The night was lush with the lateness of summer, but the wind this high up held a chill which would make a man - nearly any man - shudder. But the dark, caped figure on the Gotham rooftop was unlike any other man.

He had caught up with his quarry after an exhilarating chase which had taken them across five city blocks. He lived for this kind of chase. For this kind of catch. His prey was trapped between his own imposing form and a wedged area where two roof corners met. There was nowhere to go but over the edge of the building, and he wasn't in a mind to allow that.

Twisting the sack cloth he had torn from his prey's head in his hand, Batman was not overly surprised to learn that the grotesque scarecrow mask had been hiding Dr. Jonathan Crane. The man was far too obsessive when it came to his experiments; the connection between an eminent scientist in the field of emotional control and the madman donning the scarecrow guise was not too large a leap of the imagination.

"Tell me, Crane. What do you fear?" Batman panted.

Jonathan Crane - slighter, smaller, but no less determined than his adversary - shivered. "I fear nothing."

Batman laughed. The sound seemed too close to Crane's ear. "Is that so? Not even me?"

"Especially not you." Crane put on a brave face, adding a touch of disgust and superiority. He knew when Batman's smile broadened that he was not pulling off his charade.

With a lightning quick twist of his gloved hand, Batman forced Crane to his knees, uncaring of his nemesis' wail of pain at the sharp motion. This was were Crane belonged. On the ground, at his feet with his knees in the dirt, his slender fingers reaching aimlessly, claw like. His pale blue eyes wide with fear. And his mouth...

His mouth.

Batman licked his lips and tasted sweat. Why was Crane's mouth - open on a silent scream, even teeth barely hidden behind soft, pink lips - so damnably beautiful? So tempting? He couldn't silence the groan deep in his own throat.

Crane glared up at him as best he could in his supine position. "You think yourself better than me, Batman. So high and mighty. And here you are, inflicting pain and enjoying it."

"Pain?" Batman asked, surprised enough to loosen his grip for a brief instant.

"Humiliation." Crane lowered his eyes, but Batman's sudden pull on his wrist jerked his head up again as though by reflex. Crane whimpered.

There was more sweat on Batman's lips. And the taste of that mouth he couldn't look away from. He could taste it just looking at it. "Only yours," he growled, a husky admission.

Crane's eyes darkened. With fear? "What are you talking about?" he breathed.

Batman looked down at those wrists - so thin, he could snap them if he wasn't careful - and he pulled Crane back up to his feet.

Then they both stood there, panting. Batman's fingers encircled Crane's wrists entirely, and when Crane moved to step backwards, Batman pulled him in until the slim hands connected with the hard plate of his chest armour.

Crane gasped, rosy mouth open, and for the first time, he looked directly into the green, dark-rimmed eyes behind the mask. They were not wide and huge like his own, but narrow and calculating. Strangely familiar, as if he should recognize them. And they were glittering with menace. Or... hunger? He felt his legs threaten to give in.

"You're shaking." Batman's voice was little more than a growl. He was tempted to tease Crane about exposing himself to his own formula, but he knew, or hoped, that the man was shaking for an entirely different reason. Not fear. To test his theory, he leaned in closer, close enough to see the faint freckles - utterly human and vulnerable - around Crane's nose; he suppressed a smile, even as he wondered how he had failed to notice them when encountering Crane at the university.

As hoped, Crane did not shrink back from the closeness, but his trembling increased, and his eyes darkened. "I am cold," he finally managed weakly, but his voice broke on the last word.

Batman smirked. "Why didn't you say so?" With a flourish, he flung his cape around his right shoulder until it settled into place around Crane's narrow form like a cloak. They looked like nothing so much as a giant bird of prey enfolding his captured treat with a dark wing.

"I..." Crane began, infused to equal parts with anger, humiliation and... oh God, desire! Such a fierce, sudden desire, he felt like he needed to scream. He couldn't give in like this to this great... bully. Who was doubtlessly only playing with him. Batman had said he enjoyed his humiliation, after all. "Let me go," he hissed.

"I don't think I want to. After all, what would have been the point of chasing you all the way here?"

