Chapter 1: The Choice: Dominance or Devotion
The air in the Batcave had changed. It used to smell of ozone, machine oil, and damp stone. Now, beneath the hum of servers and the distant drip of water, there were other notes: the clean, surgical bite of high-end cologne, the musk of sweat, and the deep, oily scent of polished leather.
Not all of it was for costumes.
“He’s been watching, you know.”
Chris’s voice was a low, conversational purr from the console’s leather chair. He spun it slowly, one knee crossed over the other, his gaze fixed not on the bank of monitors but on the center of the cave.
Bruce Wayne stood rigid, the cowl casting his lower face in shadow, but the tension in his jaw was a carved line of stone. He wasn’t looking at Chris. He was staring at the figure kneeling on the polished concrete floor where the Bat-symbol was inlaid.
Nightwing.
Or what was left of him. His mask was gone, ripped clean off. It lay discarded near a rack that once held Batarangs and now held things of a different, more intimate nature. Dick Grayson’s face was pale, sheened with sweat, his eyes wide and unfocused. A sleek band of violet-lit alloy was locked around his throat, its faint hum the loudest sound in the room. His hands were bound behind him with thin, brutal cord that bit into his wrists. Every shift made him wince.
“I’m not talking about the obvious watching,” Chris continued, rising. He moved with a fluid, predatory grace that seemed to absorb the cave’s shadows. He was in his early thirties, fit, dressed in simple dark trousers and a shirt rolled to the elbows. He looked like he belonged in a boardroom, not here. That was part of the disorientation. “The hero worship, the sidekick heroics. That’s surface stuff. I mean watching.”
He stopped behind Dick, placing a casual hand on his shoulder. Dick flinched.
“All those years in those tight little uniforms. The acrobatics. The trust falls.” Chris’s fingers traced the line of Dick’s collarbone. “He didn’t just want to be you, Bruce. He wanted you to see him.”
Bruce’s voice was a growl, strained through the modulator. “Let him go.”
“Or what?” Chris chuckled, a warm, genuine sound that was utterly wrong in this context. “You’ll fight me? We’ve done that. You lose. Every time. This isn’t about fighting anymore. This is about seeing. It’s about honesty.”
He walked around to face Dick, cupping his chin, forcing his head up. “Look at him.Really look. See how pretty he looks begging? And he hasn’t even said a word yet.”
Dick’s eyes, bright with pain and humiliation, flickered to Bruce. There was a plea there, but beneath it, a terrifying, shameful flicker of something else. Chris was right. Bruce had seen it for years, a current running under all their interactions, and he had built a fortress of discipline and denial to ignore it.
“You built this whole... myth,” Chris said, gesturing broadly at the cave. “To punish a little boy for being scared in an alley.Fine. But you filled it with pretty, devoted boys, didn’t you? And you made them dance.”
He turned his attention back to Bruce, his expression one of almost clinical interest. “The guilt is eating you alive. It’s your real power source. Not the rage. The guilt. I’m just offering a different outlet.”
Chris took Bruce’s wrist. Bruce could have broken the grip. He should have. His muscles coiled, a spring of immense power ready to release. But something froze him. The hum of the collar. The rawness on Dick’s face. Chris’s utter, unshakable certainty.
He guided Bruce’s gloved hand forward.
“Don’t,” Dick breathed, the first word he’d spoken. It was strangled.
“See?” Chris smiled. “He doesn’t mean it.”
Bruce’s fingertips, black kevlar, brushed the hollow of Dick’s throat. He felt the frantic pulse there, a trapped bird beating against his touch. He felt the warmth of his skin, the vibration of the collar. Dick shuddered, a full-body tremor, and his eyes squeezed shut.
“Your loyal little bird,” Chris whispered, his mouth close to Bruce’s ear, his voice intimate, “he’s spent his whole life wanting you to acknowledge this. Wanting you to want him back. Not as a soldier. As this.”
Chris’s hand covered Bruce’s, pressing it flat against Dick’s throat. Not choking. Claiming.
“So claim him,” Chris said, the warmth vanishing from his voice, replaced by cold steel. “Or I’ll dial this collar up past ‘training mode’ and make sure he never flies again. His choice. Yours.”
The cave was silent except for three sets of ragged breathing. The violet light from the collar pulsed, a slow, menacing heartbeat. It reflected in the sheen on Dick’s lowered lashes, in the abyss of Bruce’s cowl, in the cool approval of Chris’s eyes.
Bruce’s hand remained. The weight of it, the implication, was a heavier chain than any in the cave. He was not looking at Nightwing, his partner. He was looking at Dick. At the vulnerability he had sworn to protect but had somehow cultivated. The desire he had fostered but never admitted.
Chris took a slow step back, giving them the stage. His smile was faint, satisfied. The first wall had crumbled. Not with force, but with a terrible, resonant truth.
