Bruce/Shayera

[icarus_chained]

Short offering, because I'm so tired it's not even funny. But here you go. Sequel to Brute Beauty (http://icarus-chained.livejournal.com/27901.html#cutid1) 

Title:  Fierce Fragility
Rating:  PG-13, edging up to light R, maybe
Pairing/Characters:  Bruce/Shayera, J'onn
Summary:  There's more than one kind of healing, more than one kind of fragility.
Wordcount:  1829

Fierce Fragility
 

He came into the infirmary about ten minutes after she did, even though he'd hardly been hurt at all. Certainly not enough for the Bat to voluntarily seek medical aid. But she'd known he would come. He always did.

She didn't look at him when he came in. Her wings were stiff with fatigue, her back ached where she'd strained a muscle, and her shirt was sticking nastily to her because of the blood from her shoulder wound. She wasn't in the mood for his silent scrutiny, wasn't able to contemplate the training he'd put her through as soon as she was fit to counter the mistakes she'd made this time around.

But more than that, she wasn't able to bear the concern she knew would lie behind his blank white stare. She couldn't bear the gentleness that waited behind his anger. Not now. Not anymore.

He wasn't going to be ignored. She should have expected that. Batman was never ignored unless he wanted to be. But she was so tired, too tired to stir when J'onn quietly took his leave, too tired to care that the Martian laid a comforting hand on her good shoulder before he went, too tired to look up at Bruce as he came to stand before her. Too tired even to brush his hand off when it came to rest lightly on her chin, and bring her eyes up to meet his.

He stared down at her. Batman. The Dark Knight. The fiercest, most ruthless, most singularly unsympathetic man the League had. He looked at her, and his grim features softened.

"No," she whispered, a chill running through her, a shudder of old fear, old pain, old guilt. "Don't. Please. Please don't, Batman." Not Bruce. Not the man. Give her the Bat, please. Give her the warrior, the strategist, the hunter inside the man. Not the lover. She couldn't face him.

Bruce tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing, growing sharp and piercing. Hunter's eyes. She nearly sighed in relief. But his touch refused to roughen, refused to be anything but gentle as he traced her cheek lightly, and she flinched from him in reaction.

"Tell me why," he demanded, calm and merciless. "Explain." She shook her head wordlessly, and his grip tightened, just a little. Not hurting. Not even threatening. He wouldn't do that. He still wouldn't. But it was a command, and something in her, something tired and hurt and alone, still so very alone ... that something could not deny him.

"Don't be gentle," she asked, softly. Not begging. She had more pride than that. To her last breath, she had more pride than that. But her voice shook around the words. "I can't ... I can't live up to it. Not anymore. I can't ... I can't be worth that. Not now. Please, just don't."

He stared at her for a long moment, his white eyes blind to the warrior, piercing down through her soul to the woman beneath, to the weary, hurting woman she was inside. She shuddered in recognition of what he had to see, of what he had to feel. She was so weak, now. So ... incomplete. Damaged. Don't give me tenderness. I can't give it back.

He moved, then. He stepped back, away from her, and turned to the side. She let her shoulders slump, ignoring the flash of pain through the one, left cold by his absence. The air seemed chilled, suddenly. Bereft of the one warming presence she had left. It was nearly enough to shatter her proud resolve, nearly enough to make her weep. But she was made of stronger stuff than that. She would endure.

She always did.

"Shayera," he said, quietly, and she turned her head in surprise to stare at his stiff back. He didn't look at her, his hands busy where she couldn't see, his movements the deliberate, economical ones she'd come to know so well. She could just see the edge of his profile beyond the rigid line of the mask, the proud jut of one prominent cheekbone beneath the black material that covered it. Stern, unyielding. Her hunter, denied to her.

She swallowed thickly, forcing her hoarse voice out past the lump in her throat. "Bat ..." she started, but that was wrong. She didn't know why, but she knew it was. "Bruce," she said instead, and nearly shook with it.

He turned to her, a bowl of water in his powerful hands, a sponge ready inside it. She flinched, but he ignored that, laying the basin beside her on the examination table and picking up the sponge. She tried to shake her head, tried to ward him off, but he was implacable. And when she moved to get off the table altogether, to try and leave, he dropped the material to seize her wrist, pulling her to a halt. His grip was firm but still, still, it wasn't harsh.

"Let me go," she said quietly, watching the floor unblinkingly.

"No," he answered, calm and damnably gentle. She wrenched angrily at her arm, trying to pull free, ignoring the sharp jolt of pain the motion sent rocketing through her.

"Let me go!" she hissed, wounded and demanding, nearly undone by pain and fatigue. "Bruce, let me go."