"I have no idea," Crane said sarcastically. "It seems futile to me, considering you think me no worthwhile challenge at all."

Batman's laughter echoed in the night. "Did I say that? No worthwhile challenge?"

Crane sneered, but what might look unattractive on anyone else only added to the lushness of his mouth.

"You underestimate yourself, my dear Dr. Crane." Batman's hand shot up and gripped Crane's chin as he leaned very, very close. Inhaling a mix of vanilla, musk, anger and some odd combination of lab chemicals, he smiled and made an appreciative sound.

The gloved hand was like iron around his chin, and Crane could only close his eyes when the intensity of that deep green gaze bore into him too deeply.

"Look at me," Batman ordered.

"Fuck you!" Crane stubbornly kept his eyes squeezed shut.

"I'd much rather fuck you."

"What?" Eyes now wide open, Crane began to struggle, but in a close fight with Batman, he knew he stood no chance. "You're insane," he snarled, his hands pushing at that great rock of a man as though they were nothing more than the paws of a puppy.

"So I've been told." Batman smirked. "But never so sincerely, and never by someone more insane than I. Or so..." He sighed, as though his next words were wrung from him against his will. "Utterly, deliciously desirable."

Crane's lips parted, even though he had entirely run out of protests. And breath, it seemed. He was panting, gulping as if he hadn't taken a full breath in several minutes.

Batman sensed the struggle in his quarry. The need to keep resisting at any cost. But he also sensed sweet surrender. So close. Within such easy reach.

"Let's stop fighting," he purred, his breath stirring the curls around Crane's boyish face as he nudged his temple with his exposed chin. "At least for now."

Crane nearly smiled. "Hm." He infused this one syllable with as much reluctance as he could gather, considering his legs were as weak as a kitten's and his heart was racing. He had no doubt the bloody bat was well aware of both, but he felt the need to continue putting up at least a token protest.

Batman smirked against the soft skin of Crane's face, his lips sliding over a strong cheekbone, peach fuzz skin and towards that mouth drawing him like the greatest prize he had ever desired. His hands, still circling Crane's wrists, ran up the slender arms and loose-hanging jacket. When he was sure Crane would not try to escape at the last moment, he released him long enough to slide his arms around a slender waist and pull the smaller man firmly against his sturdy body armour.

Crane gasped, his fingers seeking purchase on the bat suit but giving up an instant later when Batman dipped his head and took his mouth in a hard, hungry kiss.

And Crane felt as if he was falling. The fight was gone from him in that first instant, and in the next, he was sure he felt the heat of the other's body through that armour, smelled his scent in the windblown cape brushing his shoulders and tugging at his hair.

The slightest shift, the first weakening of the body in his arms, and Batman sensed his victory. Tasted it. On lips even sweeter than they looked, parting so easily at the first touch of his tongue to their seam. And when it found its counterpart, the groan which was wrung from him echoed back from Crane.

They feasted on each other's lips, their tongues battling with a ferocity which only served to arouse them both further.

Batman, not allowing Crane any breath but what the man could drink from his lips, shoved at the thin jacket until it fell to the ground, pulled and plucked at the striped shirt underneath until he had it loose from the trousers and his gloved hands could find their way underneath.

Crane jolted at that first touch to his bare flesh, then groaned in frustration when he realized he couldn't feel skin against his own at all. It took him another minute or two until he could disrupt Batman's ferocious assault on his mouth long enough to gasp out, "That damn suit of yours!"

"Sorry," Batman soothed, licking at a particularly delicious looking expanse of bare throat.

"Sorry?" Crane moaned when lips closed around his Adam's apple and suckled. "How will you... oh!" A cool gloved hand prodded gently against the small of his back, forcing him to arch his midsection against his assailant.

"How will I what?" Batman growled, wishing this delicious morsel would stop talking.

"Fuck me," Crane ground out when the hand dipped behind the waistband of his trousers at his back. "In that suit?"

Batman raised his head from where he had been about to explore a collarbone, and chuckled. "That's a good point."

"Yes. It is." Crane glared moodily, even while his face was still flushed with arousal. The sight was adorable.

"I can't let you see me," Batman said with a smile, stroking his thumb along Crane's left cheekbone. "You know that."