Dick opened his eyes. They were clear now, stripped of every pretense. They held fear, yes. But also a desperate, devastating hope.
Bruce’s thumb moved. Just a millimeter. A stroke along the tendon of Dick’s neck.
It was an answer.
A choked sob escaped Dick, part relief, part surrender, part grief for a simpler world that was gone forever.
From his retreat by the console, Chris reached for a small, sleek remote. He didn’t press a button. He simply set it down on the leather, a silent promise. The lesson for tonight was over. The foundation was laid.
“Good,” Chris said softly, to both of them, to the new, terrible understanding thickening the air between them. “Now we can begin the real work.”
The hum of the collar seemed to grow louder in the silence following Chris’s words. Bruce’s hand remained on Dick’s throat, a connection that was neither comforting nor violent, but something terrifyingly new. The touch was a verdict.
“Look at me, Dick,” Bruce said, his voice stripped of the modulator’s growl, just a man’s voice, rough and exhausted.
Dick’s blue eyes, swimming with confusion and a shattered pride, lifted to meet his. There was no mask for either of them now.
“Good,” Chris said from his vantage point. He sounded pleased, a teacher observing a successful first step. “Now you see each other. Now, we move forward. Dick.”
His name, spoken in that calm, imperative tone, made Dick flinch.
“Turn around.”
Dick hesitated. Bruce saw the rebellion flicker in his eyes, the lifetime of training screaming to fight, to resist. Then his gaze darted to the remote on the console. His shoulders slumped. He shuffled on his knees, the movement awkward with his hands bound, turning his back to Bruce until he was facing the dark mouth of the cave tunnels.
“Further,” Chris instructed, his voice lazy. “Position yourself. You know how.”
A tremor ran through Dick’s entire frame. He swallowed hard, the collar bobbing against his Adam’s apple. Slowly, painfully, he leaned forward, settling onto his hands and knees. He kept his head bowed, his back a tense, elegant line in the blue-black suit.
“Present,” Chris said, and the word was both a command and a critique.
Dick shifted his weight, his posture becoming one of crude exposure, his ass raised towards Bruce. The fabric of the Nightwing suit stretched taut. Every muscle in his body was wired, vibrating with humiliation. Bruce stared, his own breath trapped in his lungs. The iconic symbol, the uniform he had helped design, was now a frame for this violation. It was a dismantling of everything.
Chris walked over, his shoes whispering on the stone. He stopped beside Bruce, following his gaze. “He’s always had a dancer’s form. So graceful. Even now.” He let that hang. “Your turn. Rip it open.”
Bruce didn’t move. The command was absurd, monstrous.
Chris didn’t repeat himself. He just waited, his presence a wall of patient, unmovable force. The alternative was the violet hum, the fried neural pathways, a broken bird for real.
Bruce’s gloved hands lifted. They were weapons, these hands. They had shattered bone, disarmed bombs, delivered justice. Now they trembled. He hooked his fingers into the unique, reinforced weave of the suit at the small of Dick’s back. Dick gasped at the contact, a sharp, wet sound.
The tear was shockingly loud. A rasp of parting fibers, a sigh of giving material. Bruce pulled, his strength making it effortless, the suit parting like a brittle skin to reveal the pale, perfect curve beneath. The cold cave air washed over the exposed flesh, raising goosebumps. Dick shuddered violently, a low moan escaping him, his forehead pressing against his bound wrists.
Chris produced a small, plain bottle from his pocket. He placed it in Bruce’s palm. The plastic was cool.
“Lube him,” Chris said, his tone instructional. “You’ll want to be thorough. For his sake.”
Bruce’s fingers closed around the bottle. The act felt surreal, a dreamscape of ruin. He broke the seal, the snap echoing. He poured the clear, viscous liquid onto his fingers. The smell was faint, clinical.
Dick flinched at the first cold touch, a choked-off cry stuck in his throat. Bruce worked mechanically, his mind a white-noise scream. This was a debridement, a cleaning of a wound. It was a violation. It was, under Chris’s terrifying logic, a terrible form of ownership.
“Enough,” Chris said, after a moment that felt like an age. “Now, Bruce. You’re going to take him. You’re going to finish. And you’re not going to stop until you’ve dumped three loads into him.”
The crude language was a weapon, stripping any last pretense of romance or twisted connection away. This was physiological, a forced claiming, a reprogramming.
Bruce fumbled with his own suit, the armor feeling suddenly absurd. His heart was a drum of pure shame. He moved forward, the guidance purely animal, a response to a direct threat. Dick was sobbing quietly now, the sounds muffled against his arms.
The first entry was a tight, resistant shock. Dick cried out, his body arching, a sheen of sweat glistening on his back. Bruce froze, torn apart.
“Don’t you stop,” Chris murmured, his eyes gleaming in the low light. “That’s his lesson. And yours.”