He didn't. He did not let go. Instead, he reached up with his other hand, and gathered her smaller one into his. He took her hand gently from where it lay clenched at her side, keeping careful hold on her other arm, and raised her fist to his own cheek. "Look at me, Shayera," he demanded, softly, a quiet instruction. She didn't want to, didn't want to meet those knowing eyes, but the command in that gentle voice ... "Look at me."

She looked.

Batman smiled down at her, a quiet, serious little smile. Her small fist lay over the razor edge of that fine, fragile cheek, the proud angle of his features ever ready to accept a blow, ever ready to take the pain and fight on. The weakest of them, him and her. The most vulnerable, the most fragile. Her mace could shatter that face, if she came upon him sleeping, wounded, dying. She could wound him, as she could wound no other among them. His hand, overlaying hers, black and firm and strong. The strongest hands she knew, the gentlest weapons she had known.

"Shayera," he said again, and she met his eyes. He gazed down at her, brutality and gentility paired, weakness and impossible strength, and his eyes were smiling behind those white lenses. She could feel them. His hand moved over hers, gently uncurling her fist, gathering her thumb to place it softly beneath the lip of his mask, where she would have put it if it had been her place to remove that mask, to strip the strength from him, the hunter, and leave only the vulnerable man. He smiled at her. "I trust you, Shayera," he whispered then, accepting the shocked jerk of her hand against his face. "I trust you."

She made a sound. She wasn't sure what kind. A stunned, agonised exhalation. No, you can't. You can't. Not you. You don't trust anyone. There's no-one worthy of your trust. You can't give it to me.

But he could. He did. This man, this hunter, who trusted no-one, gave her the one thing in the world she had yearned for, the one need that ran deeper within her even than her need for love. Smiling softly, the love radiant in his face, he lowered his hand, leaving only hers pressed against his face, leaving her all the power she needed to kill him, if she wanted to. His eyes, his temple, the soft point beneath his jaw ... he was hers. More than that ...

Shaking, crying silently, unable to stop, she did as he asked. She pushed upwards, curling her trembling fingers gently around the edge of his mask, and started to push it away. Slowly, agonisingly, she bared the face beneath, holding his honour, his strength in her hand, to do with as she would. The Batman, hers to take or give as she pleased. All he had fought for, strived for, pushed himself to become. The warrior, the hunter.

The man.

His blue eyes shone down at her, revealed, and there was such love in them, such trust ... Biting her lip, shaking her head against the tears, she stroked her hand down over his temple, brushed her thumb beneath those vibrant eyes, caressed that firm, unyielding jaw. He smiled, and didn't move, his face open to her touch, his heart open to her need. Tears fell in steady, silent trickles down her cheeks as he released her other hand, and she brought it up to join the other, to trace it over those beautiful, savage features. Her hunter. Her mate. Her lover.

"Bruce," she whispered, fierce and broken, so fragile, so strong. "Bruce. Please. Please." And he understood.

His face didn't move, even as his hand reached to the side and found the sponge where he had left it, found the water, moving deftly with the confidence of trained memory. She smiled through her tears, and held still as he began to move the soft, damp cloth over her bloodied shoulder, his eyes never leaving hers. Her hands stroked his cheeks, brushed his eyelashes, traced his lips, the only part of her that moved besides her heart. She cried, and smiled, and when his cool, powerful fingers gently peeled back her shirt, brushed over her breasts, her thumbs pressed fiercely into his cheekbones as she gasped. He kissed her fingertips as he cleaned her, as his hands cupped her, moved behind to caress the sensitive bases of her wings. He stepped in close, bowing his head a little so she could keep hold of him, smiling as he stroked her.

"Shayera," he whispered, hoarse and growling and unutterably gentle. "Shayera." It was question and demand and offer, all at once. Everything, at once. Trust and need and love. Such love. His hands offered her tenderness, and his face accepted it back in turn, his eyes open, his heart bared. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, a feral, adoring look, and in one shuddering motion she swept her wings up around him. Exhausted, trembling, her soul of the skies spread for his hands to touch, her vulnerability opened to match his. And he touched her, moved powerful fingers through the feathers, the brutal strength of him leashed to tenderness as he held her life in his hands, and gave her love.

He laid her down on the table, eventually, her wings spread beneath him, the water falling unregarded to the floor. Her hands left his face, eventually, replaced by her lips, her tears, her burning regard. Her heart opened to his, finally, fully, as she remembered what it was to be worthy of trust, of gentleness.

They lay together, wounded warriors, and the fierce fragility of that union filled all the empty places in her heart.

Beyond them, invisible, the Martian smiled gently.