There was a challenge in Crane's eyes when he said, "Scared?"

"Cautious." Batman's smile broadened. "You'd recognize me."

"Really?" Crane pretended indifference to this interesting revelation and moved as if to step from underneath Batman's cloak. "Well then..."

"Where do you think you're going?"

"We seem to have reached an impasse. So I'm leaving." Crane was about to tuck his shirt back behind his waistband when two gloved hands stopped him.

"Not so fast." Batman looked around and spotted a recess further down the roof, sufficiently dark that one might stand there with a companion and not be able to see his face. "Come with me." He tugged Crane along behind him like a child.

"You never ask, do you? You just give orders."

Laughing, Batman had to agree. "You're right. Please come with me so I can fuck you in the dark?"

Crane snorted, but followed along.

They had barely entered the dark alcove when he was pressed hard against a cold wall and Batman fell upon him again like the beast he was. He would have complained, but his mouth was filled with the other's tongue and there wasn't enough room between them for him to breathe.

"I missed this already!" Batman growled finally, flicking his tongue against the soft area under Crane's earlobe. The answering chuckle sent hot shivers down his spine. "I don't know why you bother with fear gas; you would be a natural with aphrodisiacs, and they would be much more fun."

Crane made a grumpy sound low in his throat, but Batman's mouth stifled it immediately. When impatient hands started pushing at his armour, he moved back a step reluctantly and sighed.

"Off with that!" ordered Crane.

Batman chuckled. "Turn around."

"I didn't take you for a blushing virgin."

The chuckle turned into full-blown laughter. "Turn around, or I'll be forced to tear my cape and blindfold you. Which would be a shame."

"Hardly," Crane snorted with a sceptical look at the cape in question.

"I meant, it would be a shame to hide your eyes." Batman smirked, and he couldn't be sure in the dark, but it was possible that Crane was blushing.

Turning to face the wall, Crane waited for Batman to do whatever he had to do to turn into a normal man. He would have given a lot to be able to watch, and not just because of the advantage of knowing his adversary's identity. He wanted to know, desperately, whether the man's body matched his penetrating eyes, his sensuous mouth, his deep, husky voice. He quivered in anticipation.

"Eager, are we?" breathed the deep, rough voice into Crane's ear.

"Mm," murmured Crane non-committally. Then he felt the press of another body along the entire length of his back, and arms - strong and well-muscled even without armour - coming around his waist and pulling him back. That first feel of the man's tall, solid form against his back left Crane weak-kneed with need. He didn't want to analyze why he felt that way. He just wanted to feel. "God," he muttered.

"I'm flattered."

A low, rumbling laugh moved hotly over Crane's nape, and his head fell forward as he sighed with pleasure.

Immediately, that sensuous mouth was at his exposed nape, and the wicked tongue licked his clammy, cool skin warm. Long-fingered hands undid his belt and half his shirt buttons, tearing open the other half, and then they were on his bare skin, roaming over his stomach, hot and purposeful, and Crane lifted a hand to cover one of them as if to convince himself of his partner's humanity.

"Do you know what you´re doing to me?" Bruce Wayne murmured against Crane's ear.

Crane moaned, spreading his legs wider when one of those hands roamed over his still buttoned trousers to stroke down and between his thighs. "Why don't you..." he gasped. "Show me?"

"Yes," Wayne agreed. "Yes." There was a moment's interruption to those wonderful caresses as Wayne undid his own, skin-tight pants, and then he spun Crane around.

For a moment, deep blue eyes tried to focus in the dark, their owner desperate to make out the face of his about-to-be lover. All he could tell for sure was that the man was slender but muscular, probably dark-haired, and dressed entirely in a smooth, tight black material suited to be worn under his bat suit. Well, not dressed entirely.

Wayne, who had made sure they were positioned in such a way that he could see but not be seen, smiled when Crane's eyes were drawn down. The next moment, his lips parted on a gasp when the other man fell to his knees again and without hesitation, reached around his exposed erection with slim fingers. The certain knowledge that Crane's full, rosy mouth was about to envelop him in its warmth nearly undid him.