Bruce began to move. It was not passion. It was a grim, brutal rhythm, a piston driving home a new and awful truth. The cave’s echoes changed, filling with the sounds of strained breath, skin against skin, and broken weeping. The violet light from the collar pulsed on, a witness.
He lost count of time, of thought. There was only the act, the shuddering completion, the empty respite, and Chris’s unwavering voice. “Again, Bruce.”
The second time was quieter. Dick had gone limp, his body accepting what his mind could not. His sobs were hiccups. Bruce felt hollowed out, a shell performing a function.
“Once more,” Chris commanded, his arms folded. “Make it count. He needs to feel it for days. He needs to remember who he belongs to now.”
The third was a slow, grinding eternity. Bruce’s own body protested, spent and ashamed. When it was finally over, he pulled away, stumbling back. He collapsed to his knees beside Dick, his head bowed, staring at his own stained hands.
Dick lay on his side, curled in on himself, the torn suit a parody around his waist. His eyes were open, unseeing, aimed at the distant stalactites.
Chris finally moved. He walked over, crouched, and with a gentle click, deactivated the collar. The violet light died. He removed it from Dick’s throat, setting it aside like a discarded tool.
“See?” Chris said softly, looking at Bruce, then at the broken man on the floor. “The work is messy. But it’s honest.” He placed a hand on Dick’s damp hair, almost paternal.
He placed a hand on Dick’s damp hair, almost paternal. “You did very well. Both of you. The first real truth is always the hardest.”
He stood and walked over to a polished case on a nearby workbench. It clicked open. Inside, nestled in black foam, were several objects of sleek, dark silicone and polished steel. He selected one, examined it, and squirted a clear gel onto it from a bottle.
Bruce watched, his mind still a numb, white void. He saw Chris approach Dick’s prone form again.
“Stay down,” Chris said, his voice mild but leaving no room for disobedience.
Dick didn’t move. He was barely there. His breathing was shallow, hitched.
Chris crouched. Bruce saw a glimpse of the object—oblong, flared, intimidatingly thick. Chris positioned it. There was a soft, resistant push, a muffled grunt from Dick as his body was intruded upon yet again. A final, decisive click as it seated fully.
“There,” Chris said, wiping his fingers on a cloth. “A seal. To keep everything inside him. A reminder.”
He stood and nudged Dick with his foot. “On your knees. Look at him.”
With obvious, painful effort, Dick pushed himself up onto his knees. He wavered, his gaze finally lifting to Bruce. His eyes were red-rimmed, empty oceans.
“Listen closely, Dick,” Chris said, standing between them like a lecturer. “What just happened? That was a transfer of ownership. That was Bruce’s last fuck. His last touch. That cum inside you is his signature on the contract. From now on, you don’t belong to him. You belong to the new structure.”
He paced a slow circle around Dick. “Bruce is being promoted. He’s got the makings of a real partner. He just needed the right… motivation to shed his old, useless morality. You were that motivation.”
Chris stopped, looking directly at Dick, his smile pleasant. “You, however, are being reassigned. Once you’re cleaned up—not too cleaned up, they like a little story—I’m going to introduce you to some friends of mine. A few associates. They have a shared appreciation for broken-in acrobats. You’ll be passed around for a while. Consider it an orientation into your new utility.”
Dick’s face collapsed. A fresh, silent tear tracked through the sweat and grime on his cheek. He looked at Bruce, a final, shattered plea.
Bruce felt his own stomach liquefy. He took a half-step forward.
Chris didn’t even raise his voice. “Don’t. That’s the old reflex. It’s dead now.” He turned to Bruce, his expression shifting to one of collegial expectation. “The partner doesn’t interfere with asset management. The partner understands the necessity. He helped create the asset, after all.”
He walked to Bruce, clapped him firmly on the shoulder. The touch was proprietary. “You and I are going to have a drink upstairs. We’ll talk about the city. About real order. The kind that doesn’t wear a cape, but owns the people who do.”
He guided Bruce, who moved like an automaton, toward the exit. Bruce’s head turned, his eyes locking with Dick’s one last time.
Chris followed his gaze. “Don’t worry about him. The plug has a gentle vibe setting. It’ll keep him company until my friends arrive. He won’t be lonely.”
He pressed the button on the remote.
A low, deep buzz hummed in the quiet cave. Dick jolted, a sharp gasp escaping him, his spine arching involuntarily. He bowed his head, shoulders trembling, as the relentless vibration kept him acutely, miserably aware of the violation sealing him shut.
“See?” Chris said, steering Bruce away, his voice fading as they moved toward the stairs. “Everyone has a function. You just have to be clear-eyed enough to see it. Now, let’s discuss ours. I’m thinking a forty-sixty split to start. You’ve got the local knowledge, but I’ve got the vision…”
Their voices merged with the hum of the servers and the distant, mechanical buzzing, leaving the center of the cave occupied by a single, kneeling figure, shaking silently under the cold light, a pool of dark suit and paler skin, utterly and finally alone.