through his split nostrils, he found himself staring up into the Christmas tree, lost in the kaleidoscope of lights which captivated just as readily as his demons.