"Taste me," he said, reluctantly recognizing a tone of pleading.

Crane did as well if his smirk was anything to go by. And then that smirk vanished as he leaned in to let Wayne's cock slide between his lips.

Groaning, Wayne had to support himself with his palms against the wall above Crane. His eyes were fixed on that mouth, on the way he slipped in and out of it, tongue flicks in the warm depths of Crane's mouth making the 'out' harder to bear each time. He arched forward, trying to force himself further in, and Crane allowed it, changing his angle, sucking hard and fast, and then he drew back.

"God, don't stop!" Wayne growled. "Are you trying to kill me?"

Crane merely knelt before him and smiled, waiting until Wayne's lust-dazed mind caught up with him.

"Oh."

"Yes," Crane agreed, standing up and turning back to face the wall. While the man behind him was still getting his bearings, he unbuttoned and slid his trousers past his slim hips, along with his underwear. Just far enough.

And then hands were on his hips, gripping him hard, pulling him back against the rock-hard and saliva wet erection he had just released. For a moment, he saw stars, his moan of pleasure echoed by Wayne as the hot length slid against and between his cheeks.

His legs spread wider, Crane leaned forward, offering himself.

"Oh fuck," Wayne ground out, his thumbs parting the tempting globes. For a moment, there was only the chill of the air, and then a suckling sound as Wayne licked his fingers before sliding them inside Crane.

Whimpering, Crane tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on the pleasure. He made an effort to relax, to press back against the intruders, and when a few slides later, Wayne removed his fingers and his erection took their place, Crane was more than ready.

"Now," Wayne told him.

"Yes." Crane pushed back, and one moment of sharp pain later, Wayne was inside him. Breathing heavily, Crane rested his hands against the wall before him.

Wayne's fingers tightened around the slender hips, and he began to move, slowly at first. Crane was so tight around him. "Fuck, you feel so perfect," he praised huskily, pushing in a little harder. "So perfect... for me."

Crane's eyes were closed, his lips parted on a gasp, and then Wayne slowly shifted his angle, a little more with each slide, and each time, it felt better. And then a large, warm hand closed around Crane's erection like a vice, and lips were at the side of his neck as his lover leaned into him. The heat and rhythm between them became more and more intoxicating, their groans echoing off the stone wall before them.

Wayne's penetration and strokes were in perfect sync, the feeling of Crane both vibrating in his grasp and spasming around him almost too much to bear. He rained kisses on cool yet sweaty skin, wishing he'd had the foresight to strip Crane and lay him out on the ground like the banquet he should be. Next time.

Next time?

A sharp inhalation and a shudder around his hard length told Wayne there wasn't much time left. "Come on," he said. "Come on, Jonathan, I want you to come all over my hand."

Crane whimpered, shaking like a leaf. "Oh God!"

"All over my hand, and all around me." Wayne began to pound in earnest, release mere breaths away. "You're mine. Do you hear me? Mine. My beautiful, mad scientist."

Crane might have laughed under any other circumstances, but at that moment, he just couldn't think clearly. That had sounded like an endearment. Ridiculous.

"Yes. Yes, God, yes, now." Wayne's hand tightened, his thumb flicking sharply over the tip of Crane's erection, sliding through slickness, and he came. Came so hard, he thought it would never stop.

Crane moaned, long and deep, tightening and milking Wayne dry while his own climax overwhelmed him and splattered over Wayne's hand.

For a few moments more, they kept moving as if they weren't both completely and utterly spent. When Wayne finally slipped out of his lover, both stilled their disappointment that it was over by turning into each other's arms and a ravishing, desperate kiss. And they kissed until they needed air.

"This changes nothing, you realize," Crane murmured against the other man's lips.

Cupping the slender nape of Crane's neck, Wayne smirked. "Of course not. You hate me."

Crane allowed the flicker of Wayne's tongue against the corner of his mouth where a drop of sweat had pearled. "Exactly. And you hate me." His own tongue reached out to draw Wayne's back inside his mouth, and their kiss resumed for some time.

"Desperately," Wayne finally agreed with a sigh, his fingers roaming through soft, dark hair. He wondered when hatred had become such a complex emotion.